Robert Scoble, Scobleizer, wrote what, to me, was a really amazingly insightful article on how the newspaper industry has let the Net take away bits and pieces of its franchise until there’s almost nothing left. But he does  go on to mention a few remaining pieces worth saving and pursuing on or off line. ( The newspaper industry just gave away another free meal, er Twitter: do they have any left?).  Examples of the giveaways:

“Free meal #1. Giving away classified advertising to Craig’s List.
Free meal #2. Giving away photography to Flickr (look at the photos from the Chinese Earthquake, why didn’t this happen on a newspaper branded site?).
Free meal #3. Giving away front page news to blogs like Huffington Post.
Free meal #4. Giving away “small” community news like births, deaths, birthdays, etc to Facebook.
Free meal #5. Giving away real-time news to Twitter.
Free meal #6. Giving away news distribution to Google News and Amazon Kindle, among others. With new sites like Kosmix coming on strong (hundreds of percent of growth month over month).
Free meal #7. Giving away restaurant reviews to Yelp.
Free meal #8. Giving away traffic information to Google Maps.
Free meal #9. Giving away celebrity news to Facebook and Twitter. (Why is Oprah on both of those, and why didn’t the newspaper industry lock up Oprah and keep her on a newspaper brand?)
Free meal #10. Giving away local news to Topix (at least that was funded by a newspaper brand).
Free meal #11. Giving away business news to Yahoo Finance and Google Finance (and something new that will get announced tomorrow).
Free meal #12. Giving away news ranking to Memeorandum.
Free meal #13. Giving away astrology to Astrology.com.
Free meal #14. Giving away comics to Comics.com.

What is their latest giveaway? Crowd-sourced news. I visit Twitter Search every day to find out what is “hot news.” That’s something I used to look at newspapers and older media for (radio, TV) but Twitter is just plain better at telling me what is trending.”

Scoble goes on to discuss what the newspapers haven’t given away yet, and that gives us lots of clues to which areas might produce a useful path for a website or blog wanting to stand out from the crowd.

You really need to read Scoble’s article.  But a few of his ideas are developing and displaying a deeper understanding of a local scene.  Also, focusing to the extent you have and present a much deeper understanding of a narrower topic.

Few in the world of Twitter, make the investment of time to understand in great depth, a particular subject they twitter on. Twitter requires speed.  Understanding in depth requires time and reflection.  It’s possible to do both.  Twitter with speed on many topics but also send out the occasional Tweet linked to a blog or website with a post about a topic which reflects your thinking and your brand, something you’re researched and thought about in depth. That, I think, is one successful way forward.  One where we citizen journalists and bloggers can bring a lot to the table.

Dan Frommer in Look Out, Amazon: iPhone Gets Real E-Books (AAPL) says: “While

Amazon’s sold-out Kindle is missing in action this Christmas, Apple’s iPhone is becoming a more attractive e-book reader: NYC-based ScrollMotion has just started selling the first of many e-books it’ll sell via the iPhone app store, including big-name books like Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass.”

While there’s plenty of e-books for the iPhone already, ScrollMotion has two advantages over its rivals: A gorgeous, feature-filled e-reader app called Iceberg and deals with several major publishers, including Random House, Simon and Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, Penguin, and Hachette.”

Frommer thinks Kindle is still in the running because of the Iphone’s smaller screen size and limited battery life.  But there are always pocket sized, portable battery battery chargers and you’re already carrying the iPhone with you.  With a Kindle you’d have even more electronic gear to carry with you.  Now that’s the kind of problem I would like to have.  Wouldn’t you?

Related articles by Zemanta

• ScrollMotion Partners With Major Publishers To Turn Popular Books Into iPhone Apps
• Paolini, Pullman with books coming to iPhones
• As holiday season closes in, e-books exploding in popularity

You are probably not hiring right now. At least, a lot of people aren’t. And you may not so much hire as outsource, sometimes to people you may never meet.  But there is still a culture to your company or where you work and getting to the heart of that will help you do a better job. This book, The Collaborative Hiring Process could get you there.

Not only that, but I think we should all be accumulating the best career and business ebooks for our ebook library, saving for the day when we might be able to spring for a $300 plus Kindle, ebook reader from Amazon. ( I am holding off until 2009 when they are rumored to be coming out with a new version to fix a few glitches.)

I, personally, have not read The Collaborative Hiring Process yet, although I’ve just downloaded it, largely based on the recommendation of …..

Becky McCray,  business consultant, business owner, and cattle rancher, author of one of the top 100 business blogs, SmallBiz Survival.

It’s awesome. Really. I found myself reading it, at first, focused on offering feedback. Then I’m sucked in. I’m thinking about hiring, about my people, about what you had to say. That’s it. It’s a success.

As you can see in the blurb above, Becky is a great blog writer, and that’ the only way I know her, but I always have confidence in what she says because she is very straight forward and unvarnished which are, perhaps, small town virtues.  She has also been an antiques dealer, city administrator, nonprofit executive and newspaper reporter. Awhile back, Becky shared ” 5 Things People May Not Know About Me”, two of which are…

1. Her first business venture was washing cars in junior high school.

2. In a previous tight economic time, she went to work in the local laundry and dry cleaners for six months. She lost 15 pounds, learned a bunch, and gained a serious appreciation for her great-grandmother who worked in a laundry for many years.

That’s the kind of woman you can trust not to pull the wool over your eyes when she tells you something is good.

Becky has her own business book you can download but I’m going to send you to her own page to do it, if you like, because the book has a sponsor, and it also offers a coupon, and you might be interested in that:

And here’s another free ebook by an associate which Becky highly recommends…. and it could be a first book to keep your future Kindle warm at night.

Download a Free Copy.

And enjoy!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Will The Kindle Help Save Newspapers?
• An Unlikely Savior for the Newspaper Business
• Kindle sold out until February
• New version of Kindle in development & more (Andrea James/Andrea on Amazon.com …)