People have been saying that newspapers are dead or dying and although I agree, I can’t say I’m happy with it. As I’ve mentioned before here, one of my favorite things to do on an early weekend morning (or holiday Monday morning like today) is to pick up a copy of the The Globe and Mail and slowly read it over while having a latte from one of my favorite haunts in Toronto’s Little Italy area.

One of the articles that I read was headlined “Ads Critical For MySpace” (I’d link to it, but for some reason I can’t find it on the Globe and Mail website). I always think it is interesting to read about MySpace because with all the Facebook hype, we often forget that MySpace is more popular in the states, and will probably continue to be for a little while. The article talks about how MySpace now allows advertisers to more directly target users. It seems like a great idea, and similar to what Facebook offers, but I was surprised to read that some advertisers were worried that their ads might show up on MySpace profile pages that displayed risque photos. Is it a valid concern? Possibly. But one that advertisers are going to have to deal with if they want to display their ads in the highly personal world of online social networks.

Another interesting article in today’s paper was about an airplane that crashed in BC. Even though the plane’s transponder had broken, rescue workers were still able to find the crash survivors thanks to one of them being able to text a friend. I think that as cellular networks have greater range and phones start to come equipped with GPS as a standard feature, we’ll see them featuring more regularly in rescues like this.

Another article in the paper mentioned that another Cuban athlete had gone missing at an international tournament in Edmonton. While the article didn’t mention what type of tournament the athlete was competing in, it did say that Fidel Castro himself had written a column on the “World Wide Web” criticizing Edmonton for being a “dumping ground for Cuban athletes.”

I don’t really have an opinion one way or another about the legality of Cuban athletes defecting during mysterious tournaments, but I do question the author’s use of the term “World Wide Web.” Are we back in 1994?

Maybe I’ll make this “Weekend News” type of post a regular feature on BlogCampaigning. I find that I pay more attention to the articles I’m reading when I plan to write about them.

Do you still read paper editions of the newspaper? Or have you moved to completely online versions?

-Parker

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