When I wrote my news analysis piece a few weeks back on the rising importance of portable storage media as content serving platforms, little did I think that such a neat example of this concept in action would surface so quickly. CNET's piece on their new V-Phone USB appliance provides portable storage packaged as a communications solution. Plug the V-Phone into any Windows PC's USB port and you have a ready-to-go Vonage connection complete with mike and headset - no software loading required and a spare 256MB of storage for files or contact lists. When wireless server connectivity gets small enough and cheap enough to fit into a "stick" appliance that can bypass USB ports as needed we're going to see these kinds of solutions bloom left and right - and along with them a new generation of mobile content services and solutions that will have cross-platform capabilities. That's probably not too far off: already wireless file servers are about the size of a paperback book. Keep your eyes open, there is more to come.

Trends
Big Media's Brave New World
Forbes
Microsoft exec jumps to Google
CNN Money
French lawmakers approve 'iTunes law'
AP via USA Today
Congress targets social-networking sites
CNET News
ProQuest Company Provides Updated Timing for Completion of Investigation
PR Newswire via FinanzenNet

Best Practices
Future Of Media: Draft For An Open, Emergent, Strategic Framework
Robin Good

Cool Tools
Is that a V-Phone in your pocket?
CNET News Gadgets Blog

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
RR Donnelley and EDGAR Online Launch Drive to Boost SEC XBRL Voluntary Filing Program Participants
PR Newswire via FinanzenNet

Products, Markets & People
ReedLink Makes Content Distribution Really Simple with RSS
BusinessWire

While it's not the most amazing development in ecommerce - universal online "wallets" have come and gone through the years, after all - the new Google Checkout ecommerce capability is noteworthy for Googlish simplicity and universality that makes it a breeze to integrate. Neither a PayPal substitute nor a shopping cart service per se, Google Checkout provides a person the ability to execute one-off purchases on the Web via any site that chooses to embed Google Checkout payment buttons into a Web page displaying an item for sale. Click on a Google Checkout "Buy Now" button and you will get a one-click shopping experience that clears the payment and alerts the merchant of your purchase. There is no fulfillment or shopping cart management: purchases are limited to single items, though there is the ability to define multiple price points and descriptions for a single item. You buy it, and you're out. Google does have a network of popular shopping cart software vendors that have integrated Google Checkout buttons already with their software, so it is feasible to have some more sophisticated capabilities from the get-go.

The nifty part of the Google Checkout program is that it offers a slight discount to advertisers using the Google AdWords program and the option of a common administrative login, encouraging merchants to have a one-stop source to acquire and monetize online audiences. Since Google Checkout integrates so easily with a Web site it's quite feasible to maintain existing ecommerce capabilities and drop in Google Checkout buttons in parallel, making it easy for users to get a trusted feeling coming in from a Google ad and a trusted feeling on the way out via their purchase capabilities. The combination of the ad program and the checkout program makes for an instant distributed eBay competitor: Froogle, Google Base, standard search results, Google Books or Google Scholar is the shopping center, but via AdWords and the AdSense network or direct browsing consumers can bypass the shopping center altogether and go straight to the merchant - while still offering Google a piece of the action as a trusted neutral party. This combination could be a powerful deterrent to the growth of the eBay ad network

It's too early to tell if Google Checkout will attain widespread use quickly, but one senses that Google's brand value as a neutral third party with fewer hidden agendas than other companies (we're talking perceptions here, mind you) and the lack of any localized software "hooks" via the service will encourage users and merchants to sign up. The lack of sophisticated infrastructure in Google Checkout is rather a plus for most publishers, in that content purchasers can be encouraged to execute a purchase via a trusted financial venue while keeping the management of online subscription access and purchase fulfillment services undisturbed. Google Checkout is not going to change the ecommerce strategies of publishers in a large way but it is yet another tool that can be used in both personal and professional settings to facilitate the acquisition of premium content sources on an "on the fly" basis simply and effectively. Looks like GoogleZon may not have been necessary after all...

The announcement of Alacra's new family of RSS feeds for premium content comes as rather a coup for the business information services provider. Anyone can add to their weblog news reader feeds of new report notifications available via RSS from the Alacra Store on specific companies (example feed: Wells Fargo) or from a specific publisher (example: Fitch Research) or even a feed of business news and selected business-oriented weblogs from Newstex (example). The feed provides a headline and a brief snippet from the item, which can be clicked on to bring one to the purchase offer page in the Alacra Store. While it's not likely that the average person will be using this setup to order USD 10 access to press releases, the average busy consultant who can bill through such expenses will certainly be interested, as will analysts and other professionals who focus on specific companies but who want to pick and choose premium reports carefully on any given day.

Focused RSS feeds are a natural for the business and financial analysis community. Historically these users have relied on email inboxes to get research pushed from investment banks and other sources: in many ways their "inboxes" are their desktops. With email becoming an increasingly polluted and unreliable distribution channel, RSS provides premium content distributors with the ability to feed headlines and highlights directly into these users' inboxes via newsreader software and bypass the ugliness of email. Factiva has experimented with RSS feeds for very broad categories of premium news content for their subscribers, but their feeds lack the granularity and depth of premium content that Alacra is offering via this service.

Shore's research into business content purchasing indicates clearly that business content buyers in a broad range of roles are increasingly interested in "just-in-time" content purchasing, especially when purchases can be matched with "top line" business development and sales opportunities. Tools such as RSS feeds from the Alacra Store allow professionals to have a high level of awareness of the premium content available to them on a focused and proactive basis - and to become purchasers of content that's right for the moment. This is a great tool at a great time for business users. The only real question is: what took the industry so long to get here?

Trends
Google Checkout checks in
CNET News
US Senate panel backs telco bill, no Net neutrality
Reuters
China vows to step up control over Internet content
AFP
People Power: Blogs, user reviews, photo-sharing – the peer production era has arrived.
Wired Magazine
Forecaster Cuts Estimate for Growth in Ad Spending
The New York Times*
Coen Predicts 25% Surge In Internet Ad Spending
Media Post
BBC sees digital media profits rise by £8.2m
New Media Age
Federated Media Is Clearly Not Going Anywhere - Hey, That's a Double Entendre!
FM Publishing
iTunes at centre of digital rights protest
Reuters
Cable Takes On Web Video
WSJ Online*

Best Practices
How Important Is Knowledge Management For Businesses?
Web Pro News

Cool Tools
digg data visualization model
Information Aesthetics

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
DoubleClick Buys Klipmart
ClickZ Network
MarketResearch.com to Distribute Hanley Wood Market Intelligence Published Research
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance

Products, Markets & People
Premium Content Web Feeds Now Available From Alacra
BusinessWire via Yahoo! Finance
More Than 150 Customers Deploy Hoover's via Salesforce.com's AppExchange in First Month
PR Newswire
McClatchy and Tribune Introduce New Name for Former KRT News Service
PR Newswire
Springer Launches eBook Program
BusinessWire via Yahoo! Finance
InfoSpace Brings Vast Mobile Content Library Directly to Consumers with Launch of Moviso(R)
BusinessWire via MSN Money
Jupitermedia's JupiterWeb Division Launches ClickLink Advertising Program
BusinessWire
LexisNexis introduces litigation software in Ohio
Columbus Business First

It was a pleasure to stop by the ContentNext mixer last evening and to catch up with several hundred of paidContent.org's friends and fans. By shortly after six the line to get in to the instant sellout event was already backing up down the staircase at the W Hotel at Union Square in New York City. Thanks to Rafat for a great event and congratulations to the ContentNext family of publications on their new funding and management. It's such a boost to see honest and humble efforts rewarded. Horatio Alger is still alive and well and living in Los Angeles. Business news has a new paradigm through the efforts of journalists like Rafat, one which has brought the value of community conversations to a new level.

Rafat Ali kicked off the festivities with an interview of Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., Chairman, The New York Times Company and Publisher of The New York Times. Rafat did a fine and relatively gentle job of probing the state of the NYT's online efforts, though much of the info coming out was already fairly well known. Probably the most interesting point that came up was Mr. Sulzberger's compare and contrast of the NYT's printing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 (after several days of excerpts in the newspaper the government stopped the printing by a court injunction) and today's era that would have allowed instantaneous release of the entire range of information gathered by the paper.

The New York Times' recent coverage of bank records surveillance by U.S. government intelligence operatives may yet meet with a governmental response ("Treason...?" Sulzberger mused) but whatever the response the era of instant global publishing and republishing allows leading news organizations to have a much deeper and immediate impact with such provocative editorial efforts. But since these moments come and go so much more quickly the opportunity to monetize them at the zenith of their impact via ad services is more limited. This leaves in doubt the future financing of efforts such as placing correspondents in a Baghdad bureau (a USD 3 million for the NYT before salary expenses, according to Sulzberger). I'll have more on this quandary of finding the right revenue mix for news in this week's news analysis.

The other interesting moment of the Sulzberger interview was when he waxed warmly over the new Times Reader browser, a Microsoft Vista-based application for reading a newspaper in a print-like format on desktop and oversized portable devices. While he has a strong commitment to making online publishing a financial and editorial success, clearly Sulzberger has a soft spot for print that's not going to go away any time soon. When an institution like The New York Times has made so much history and well-designed content in that medium it's hard not to linger with the format, but these little tricks of Microsoft to woo major publishers into feeling comfortable with the transition from print to Microsoft-captive digital revenues are mostly showboat efforts that have little to do with the ultimate future of publishing in electronic environments.

As for the event itself it was an interesting mix of media-covering-media types along with reps from consumer and business publishing services and content technology companies - very representative of Rafat's readership. While the swarm of people focusing on online video technologies seemed to have a good time, the sponsor reps from FAST Search and Transfer looked to be rather glum (hey, doesn't everyone remember how important search is...?). Donna Bogatin at ZDNet gave the event high marks while noting that we've moved from VC-backed events in the dot-com Silicon Alley days to event sponsorships. The current content economy may have a certain bubble aspect to it, but it's a bubble in which people are making money rather than speculating about making money. Donna points out Jeff Jarvis' rather cranky weblog entry in which he puts down "...guys in nametags making pitches for their companies to anyone who would stand still and even those who would not." Well, it WAS a networking event, Jeff...

Looking forward to the Fall event - in a larger facility hopefully. Though bring that caterer again, the canapes were great.

Trends
Google Gets Ready to Test GBuy, A New Online-Payment Option
WSJ Online*
Ten Possible Consequences of Google's GBuy
Publish
New Media Luring Money Away From Networks
The New York Times*
Is Google Objective? Manual Edits in Search Results
Google Blogoscoped
New Google Mobile Services Keep You Connected To The Information That Matters To You The Most
Robin Good
CMP Parent Company Says Challenges Lie Ahead in Print
FOLIO: Magazine
Leo Hindery's death sentence for the portals
Tech Confidential Blog
Om Malik: Blogging for fun... then profit
USC Annenberg OJR
Craigslist's Craig Newmark--no more Mr. Nice Guy?
CNET News

Best Practices
Search engines: Does market power warrant regulation?
Heise Online
The foolishness of stifling creativity
International Herald Tribune

Cool Tools
Findology Interactive Media Launches CONTENT MAP
BusinessWire
CambridgeDocs xDoc Automatically Extracts Financial Data from Tables within Structured Finance Reports
BusinessWire via Forbes
With a Cellphone as My Guide: GPS-driven Mobile Guides in Japan
The New York Times*

Products, Markets & People
MarkLogic Server 3.1 Delivers More Powerful Search, New Features and Performance Enhancements
BusinessWire
Skyscape(R) Launches MedAlert(TM) Medical Text Messaging Service for Cell Phones
PR Newswire
Industry Moves: Ann Sarnoff To President, Dow Jones Ventures
paidContent.org
Factiva Unveils a Range of Powerful Tools to Combat Politically Exposed Person (PEP) Risk
PR Newswire

Someone over in the LexisNexis PR department has their finger stuck on the "Send" key this week. So far we have the announcements of Advanced Government Solutions, which includes Intelligence Analysis Solutions, Total Practice Advantage for Legal markets and the addition of Factset Research to LexisNexis Market Intelligence...and it's only Tuesday. Each one of these are strong integrated offerings for verticals that are spending big on content integration in the public and private sectors: law enforcement, intelligence, general legal practices and M&A specialists. They include the ability to integrate internal, external and internal community content to drive investigations both criminal and commercial. These kinds of highly focused vertical solutions are likely to help LexisNexis expand its high-value-add approach to content services, taking an increasingly neutral approach to content sourcing and focusing very heavily on the goals of their audiences.

The Factset integration is of particular interest, as it claims to provide the first combined litigation and transaction data service via a single platform that can be used to develop clients for legal services in the M&A space from multiple angles. Compare and contract with Factiva, which, though it has received many kudos for its advanced search platform and sales integration tools, has had limited focus on productizing offerings for specific verticals and has not reached out as deeply as LexisNexis as of late for strong content aggregation partners. Neither approach is 100 percent bulletproof, but in an era in which content's value is all about the context, the richer contexts are likely to have the longer and richer returns.

While I have weighed in already on the importance of Net neutrality for publishers, a few recent items are worth reviewing for the state of the debate. CNET News offers an interview with U.S. Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps, in which he speaks out strongly in favor of neutrality and urges technology companies to weigh in on the issue through their lobbying channels. By contrast an op/ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle from the Heartland Institute, a purveyor of opinion with a particular outlook, argues that net neutrality actually favors providers such as Microsoft and Google with huge server farms to manage capacity.

It's unfortunate that the Heartland Institute piece has received such prominent billing: it is pure bunk. Every publisher on the Web today pays for bandwidth that connects to the Internet, as does every user. An individual with a small Web site on a server farm pays more for more bandwidth, just as larger providers may pay for dedicated communications bandwidth. Users can order levels of overall bandwidth, as can businesses and other institutions, and not be bothered with how it's managed internal to the Internet itself. The fee structure to manage high-demand services is already in place and is carried proportionately already by those services that want more throughput and by consumers who want more throughput on a non-prejudicial basis.

Consumers both personal and corporate are beginning to become aware of this issue and hopefully will begin to weigh in as well. A great education piece can be found at Amanda Congdon's Rocketboom, in which she points out with good humor the impact of cable TV-like packaging that may fall out of non-neutral approaches: "I've got [the] Bronze [Web package], but boy, do I wish I could get Silver. Then I could get - Google!" In the current U.S. political environment anything is possible, so it's worth considering carefully just how these scenarios may play out.

Further throttles and controls on Web content distribution based on arbitrary fee schedules are absolutely unnecessary and an impediment to the effective growth of online content ecommerce. Should non-neutral connectivity become a legal reality, it would penalize the U.S. economy while favoring nations that have much to gain from a more neutral approach. Hopefully non-media corporations weigh in on this as well, for without neutrality they would be set up for distribution fees on top of communications fees for them to develop their increasingly direct and sophisticated communications with their marketplaces. Should GM pay extra fees to up the multimedia capabilities of their online marketing and weblogs? I don't think that they'd be too interested, hopefully.

The Web is a different animal, no doubt, one which has evolved quickly enough that the potential for new ways to market goods and services is already evident - ways that can only benefit from a level playing field that eliminates unnecessary intrusion by players that have little additional value to add to publishers, enterprises or consumers. There's much for publishers and marketers to gain by keeping the Internet a neutral stage. The time to speak up is now.

Trends
Newsmaker: An Internet for the few or the many?
CNET News
Running the little guy off the information highway
San Francisco Chronicle
As Online Ads Grow, Eyeballs Are Valuable Again on the Web
The New York Times*
Press run ends for Knight Ridder
The Seattle Times
Yahoo! Publisher Network Allows Contextual Relevant Images Near Ads Only
Search Engine Roundtable
Suit 2.0: Online Media Attracts the Strivers
New York Magazine
Online Video Hits A Milestone: NY Times Starts Weblog on the Scene
CBS News Public Eye
With NBC Pact, YouTube Site Tries to Build a Lasting Business
WSJ Online*
Wireless firms agree on rules for mobile Web sites
Reuters

Best Practices
How to Make Your Web Site More Conversational
Editor & Publisher
RSS: The new intranet protocol?
ZDNet

Cool Tools
TrekStor's 8GB CS-D USB micro-drive
Engadget

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
Mainstream Data Wins Reuters Health Information Delivery Contract
BusinessWire via FinanzNach.de
Traffic.com Selected by GPS Leader Garmin International for Mobile Real-Time Traffic Data
BusinessWire via Finanzen.net
Reuters and Pitch(TM) Partner with Third Screen Media to Expand Mobile Delivery via MADX|Publisher
BusinessWire
Newstex Gains Corporate Earnings Call Transcripts from Seeking Alpha; Wall Street Horizon new partner
BusinessWire

Products, Markets & People
LexisNexis Total Practice Advantage Combines Legal Research, Practice Management, Client Development
BusinessWire
LexisNexis to Integrate FactSet Research Content
Information Today
Stark Leaves Gartner For VP/EP, CNBC.com
paidContent.org

Trends
Waiting for the Dough on the Web
The New York Times*
Murdoch on Google's Arrogance, Future of Mass Media
I Want Media Interviews
Microsoft Should Buy Yahoo, Says Merrill Lynch
Forbes
PLoS, Losing Money, Hikes Author Fees
Cork University Press
Bloggers Find Financial Backers For Their Independent News Sites
WSJ Online*
The Next Big Step: Announcing Our Funding, from Patricof's Greycroft Partners
paidContent.org
Corporate America wakes up to Web 2.0
CNET News
Russian Mobile Content Market Shows 53% Y-O-Y
TMCNet
Google Blamed For Indexing Student Test Scores & Social Security Numbers
Search Engine Watch
VNU to expand digital offering with content studio
Media Bulletin
Google-backed FON begins global wireless Internet community push
AFP via Yahoo! News
What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It?
The New York Times*
Survey finds most b-to-b marketers lack confidence in customer data
BtoB Online

Best Practices
In Terms of Web Usability, the Eyes Have It
Publish
Content, Contact, Community - A Simple, Universal Business Strategy
Duct Tape Marketing (FMP)
Deployment of Corporate Weblogs Will Double in 2006
BusinessWire via TMCNet

Cool Tools
Jookster: Mashes up web archiving, social networking and ranked searching
The Social Software Weblog

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
McClatchy to Sell Wilkes-Barre Times Leader to Group Led by Richard Connor and HM Capital
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance
The Wall Street Journal Office Network Launches Today in Partnership with Office Media Network
PrimeZone

Products, Markets & People
Reed Business Information Manufacturing.net: A New Real-Time News Service for Manufacturing Industry
BusinessWire
LexisNexis Launches Advanced Government Solutions to Enable More Effective Government Decisions
BusinessWire
LexisNexis Introduces Intelligence Analysis Solutions; Intelligence Analysis Supports Global War on Terror
BusinessWire
Enhanced SpringerLink Offers eBook Collection
Information Today
Standard & Poor's Capital IQ Further Enhances Its Information Platform
Investors.com
CMP Technology Launches EE Times Europe Online
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance
News Service is First to Provide News Exclusively from Small Town America
24-7 Press Release
blinkx.tv Extends Online Video Index with Public Information Films from the UK National Archives
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance
Amdocs' Qpass Launches OpenMarket Exchange, a Catalyst for the Digital Content Marketplace
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance

After chugging along with decades worth of PCs that never seem to get appreciably faster in relation to our content needs, hope is on the way. IBM's new experimental computer chips promise a 100x improvement in processor performance, with its availability to everyday users likely in years rather than decades. For those who had hoped for an evolutionary progression of publishing into the electronic realm, forgive me for being the bearer of bad news - the revolution will be at your fingertips even sooner than expected.

Click here to read the full News Analysis

Want to catch up on last week's headlines? Try our weekly categorized summary with embedded commentary on the latest trends.

Click here to view last week's headlines in review

Trends
Digg 3.0: Gettin' Digg-y with It
Publish
General Motors rising on social media
ZDNet
Gawker Officially MSM; Denton Unaware
The Media Mob
Google Begins Streaming Free Videos
WSJ Online*
Online News With a New Angle
Washington Post
Brewster Kahle's modest mission: Archiving everything
CNET News
Good news for news
FT.com
French digital music law heads for vote
International Herald Tribune

Best Practices
Instant Messaging 2.0: Secure Instant Messaging Set To Be The Center Of Personal Communications
Robin Good
'Content In A Context' - Are Companies Ready For A Multi-Channel World?
IT Backbones

Cool Tools
Tezaa - A knowledge base of opinions
CIOL

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
Google sells its 2 pct stake in rival Baidu
Reuters

Products, Markets & People
Connotate's Information Agent Suite 6(TM) Provides Access to Web-Based Data, Trends, and Triggers
BusinessWire via TMCNet
LexisNexis Congressional Hearings Digital Collection to be Largest Online Collection of Congressional Info
BusinessWire
Teragram Direct Answers for the Enterprise Extracts Answers to Questions from Multiple Document Types
BusinessWire
ThomasNet partners with ESPN Radio for multimedia marketing campaign
BtoB Online

Trends
Too many chefs in Microsoft's kitchen?
CNET News
US FCC to kick off review of media ownership rules
Reuters
Brussels to cut levies on content copying
FT.com*
CareerBuilder to Sell Stake, and Suitors Aren't Shy
The New York Times*
Breaking Down the Facebook-Interpublic Ad-Equity Deal
paidContent.org
Google Talk: Nothing New to See Here, Move Along
eWeek
U.S. Broadband Composition Reaches 72 Percent at Home, a 15 Point Year-Over-Year Increase: Nielsen
PR Newswire
The Incredible Hulk Versus Google
Forbes
New ABM study shows how buyers use business media
BtoB Online
An Advisor Who Works Behind the Scenes Aids Paper Heirs
The New York Times*
Gannett Expects Positive Growth In Ad Revenue at USA Today
WSJ Online*

Best Practices
How Google AdSense Geotargeting Works
Search Engine Journal
Protecting your business by fighting plagiarism online
USC Annenberg OJR

Cool Tools
Microsoft Goes For Records
IDM Australia
MoQvo Advanced RSS Reader Enables User to Organize, Create and Share Digital Content
BusinessWire

Deals, Partnerships & Sales
Adobe Says to Distribute Google Toolbar
Publish

Products, Markets & People
Google Launches Google Search Appliance and Google Mini in Australia and New Zealand
Geeekzone
Inxight Releases Categorizer 5.0, a Next-Generation, Hybrid Categorization Engine
PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance
Ancestry.com boosts database with census
AP via Boston.com

An interesting juxtaposition in the headlines today: as Microsoft announces its launch of a tool to embed Creative Commons content licensing information in works created via Microsoft Office CNET news covers growing opposition to the way Microsoft is implementing its Windows Genuine Advantage software anti-piracy tools. So at the same time that Microsoft is trying to encourage more flexible and friendly licensing for users' intellectual property it is zeroing in on much tighter licensing restrictions on its own intellectual property. There's nothing wrong with trying to do both, I suppose, but for the most part commercial companies setting up alliances with Creative Commons seem to be using it as window dressing to build up points with user-generated media folks while focusing mostly on mainstream publishers' property for business deals to drive profits.

The gap between token support for user-publishers and more serious commercial encouragement may close somewhat as Windows Vista</