The World Association of Newspapers is having a conference in Prague in November, expecting around 300 delegates from the news industry. Some of them may arrive with a clue, but will any of them leave with one?

The WAN's director of communications, Larry Kilman, says in a dotJournalism piece entitled How to make money from online news:

Newspapers have enormous amounts of content which they poured onto the internet - and then realised they were pouring away their most valuable asset without any revenue.

Oh, like the Guardian has done, with huge success?

Many are now finding out how to go backwards and get the content paid for.

Going backwards? You got that right.

The conference will examine a lot of strategies that are working in different markets.

Huh. I wonder if the WAN would like to share with the rest of the world what these strategies are that are "working" in multiple markets - or any markets for that matter. I guess it depends on what you mean by "working," and for whom it is supposedly doing so. Somehow, I seriously doubt that Kilman's definition is the same as ours...

Wired News has a very positive take on the role of blogs in the CBS memos scandal. Adam L. Penenberg makes a good point about CBS's denial of bloggers' power to fact check Dan Rather's arse.

The CBS apologist was asked about the role bloggers played in propelling the story to national scandal, he dismissed them as little more than journalist-wannabes, sitting in their underwear in front of their PCs, typing whatever thoughts/opinions/rants they had between trips to the refrigerator.

My first thought was if bloggers had no credibility then why was this guy on my television, defending CBS?

Even more interesting is his view on what it means for the big media reporting and journalism in general.

They function as a vast, ad-hoc quality-control department, reflecting the entire political spectrum. Suddenly readers can (and do) subject reporters to unprecedented levels of scrutiny. Facts are analyzed and checked against their sources, quotes deconstructed, grammar parsed - all of this done in public view.

This isn't the first time that blogs have kept an issue alive. The first blog-driven controversy caused the fall of Trent Lott when bloggers located quotes from previous speeches that many believed were racist. Another led to The New York Times op-ed page instituting a policy on corrections for its columnists.

Whether a blog leans left, right or sideways, as a collective force they are working to keep reporters honest. Journalists may not like their methods - having your work sliced and diced in public is no fun - but the end result may be better-quality news.

Speaking for myself alone, I always find it quite unsettling to find my ideas accurately reflected in the Guardian:

CBS's admission that its story of George Bush's special treatment when with the Texas air national guard was deeply flawed is being seen as a key victory for the new "blogging" community of the internet against old media.

It is being seen that way because...er, it is that way.

CBS was doubly at fault. It failed to appreciate the force of the thousands of voluntary fact-checkers out there on the web (let alone trying to harness their power in advance), while also failing to interview bloggers after the event as part of an ongoing story.

No, not at fault, just behind the curve.

In fact, bloggers are often people very expert in their own fields who attract other experts when issues in their domain are newsworthy. Stories in old media can be fact-checked instantaneously and the journalists and their newspapers held to account.

Yup.

There is no doubt that the tectonic plates of journalism are moving. There is awesome potential in the internet as a gatherer, distributor and checker of news - not least through instant delivery channels such as mobile phones. This does not mean old media will die. But it will have to adapt quickly to what has so far been an asymmetrical relationship.

Blogs have battened off newspapers and many newspapers, including the Guardian, have launched their own blogs. But most newspapers, let alone TV stations, have not embraced the blogging revolution as an essential part of the future rather than an irritant in the background. The CBS saga may prove to be the wake-up call they needed.

In in the interests of accuracy (well, I am a blogger!) it behoves me to point out that the Guardian has always displayed a readiness to recognise new tehcnologies and trends and they have been aware of the growing presence and significance of blogging for some time.

That said, this is the first mainstream media admission I have encountered that has been willing to admit that the mainstream media itself is under serious assault.

Blabble is a blog research and analysis tool, giving companies access to the buzz of blogs.

We parse millions of blogs giving you access to influential thoughts on your brand.dedicated to making sense out of the seemingly endless supply of blog information.

Interesting. They do not currently accept any new applications at this time while they are upgrade their infrastructure. But they will be accepting users again starting 6th September. But so far, so good. Let's see what happens.

via BL Ochman

Update: Just signed up for the service, will report later.

Om Malik has a scoop on venture capitalists' love affair with RSS.

I have learned exclusively that Technorati has/or is about to close its first round of funding. My sources indicate that it was a mega-round, about $6.5 million at a valuation of around $12 million for the company. Draper Fisher Jurvetson led the round.

Om draws attention to Newgator's funding received in June and drops hints about Feedster, and Bloglines. All in all, good news and congratulations to Technorati. May the network prosper...

Om Malik on the power of blogging:

Okay this may sound very pompous and self congratulatory, but this is the first time I have quantifiable information that people actually *read* what I write. Whew! A little while ago, I wrote, BlinkX BlinkX. The Guardian has followed up with a story, which shows some of the blog-network effect.

The blogosphere, just like any network, is a funny thing.

Update: Ed Sim of BeyondVC is already building this into business plans in Influencing the influencers. Link via Buzzmachine.

Well, consumer is a no-no word for Cluetrain affectionados. But I would say it is a step towards redressing the imbalance in favour of the individual, thanks to the ability to compare information immediately and to the networks such as blogs and websites to spread the news. Ed Foster has the case of Hilton Hotels atrocious "No Privacy" policy.

A few days ago, a reader was trying to book a room for the 4th of July at an Embassy Suites, one of many hotel chains owned by Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC). "When I was about to reserve through their site, which was running a deal better than Travelocity offered, I decided to glance at the privacy clause," wrote the reader. "I found it to be quite interesting. Go to www.hilton.com and click on 'Privacy & Security' and then read section IV. See if I'm interpreting it correctly. The way I read it, all information that you submit as part of a transaction, like booking a room, is now theirs. They reserve the right to do whatever they want with the info, including publish it. That info would include my name, address, credit card number, etc. I booked with Sheraton instead."

Marvellous. And now ladies and gentlemen for the update on the story:

Hilton has now posted a new, and far more reasonable, privacy policy on its various websites.

All is not well, though, for Dan Gillmore who also mentions the story:

Hilton's hotels are still off my list until there's a complete revision, but Ed and his readers deserve credit for what's been done so far.

Absolutely. Don't you just love blogs - they give voice to those who don't mind raising it.

I hope our readers will forgive this brief episode of trumpet-blowing but I have come across this splendid article in the Economist about the future of advertising:

The advertising industry is passing through one of the most disorienting periods in its history. This is due to a combination of long-term changes, such as the growing diversity of media, and the arrival of new technologies, notably the internet. Consumers have become better informed than ever before, with the result that some of the traditional methods of advertising and marketing simply no longer work.

When a journal as serious and august as the Economist starts saying things like this, then change is assuredly afoot.

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Thanks to Robin Good and his post last week, yesterday I had the opportunity to join a tour around 3D collaborative software, called SmartMeeting that creates a true virtual meeting place. It was an amazing experience in many respects and here is what I saw. (For more technical specs read here or here).

Imagine you are in a game but instead of shooting aliens and other assorted monsters, you meet people who are real, sitting at their computer terminals anywhere in the world. No shooting though.

Upon registration you get to chose an avatar and release him into the community. Well, into a virtual complex of offices - a large meeting room, two smaller lockable rooms and a relaxation area. The environment matters as we get to use all our senses when interacting in a physical space. And this is what SmartMeeting aims to simulate. It is good that the interface follows the gaming conventions, it will help many a game-addicted executive to feel right at home there.

There are several main functions to help you run a virtual meeting:

1. Video function - with each participant watching the same image on the screen within SmartMeeting office. The connectivity is visible on the screen and you can watch a video, run webcam or video-feed.
2. Document function - documents can be uploaded before or during the meeting and presented on the main screen within the virtual office
3. Internet function - allows you to use bookmarks, you can type in url and click on the main screen, scroll through the content. Everyone in the room can see the browser windows presented
4. Whiteboard - allows people to draw and format with a variety of formatting tools. Very clear and usable.

The idea is to provide as much reality as possible. Video-conferencing as we know it works for some people but SmartMeeting offers a better combination of video and audio technology and manages to create collaborative environment that is also interesting and pleasant.

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While my partners, Perry and Adriana, are wowing the crowds over in America, I am left holding the Big Blog Fort. So while they press the flesh and kiss babies on their whistle-stop tour I am sweating away in the engine-room greasing the mighty wheels of the whole operation. Which is to say, the banking bureaucracy, the VAT returns, the accounts and the invoicing.

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We have got our first quote by D'log.

Big Blog Company wants to make blogs into useful tools for business. If blogs can replace even one installation of Lotus Notes, then I'm all for it.

We certainly don't see Lotus Notes as direct competitor as we are doing different things, but I see where D'log is coming from...

Well, we have gotta start somewhere.

"Blog-site? But isn't this a website?" I hear you say.

Well, yes and no... it is a hybrid weblog-website, with information about the company displayed as usual but also with relevant updates available in blog format right here.

Weblogs or 'Blogs' can be structured in many innovative ways depending on what they are setting out to achieve, for business and institutions which have completely different natures and objectives.

Whilst weblogs can take many alternative visual forms, there are certain verities common to them all, a 'blogging best practice' if you like. We at the Big Blog Company are at the very forefront of that intellectual process and it is this, rather than just mere software, that we offer to companies who realise the imperative to move closer to the cutting edge.

We are all about making the web what business had always hoped it would be but never quite figured out how.