Is MSNBC.com Microsoft's Secret Weapon. They would probably be interested in the clickable printernet.

By now everyone has heard the news: EveryBlock is now part of MSNBC.com

from MediaShift Idea Lab .

from a comment in the thread to EveryBlock, MSNBC.com and the General Public License

The Web site msnbc.com is owned by Microsoft and NBC, and the TV channel MSNBC is owned by NBC. And, yes, the Web site does serve as the Web home for its half-sister, MSNBC. But that doesn't mean they're the same company. Msnbc.com also serves as the Web home of Newsweek, and has content from The New York Times, but they don't own each other, either. It is confusing: If tacobell.com is the Web site owned by Taco Bell, then you'd think that msnbc.com is owned by MSNBC, but it turns out not to be true in this case. The cable and TV companies have been separate joint partnerships from the beginning."

Number of Students, Colleges Using Flat World Knowledge Digital Texts Soars And the Really Good News for Print

The business rule of the internet is read for free, pay for print.

Number of Students, Colleges Using Flat World Knowledge Digital Texts Soars -
8/20/2009 4:01:00 AM - Publishers Weekly
: "Flat World Knowledge has announced that it anticipates that 40,000 college students at over 400 colleges will use its open source digital textbooks this fall. Flat World went live in spring 2009 with 1,000 students from 30 colleges using its offerings. Eric Frank, a cofounder of Flat World, said that while the company’s marketing efforts explained some of the jump, a lot of the increase came from word of mouth. “Adoptions kept increasing from May into August,” Frank said, noting that many of the orders came from faculty members with whom Flat World had no direct contact. “The orders could only have come from recommendations from faculty to faculty,” he said.

Under Flat World’s pricing/business model students can access entire textbooks for free online; pay $19.95 for a PDF download; pay $29.95 for a black and white printed version or $59.95 for a color version, or pay $39.95 for an audio version.
. . .

In addition to adding more students, Flat World is expanding the number of texts it offers. The company currently has 11 textbooks and will offer five new ones this fall and is expanding from its base in business and economics into new subjects such as sociology and psychology. Frank expects to have 25 texts available by next spring and another 38 in the pipeline. He said Flat World has not had discussion with traditional college publishers about working with them, but wouldn’t rule it out in the future. “I’m not sure which way things will go,” he said. (The majority of the Flat World team have backgrounds in traditional textbook publishing).

Frank is projecting sales for 2009 to be in the $700,000 to $750,000 range with roughly $100,000 worth of orders coming from college bookstores. He said the bookstores are working with Flat World to see what kind of role they can play in the Flat World model. Frank expects to add another 100 colleges to the company’s roster for the spring and about 10,000 students, but he believes a quantum leap will occur for fall 2010 when he thinks the number of students could be between 120,000 to 200,000.

Anyone know the ticker symbol for Vertis? They should be in my printernet portfolio.

Since the beginning of the year I've slowly assembled a group of companies that I bet are going to do be very well going forward. You can check the list in the sidebar. In the aggregate they've gone up about 37% since February.

If you look a little more closely, you'll see a couple of really big winners. McClatchey and Gannett.
MNI was .53 as late as May. At yesterday's close it was 2.08. GCI was 4.20 in May. It closed at 8.16. My bet was that the End of Newspapers was blabla. So far, so good.

My theory is that a printernet is starting to form. I keep looking for the backbone companies and the globals that supply them. Given the silliness of the end of print meme, there are some nice opportunities.

I have to believe that Vertis Communications, with Quincey Allen and most recently Michael Kurchasky, are just the right dna to get them into the game big time going forward. But, I searched Schwab for the symbol. Nada. Then I searched Seeking Alpha. Nada. So then I read about the 2008 bankruptcy. But still no ticker symbol.

I can call my broker on Monday, but he's always so busy. Perhaps a visitor could explain what I'm missing.

iPhones+Sirius = Anywhere, anytime radio. Radio = TV minus Pictures. Anytime/where TV needs Anywhere/time Print. Go Printernet!

Sirius XM's Game Changer About to Rock --
Seeking Alpha:
"I can now report that Sirius XM’s game changer is about to rock. Sources familiar with the situation are now confirming that this Wednesday, August 26th, Sirius XM will be unveiling the iPhone/iPod Touch accessory docks that I speculated about three months ago. Sirius XM will be hosting a special invitation only media event in New York that day to show off their new products to be available this holiday season. The invitation reads: “View the new lineup of radios and accessories from Sirius XM for the home, office, vehicle and beyond.” Satwaves received a press invitation and will be covering the event live as permitted."

Full disclosure: No position SIRI.
Long Printernet (CGX, XRX, EK, OCENY, RICOY, RRD, MNI, GCI )

A quibble with Frank Romano. It's not digital relativity. It's evolutionary string theory.

Since WTT.com won't post their videos at YouTube and I'm much too lazy to figure out why they play on every computer but mine, I was really happy to get my Frank Romano fix in Australia via the UK from Pro Print.

Click on The theory of digital relativity to read the whole thing. Of course, it's worth a click. In the meantime, here's my quibble.

Frank says :

"Digital disruption
What can be digitally originated, integrated, communicated, stored, retrieved and metamorphosed, will be. The Theory of Digital Relativity is not based on evolution; it is based on revolution."

I say:

Einstein was right, but never got to the Theory of Everything. Now it's all about string theory and evolution. So . . . it is based on evolution. On the other hand, dinosaurs seem to have evolved into birds. Good to be bird. Sucks to be a dinosaur.

How to sell clickableprint and printernet publishing when the fact is that print is not sold. It is bought.

The reality is that print is not sold. It is bought. The best a printer can do is stay top of mind and be ready to respond ultra-fast to any information request. Then just answer the question and try to stay top of mind. It's much more like fishing than hunting.

When you look at it this way, the most important question is Where to fish?

Here's where I think the best places to fish for people who need clickableprint.

Look for local media companies that do newspapers+cable channels+radio. Or perhaps the oufits that do just cable+radio. They won't have the legacy mindset about newspapers.

Local cable and radio live on local advertising. Local advertisers love local Print.

If anyone wants me to play this out, just comment as "anon" click the "follow by email" and I'll be glad to collaborate to get the right product at the right price for the right person.

The real reason textbooks are hosed. It's at about 26 minutes in.

Tough Love in Grand Rapids. This time it's Ikon.

Got this from Wade at www.Xippa.net He said, "They dropped the relationship gig and did what was right. Great job Muskegon." The school board probably loved their vendor of many years. But this is not personal, it's business. It should be a clear lesson to those that think a "relationship" is a defensible advantage.

GR firm wins Muskegon school district's copier bid
by Local reports | The Muskegon Chronicle
Wednesday August 19, 2009, 4:04 AM

MUSKEGON -- A Grand Rapids firm has won a bid to sell $191,000 in new digital copiers to Muskegon Public Schools. IKON Office Solutions submitted the low bid of $190,950 for 45 copiers, that also scan and fax documents directly from computers.

The bid came "well under budget," said Gary Privasky, executive director of administrative services and finance for Muskegon Public Schools. The multifunctional copiers were included in a $12.5 million bond issue approved by voters in May.

Office Machines Co., a Muskegon vendor with which the school district has done business for "many, many years," submitted a bid that was $38,000 higher than IKON's, Privasky said.

The district will save maintenance costs by switching to fewer digital printers connected through its computer system rather than a bunch of smaller printers, said Superintendent Colin Armstrong.

Full disclosure: No interest in Xippa.

The correct way to use twitter for enterprise. Do what Bloomberg does.

Consider these two tweets. The time of this post 9:25 Am EDT

ToughLoveforX It would be cool to have links to the web embedded in tweets from BSurveillance. #SURV 10 minutes ago from web

BSURVEILLANCE To check out #SURV podcasts: http://bit.ly/waLqw or find them on iTunes under podcasts-business news...clips from #SURV on bloomberg.com 2 minutes ago from web

If you think you are too busy to do this, consider that BSURVEILLANCE is doing a radio show at the time this exchange took place. My bet is that years of looking at Bloomberg terminals gave them the practice to figure out multitasking for grown ups.

Are MindFire and Mimeo the new business of Print? + Smart QR means a smart printernet.

Print manufacturing is ignored by Wall Street, but pretty well understood. MindFire and Mimeo are loved by private Wall Street but not much understood. Mimeo seems best of class for corporate communication collateral. Mindfire seems best of class to do the analytics that are created by clickstreams on the web.

Put smart QR produced at arbitrarily massive scales at production speeds and Mindfire could supply the analytics from clickable print. If they grow their SaaS model, it means that every printer would have the opportunity to deliver customer analytics.

CMO's need and will pay for customer analytics. Given that analyzing data is an art supported by a science, I think it will be protected from becoming a commodity, at least for a while.

MindFireInc Makes the Renowned Inc. 500 List -
from WhatTheyThink:
"Irvine, California - MindFireInc, the leading developer and distributor of on-demand cross-media communication software, has again been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States, making the prestigious Inc. 500 list for the second year in a row. MindFireInc ranked No. 24 among the top businesses in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Ca. region, and was the 20th fastest growing software company.

Full disclosure : No interest in Mimeo, Mindfire or CodeZ QR.