Perhaps it is no longer a surprise. It has become repeated news. Another newspaper will cease its print publication. The Ann Arbor News will no longer be printed:
Another major city newspaper will print its final edition. This time, it is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer which ends its long run in the print media:
Another indicator of the decline of newspapers is the filing of bankruptcy by the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
I will preface these remarks by saying that I am completely and unabashedly biased. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an excellent newspaper. Online and in print form, it presents as one of the very best sources of local, national and world news. Now, its very existence is threatened:
One of the challenges for Google is to honor local customs and regional laws. What may be accepted in one country can be highly offensive to citizens of another nation. In Japan, there is a growing protest movement against Google’s Street View project:
Google has the data. The search engine know what is the most popular queries for this year. It may be a surprise that pop singers and head shaving are not at the top of the list:
The financial troubles with newspapers have been well documented. Advertisers are finding more success on the internet. Nevertheless, it is still jolting to see that The Miami Herald is for sale:
It may be a sign of the problems in the school system. There simply is not the necessary funding. One teacher is addressing the problem by selling advertising:
Google may not be immune. There are rumour floating that there are proposed job cuts at Google. And some of those jobs may be gone already:
The partnership with Google was a means of generating much needed revenue for Yahoo and buffering any further acquisition attempts by Microsoft. The project seems to have been ended prematurely with Google removing itself:
“Google has decided to abandon its advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid having a “protracted legal battle” with regulators.
The deal involved Google providing some of the advertising around Yahoo’s search results and would have been worth $800m (£494m) a year to Yahoo.”
link: Google abandons deal with Yahoo
This makes Yahoo vulnerable. It would not be surprising to see Microsoft make another offer to Yahoo. If Microsoft holds to form, the offer will be made on a late Friday - just to add pressure to the situation.
Catherine Forsythe
