Nick Bradbury, get well wishes: Nick discovered his earache is a little more serious than he first thought. His prognosis is good, however, it will require surgery early next month. Nick (creator of FeedDemon and a member of the rexblog RSS Hall of Fame) lives in Nashville. Our thoughts are with you, Nick.

Nothing new: Before reporters and bloggers treat NASCAR’s announcement of getting into “the news business” or the “content-generating” business as something new or revolutionary, let me say (in my day-role as a custom media developer), the “concept” of what they’re doing is about as old as a dirt track. Corporations, associations and other institutions have been in the “news business” forever.

In fact, technically speaking, NASCAR can’t “get into” the content business, as it’s already in the “content business.” Their business model is advertising, sponsorship and ticket sales and related raceday revenues revolving around the “content” of cars revolving around an oval.

I’m not going to recount the history of corporate entities creating their own “content machines,” but they’re called “soap operas” for a reason, and the Christian Science Monitor and the association magazine you get and that magazine that comes from your alma mater can all be traced back to someone getting into the “news business.” For that matter, every corporate communications department or PR firm can trace its lineage to someone wanting to get into the “news” business.

The fact is, everyone today is in the news business; everyone is in the “content-generating” business.

And that’s a good thing.

Update: Should NASCAR consider this David Geffen quote? “I wouldn’t go into the entertainment industry [if I started again] today.[Content] is too expensive to produce, and it’s getting more and more difficult to find home runs.”

What, no bluetooth? Apple introduces a new mouse called, “mighty mouse” but am I missing something? Over the past couple of years, Apple has hooked me into an addiction to using a bluetooth mouse but the mighty mouse doesn’t have that feature. I’m sure it is a swell new mouse, but Apple has already introduced me to the joys of using an untethered mouse. There’s no way they’re getting me to plug back in.

Steve Rubel would take this blog to a desert island: Pardon me while I have a Sally Field moment by thanking Steve Rubel for this honor. Actually, now that I think about it, once when Steve went to a real (but not desert) island, he sort of did take me along.

Magazine News from Nashville: While I still post (and tag) magazine-related stories on the rexblog, most “launch” and “vaporzine” stories now only make it to deli.cio.us/rexblog (RSS). However, when a vaporzine has a Nashville connection, like Relish, that’s planned by the Publishing Group of America (the people behind American Profile), well, that’s like home folks.

The magazine, which will focus on food-related concerns such as cooking, diet, and entertainment, is expected to clock in with a circulation of some 6 million, gaining the status of a top-10 food title and surpassing the distribution of Conde Nast’s Bon Appetit, which has a newsstand circulation of 1.2 million. Newspapers will pay the Publishing Group of America on a per-issue basis to carry Relish. The move follows in the footsteps of the Publishing Group of America’s other newspaper-only offering, American Profile, which was launched three years ago and focuses on small-town American life. Distributed chiefly in low-population-density markets, American Profile recently added Hometown Promotions, a marketing and promotion scheme whereby the magazine is joined with direct marketing and syndicated content with the design of increasing retail activity in rural areas.

I — and several people who work at Hammock Publishing and read this weblog — have lots of good friends there and wish them well. It’s always great to see another major magazine project with some Nashville ties.