Susan Mernit has noticed a shift in her reading patterns over the past few years. She asks, “So where’s the paradigm shift?” and answers by saying it’s “information vs. entertainment.”

Quote:

“I’ve pretty much stopped looking to print as a topical information resource; for news and quick data hits, I go online to read and research, so the record reviews, movie listings and interviews in EW and the news stories in Time have a much lesser value. The shelter mags I read, however, are pure entertainment–the West Coast travel stories in Sunset and the painted, do-it yourself rooms with quilts in Blueprint are photo-based fun, with a substance on paper that pixels don’t equal.

I’ve written thousands of words on this blog attempting to put magazines into context in today’s media “paradigm.” Susan’s observation about sums it up.

I have a lot written about Facebook I had planned to post yesterday — including, how I think it will deliver us from the god-awful phrase “user-generated-content.” However, between enjoying some beautiful Nashville weather and working on some other writing projects, I didn’t get around to the post — I will get to it some point in the near future.

In the meantime, Jeff Jarvis writes about Facebook today and touches on some themes similar to the ones with which I find myself obsessed as I work on a project that allows me to get up-close and personal with the Facebook platform.

The other day, Scott Karp discussed the policies traditional media companies follow regarding inline links (links within the context of a story) to articles appearing on other websites. I’ll admit that I was confused by the post because I thought it strange that we are still in 2007 discussing the benefits to traditional media websites of out-bound links.

However, now that Scott has reminded me, I’m noticing how clueless such a stingy out-bound linking policy can appear — and how it is a disservice to readers and also has some negative SEO mojo also.

Here’s a classic example. In a NYTimes.com article today* about John Curley announcing his lay-off from the San Francisco Chronicle via his Flickr account, there is no link to Curley’s Flickr account or to the specific post where Curley made the announcement.

What’s with that? In this case, the story is about Curley’s use of Flickr. And still, there’s no link to the Flick post he used. I don’t understand a policy that prevents out-bound links to the actual object and focus of a story.

PaidContent.org is pointing to FT.com and WSJ.com (subscription required) about Apple’s discussions with Hollywood studios leading to a “rental” version of iTunes movies that would be priced at $2.99 for a 30-day usage of a movie on up to two devices.

Last night, my daughter and I were using the movie trailer feature on Apple TV when I observed how similar it is to the Comcast on-demand service — except with the AppleTV, the trailers are being streamed from the Internet via wifi access to the web. While the articles in FT.com and WSJ.com are focused on the iTunes distribution channel, it would seem to me that studios that are reluctant to distribute some rental-DRM version of movies through iTunes may be more comfortable w/ an AppleTV, boxtop on-demand service.

I’ll be happy to see a rental service via iTunes, however, I’m wondering if the “video on demand” discussions taking place are being interpreted wrongly by those who want it to be something more than it is.