I would like to state the simple fact that the United States is officially under attack; from ourselves. Socialism and forms of a dictatorship reign supreme.

Soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are fighting for a proud and once strong nation. Politicians from states all over the country are paying off others for their votes, while promiscuously sleeping with women and laying claim to American business.

Our President is making promises to mayors all over America that “economic help is coming”. Our nation is soon to be 19 trillion dollars in debt to China. A fact which gives new meaning to “outsourcing”. The strongest financial capital in the world is falling with no “true signs” of recovery. Unemployment is at an average of 16.8%.

The Forefathers of this country would weep to see how far we have fallen. And we the People will not, should not, stand for this.

Mr. President, “Yes We Can” is no longer an option. We need help.

How valuable is a library with NO books? the same question can be asked for a search engine that has nothing to search.

There are some distinct differences between a search engine like Google or Bing from content providers like News Corp. and Hearst Corporation. The one similarity that ties these two together is what they are both fueled by; advertising dollars and eye balls. Where these two types of libraries come at odds is when we look at ownership ownership. Where the question becomes, how can Google make money off of content they do not own?

What does a world look like when this happy marriage of content providers and search engines comes to a halting stop? I can almost guarantee you that it would look a lot like an empty library. So really how important is the brand of the search engine? Do we really care if the top of a webpage reads Google, Yahoo, Bing, or should we Ask Jeeves. The point is when we surf the internet brands like New York Times and Wall Street Journal are really what we are after.

The key word here is “value.” We value information more than we value the company that organizes it. With that said if all content providers pulled their information from Google’s search index we would follow the content went, where ever and who ever it goes to.

With a slumping economy it goes without saying, even if it has been said, less money is being spent. For businesses this means less money is being spent on advertising. This does not mean the budgets are entirely gone, companies are just being smarter with what funds they have.

A recent survey complied by WeCanDo.biz, BusinessZone.co.uk, and UK Business Forums has some insight where companies reallocated at least a portion of their advertising spending in 2008.

So where did this money go you ask? Well that which was not saved and held onto, went to further the various networking initiatives by the companies. This networking was predominately done online.

This should not surprise us, more and more the traditional ways of networking/marketing/advertising are being cast to the side for the much more effective method of digital grass roots campaigns. Meaning, the utilization of social media, with a peppering of new media, has proven to do more for companies (particularly those in start-up mode) than any sort of traditional media.

The reason a digital grass roots campaign works better and harder for businesses is because it allows these companies to directly reach their customers and potential customers. They do not have to relay anything through a middle man or third party, where the message can get cluttered, but rather they have a direct line.

The survey shows that the key driver behind online networking for the majority of the business community is a desire to win new customers or clients with a third saying they are achieving their objectives. In addition, 67% believe the activity has brought them closer to their target market and 52% plan on doing more of it 2009.

But if you think there are ample ways to accomplish this business to consumer out there already, think again. The survey went on to state that sites that one might think of, like LinkedIn, may not be as helpful as once thought. Or at least helpful to businesses.

That’s not to say though that all professional communities are relevant to small companies. LinkedIn, for example, is often cited as a useful resource but in our research respondents rank career advancement, the primary focus of LinkedIn, as the least important reason for networking online.

However, there is a place for networks. The survey, though it may be bias, did say the less main stream type of networks with a focus on business tend to help companies, entrepreneurs, and small organizations target consumers in their market. This reittorated the mainstream tends not to be as helpful.

Still, outside of the single findings in this survey, I do say there is a lot to be gained from have a presence on main stream sites like Facebook and Twitter. I might even go as far as to say these sites are more powerful than any one of the lesser know sites, with respects to increase viral business.

Speaking from experience, the real key to a successful digital grass roots campaign is a combination of the two. Be on facebook and twitter, spreading the word in a professional manner, then spend the same amount of time on all the off-the-road sites relevant to you and your business.

We are about to witness the World Series, Super Bowl of poker matches and Tom Brady or Jaime Gold aren’t invited. Imagine a poker table with Google, Bing, and News Corp. filling in the seats. Well its about to happen and these three companies are playing for the biggest prize of all, “Media”.

Recently, News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch announced the possibility of taking all of his companies content out of Google’s search index. By doing this News Corp. would sign a deal with Microsoft’s Bing under which Microsoft would pay News Corp. for indexing it’s content.

Why is this important? What does that mean for consumers? Well it means consumers will have to start paying for content that hard working journalist get paid to create. Or at the very least, companies we all use to find content, namely search engines, will have to pay to allow searchers to find said content.

I think back to when I had to drop a coin in the newspaper vending machine to be able to pick up a stack of paper filled with news content. Now, people surf the internet and don’t pay for any news let alone content. But really we should be thinking, how is this free?

It’s free because a couple of Stanford PHD students created a company called Google. They have figured out the biggest and most profitable loop hole in history. Google does not pay for any of the infrastructure to connect all of us to the internet nor does it pay for the content it aggregates and charges advertising dollars for the content it doesn’t own. Talk about business models.

Here is where it gets interesting. Rupert and News Corp. could be on the front lines of a battle that gets the media industry its business model back. If they are successful in taking their content away from Google, or simply get Google to pay and start profiting from internet content, you will start to see other content providers running to Bing or whoever is paying and pulling from those that don’t.

I don’t know about you but I am not loyal to any search engine. The only reason why the search engines rule the internet is because they aggregates content. So, if content owners start to pull their content what would be left for Google to search.

The chips are stacked high and someone is going to lose. The winner is going to be the company that has what Lady Gaga would say “P-p-p-poker face”.

Prior to starting this blog, among other things, I worked as a journalist. Those who have followed some of what I have written and what I have been doing may know this already. And if you don’t, you do now.

While working as a journalist, I was a reporter for a daily newspaper in central New Hampshire. I covered everything from grandmas birthday to the murder down the street. I did develop a specialty in investigative reporting. I wasn’t something that I pushed for, but it just kind of happened. Actually, below I have one of my investigative articles posted.

The reason I tell you my background first, is because it has a lot of relevance on what I am going to write about in this post. Over the course of my time as a journalist, though it may have only been for a few years, I took notice of a few things. Mainly, that the industry leaders, managers, and owners had and continue to have their eyes closed behind the wheel.

What I mean by this is these industry leaders thought the same old way of doing things that worked back in the 1950s would continue to work in the changing world of today. Now if your not an ostridge, having had your head buried in the sand for the last 10 years, then you know things have changed. Things continue to change. No one is connecting the same way they have always connected. And these changes are having an effect on journalism.

While I worked I watched. I watched as my boss, month after month, had trouble meeting sales quotas. The company had to lay off people, and at every step cashflow became more of an issue.

But what was happening was entirely within his control. You see, the website of the paper lacked even the very basics. It took two years to allow readers to comment on an article. Even today, three years later, there are no advertisements embedded in the articles.

I remember he would always talk about the 90 year old subscriber in some remote town and what he/she would like to read. Well, I have news for you, that is a dying market segment (literally).

So the paper’s ailing condition was not as a result of hard times, disinterest in news itself, but it was the unwillingness to change. This what was killing the paper and many papers around the country.

These newspapers are not dying, quite the opposite, they are committing suicide before our eyes.

So what is the solution. Adapt. That is the only course. Many of these newspapers, far from the national level, may never become a Digg or StumbleUpon, but they can adapt.

Recently, I read about two newspapers in Detroit that seemed to have the right idea. You see this papers recognized a fundimental thing, times they are a changing and have been for some time. In realizing this they noticed that their website traffic continued to rise while subscriptions continued to fall.

Instead of doing something that my former boss might have done, they decided to adapt to the emerging online market and devote resources there while making print news a-la-cart.

Within Q1 of next year, the newspapers will add digital news channels and offer subscription-based electronic editions, while reducing frequency of its print products. Home delivery of the papers will be limited to Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, and print editions — some just single sections — will be sold on newsstands every day. The company also aims to place more emphasis on digital audio and video and mobile offerings.

So there is hope for newspapers after all, if we can get them to just put down the gun and take a step back. My advise to those owners out there, fire your current managers and executive editors. Then bring in some young minded people that are in tune with the changing face of media, and put them in charge.

Twitter has just about phone tapped the world’s conversations. With the click of a button you can listen in on anything from “I am taking a shower” to “the new palm pre is wack,” all wrapped up in 140 characters or less. In many ways, Twitter has become the Beatles of the internet. Trending topics can literally predict what is hot and what is not, and Twitter has become a source were individuals volunteer that very information.

The title of this post says it all. Really, who came up with the advertising model. I want to know. If you can shed some light on this I would appreciate it. But at this point who came up with it is a little like asking what killed the dinasors. It might be nice to know, but the real point is they are dead. And if companies keep following the advertising model for revenue generation they may find themselves in a similar way.

I think many realize that the advertising model was born form the newspaper. The first newspaper was printed in the early 15th century, and at that time advertisements were the most innovative way to reach consumers. Just think of it, at that point in history most of what people knew about what was going on in their community let along in the world was communicated by world of mouth. So newspapers were something everyone would want to read, advertisements and everything.

Over time, as it tends to happen, things begun changing. People were no longer as interested in reading papers let along reading the advertisements. Keep in mind, however, ads in newspapers took a long time to die but eventually they did. Now we are seeing the last stage of the, where the newspapers themselves are dying or committing suicide. Whatever you choose to call it, they are dying.

Before the final stages of the newspaper, of which we are seeing today, advertising hopped on the band wagon of another media. That media being radio. When the first ever radio broadcast happened on Christmas Eve 1906, they way people communicated changed. But other than the medium, the way business reach customers didn’t.

The same happened when the television hit the market. The medium changed, from air waves to video waves, but the message remained as an advertisement. Along the way there was some out of the box thinking, but most were content with the same old advertising method that has always existed.

Worse yet, the advertising model has been transfered to the internet. But why. What are we, the companies of tomorrow, still reaching customer and supporting our businesses with a business model that dates back to the 15th century.

There is no need for this. Start thinking outside of the box folks. We all recognize money needs to be made, but is advertising the best way to do this. No, its not.

At least for the Internet, subscription is an easy way to get steady revenue and make sure the you can continue to deliver. Subscriptions work because the consumer is getting a service and the business delivers top quality. This is a model not exclusive to the internet. Does HBO, Showtime, or Cable rig a bell. That is pay for television, a subscription business model. And it works, people pay and line up to do so. Maybe not as many people pay to watch Showtime as they do to watch the free networks, but they are likely more profitable or at least have the potential to be.

If the web business you are opperating does not lend itself well to the subscription model, then affiliate or resale model is always an option. Do what you do best, and let someone else do what they do best. There is no reason why two companies, so long as they are not indirect competition, cannot find ways to profit off one another.

So if you are a website that rates tee-shirt designs they you cannot pair up with a graphic printing company to mutually benefit. You send the printing company business, they give you a percentage of the sale.

Even if, for whatever reason, you are stuck on advertising, there are better ways to do it than just in the traditional manner. Think outside of the box, outside of the norm, on this one. Video games. Strategically placing products in a video game, whether you build it for the promotion or not, can still advertise the product but in a more effective way.

The message here is step away from the traditional. There is always a way to monetize a business. And if there isn’t then you might want to take a step back, an analysis that business.

By Cutter Mitchell

First it was an insurance company, then it was the banks, and now it (in a very short time frame) may very well be a State. When are we, or everyone else for that matter, going to realize that there is no such thing as “too big to fail”.

California has become one of the first states in history to actually have a poor credit rating. In fact it has gotten so bad that the state has begun to make payments in the form of IOU’s.

Now what can be learned from this. Well, as the Romans found, some things are just too big to manage. At some point a geographical area becomes to big to be managed by one bureaucratic body. Perhaps this is why almost, if not every country in the world has a federal government that consists of a series of provincial governments.

A possible way to draw the new state lines.

So why pry tell are we married to the idea that the United States can only consist of 50 states. Is there some magic there. Am I missing something or is 50 just a number. But the one fact that that is not disputed is that the economic stability of the country as a whole depends on the stability of each economic region.

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who chairs the state’s Democratic congressional delegation told The Washington Post. “I can’t speak for the President, but when you’ve got the eighth biggest economy in the world sitting as one of your 50 states, it’s hard to see how the country recovers if that state does not.”

If we take an in-depth look at California it is not hard to see that the state has three regional economies, at least. However, these economic regions are governed by one bureaucracy, and there perhaps is the problem or maybe the solution.

Napa Valley and others in the northern part of the state have a foothold in agriculture. Silicon Valley on the other hand is world famous for technology, mainly computes. And do not think for a second that the like of Southern California is lost in the mix, Hollywood anyone. Given this fact it is hard to deny that each region must have a different approach to what works best for their individual economy, as well as other governmental operations. In short, they know what is best for them.

However they cannot make the decision on solely what works for them; in the north, in the south, in the middle. They make collective decisions. So, perhaps to avoid the prediction made by Congressman Lofgren, we should let these regions make the decisions and choices that are best for them. All of which leads to a speedier recovery.

Why? Because each region is no longer additionally responsible for the burdens of another. Each region can make the decisions that will best stimulate its own economy. It will also separate the economic burdens. Plus, with little to no assistance being offered by the federal government the are little, if any, alternatives.

After all thats what companies who file for bankruptcy do. They file, they dissolve the corporation, and a new (or three) rise from the ashes like the pheonix. And legally speaking, state governments are pretty close to that of corporations. With some obvious differences.

So to reiterate, California should, at least look at, the possibility of breaking into three states. Which by my count would bring US to 52 states.

With the dawning of the Internet, something happened within media. This was the beginning of technological socialization. Everything began with the desire for information; information about everything. This slowly blossomed into social media, which let’s face it is really information about people.

Now, the Internet as a whole is being taken one step further. It is going beyond merely socializing or information seeking and is becoming something more, much more. Users are driving content in ways never before seen.

This New Media Revolution can best be illustrated by the analogy of a third grade classroom. In third grade there was that old adage, “No question is a stupid question.” But it was third grade, so no one ever raised their hand.

Imagine sitting in that classroom for years and years on end. With the same confusing lessons being taught and those same questions never resolved. At some point, those third grade hands would start to go up. And that is precisely what is happening within media today.

Instead of waiting for the teacher to call on them, these users have begun answering their own questions, for one another. In doing so they themselves have crafted the new, youthful face of media.

This has lead to the transformation in not just one medium but all forms of media. Billboards are being digitally crafted for video games, television programing is being exclusively aired on the Internet, and there is still so much more to come.

“It’s all about on-demand content. Users are screaming for what they want, and other users are listening. All we have to do, as new media companies, is listen too,” said New Media Entrepreneur and Partner at Rico Media, Inc. Steven Gonzalez.

And Gonzalez is right. Companies like Digg and Revision3 are listening to users and giving them exactly what they ask for.

Digg is a new media news source that is the latest in online publications. Instead of some grey haired editor deciding what people should know, users “Digg” or vote for article either they submit or find on the Internet, and the articles with the leading votes go to the top for all to see. This set up makes users the sole drivers of content.

Revision3, on the other hand, is a new take on the classic television network. Instead of being aired on any given cable provider, subject to the edits of the Federal Communications Commission, these shows solely broadcast on the Internet. While there is some variation of these internet television websites, the main difference being who can post a show, all bend to the viewer’s whim. Watch what you want, when you want to watch it.

There is an added benefit to the new media revolution, and not just centered around content. Revision3’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Louderback has been quoted as saying the production costs for an internet television show is about 10 percent of what it costs to product a traditional network television show. The significance of this is more than it may appear. For the first time in decades, significant cost or substantial monetary investment is not a barrier to entry in this industry.

This new playbook written by media consumers has effectively done away with the old, and has crafted an entirely new game. Before 2008, it would not have been possible to gain A list celebrity status by simply having an internet presence and a strong following.

But individuals like Gary Vaynerchuk have done just that. Parlaying their niche, in his case a internet television wine tasting show, into all out fame and fortune. And he is not the only one.

In this time of flux, companies emerging in this new media revolution are taking full advantage of the changing state of things, and are trying to take a small part of a market formerly barred by conglomerates.

However, new media is not entirely what its name suggests. It actually is a term that refers to a transition, rather than anything completely new. Shows are still shows, whether on the internet or television, radio is still radio even if it is a podcast, and news stories are still stories even if they are written by a reader. New media is just a way to explain the transformation that happens every so often within the communications industry.

Now one might think a social security number would be an appropriate precaution. After all, in the world we live in businesses cannot do enough to protect against fraud. Well the teller did not ask me for my social security number, a second form of ID, or anything like that. She asked me for my fingerprint.

Now this raises some interesting questions. At first I was taken back. I was not sure what to do. It struck me as an odd thing to ask for.  I initially thought this was a prying request, which may be the case. But then I didn’t think giving up my print could hurt me, could it? I have to admit it did cross my mind. Oh you know, the wild fantasy, what if they took it and used it to frame me for a crime I didn’t commit.  But let’s be real. Things like that don’t happen, in general. I will stipulate that it may happen, but realistically I doubt it will ever happen to me or it is even something that I ever have to worry about.

Still, the thought crossed my mind. The real concern is the questions this raises about my privacy. What happened to my privacy? What is next DNA. Where is that line, or is there one. Not so when it comes to private companies. There really is no privacy when it comes to corporations. Face it, they track what is bought, where you shop, etc. But is this as bad as some might make it out to be? Let’s look at this.

First let’s examine the paranoia of some. They have this information, but Companies have no incentive to turn any of your information over to the government. If they did, consumers would certainly stop doing business with them, profits would drop, and their doors would close forever. So unless compelled they wouldn’t turn anything over. From a shareholders point of view (of which I am for Bank of America) this adds a level of protection. Bank of America is defrauded less, the company looses less, and I get more money back as a result. How can that be bad?

The question really then becomes, what is the harm suffered? Was I harmed for giving up my fingerprint? No, but I could be someday. Possibly. Maybe.  But forget everything I have said before, because in the end I gave up my fingerprint. Not because I was ok with it or I thought it was a necessary evil, but I did it because I wanted the money. That is what it comes down to.$Money$.