Today the Publish2.0 organization launched the Publish2 News Exchange, what it calls a 21st century alternative to The Associated Press that freely moves news and other information between Web and print properties.

It's a little different than the news cooperative model of AP, in that the terms of sharing content are set by the source organization. It seems most clearly focused initially on supplementing and formalizing the newsroom-to-newsroom informal exchanges that already take place but often are tedious to manage and not necessarily helpful with real-time needs.

The platform provides Web publishers with access to print distribution, something they've had to work through individually or through syndication. And it permits them to set the terms by which they'll provide the content --- to whom, when, and for what price.

What isn't clear at the outset is whether the batch of content providers in the fold --- and there are some impressive ones --- cumulatively form enough of a content file for properties to cut the ties with AP. It's not an easy feat, as many have found, and it is best judged by the newsrooms themselves.

More details will emerge this week and are bound to gain the attention of newsrooms who find the cost of a full wire service too onerous. Did we mention the word "free" in the mix?

A year-long study from the Pew Research Center sheds some light on the way Americans are using social media differently than legacy media.

First off, nearly half depend on those around them for some of their news, an indication that social media has gained enormous clout but also an indication that friends play a powerful role in broad news consumption.

And any suggestion that social media somehow deliver the same note is challenged in the study. Pew reported that social media tend to highlight very different stories --- not only different from legacy media, but different from each other.

On blogs, the stories are emotive. On Twitter, technology rules. YouTube is serendipitous.

Legacy media still aren't necessarily picking up on the viral hits, either. Pew found only one instance, the so-named climategate scandal, that seemed to prosper in social media then migrate to the mainstream.

Having said that, blogs depend heavily on mainstream media for their source material, the study found.

Industry veteran Steve Buttry has a new job as director of community engagement for Jim Brady's imminent digital news startup, TBD, and he is selfless enough to share some tips on getting the next gig.

When I teach each year I find one of the most valuable sessions I can provide is how to use the job interview properly. It is, after all, potentially the most lucrative half-hour you'll experience, yet so many people arrive largely ill-prepared to pitch their work or help an employer visualize their fit. And school, no matter if its high or post-secondary, doesn't guide you at all.

Buttry has a generous helping of tips in his post, starting with the profile you need initially online: following the right people on Twitter, networking with them, understanding their ideas and approaches.

He discusses the need for the digital calling card: a resume online, a presence on the Internet that evidently engages, and an open technique (meaning no locked Twitter account, for instance).

He also supplies some subtle, nuanced advice on how to apply and how to stay in the game. It's a valuable batch of advice, more practical given that Buttry himself used it to land a great role at a very promising new enterprise.

Don't chase large audiences. Go for a focused one.

Engage who you have. Don't just blanket them.

And know your place in the media landscape. Stop trying to be everything.

Those are summarized views of the head of the Trinity Mirror digital group in the United Kingdom, Matt Kelly, as his firm makes the transition.

Where once there were two streams of revenue, now there are 28. There are niche digital products for the football fan, for celebrity gossip, and others are in the works.

Kelly says the advertiser wants an engaged audience, not a massive disengaged one. He laments distinguished media lumbering after the big crowd. Tackling smaller crowds can yield larger revenue.

At the moment, Apple is selling more iPads than Macs in the United States as the device emerges in the market.

That consumption curve isn't necessarily going to last, but a new study suggests media tablets will remain hot commodities in the years ahead.

The IDC study suggests the 7.6 million units in play this year will grow to more than 46 million by 2014 in the U.S. Compounded that's more than 57% annual growth.

They will move to nice-to-have devices to essential consumer products, the bullish study indicates.

A key will be development of applications unique to tablets to differentiate them from smartphones and PCs. The implications for the news business are significant as that market grows.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he'd been waiting a long time for today's announcement. He brought CEOs from Sony, Best Buy, Logitech and others to the stage to announce Google TV.

What is it? We don't really know yet, although its aim is to marry the Web and the television set. It's clearly Google's effort to wrest a large piece of the television advertising pie.

Here's what it seems to be: A marriage of platforms to permit universal search of television and Internet video, an intiative to make television a development tool, and an olive branch to Flash (arguably the best delivery of Web video to the screen, and most recently shunned by Apple, who will be Google TV's principal competitor). 

Sony will unveil it in an HDTV later this year and Logitech will deliver the search box.

Two outlets weigh in on the efforts John Paton is making to convert his newsrooms to digital-first operations.

At the risk of self-serving (he is leading the proposed new ownership team under Paul Godfrey at Canwest Publishing, where I am employed), it's important to look at the work undertaken to transform his organizations.

The Poynter Institute looks at the results of his Franklin Project, in which newsrooms were asked to meet the needs of audiences by developing digital journalism using free tools. The three newsrooms proved ingenious in finding new techniques and software to tell their stories differently.

Then Earl Wilkinson, the executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association, posts a profile of Paton and his approaches.

In essence, they are:
1. Mobile first, online second, print curated last.
2. Organizational culture akin to digital culture: transparent, crowdsourced, collaborative, flat.
3. Upward management on digital revenue, downward management on print costs.

The Knight News Entrepreneur Boot Camp is under way and one of the institute's leaders, Robert Niles, has outlined the opportunity for news publishers to become  community organizers.

Not organizers in the sense of political activism, but organizers as engaging the community in dialogue. Niles outlines several steps necessary, and how repetition is further necessary, to achieve the goals.

In broad outline, Niles suggests:

1.  Assessing the community and understanding its needs.
2. Creating a team to tackle the issues.
3. Developing a plan to use particular techniques to deal with the challenges.
4. Mobilizing the community to get noticed.
5. Tactics to gain participation.
6. Evaluating your success.

It's a solid framework on how newsrooms can treat community organization as a project.

The intriguing $100-million-plus purchase today of Associated Content by Yahoo has raised several questions about the direction and function of the company.  There are significant implications for the news business.

In Yahoo's case, some questions: Is it now a full-fledged publisher? Is it mounting a new offensive against Google? Is it going to lead to the purchase and IPOs of other content machines?

In the wider case of the industry, is the deal the portend of others that will shift the balance between producers and advertisers? Are we deepening the era of directed content?

Ken Doctor weighs in and argues we are into an era of advertising driving content in ways it hasn't. The purchase of a content machine like Associated Content suggests the principle is in greater play than ever, with Yahoo able to offer advertisers content they want.

"News sites, in this scenario, are increasingly distributors, exercising some choice of what appears on their sites, under their own brands," he writes.

Media companies had better get used to the new landscape of targeted good-enough pro-am content based on user behaviour, Doctor suggests.

A common complaint from creators is that their work is often used on the Internet without permission. But a new study suggests people just don't know right from wrong.

A subsidiary of Getty Images, the prominent photography service, found many small businesses are in the dark about how to use Web images --- more than 40 per cent of them don't realize they're susceptible to legal challenges when they do so.

More than a quarter of those businesses surveyed don't routinely check on permissions for material and more than half don't understand their legal protection.

In the arrival of new content players, it's not surprising some aren't abreast of the legal boundaries. The study indicates awareness needs to be raised.