Microsoft's Steve Balmer: Newspapers Will Be Dead In 10 Years

Microsoft's Steve Balmer met with the Washington Post on Thursday and talked about why Microsoft worked to join with Yahoo! and the future of hardware, software, newspapers, advertising, and the Internet. In my view much of what Steve's talking about is already with us today, and many frequent bloggers see their blogs as a combination of advertising and content and ads as content and vice-versa. The world's catching up with us.

Here's the video set:

Balmer on Microsoft's Mission:



Balmer on Hardware and Software Changes:



Balmer on The Newspaper and Advertising:



Balmer on User Privacy:

VentureBeat's Matt Marshall @ Startup Camp San Francisco

Matt Marshall was formerly a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and who started the company VentureBeat.com in 2006. We first met when I attended his party at the Amsterdam in San Francisco, and then ran into each other at Startup Camp San Francisco, where he took time to talk with me while we were in the chow line there.

As for Startup Camp itself, it was great for networking, but I didn't get out of it what I was looking for, which was focused, specific discussion of problems and issues that all startups face. For the most part, the discussion groups had general conversations and were too large in some cases to be effective on a personal level.

Ad-Tech San Francisco Digital Marketing Convention - Video

This video presents sights, sounds, and people at Ad-Tech San Francisco, a digital marketing convention annually held at Moscone Center in San Francisco. What I noticed about Ad-Tech this year is that there was less space used overall but more people, and far more people of color than ever before.

SF Ad Execs Don't Know Digital Media, But Act Like It

Ok, I warn you. This is a rant of massive proportions and designed to get my dander up for the day. Here it is.

I'm sick and tired of meeting San Francisco Digital Media and Ad Execs who work for or with Linkedin, AOL, Facebook, and other once nice little startups that suddenly became large companies yet don't know the first thing about coding a website, or don't even use state-of-the-art digital communications tools like Twitter, or even know how to make a YouTube channel, let alone upload a video to it....and will not admit it.

These folks are nice enough, but they're doing no one any favors at all and need a massive crash course in online tech, yet work in it! I realized this after a trip to the St. Regis Hotel on March 20th of this fine year 2008 to make a video for a kind of industry networkng group called "SF-BIG" or San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group.

Now the video was a volunteer matter on my part and part of the agreement was that the video is mine, not their's and so I make it and post it and use it. I mean heck, if I'm not going to get an SF-BIG membership out of the deal, then I've got to protect what I do, right?

Which also means I get to rant, big time.

What I saw in the event discussion -- you can seee the video here after this break --



is a collection of 250 people, with maybe three Black faces inluding mine, and of which the vast majority were not tech-types, yet have some say over which tech-type gets what job if a tech-type dared to wade into their shallow end of the pool. Melinda Mettler , who represents the Academy of Art School of Advertising, made a flip set of remarks, indicating a near dislike forthe very students she's supposed to be trying to find jobs for. She says they're too cool, "life's a party, man."

Maybe it's because the tech-heads know that their real "job" is to go out and make their own company and not work for another large corporate bureaucracy full of game-players and back-stabbers. Maybe they know that the people doing the hiring don't know what they know anyway, so why go there?

Melinda says that tech-types don't want to leave San Francisco because it's too nice. No. The real reason is that the venture capitalists who would fund new firms are most likely to be here than in, say, New York or Chicago. That's why.

Watch the video. The only person who gets a pass from me is recruiter David Greenwald, and that's it. As far as I'm concerned, SF-BIG would do its members a favor if it had a panel on blogs and new media and coding and optimization, ....and a test. Call it a tech industry I.Q. test.

The lecture would be necessary, because as of this writing, most of the SF-BIG members would flunk the I.Q. test.

Newspaper Ad Revenue Drops 10 Percent In One Year

In perhaps the best sign of the impact of New Media on traditional media, "Editor and Publisher" reporter Jennifer Saba tells us that the newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in ad revenue in a half-century. She wrote:

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

Meanwhile, online ad revenue now represents 7.5 percent of total newspaper ad revenue, up almost 2 percent from 2006.

What we're seeing, in my view, is the transformation of media from primarily offline to eventually a balance of online and offline. But in this I don't think the nature of jobs in this industry will be the same. My prediction is that the best-paid writers will contribute to different online platforms and not just one, reflecting the fact that one site can't command readership online as consistently as it can offline.

Clinton Friends Snooping Around Obama Passport Records Illegally

In an election full of surprises and twists, this is the latest one. Senator Barack Obama's passport records were illegally accessed and on three occasions timed during Obama success in the primary season.

There's an alledged connection between the operatives in this case and the Clintons. Since Hillary Clinton is opposing Barack Obama for President, it's logical to look to her and her staff for evidence of wrong-doing. But to peak into private passport records is totally wrong and it seems that's where the U. S. State Department is starting.

The person who is over the U.S. State Department is Maura Harty, a State Department official in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under now former President Bill Clinton.

The obvious question is were former Clinton cronies behind even one of the investigations?

I'm glad I'm not clearing the air!


Zennie

YouTube's Chad Hurley & VC Tim Draper at BizWorld Lunch

I had the pleasure of attending a great lunch event. YouTube Co-Founder Chad Hurley was the featured guest at the BizWorld.org luncheon on December 4th, 2007. He was introduced by MySpace Co-Founder Brett Brewer and interviewed by Tim Draper, VC & Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

In the talk, Draper asked Hurley questions surrounding YouTube after its acquisition by Google, and really focused on the changing landscape of the online advertising industry and how YouTube was responding to it. Hurley said that Youtube's success rests in the constantly growing inventory of video content that people want to see.

As for the Google relationship, Hurley commented on their food and the large resource base that they have at their disposal for growth and for legal protection, although he didn't say that directly.

Hurley also pointed to YouTube's new relationships with educational institutions like UC Berkeley and MIT, where students can view class lectures online.

There's more in this 20 minutes video and be sure to visit the BizWorld.org website as well. BizWorld teaches entrepreneurial thinking to kids, and Tim Draper's the founder, with Catherine Hutton as its CEO.