The rumours flitting about yesterday were confirmed when Nielsen Business Media confirmed via a story in Adweek and a statement to PRNewser
that it would be ‘reorganizing’ its staff complement; consolidating the
staffs of Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek while leaving them all as
separate brands, resulting in 19 layoffs.

Cue Gawker’s pithy analysis of the "corporate doublespeak" used to break the news. Hamilton Nolan
takes no uncertain delight in cutting through the bland and hedged
statement to lay bare the heart of the issue, viz: "We don’t need so
many writers." Not unlike the situation in Wales last year when Trinity Mirror sacked 17 editorial staff as part of a brand consolidation.

In a publishing climate where sector-specific blogs are eating away
at the traditional role of the trade press, this comes as further
confirmation that, as Nolan points out, trade mags are in no way safer
than their consumer-oriented peers.

Blogger announces the death of blogs, sits back to enjoy the traffic

Hardly any industry watchers failed to recognise the flamebait in Valleywag’s Paul Boutin print article in Wired which suggested that blogs are entirely passe and it’s time to move on to the next shiny thing.

Jack Schofield wonders if Boutin has a point:
"Basically he’s saying that lone bloggers can’t compete with what are
now professional online magazines (The Huffington Post. Engadget.
TreeHugger), so all you’ll get for your trouble is the attention of
‘the Net’s lowest form of life: The insult commenter’. By moving to
Facebook and/or Twitter, however, you might reach more friends and
fewer frigtards…. True?"

In his personal blog, Seamus McAuley (strategic analyst at Associated Northcliffe Digital by day) draws upon his dignity to add some context and perspective: "I’m not linking to the thing. It’s just flamebait, and if you want to
read it you can see it hanging around on Techmeme gathering the storm
of abuse it was clearly intended to generate. It is trivial to take a
situation defined by asymmetric competition and redefine it as a
straightforward dichotomy (sure, blogs compete with Twitter for time
and attention but so does Everquest, The Godfather Trilogy, the books
review section of the New York Times, fishing, building model
aeroplanes and popping out for a quick pint) just so you can goad the
most opinionated people in the world into linking back to you by saying
their medium is dead."

Twine organizes all your shit so you don’t have to

In what is certainly my favourite explanatory video of the year, semantic web company Twine‘s marketing department cuts the bull and tells it like it is.
No doublespeak or flamebait here, just all you need to hit at the heart
of every information junkie on the planet. Though it’s meant as a joke,
Erick Schonfeld
is probably on the money when he says it’s the best explanation he’s
heard yet of what Twine does. Oh, and FYI, the vid is NSFW.

- Basheera Khan