Jeff Jarvis has one of his more pointed posts today in asserting that journalists need to create value in an era of abundance and waste.

That's right, waste. Jarvis sees a lot of inefficiency, even in challenging economic times --- reporters performing roles others are, providing content others are, going through the motions instead of going through a process of considering how to be different.

He extends his argument to bloggers --- and I feel a little tweaked by the critique --- in asserting that just providing links without adding value isn't sufficient. Point taken.

What he's noticing is what happens when resources are challenged: Quite naturally some newsrooms focus on what has worked in the past. He shouldn't be surprised to see a CNN correspondent doing the same type of story over and over. Human instincts don't necessarily lead to bravery in challenging circumstances. But he's not wrong: Newsrooms will thrive if they find more interesting ways to provide content and fewer ways to duplicate what others are providing.

Data released today by the Newspaper Association of America indicates continued growth of newspaper Web site traffic. While some had believed there would be an eventual cresting of the news traffic online, that doesn't appear to be the case --- at least not yet.

The NAA data shows newspaper Web traffic was up 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 over the same period in 2008, with unique visitors pegged at 73.3 million visitors. Even more hopeful inside that data is the growth in overall page views, 12.8 per cent for a total of 3.5 billion.

The implications here are manifold, but the major takeaway would appear to be that the content is proving an attractive entity and that it and its audience are finding each other. What isn't as clear is how effectively newspaper sites can monetize the audience to fortify operations in a period of print advertising declines

In his latest post for The Independent, Andrew Keen asks the question he says was unthinkable a year ago: Is the blog dead?

Keen notes the arrival of Twitter and the crowd of other social media tools have turned the blog into a bit of a retro entity. He's particularly enamoured of the new Wordpress tools that permit users to create their own social networks. In essence, the blog becomes an aggregator of all of your personal files.

His conclusion: "The blog is dead, long live the blog!"

What is your conclusion?

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales believes his model ought to be the newspaper's model in a certain way: Fans should take over some areas.

Wales told an advertising conference this week that newspapers haven't been strong in corralling user-generated content and that bloggers in particular have expertise that could be exploited freely.

He has a specific recommendation: Let the fans take over the sports section. Save the newsroom money for sending reporters to major assignments overseas.

My personal take on this: Close, but not quite. While it's true (very true, in fact) there's more to be done in integrating user-generated content, a news organization's audience has a different expectation of timeliness than users of, say, Wikipedia. If you're simply leaving your time-sensitive demands to the fans, you may get a lot less than you want. That said, more expertise from the community across topics is highly welcome.

The Wall Street Journal reports that 452,000 Americans now consider blogging their main source of income --- more than firefighters, bartenders or computer programmers and not far removed from lawyers.

The paper reports there are about 20 million bloggers in the U.S., with 1.7 million reporting income. One per cent of bloggers making money make more than $200,000 annually and work 50 to 60 hours to do it.

E Kinney Zalesne, a political pollster, writes that eventually this Wild West will settle down. Meantime, there seems to be gold in them thar hills.

Salon founder Scott Rosenberg weighs in on the newspaper plight with arguments on why blaming Google for revenue woes isn't the issue. Google is a friend, not enemy, of the newspaper --- and it's always possible to simply opt out of Google's search engine any time, he reminds us.

New models are emerging --- not quite clearly yet, but still emerging --- in which the control over production and distribution will not be so clearly vested in one entity. Nor will there be the same control over readers and advertisers.

"And whatever new models emerge, they are unlikely to provide last century’s monopoly profits."

Matthew Ingram, the communities editor of the Globe and Mail, notes the arrival Monday of Google News Timeline, which offers up a calendar-like view of events as they unfurled.

It's a breathtaking concept and application and bound to be popular as a tool for understanding the evolution of stories and other content.

Only Ingram has one complaint: Why couldn't a news organization have thought about this?

He decries the lack of imagination inside newsrooms and suggests that, rather than apply the thinking caps to selling the same thing, newsrooms ought to be developing fresh takes on how to deliver content.

It is possible, just maybe, that newspapers can package content in such a way as to charge for it online. So says Mark Potts in his Recovering Journalist blog, with a degree of skepticism throughout.

Potts notes that people want packaging, that newsrooms or individuals (like Romenesko, for instance) can curate content in such a way as to make it valuable to collect and consume.

Potts believes it's that packaging that holds the key to any approach newspapers make in moving to a premium-pay model online.

"Maybe, rather than paying for news, per se, people will be willing to pay for smart packages of it," he writes.

Robert Scoble, the prominent developer and blogger, has posted a 10-point list of what newspapers could have --- and should have --- owned or operated in recent years but let slip through the fingers.

In his view, these were giveaways, things that newspapers could have governed or controlled to their benefit.  Instead they surrendered the category to an upstart.

The list is impressive:  Craigslist, Flickr, Huffington Post, Facebook, Twitter, Google News, Yelp, Google Maps, Topix, Yahoo and Google Finance, Memorandum, Astrology.com and Comics.com.

But Scoble is not the nattering nabob of negativity. He points to the many opportunities that remain for newspapers, not only in what they need to build but what they have in their midst.  It's a long, but very savvy post.

John Temple, the former editor and publisher of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, has an idea for newspapers trying to get people to pay for their content online: Borrow a page from Costco.

Meaning: Charge a fee up front to join a service that provides a range of valuable content and services, everything from access to valuable advertising to school-selection information to road closures.

For some time, others have advocated an approach of defining service by identifying knowledge needs of the community and addressing them. Temple's blog is a good addition to this body of work.