Bloggasm

As a person who was born in the mid 80s and grew up in the 90s, I’ve been intensely fascinated by the restructuring of AOL. As a kid, I was one of the millions of people who used its dial-up access, and I can’t shake those memories as I watch it shift towards being a media company that hinges on advertising. It’s essentially a completely different company, but I can’t put away with those memories of the days when I had to deal with their shitty access and customer service. The brand of AOL has since left a bad taste in my mouth.

Many have noted that all media roads lead to New York, and now AOL is no different. They’ve recently opened new offices in the city. As is hinted at in the article, the organization is much too heavily staffed to be an internet media company. They need to shave down on staff levels and run a lean ship, especially since online advertising dollars are still relatively weak compared to other media outlets.

Will the shift be successful? What does AOL have that Gawker Media — with a much smaller staff and therefore lower overhead costs– doesn’t?

I have spent hours and hours– after heading home from my job as a newspaper reporter — dreaming about what I would do if I were to have $1 million or so fall into my lap. Almost all of these daydreams consisted of me starting some kind of online media publication, of which I would be editor and publisher. I’ll keep most of my ideas to myself, just in case that scenario ever comes to fruition.

Of course I was salivating today when I read that lucky students from Jeff Jarvis’s class will get to live out a very similar scenario. They’ve received a $100,000 grant to engage in “entrepreneurial journalism.”

Of course if I were to receive this kind of financial backing, then it would ruin the idealist nature of Web 2.0, the sense that we can pick ourselves up to media stardom by simply starting with a blog.

I’m sorry I haven’t written here very often over the past few weeks. Between my full-time job as a newspaper reporter and a job search, I haven’t had much free time.

But within the past two weeks I’ve received two job offers and finally accepted one this morning. I’ll be a general assignment reporter for a newspaper with three times the circulation than the one I write for now. It’s also much better pay and benefits.

I’ll be relocating to Newport News Virginia, a mid-sized city close to Virginia Beach. Hopefully, I’ll have more free time now to work on bloggasm-related stuff.

Wish me luck!

After nearly 27 years of using the Reuters news service, it appears that the 24 hour news network is dropping their service, a move that will cost Reuters an estimated $10 million a year.

The severance stems from reported problems for rights distribution, specifically with video. CNN was opposed to the restrictive use with the videos, and now they’re working primarily with the Associated Press.