Blogs are dead, and so is news

In the early days of web 2.0, bloggers wore their distinction from stodgy news organizations as a badge of honor. The news organizations are proving the bloggers were right by keeling over. As they die, the blog/news distinction has lost its meaning. Today, after WaPo exec Katharine Weymouth yesterday said she wished Post ed's could write headlines like the Huffington Post, USAToday.com ran the flip headline, "Obama says nation needs more nerds."

News outlets are trying to be more like blogs, and good bloggers are building credibility by acting like news men and women.

But Google and other search engines persist with the distinction. Today, if you ran a Google Blogs search on Eric Hjerpe's move to Kepha Partners, you'd find a link to XConomy's story, but not the post I broke the news with in Mass High Tech early this morning. Conversely, a Google News search picks up our article, but leaves off the XConomy post.

So blog readers miss our article with news on Kepha's strategy, and quotes from Hjerpe and Kepha founder Jo Tango. News readers miss a link to an incisive column Hjerpe contributed on XConomy last summer.

Why shouldn't it be easy to get a quick look at both sources? When will Google discontinue their disservice to readers, and drop the meaningless blog/news distinction?

A Nation of Gameboy Addicts

There was a time when every parent I knew had the same problem: how to manage their kid's gameboy addiction. As with candy, Saturday morning cartoons and comic books, some level of control was needed. But kids became so attached to the things that parents risked a Nintendo 64 Freakout if they attempted to withold the device.

I now hear people say their smartphone has changed their lives, and I'm beginning to realize how far ahead of the rest of us the 12-year-old Gameboy addicts really were. MG Siegler writes on VentureBeat about a hidden "bells and whistles" feature on the iPhone's Google application:

...while it may not look like there is anything below the “About” selection, swipe your finger upward to go below. See anything? You probably don’t yet — keep swiping.

It takes a little bit of effort, but eventually a “Bells and Whistles” menu appears below the “About” menu. Clicking on this takes you to a new screen with even more options for the app including the ability to change its color to anything you want, the option to have the app’s default sound replaced by monkey or chicken noises, an option to see live waveform show up as you talk....

It reminds me of games I played as a teenager - Mario, Zelda or Mortal Kombat, for example - and the word-of-mouth tips and tricks I'd pick up from friends - like pressing an elaborate series of buttons crack open hidden stuff.

Smartphones have hooked us on our office email and news feeds, now they will make a nation of shivering gameboy addicts out of us all. I can't wait.