I'll admit that I have an inherent bias when it comes to newspapers and technology. I started in the business of journalism in 1994 -- ten years after I got online for the first time (at the ripe age of 12).

I've been hooked on both since.

It's been painful to watch my brethren in the journalism industry flail so completely out of control as my brethren in the technology industry have succeeded. I have some empathy for those who are being replaced by a new generation -- a new type -- of news hound. The digital hunter.

Still I can't get behind the Philadephia Inquirer's decision to halt publishing anything but breaking news first on the Web.

This is exactly that type of thinking that put newspapers in the hole in the first place. Of course, the "news" -- which broke on the Web -- has been roundly criticized online. See here, here and here.

The modern journalists should be embracing the idea of social networking, Wikis and mobile texting as storytelling tools and not as applications that need to be destroyed. At the end of the day, humans tell stories. That's all we do whether through words, pictures, gestures or touch. Storytellers -- and that's what journalists do -- should embrace these tools.

I've been a loyal Sprint user for years for once reason: the company continues to teeter on the verge of collapse so it always offers the best services.

At some point that's going to catch up with them, I know this, and its continued decline in value doesn't make me feel great about my $350 Treo. While it's had some success with its most recent phones (we are suckers for big screens), the reality is that the company has already started bracing investors for an even worse decline than this quarter's 11 percent drop in revenues.

And you can't even blame the mobile industry as a whole because Verizon just continues its dominant march, pushing aside all competitors in the domestic market.

Sprint may end up dumping Nextel, a merger that never made sense. The companies targeted two different markets and trying to smash them together -- as we've seen time and again -- proved to be a horrible idea.

All this may be a very good thing for the company. The new CEO has repeatedly said the company's goal is to shore up its mobile services, increase its customer service satisfaction and stabilize the budget. Dumping Nextel and moving away from the WiMax market may be just the thing the company needs.

My phone hopes so.

Apple's iPhone is having some serious software issues.

I'm not an Apple user so it's likely I'll mess up the technical description of the problem, but the basics are this: the iPhone software is getting stuck, forcing people to continually restore their system -- only to get stuck again.

If you're ever had a computer crash, you'll recognize that issue.

Microsoft users are fairly experienced with crashes, particularly when you begin mixing and matching software applications; Apple users -- I've been told -- aren't used to this. And this issue seems to be particularly bad.

I've actually been following much of this on Twitter, the mobile texting network, where iPhone users have been asking each other for help in solving the problem. But it's not just Twitter. People have flooded the customer service page with complaints about the problem.

But that hasn't been the only glitch in the system. CEO Steve Jobs replaced his vice president of applications marketing after admitting that the company botched the release of its MobileMe software, which helps sync communication from mobile devices and computers.

Of course, all of this will be fixed in a few days -- software glitches always are -- and life will return to normal for iPhone users, MobileMe will get straightened out and all will be right with the world again.

Two years ago, Google pumped $1 billion into Time Warner's AOL property; these days, the company is saying that doesn't look like such a great idea.

Google's strategic decision was based on AOL's advertising stock, which at the time was the largest portfolio on the Web. The company's investment secured the renewal of its deal to deliver ads across the AOL network.

As AOL continues to sink into the morass as Time Warner prepares to gut its once-proud property, that deal doesn't look so good. On top of that, Google struck a deal with Yahoo -- which would trump the AOL deal, making the massive investment strategically less important.

It's been a bad stretch for Google (at least as bad as a zillion dollar company can have) as it continues to battle Viacom, which is suing the company for $1 billion (it's beginning to sound a bit Dr. Evil-ish for the search giant) for what Viacom claims is the willful infringement of copyright happening on the video site YouTube.

And add to yesterday's Black Hat presentation where security experts claimed Google is more concerned about tracking users for advertising purposed than the long-term security of its users.

Finally -- and maybe most importantly for most of the regular Google users -- the company had an outage that sent Gmail users searching for their inboxes after the company's services went dark for a few hours.

Which isn't to say Google's on its last legs. The eponymous search company will live to fight another day, but it looks like we're in the maturation phase of the company, when investments and expanding technologies need as much maintenance as new development.

One of the oldest names in D.C. has capitalized from the popularity of one the youngest stars in Hollywood.

I hate to credit Paris Hilton for anything, but her reply to John McCain's attack ad comparing Barack Obama's celebrity status to Hilton and Brittney Spears has helped the republican presidential candiate overtake Obama's weekly lead in Youtube views.

From the Washington Times article:

The combination of wit and insult has pushed his YouTube channel to the sixth most watched on the site this week. Mr. McCain has beat Mr. Obama's channel for seven straight days and 11 of the past 14 days, in a signal he intends to compete for the YouTube vote.

That is a giant reversal. Mr. Obama had been quadrupling Mr. McCain's YouTube views and beat him every day since February, according to TubeMogul, which tracks online video viewing.

I want to know who he hired. They went from recycling their TV ads to like putting out these witty shorts, said David Burch, marketing manager for TubeMogul.

One of the most popular news sites, the Drudge Report, put Hilton's response video as its lead story.Hilton's response  video, which was originally posted on funnyordie.com, is a mocking parody of McCains and criticizes his age, but if there's any truth to the saying, "any publicity is good publicity', McCain may benefit from it. Obama's major appeal to the vast majority of voters in the 18-30 category is unparalleled by past candidates- democrat or republican, but viewers are probably learning more about Mccain from the related videos posted next to his recent lineup.

Another ad was released sarcastically referred to Obama as "the one", due to his fanatical following. McCain's campaign team also unveiled tire pressure gauges labeled "Obama's energy plan"., in reference to Obama's infamous gaffe about checking your tire pressure to ease the demand for oil during the current energy crisis. Prior tro July, the McCain campaign restrained from direct attacks against their rival, but the new tactic may have helped his status in the polls.

It's actually surreal, Mr. Rogers said about the attention and the response from Miss Hilton. I know that Senator McCain watched Paris Hilton and thought it was hilarious.

Mr. Obama's YouTube channel beat Mr. McCain's every day from February through mid-July, when Mr. McCain's new style began to show. That was when the campaign launched Obama Love,” mocking press coverage of the Democrat, set to Frankie Valli's “Can't Take My Eyes Off You.

Obviously, this is only a temporary bump for McCain, which may not even garner any  votes than he would have recieved before the vidoes, and he'll have to return to discussing the crucial issues, but  he's proven that even old guys still know how to have a little fun every now and then.

Everybody loves Facebook. Almost

That's the impression you get if you spend any time in the world of technology (and likely many of you don't, so you'll just have to take my word for it). Software developers flock to hear CEO Mark Zuckerberg talk about the new tools the company will offer and users continue to sign-up for the service.

But there's strange rumblings happening.

The company has famously turned down massive buyout opportunities, content to stay private while it built up its valuation. However, insiders -- including Zuckerberg -- have quietly started selling off their shares through private brokerage houses for far less than original buyout offers.

I'm no economist, but something about that doesn't seem right.

Another confusing component to the company was its reliance on its open platform, which lets anyone develop any piece of software -- like Scabulicious, before it was shuttered -- that can be made available to all the Facebook users.

It's a great way to release a product.

Which means thousands of people are creating applications every day. Which means you have no idea which are the best. There are metrics used to measure popular applications, but that doesn't always translate to the best applications.

The private equity sale and the increasingly clogged development track aren't necessarily related; however, for a company that's billed itself as a platform for communication, it's interesting to watch insiders slowly hedge their bets on the long-term viability of that product.

Congress has been tinkering with the idea of opening up the cable markets for the past decade or so. The main talk, though, has been about unbundling services (which allows you to pay only for channels you want) instead of locking you into a "tier" service.

Before any reasonable cable overhaul happens, though, other services may soon offer a local alternative to the cable issue.

Verizon (Can you hear me now?) has spent stacks of cash laying fiber optic networks around the country and has started offering cable programming through that network. Right now the company is simply testing the service in Massachusetts, but its goal is to roll out a nationwide cable alternative.

The downside is that customers are still forced to pay in bulk, tiered services; however, anyone who has wrestled with the cable company over service knows that having an alternative is nice.

That competition has been good for consumers in the mobile phone space, although it's certainly taken its toll on companies used to having its subscribers locked in. These days, consumers are slowly being given the option to change service providers without early termination fees or without being forced to buy new hardware.

That true competition has forced companies to compete with new services and reduced prices, which is the backbone of free-market competition.

The new cable services offered by Verizon and increasingly by online streaming services such as Hulu.com mean that cable companies will no longer have a stranglehold on its customers. And if things progress properly, like the mobile industry, they will be forced to compete on services and price.

With Google'snew tool, Insights for search, an enhanced version of Trends,researchers can analyze the demographics behind each search phrase.

From the New York Times article:

It gives you much better insights in terms of what’s happening on a geographic basis, potentially allowing advertisers to target geographically, said Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land. Mr. Sullivan said Google has long given marketers the ability to target ads geographically, but not the tools to learn how to do it most effectively.

Results can be divided into regions as wide as the world and as narrow as each state, with timespans ranging from 2004, to the past 30 days. With the start of the new season just around the corner, I tested the phrase "college football." Just for curiosity's sake, I put the filter on worldwide- past 30 days. Obviously, the US was first, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom.

Once I narrowed the filter down to the U.S., I made an educated guess that Alabama(notorious for its rabid fan base) would lead the pack. A  quick query confirmed my hypothesis, as Alabama ranked No.1, with a score of 100 on the scale, followed by South Carolina, Georgia, Nebraska, Lousiana,Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi and Utah.

Absent from the list were Florida and Texas, two large states with several competitive teams at the Division 1 level and two recent national champions (Univ. of Texas in 2005,Univ. of Florida in 2006, ). A closer look at the results also revealed the surging popularity of  phrases such as USC football, Ohio State football, Notre Dame Football, and NCAA 09- one of EA's most popular sports video games.

What does all of this prove?

1. I'm aching for football season to start.

2. The deep south still loves college football more than anywhere else.

What's a marketer to make of all this data? Well, if I was promoting a new college football product, I would devote a lot of my focus to the southeast and midwestern states. I would also keep in mind that some of the cities usually considered mid-range to smaller markets- such as Columbus (Ohio) Birmingham, Memphis and Nashville and New Orleans-could be some of the most valuable markets to target.

Thanks to Google, this valuable info can also be derived from any other term or phrase you want to scrutinize.

Email and other digital communications like instant messaging are a drain on productivity according to a new study.

More and more, we're running to check out inboxes, send instant messages to our friends and sending Twitters to large social networks. The more we do that, the study found, the less we're actually accomplishing.

From the LA Times:

"E-mail is used as a self-validation tool by people to procrastinate and to re-create activity versus productivity," he says. (4-Hour Workweek author Tim) Ferriss, who says he used to receive "close to 300 e-mails per hour," is now checking his personal account only twice a day.

It's hard to argue with at least part of the study's findings: We are less productive when we are simply engaged in communication. And maybe we have become pre-occupied with ideas and tasks of a less relevant form.

Comcast certainly thinks so. It just ponied up $125 million for DailyCandy, an email marketing firm that delivers the latest happenings about food, fashion and entertainment to a mostly female audience. (That isn't to suggest this is simply a female phenomenon; please check the fantasy football groups that deliver copious amounts of important information to a predominantly male audience.)

The question is this: Is the digital communication really measurable in a one-to-one manner, or is reality that we are six degrees away from anyone make us more efficient in what we do?

If we can more easily and more quickly find answers because of our expanding social networks, that is good; if we are more easily and more quickly losing track of our work, that is bad.

Which are you?

I just spent the last 25 hours sleeping on the floors of two of our nation's finest airports -- New York's LaGuardia and Chicago's O'Hare.

I used to be a fan of flying; however, the last five years have been just awful in terms of customer experience. I spent the day Twittering -- that's text messaging to about 450 people -- my experiences. The prevailing conversations I had at the airport: more people are going to drive in the next few years until the industry is able to overhaul is experience.

Here are some of the problems and solutions coming down the pike:

Wi-Fi Internet Access

• The good: Delta is the first major carrier to announce that it will offer wireless access to consumers later this year. Prices range from $9.95 to $12.95 depending on the length of the flight.
• The bad: Most airports that offer wireless connectivity do so at similar prices. That means you could spent $25 for Internet access for just a few hours.

Paperless Boarding Passes

• The good: The International Air Transport Association, which I've never heard of until today, is pushing for airlines to have completely paperless transactions, which means you'll be able to do all of your transactions by phone or PC.
• The bad: Paperless works when everything runs smoothly; however, bad weather, mechanical problems and empty flights have sent the industry into a tailspin. For this to work, all the carriers will need to revisit how they sell tickets and do customer service.

Auctioning Air Space

• The good: The Department of Transportation is looking to auction the right for carriers to offer service at New York and New Jersey airports. The system would require businesses to submit bids for open traffic spots that became available when DOT capped services for airlines that had poor records.
• The bad: Auctions can always be gamed, and there's no way to promise that the winners will -- or can -- provide better service than traditional carriers.

Airline Fees

• The good: none
• The bad: Instead of overhauling their supply and decision chains, the airlines are looking to raise fees on increasingly shoddy service. The latest blow: JetBlue announced pillows and blankets would now cost $7.

 We all knew this day was coming. Anyone with a DVR and IQ could envision the day when tv commercials became completely obsolute in our customized viewing lifestyle.

To the dismay of the major television networks, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled in favor of DVRs and claimed that the recording device does NOT violate copyright law.

Turner Broadcasting launched the legal war on DVRs in 2006, when DVRs will still foreign to many Americans and in one of 14 houses, but cable companies such as Brighthouse made the device avaialabe as an extra feature to digital programming plans. Many of you are probably familiar with the typical DVR plan, you pay for the device, then tack on an extra $10-15 bucks per month to your usual cable bill.

So what does this ruling mean? Well, for the broadcasting networks, the court's decision sets a dangerous precedent that could drastically alter the future landscape of tv advertising. For cable providers, the ruling comes as welcome news, as companies such as Cablevision can proceed with their plans to enhance their DVR technology. 

Due to the potential ramifications and impact on revenue for both sides, don't be surprised if this case moves up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Automating functions on the Web has always been a tricky business.

When you're constantly building and publishing Web content, you find yourself doing the same types of tasks over…and over…and over again. It can be mind-numbing work, hence the automated systems that add tags and other meta-data to your content.

The downside is that when you turn over decision-making capabilities to a piece of software, you lose that human touch. The Associated Press has a story about Yahoo Shortcuts, one of those automated systems, that provides automatic links in stories. For instance, it brought up a link for "underage girls" in a story about former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.

Ouch.

Of course not all automation is bad. If it wasn't for search-and-count software programs, Google wouldn't work very well and the odds of anyone finding any website would be quite slim.

Still it's important to remember no matter how rote editorial tasks may seem -- choosing metadata, keywords and links -- it's okay to use software tools as a guide, but it's always better to have a human making the final decisions. You will always get better results.

We've never had a president who fully embraced -- as a matter of lifestyle -- social technologies.

Some of that is simply because the technologies didn't exist in any mainstream way until very recently; however, we're now well into the second decade on the Web and it's high time to start thinking about the relationship our candidates have with technology.

The New York Times, which published a piece about McCain's analogy candidacy, makes a point that others in the technology sphere have said: If we live in a world where computers and computing is ubiquitous, is it rational to have someone who has no understanding of what that means running the country?

Setting aside the international implications of the presidency (because in the past four elections we chose a candidate with on foreign policy experience), understanding the economy and the implications that go with it -- education, legislation, training, policing -- is the top priority.

That's no small task considering the Intellectual Property-based companies make up, by some estimates, 40 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product -- and laws regulating the use of that IP estimate it generates $4.5 trillion in revenues.

Clearly no one person can understand the complexities that dictate a digital economy, but it's important to realize that the bulk of our economic engine depends upon successfully negotiating that terrain. And that doesn't mean that because Obama uses a Blackberry and McCain doesn't email that the Democratic nominee would make a better president (hopefully, they will appoint really smart economists).

The question is simply this: In an age when using networks and computers have become everyday activities for the bulk of the country, how important is it for our candidates to be verse in that world?

In only 14 years, Under Armour's founder,Kevin A. Plank  has taken his company from an invention in his basement to one of the most-recognized athletic gear brands in the country.

His moisture-absorbing undershirt is now a favorite among major college football teams, including Auburn, Maryland, South Carolina and Texas Tech.

Earlier this summer, Under Armour unveiled its first line of footwear to the sports market, which included cleats and  training shoes. UA plans to expand its footwear to the point that it overshadows the apparel.

During his Q&A session with the New York Times,Plank explained the reasoning behind the entry into footwear, where UA will face stiff competition from Nike,Reebok and the other giants in the industry.

Some of his marketing concepts, as simple as they sounded, stood out to me. Judging from his footwear strategy, it's obvious that UA truly listens the consumer's input and demand, regardless of what the economic analysts may tell him. When NYT wondered why they pursued the cross-trainer shoe category, Plank replied:

It’s the same reason we went after football cleats- because our customer asked us for it. We learn a lot online, we listen a lot and we hear they want something to train in because the way today’s athlete is training is very different than five or six years ago. There’s need for a lateral stability movement, and that requires something different than a linear built running shoe. So our campaign’s theme is: Stop training in running shoes.

Sounds simple enough, right? Research and development is nothing new, but you've got to appreciate the fact that UA is planning its future according to the voice of their progressive consumer base. UA's humble approach is  a stark contrast from Nike's philosophy ,which believes in TELLING the athlete what's best for them. Plank continued:

Under Armour controls its own destiny. We believe there are better fabrics, better technology and better innovations, and because of our big share of the market, people are going to try us. I’ve been in this business long enough to know our biggest competition is ourselves- making sure we can execute.

Maybe it's just the former sports journalist in me, but  the different philosophies actually remind me of two different coaching personalities- where Nike is the loud, stubborn,"know-it-all" type and Under Armour is the player-friendly coach, who listen's to his players feedback and adjusts his game-plan accordingly.

Both styles can win games, but if you're too stubborn for too long, your players may lose their loyalty and end up in the the opponent's jersey. Maybe Under Armour can absorb some of those Nike defectors and continue its nation-wide expansion in the sports market. Just food for thought.

The government's stance is simple: They reserve the right to snatch your computer for an indefinite period of time if you bring it across the border and they decide you look sneaky.

Okay it's not quite that bad. It's much worse. They believe they can grab anything digital -- cameras with memory chips, cell phones, flash drives. Anything that would be of use to someone living in the 21st century.

What makes it even better: They don't feel particularly bothered to explain to you why it's happening.

Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

At least some in Congress are concerned, which is good; however, they've gone home for the next five weeks, so don't expect any help until they get back.

In the decade I've been writing about individual rights and privacy, I've never held out much hope that ordinary citizens would have much luck when it came to Internet regulations. Intellectual property, after all, is one of our biggest exports and media companies have a lot of money to throw at politicians.

Not, you know, that such matters influence legislation.

There are hints, though, that our rights online may be a bit more complicated that the recording and cable industries want you to believe.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group filing scores of lawsuits on behalf of the music labels, is facing a very serious legal challenge right now. A Minnesota woman was found guilty of sharing music files illegally after -- and read this carefully -- a judge instructed a jury that actual proof that the files were shared wasn't necessary.

Now, the judge says that may have been an error (uh, yeah) and the case has gone to the appeals court.

The courts have been relatively clear that sharing copyright files is illegal; however, this case expanded that to say that simply having peer-to-peer software implied you were sharing files immediately and you should be punished.

Not so very American of you, RIAA.

At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission found that Comcast was illegally muzzling service for those who were taking up too much bandwidth by using peer-to-peer services.

The commission, by a 3-2 vote, said that's a big no-no. Corporations can't arbitrarily decide what kind of traffic they want to allow. If you provide access to the Internet, you have to apply that equally.

Because as we know, separate does not mean equal.

Credit it to our shrinking attention spans and the  DVR's impact, but  advertisers  are exploring innovative and provacative methods of grabbing our attention.

As a result, some companies have resorted to guerilla advertising in the street. One of the most unique tactics was Right Guard deodorant's campaign that sent men into London subways weearing suits fashioned with mini-video screens along the armpits of each jacket. When they lifted their arms next to passenger, a right guard commercial played on the screen. This method of advertising may serve asa harbinger of ads to come.

 From the New York Times article:

Advertisers are being pushed to creative extremes, partly because it’s just so difficult to get consumers’ attention these days, said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, which advises clients on managing their online reputations. It may just be a flash of brilliance that everyone pays attention to, and it gets that huge return, but it’s very difficult to replicate on a regular basis.

Some of the subtle tactics included Oreo's scheme, which featured a cookie painted on the side of a glass elevator car, which is "dunked" into a painted glass at the bottom floor level.

Personally, I prefer Oreo's approach. While I appreciate any company's desire to push the envelope,  a tactic too extreme may result in public messes such as the "Aqua Teens" bomb scare in Boston. A simiilar scare occoured on a smaller scale near San Antonio earlier this month, when  a creative "Dark Knight" promo cleared a newsroom. A choclate cake ,wired to look like a bomb. From the adweek.com article:

The finale, quite literally, took the cake. Inside the cake was the ransom note that read: "If you want to see coyote again be at the Palladium [theater] at 8 p.m." A phone number was written on the cake box. When dialed, the phone inside rang, revealing press badges to the premiere.

In hindsight, Dark Knight's record-setting weekend at the box office may just prove the old saying- "any publicity is good publicity". As our media becomes increasingly customized, don't expect these extreme advertising tactics to go away anytime soon.