This just in, the NY Times ‘magazines fail’ retread feature: I know you’ve all been waiting, so I’m happy to announce that in Thursday’s NY Times,
you’ll find the newspaper’s current version of the recurring feature
story revealing that,
despite the overwhelming odds of failing, people still start magazines.
I don’t know about you, but I am always amazed that most magazines fail
–  in the same way I’m amazed that every book published does not
make it to the NYT bestseller list. I’m also amazed that reporters keep
writing the same feature story over and over despite most of them
failing to have anything new. I’m also amazed that I keep blogging about this.

Make your own pope hat: This “blank pope hat” jpg can get you started.

Real-time google hacking:  Geez. Earlier tonight, I blogged how I
might as well publish my Google search history via RSS and joked that
Google seemed a bit behind the curve in that department. Then John
Resig lets me know about this tool he just whipped up to do that.

Pope Dave I:  Dave liked Rogers’ pope hat so much, he asked for one himself.

So, in appreciation of Dave’s creation of RSS and Manila,
the platform on which I publish the rexblog, and since he’ll go down as one of the creators of podcasting (perhaps, the St. Peter of podcasting?),
I’m happy to use my sub-par photoshop skills to grant his request. (And
I’m not just blowing white smoke.)

Here’s a larger view of Pope Dave I.

Custom publishing update II:  T-Mobile
is launching a customer magazine for small companies “to encourage
loyalty and highlight the network’s understanding of business needs.”

InFocus, a 32-page magazine, will be published three times a
year, with the first edition coming out this spring. The publication will be sent to around 44,000 companies that have
fewer than 10 employees and operate multiple handsets on a T-Mobile
account. Customers range from small accountancy firms, architects and
graphic designers, to florists, builders and plumbers.

Custom publishing update I:
Korean car manufacturer Kia has launched a customer magazine that will
be distributed to Kia owners in the U.S. three times a year.

Wait, I remember this: The new “Google search history” won’t be anything new to people who use A9. But then, Google tends to improve (maps, for example) on any function it adapts, no matter what source.

However, when I start seeing ads served up based on current and past
keyword and map and phone-number searches (and, no doubt I will), well,
do I really want to hand over to Google that much of my life?

Come to think of it, I probably hand Amazon that much information.

Come to think of it, I’m so “on-the-grid,” I might as well publish an
RSS feed of all my Google searches. No, wait. RSS is one of the few
think they can’t seem to offer.

Just thinking out loud: Can the record of your Google searches be
succesfully subjected to subpoena? How many spouses/parents/children
hack this new function for (fill in the blank) reasons?

(via: John Battelle.)

Yet another G+J controversy:  Child magazine says it didn’t know technology editor James Oppenheim was getting paid by Microsoft, Radio Shack, Kodak, and other tech companies.

(via: Romenesko)

Pope .com domain update: Here are some things Rogers Cadenhead would like (don’t call them demands) from the Vatican in exchange for the domain name, benedictxvi.com:

(Someone asked
who to credit for the lame “photo illustration”: Isn’t it obvious that
someone with no photoshop skills (me) did it?)

Variety.com: “Internet feeding, not beating, other media.”
There, in one sentence, you have what I spend a significant
amount  time trying to explain when I say “competing” or
“replacing” are not necessarily the correct words one should use when
understanding how new media relates to old media.

(via: IWantMedia.com)

Dick Stolley, a magazine legend, retires: For years on the rexblog, I’ve mentioned magazine editor-legend, Dick
Stolley, a person I once blogged would be included on a magazine Mt.
Rushmore, if there were such.

Today, the NY Post (scroll down) reports:

Those who know him, know Dick will never “leave” from the magazine
industry, his influence is seen not only in all those who have worked
for him, but in the hundreds of folks who have had the pleasure to
spend a couple weeks with him at the Stanford Professional Publishing
Course where he’s been legend-in-residence for a couple of decades.

Congratulations.