The New York Times has been chroncling the resurgence of the online advertising market, but it adds some nuance to the story today in suggesting online newspapers may not be the beneficiaries of any rebound in activity.

The Times cites significant renewal in revenues as such services as Google and Yahoo, but tepid results at America's larger newspaper companies. While the buzz of launching products with news sites might be attractive, eventually that buzz dies and advertisers go elsewhere.

The problem, the Times notes, is the abundance of more affordable and no less attractive Web site. Even though many newspapers would say their Web operations offer advertising at pennies on the dollar, the Times' piece suggests those pennies are altogether too high.

NYU undergraduate Cody Brown ambitiously launches Kommons.com in a few weeks as a platform to get the public to talk to each other. His view is that the "trustee media" era is ending and a more "direct media" era is upon us.

In other words, the public can talk to itself.

"News is important. It’s so important that leaving it to a group of people in an office downtown is and has always been irresponsible," he writes.

Rather, he says the technology now exists to permit that many-to-many conversation about what's important, including the research and editing of content to ensure its fairness and accuracy.

Mark Fitzgerald examines what could, should and might happen to the print editions once the economy regains a more positive footing.

His special report for E & P doesn't necessarily move in the direction one might expect.

For one, there is ambivalence about the necessity for editorial reinvestment.

Although there is sound argument in the piece about the need to reallocate newspaper spending into editorial and away from production, circulation and even advertising, some sound the voice of reexamination of priorities over the approach of refilling the newsroom. One expert suggests newspapers over-serve.

Greater dollars need to be spent on marketing and audience research, Fitzgerald hears, and something must be done to combat the 75-25 split of non-editorial/advertising costs to those prime areas of activity and value.

The combination of technology and choice makes for a personalized German newspaper called Niiu.

The digital printing technology permits subscribers to select from an array of sources --- including, eventually, their own social networks and blogrolls --- to generate a personalized publication.

The printing technology produces about 2,000 versions an hour of a 36-page colour newspaper. The cost is 1.8 euros an edition. Niiu is starting in Berlin in November and will likely move to Hamburg and Munich in the near future, say its developers.

The paper also has the option of delivering far more targeted advertising to particular demographics.

The conventional wisdom is that the conventional print media journalist is an immobile curmudgeon, skeptical and/or resistant of the pressure and/or rationale behind the shift to the digital sphere.

Not so, says a new report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Go faster, the journalists generally say.

The survey of 3,800 journalists at 79 newspapers found a real digital appetite. The Turn Back The Clock segment accounted for only six per cent of the group, hardly a significant rump and half the size of the digital-oriented group that wants to keep adding to its new media work. The largest cohort, nearly half of the total, would like to split time almost equally between legacy and new media.

The report found job satisfaction reasonably high, reporter concern about managers reasonably negative, and solutions to some of the challenges reasonably easy to accomplish without extra resources.

One of the blogosphere's challenges is to organize content for those who want to refer to it. RSS feeds and individual sites are fine, but curation and organization continue to matter.

A second challenge is, of course, the business model and how bloggers can be adequately paid to ensure quality sustains.

Which is why the new AsianCorrespondent.com site offers interesting possibilities. It's a site of about 50 English-language paid bloggers in 13 countries all over the vast Asian continent, augmented by Associated Press content from there. Unlike some such sites that pay according to page views, AsianCorrespondent is compensating with fixed salaries.

At first blush the site has a strong range of harder and softer news, analysis and commentary. It ought to become a good news resource because, unlike the lens of a western-based news agency that filters content for western distribution, this has more of a feet-on-the-ground feel to it.

And it might prove to be a model for others to try similar hubs to serve strong specialties.

Recently I stumbled upon a strong piece of guidance for journalism, written last year by Matt Thompson at University of Missouri and the Donald J. Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Thompson identifies and illuminates 10 critical questions for journalism. They are thoughtful, reflective and urgent queries for the craft.

Among them:
1. Is our work informative or distractive?
2. How important is our work for the community we serve?
3. Are we getting at the bigger story or just the newer story?
4. Are we synthesizing or merely aggregating?
5. How are we helping those who know nothing or a lot?
6. What kind of transparency are we providing along the way?
7. Are we using text when a photo would be better?
8. How are our filters?
9. Will our audience find our work?
10. How are we managing our own information overload?

They're expanded upon in his post.

The emergence of the so-called MoJo --- the journalist who doesn't occupy an office but is on the road and in need of the toolkit to stay mobile --- is a challenge for many news organizations and individuals who want to make their own way.

But U.K. academic Paul Bradshaw, author of the Online Journalism Blog, has developed an excellent list of requirements --- hardware, software and mindset --- to equip the journalist.

The hardware and software aren't terribly surprising, but his list is pretty inclusive. It's the attitudinal checklist that bears noting: the always-on, always-trying, always-mobile approach that enhances the experience.

Arguably the most troubling indicator for media in recent months hasn't been the recession-related loss of revenue for traditional forms like print and broadcast. That has been somewhat expected, if uncomfortable.

Rather, the surprise and grief have come from the sudden stagnation online, where there was a perceived room for immense growth in an emerging revenue environment. If salvation lay in the hands of digital, then any sign that it might falter was highly problematic.

Doubts have been raised in recent months on the effectiveness of the platform in delivering conventional advertising. In much the way content has had to revisit its approaches, many were suggesting advertising would have to devise new ways to reach digital audiences.

But Yahoo is saying the situation has stabilized and an Associated Press report suggests the online advertising slump is done. While there is no suggestion yet that a boom is imminent, it seems the downward trend has stopped.

The annual report on the blogosphere is being released in a serialized fashion this week by Technorati.

The latest instalment suggests some 13 per cent of bloggers do it full-time.
A further 15 per cent use the blog to supplement incomes.

Who blogs? Relatively affluent and educated people. Two-thirds are men and 40 per cent have graduate degrees.

Why? Self-expression, sharing of expertise. More than two-thirds say their own personal satisfaction is the measurement of success.