News you can use: Smartmoney.com’s “Deal of the Day”: How to save money on magazine subscriptions.

(via: iwantmedia.com)

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ning, and maybe it don’t even if it do: Dave Winer explains (in an “editorial”) how “Ning harkens back to 1999″:

“Someone says ‘Let’s get meta, we’ll make a platform for making all the things on all those flipcharts!’ Everyone sighs in relief. Now the marketing guys can get busy reading research to size up the market. Add up the sizes of all the products you can make with this meta-world-changing-techno-thingie.

Observation: Hey, it’s 1999 2.0, I can’t believe they’re not describing Ning as a “Web 2.0 enabling technology.”

Update: The terms “1999 1.0″ and “1999 2.0″ refer to certain similarities in the “business cycle clichés” appearing in 2005 that harken back to an earlier era. In no way do I want to imply that all 2005 ideas will crash and burn, as many of those 1999 ideas were rather brilliant and successful. However, those that are just about fad-chasing, VC-focused business plans will likely “bust.”)

The economics of rebuilding New Orleans: The Wall Street Journal Online (free feature) asked economist bloggers John Irons and Lynne Kiesling to pick through the good, the bad, and the ugly among post-hurricane economic policy proposals.

What did they expect him to do? (From WWD.com) “Four days after Jon Stewart laid a comic smackdown on four top editors during an event hosted by the Magazine Publishers of America, many industry voices were still grumbling that MPA had shelled out a quarter of a million dollars ($150,000 for Stewart, another $100,000 for the event, according to a source) only to have “The Daily Show” host question the relevance of print in front of a roomful of advertisers. ”

Perhaps they should have actually watched his show once or twice before inviting him over.

Be evil: Patrick Phillips of IWantMedia.com interviews John Battelle.

RSS homecoming: If Om Malik is correct (he usually is on this type of news) and NewsGator is acquiring Ranchero (NetNewsWire), then my photo from Gnomedex in June (at the Seattle Library) was accidentally prescient. On the left is Nick Bradbury (creator of FeedDemon, NewsGator’s first acquisition) and flanking that guy with the beard are Shelia and Brent Simmons (creators of NetNewsWire).

For the record, I’m fairly certain that guy with the beard is not for sale.

Update: It’s official. And for the “Nashville angle,” here’s a link to Nick Bradbury’s post on the topic. By the way, Nick’s recent surgery certainly didn’t diminish his sense of humor, as his comment below and his “denying rumor” post earlier this afternoon display.

(via: the guy with the beard)