NYTimes.com: Study says eldest children have higher I.Q.s.

From The Onion: Pac-Man Jones: ‘I Will Be Nowhere Near Next Friday’s Strip-Club Stabbing’

Quote:

“LOS ANGELES—Suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam “Pac-Man” Jones called a press conference Tuesday in order to emphasize that he will be nowhere near a possibly fatal stabbing that will occur during a fight involving several members of his entourage and the bartender at an L.A.–area strip club this coming Friday….Manny Arora, Jones’ attorney, said that Jones was “genuinely sorry in advance” about the incident, but was not at liberty to answer questions regarding his relationship with the one to three men who will be seen fleeing the vicinity covered in blood. Jones refused to confirm that the weapon to be used in the stabbing, a seven-inch pearl-handled hunting knife, will in fact be given to one of the men by Jones himself this coming Friday morning.”

Whoever wrote this was at their top form.

More.

From Scott Karp’s new Digital Media Blog on FolioMag.com: “But it’s not just competition that has created such huge disparities in pricing and media value. For most print publishers, the online pricing problem is, to a large degree, a self-inflicted wound from all of those years of giving online away as “added value” to advertisers paying top dollar for print ad pages. Publishers taught advertisers to devalue online, and now that advertisers are devaluing print, it’s hard to convince them that online is worth at least as much as print — if not more.”

A couple of nitpiks: I think it’s a stretch to equate, in an apples-to-apples way, a website visitor with a magazine reader. I think one could argue that doing so is like comparing a one-night stand to a meaningful relationship. More problematic is the attempt to compare (or, worse, to equate) top-line revenues of various forms of media. Perhaps if one had the ability to compare gross profit (after-cost-of-goods-sold), we may understand what the relative impact of the those shifting media dollars have on the bottom line of a media company.

Bottomline, I agree with Scott. By devaluing online first, and then devaluing print, there’s little business-model wiggle room. What’s left not to devalue? Events? Maybe putting on Flutag competitions still generates “un-devalued” revenue.

• A Day in the Life of Scott Adams | The Dilbert Blog
  Okay. I’m convinced. He has the greatest job ever. But he left the part out about how when the truck loaded with cash pulls up to his office everyday and dumps it out.
  (tags: envy work humor)