• Custom Media Cuts Through the Clutter | BtoB Magazine
  Quoted - Publishers put stronger emphasis on content, integrate more types of media into their custom offerings. (Note: I’m quoted in last paragraph.)
  (tags: custom-publishing custom-media conversational-media)
• What’s in a name? In Web 2.0, confusion | Matthew Ingram
  Quote - The list of names at TechCrunch40 makes me wonder whether we will ever get tired of the let’s come up with a wacky Web 2.0 name that doesn’t even sound like English naming convention.
  (tags: humor web2.0)
• Every issue of this magazine is a work of art | Springwise.com
  The Thing, which delivers an objet d’art each quarter, is called a magazine by its founders because incorporated into each object is some text. (thethingquarterly.com)
  (tags: magazines)
• Why didn’t Larry Craig think of this explanation? | Reuters
  A study of hand-washing practices conducted in public restrooms showed people’s actions were not always matching their claims.
  (tags: humor)

Quote: The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site. “In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.”

Staci Kramer at Paidcontent.org has more details, including what still won’t be free, including the premium crossword service.

My prediction: The WSJ.com will also open to the huddled masses yearning to surf free by January 1.

Related: I am sending out a request to Doc Searls to blog on this topic. And I wish he’d gloat and say, “Why didn’t you people listen to me three years ago?” But, then, Doc is not one to gloat.

Later: From Jeff Jarvis comes this, “TimesSelect represented the last gasp of the circulation mentality of news media, the belief that surely consumers would continue to pay for content even as the internet commodified news and — more important — even as the internet revealed that the real value in media is not owning and controlling content or distribution but enabling conversation.”

Dear Matt Schere, Twang PR guy:

Thank you for participating in the new rexblog.com marketing program called “cap-per-post.”

After you saw that I had used an out-dated version of your company’s logo on a post that had nothing to do with your product — I was writing about country music and I thought the word “twang” was a good one to illustrate it — you sent me an e-mail asking if it would be okay to send me some samples of your product with up-to-date logos.

I responded publicly letting you know that I only accept products that are for review purposes, so, therefore it was swell for you to send me some of your chili lime salt for our labs. (In the meantime, some other Nashville bloggers have volunteered to be lab rats on this project.)

However, in addition to the salt for our laboratory experiments, you also sent along a Twang baseball cap. What a coincidence. I was just putting together the final touches on a new rexblog sponsorship program called “cap-per-post.” I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but it goes something like this: send me a cap and I’ll take a picture of me wearing it and, well, that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

(Sidenote: I hope to work out most of the kinks on this program before appearing on an editorial ethics panel at the Folio: Show next week.)

So, Matt, as the very first participant in the rexblog cap-per-post program, let me thank for you for sending me that cap along with your product samples, including that sweet and sour chili salt that tastes great sprinkled on fruit, popcorn, veggies or meat.

Twangfully yours,

Rex

P.S. For other savvy marketers who would like to participate in the rexblog “cap-per-post” program, just send me a cap (no product samples, please — just a cap) to:

Rex Hammock
Cap-per-post
Hammock Publishing
3322 West End Ave., Ste. 700
Nashville, TN 37203

Technorati Tags: capperpost