WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

To asses the huge impact of the new iPad you don’t need to count or discredit the lines at the Apple stores.

Just read the best blog about Apple.

And read these wise words from the “boss of the bosses” Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

“Apple still has what it takes to imagine, design, build and deliver on schedule and at an affordable price a jewel-like piece of computer technology that inspires consumer lust.

There ought to be some soul searching going on right now among Apple’s competitors. For this is not the first time the company has picked up a discredited idea and created not just a successful product, but a whole new industry. There were MP3 players before the iPod. There were smartphones before the iPhone. And there were plenty of tablet computers before the iPad, even if they did run Windows.

Certainly building something like this is not an easy thing to do. It requires world-class design teams, dependable supply chains, impeccable quality control, first-rate marketing, an army of high-maintenance developers and the foresight to build a tightly integrated software environment in which all the parts — software, hardware, retail, networking — fit seamlessly together.”

Amen.

(Picture by Charis Tsevis)

As any economist he writes for other economist doesn’t matter if his opinions and analysis are published in The New York Times OpEd pages.

But if you go to his blog, The Consciece of a Liberal, in the same paper website, you will see another Paul Krugman.

A casual smart one.

Sharper.

Funny.

More interesting.

And easier to read and understand.

Less is more, and better.

(And don’t forget the comments the blog gets, doesn’t matter if sometimes they are quite longer than the Krugman’s posts!)

Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, explains in his blog Think Tank why we need brave journalists covering disasters like the earthquake in Haiti.

The lead:

“Journalism is not a particularly esteemed profession, but its capacity to bear witness remains one of its more redeeming attributes. At moments like this in Haiti, a journalist’s function as a witness can be relatively uncomplicated, in comparison to, say, the processes of political or investigative reporting. In the field during a natural disaster of this scale, you do feel at times ghoulish and intrusive upon both the grief of survivors and in relation to the more directly useful efforts of rescuers and humanitarian relief workers. And yet all of those classes of participants in the crisis will recognize, most of the time, that journalism helpfully amplifies their own condition or potential.”

The end:

“Technology, increasingly, makes us all witnesses to crises. And yet, only those journalists intrepid enough to find their way forward, independently, can focus our lenses.

The New Yorker’s piece is a must-read.

I just launched daily updates in my Spanish blog about the upcoming Apple tablet.

I am starting tomorrow in www.lainformacion.com an only 20-day long blog in Spanish about the launch of the new Apple tablet.

I will ended in San Francisco on January 27th when Steve Jobs presents the tablet.

In less than 24 hours, Mario Tascon, Vanesa Jimenez, Jorge Martin Luengo and Antonio Pasagali from Diximedia made the miracle.

What a team!

And thanks too, to Luis Grañena that will draw one superb caricature every day just for the blog.

See above the first one about Steve Jobs,

INNOVATION’S Chris O’Brien writes:

One of the great tragedies that I see in the current debate about the future of journalism is the way the discussion continues to be framed around a series of binary choices. Newspapers or blogs. Print or online. Journalists or algorithms.

In each case, there seems to be a simple-minded belief that the future will inevitably be one or the other. I consider this tragic because the result is a lot of dead-end debates that devolve into spitball fights about whether one will replace the other. My belief is that the better conversation is about how these things should complement each other and extend and enrich our journalism. That is the great opportunity of this moment.

Amen.