I was reading today about some guy who is a wizard at buying up undervalued businesses and making them profitable. (Of course, who doesn't specialize in this anymore?) Anyway, he's got a bid in on the Tribune Company and it's looking like it'll be accepted.

Of course, the wizard says that this is a good investment, that there's money to be made in the newspaper business, etc. Meanwhile, I'm also hearing that February 2006 was the worst month ever for the newspaper business, with ad pages vanishing like gremlins in sunlight.

At least there's some some good news: Revenue is up for newspaper websites. But print newspapers are still far ahead of their websites when it comes to total revenue, something to the tune of 87:1.

The real question is will these companies ever be able to get enough revenue out of their websites to cover the operating costs of their entire news-gathering organization? Sure, they'll be able to shed a lot of the costs associated with printing up papers and delivering them, but web advertisers expect a very low price point compared to traditional media and I'm not optimistic that will change anytime soon, given the questionable effectiveness of standard online ad units. What's more, a lot of people want to get their online news through blogs and other middlemen, which don't have to support a news-gathering operation any more advanced than an internet connection and Firefox.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but the newspaper industry needs to figure it out quickly if they want the first-mover advantage.

I was meeting with the publisher of another alt. weekly recently and I mentioned how TIME magazine had decided to change its publication date to Friday in order to reap more ad dollars. Her response? "Magazines... such a different world."

I was compelled to disagree.

After all, even though we print NUVO on newsprint, the kind of content that fills its pages is a lot closer to the kind of content in TIME and Newsweek than it is with what you might find in the Indianapolis Star or USA Today.

Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as good as what you will find in Wired, which is really impressing me with its creativity and cultural clarity lately. Take, for example, this month's feature on the notion that in this new digital world we're all living in, corporate transparency may be the key to business success.

(The jist: The internet is a great tool for creating connections with people, which is what all marketers want to do, but the internet has a zero-tolerance policy for bullshit, so you've got to be unafraid to be honest, open and human about what's happening in your company, your market and your head if you want to use this tool to your advantage.)

Not only is the story an inspiring read, but its presentation is genius too; the cover of the issue is transparent and it's designed in such a way that you can pull the clothes right off of Jenna Fischer by opening it up.

This is precisely the kind of thing that alt. weeklies should be doing if they want to stay relevant. After all, the newspaper industry has a pretty bleak prognosis but it's smooth(er) sailing for the magazine kids.

If you have ever had the misfortune of engaging in a conversation with me about the weight-loss industry, you've probably heard me proclaim that there's real money for Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig to come out with a marketing campaign centered around a Muzac-like remake of the Prince classic "Pussy Control" entitled "Portion Control".

But it turns out a better candidate might be T.G.I. Friday’s. They've launched a new "Right Size" menu that seeks to reduce portion sizes, which have been creeping up considerably over the last few years in both the casual dining and fast food categories.

So what, you might say? Bigger portions equals better value, right? Well, sure. Except that Americans are eating out more than they ever have and this portion-creep is one of the factors behind our domestic obesity epidemic. Responsible corporate citizenship aside, since diners stuffed on super-sized entree portions have little desire to shell out for appetizers or desert, there's actually an economic incentive for these firms to solve the problem too.

So, naturally, this particular maneuver has been tried before. Only it hasn't had much success because — duh — if you're going to reduce the portion size, you've also got to lower the cost. Luckily, Friday's understands this, so there might actually be some hope that this will work.

After following a Slashdot post to this story about the forthcoming deluge of video games as educational tools, I'm once again left wondering why our education system seems like it can't get inspiration right.

Case in point: like a lot of people in America, I went and saw 300 this weekend. And, like a lot of people, after seeing it, I wanted to learn more; as of this writing, Battle of Thermopylae is the most-read article on Wikipedia for the month of March.

Yet, when I think back on my own education and I'm reminded how we always watched the movie at the end of the unit, rather than at the beginning when it might have actually inspired someone to hit the books.

Here in Indiana, we now observe daylight saving time, something that historically we have not done. This isn't the first year that we've done this, of course, but it is the first year that it aggravates me.

After all, I had a nice circadian rhythm going — I'd naturally wake up refreshed at 7:15 AM with sunlight streaming through my blinds. Now, when my alarm goes off at 7:15 AM, it's really 6:15 AM, it's dark outside and I have to go through the entire day feeling like a zombie.

Since the last Ohio Jones clip was so well received, here's another one.

To tell you the truth, it was with great reluctance that I finally upgraded to the new Blogger.

I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fit it, right? Plus, I was nervous about losing my custom-made template and my Haloscan comments.

Well, last time I logged in, Google offered me no choice. And with a heavy heart, I clicked that Upgrade button. "Goodbye, thinblueblog — it was fun maintaining you for all those years."

But then a miraculous thing happened: Nothing. Literally, there were no drawbacks to the process. Poof, it worked! No damage to my template and my comments kept on working like nothing had happened.

Now, I'm loving the new Blogger. The fact that I don't have to "publish" after making changes to my template is wonderful and the search function finally works on my blog!

Thanks, Google!