Brad Marley's Blog

Brad's Weekly Grab Bag of Links - June 5, 2009

After missing last week due to being busy/being lazy/watching Red Wings playoff games, I come roaring back with a handful of links for your click-thru enjoyment.

• ProPublica Wants Newspapers to Steal Its Stories (ReadWriteWeb) - ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom intent on continuing investigative journalism at a time when traditional newspapers are removing staff. The tactic? Giving away their coverage to other newspapers and on-line publishers.

• The Stanley Cup Could Use an Editor (Wall Street Journal) - I have hockey on the brain. The Stanley Cup, arguably the most famous trophy in sports, contains a litany of misspellings dating back to the 1930s.  (I was going to make a funny joke here about Sidney Crosby not having to worry about his name being misspelled because he'll never win a Cup, but then the second period of game four just happened, and now I don't feel so confident.) 

• The Next Media Company (Chris Brogan) - Interesting post. Chris Brogan lists some ideas and tactics that he thinks the next media company should integrate. I would argue a few already exist -- stories don't end, but are added to; coverage comes in many forms -- while the majority can, and should, pop up at some point in the future.

• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (The Writer's Coin) - If you're like me, you've been meaning to read one of Gladwell's books but haven't felt like you are in the right frame of mind to do it.  Luckily, the dude over at The Writer's Coin took the time to write a brief explanation of Gladwell's latest book, so now I have no good reasons to not pick it up next time I'm at Barnes & Noble.

• E3: Protestors target Dante's Inferno game (Los Angeles Times blog) - In a brilliant move, it appears Electronic Arts staged a protest against their upcoming game, Dante's Inferno, in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center at E3.  Even more awesome is that it was originally picked up as a legit story.  The third comment down is my favorite, btw. 

• Struggling 'Pittsburgh Post-Gazette' Asks Sidney Crosby to Cover Penguins Playoff Series (The Onion) - A strangely relevant (and perhaps foretelling?) piece in The Onion where a local paper asks a player to cover his playoff series for them. You have to admit this satirical publication usually nails it.

That's all for this week.

Here's hoping Detroit can raise another championship banner come Monday.  

Brad's Weekly Grab Bag of Links - May 22, 2009

Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet: your weekly grab bag of links.

Enjoy.

• How to Save Your Newspaper (Time Magazine): The title is a bit misleading as a solution to save the newspaper is nowhere to be found in the body of this article.  But there is a striking yet obvious piece of information brought to the readers attention: newspapers have more readers than ever. It's too bad a majority of them are online, a place the publications have not learned to profit from.



• US fights Taliban on another front: public relations (Yahoo! News): Not only is there stil a war in the traditional sense being waged in Afghanistan, but now officials are forced to battle the Taliban in the communications arena.



• Wired Struggles to Find Niche in Magazine World (New York Times): Wired Magazine is one of the least popular print magazine at Conde Nast (print circ: 704,000), but it's Web site is the most popular with 11 million unique visitors a month. Editor Chris Anderson, who has led Wired to a number of National Magazine Awards, is the man in charge of coming up with a solution to solve Wired's print problem.



• Props to Eminem for Local Promotions (Chris Brogan): Eminem placed pairs of tickets to his free Detroit show throughout Metro Detroit, then tweeted locations and directions to his followers on Twitter.  This is such a great way for artists to harness the power of sites like Twitter.



• Red Wings keep city of Detroit humming (Yahoo! Sports): What is the most efficient organization in Detroit? If you guessed the Detroit Red Wings, you would be correct. Their combination of smarts and business savvy make them one of the most admired companies in the city. 

You can find these and other links on my Delicious page.

Why We Go

When 20,000 people come together as one sweaty, screaming entity, it's a beautiful thing.

When the noise emitted from the collective jowl of this beast reaches a crescendo so loud you can't hear yourself think, well, that's just gorgeous.

And when the final horn sounds, and the entity erupts in a sound reminiscent of a planned demolition, well, I'm not sure there are words to describe it.

Slapping high-fives with strangers, chanting into the wee hours of the night ...well, maybe that's all we need. 

For a handful of hours, you sit next to people who you've never met, but you leave feeling like you've been through something nobody on the outside can relate to.

It's why we spend hard earned money to watch grown men play a game; it's why we don't even try to explain to people who don't get it why we go.

It's the shared experience.  

That's what it's all about.

And it certainly helps when the home team wins.