WiredPen

Online "newspapers" have audience reach far beyond their tradtional borders, which are limited by hard-copy delivery distance. Metropolitan papers often acknowledge geographical differences within the delivery market by printing "localized" versions. The Washington Post just took localization to the next logical step: differentiating between "local" readers and its national/international audience. The home page now changes for each reader, a function of the zip code used when registering. The Post says that about 80 percent of the 8.5 million monthly readers of the website are from outside of the DC area. This localization may be one way to increase advertising revenue by better meeting the needs of local advertisers.

Tags: convergence, media

The FCC has tabled plans to develop new rules on media ownership, according to Reuters. Relaxed rules, promulgated in 2003, were overturned by an appeals court in 2004. There are currently only four members of the FCC; there is an open Republican seat. Tags:
FCC,
Media

Lost Remote reports that the Washington Post is adding ads to its RSS feeds. And claiming to be first out of the box, a dubious distinction. And it’s incestuous: the first advertiser is MSNBC. Tags:
Ads,
Blogs
RSS

The lastest podcasting directory was launched this week: Podcasting Station. It joins Podcast Alley, which includes resources on creating podcasts, and grandaddy, iPodder. The latest version of iTunes (4.9) also contains a directory that uses the Music Story syntax/interface. [Safari is integrated with iTunes -- drag any podcast XML subscribe icon onto iTunes to auto-sub to the feed.] Will iTunes squash third party software like iPodderX?

Podcast potpourri: FeedForAll - an RSS 2.0 feed creation tool - has a podcasting tutorial. Find new music podcasts at the Rock and Roll Geek Show.

As part of its coverage of the 7 July terrorist bombing, the BBC features 10 reader-submitted photos, including one of the bus almost at the moment the roof blew off.

On Sunday, engadget posted info about an iTunes phone:

It
might just be an engineering or a production sample, and we can’t guarantee whether this will actually be the first
iTunes phone or not, but we do know that
we’re looking at a pearly white E790 and that
synchronizes with iTunes 4.9 (and has the same
autofill menu options as the iPod shuffle—see below).

cNet thought it was going to launch in June.

Tags: iPod, iTunes, cellphone

The latest movie marketing viral buzz: cast yourself in the movie trailer. This, from Wedding Crashers. Everyone wants their product to go viral; quirky, innovative ideas get a "first to try it" buzz. Jury’s out on how successful this can be - if every movie did it, we’d kill our friends for spamming our mailboxes. ;-)  Tip to Steve Rubel.

Marymoor Park (King County, WA) can boast the largest public (free) wireless access in the nation, thanks to MSN (Microsoft), which has enabled wiFi in 170 acres of the 640-acre park. Marymoor Park is located east of Seattle and south of the main Microsoft campus. MSN is also sponsoring wiFi at the King County
Aquatic Center (Federal Way).