Customer input - Couldn't newspapers organize this really well for stories? - "A Book That Lets Readers Handle the Footnotes" - NYTimes.com

We are still at the experimental stage on all of this, aren't we? Imagine this in the context of a newspaper. The challenge is to collect all of the good stuff from readers that a newspaper can, incoporate the best and most useful and be sure to share it again with everyone. Imagine, for a moment, a process whereby newspapers publish stories seeking comment, via footnotes or otherwise, take all of that into account offline and product a final version of the story. Those who offer comments would get a first look at the finished product which might be preceded by a little discussion of the comments received and what was done with them. There is ample precedent in how to do this in the procedures used for more than 50 years in the US when federal goverment agencies publish proposed rules and actions, seek public comment, note the comments and discuss them, followed by publication of a final action. Why isn't that something newspapers might try?

Customers - How best to use the women's entrance? - "Yet Another Facelift for iVillage, NBC’s Site for Women" - NYTimes.com

Arguably half of any newspaper's market is made up of women. In some cases, it is more than that and in other cases, less. What makes this story about iVillage valuable is that here is a media company - NBC - trying to reach as many people as it can, and using as part of its offering a site focused on women. Not many newspapers seeking to reach the broadest audience do this; in fact, I don't know of any that do. Some have women's sections or others with a special appeal to women, but none have their own women sites. So, learning from what NBC has done and is doing can help with the management of, as I suggest, possibly one half of a newspapers' customers, no?

Evolution - Are there newspaper building blocks here? - "Turning to Hollywood Tie-Ins, Lego Thinks Beyond the Brick" - NYTimes.com

Newspapers and Legos are both pretty well established ideas in the minds of most people. If you think about how Legos have evolved in recent years, chart that, and put newspaper evolution alongside it, what would the similarities and differences be?

Public policy - Is there something to be said to ending endless anonymity? - "China Web Sites Seeking Users’ Names" - NYTimes.com

In a global marketplace, these sorts of government actions can never really be taken in isolation.

Advertising - Editing the ads? - "Magazines Run Ads, but Now They Create Them Too" - NYTimes.com

Has the time arrived for newspapers to become significantly more involved in the creation of the advertising they carry in print and online? Who would benefit? Start with advertising and reader customers.

Technology - Putting the internet to work for customers - "Google Advertising & Marketing Index" - Google Finance

This is an interesting set of charts from Google which may or may not mean anything in the end. What Google has done, however, is to make them easily accessible and comparable with major indices. And it had done so for a broad cross-section of the consumer economy. What's a good example of something of equal value to a newspaper market that has been launched by a newspaper?

News - Who is the better news organizer - a newspaper or Google? - "Google Shines a Deeper Spotlight on News" - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

How good a job are newspapers doing today - generally - in providing their customers with the same kind of added-value content?

Customers - Reading by a strap - "The Joy of Reading in the Subways of New York" - NYTimes.com

And where are the newspapers?

Books - What, exactly, are the differences between books and newspapers? - "Abroad - Beleaguered Bookseller Knows Whom to Blame - Oxfam" - NYTimes.com

The demise of bookstores is a sad development for anyone who values words. What can newspapers learn from what has happened to so many? How can those failures be turned into newspaper succeses? What I mean is that these are businesses whose offerings, almost exclusively, are words and pictures, printed on paper, and so have been newspapers; where book purchasers and readers go is much more complicated than a new electronic reader or website, and so, too, for newspapers. In the same edition of The New York Times comes this news of another bookstore failing in New York City, albeit a store speciailizing in French and other non-English language publications.

Customers - Who is offering the best outlet for self-expression? - "BBC World Service - Documentaries - Citizen journalism - democracy or chaos?"

To a large extent, most newspapers are simply letting this battle play out. One could hardly accuse many newspapers of trying to manage the evolution, even in a minor way, to make its outcome a better one. Many of the entities that create opportunities for non-journalists to share their writings claim to have high-minded ideals and seek to make the world a better place. Even if one accepts that, don't newspapers have a lot more to offer than they are now doing? Couldn't good newspaper managers develop a means by which the opportunities for people to express themselves increase more quickly than in the rest of the marketplace? Is it impossible to think that newspapers could take the lead on some of this to help move it in a direction where core values and the apparent desire to express oneself can both be better served?

Customers - Will they read a rain-soaked newspaper? - "Tesco, British Grocer, Uses Weather to Predict Sales" - NYTimes.com

It's easy to dismiss this as just a food industry matter, but I wonder if the consumption and use of what newspapers provide their customers in any medium are as dependent on things like the weather as Tesco believes grocery purchases to be?

Advertising - Dusting off the crystal balls - "A Mixed Outlook for Media Advertising" - NYTimes.com

The newspaper slice of the global advertising pie is not necessarily linked to the size of the pie.

Packaging - Newspapers not worth stealing - "It’s In The Bag" - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Imagine that - a fake newspaper with a computer inside. A sign of things to come?

Public policy - What role will privacy play? - "Media Decoder: Privacy Advocates Push for New Legislation" - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

There are many aspects to the public policy questions affecting newspaper navigation out of the crisis.

News - How do newspapers pursue access today? - "Sidebar - Shrinking Newsrooms Wage Fewer Battles for Public Access to Courtrooms" - NYTimes.com

News can be very expensive, especially when newspapers choose to fight government and/or private interests to obtain access to information, records and/or people. Being forced, it appears, to spend less on this today goes to the heart of what separates a professional news organization from a blogger in her or his pajamas. How do we resolve this not just for the good of the public but for the sustainability of newspapers as institutions with distinguishing characteristics?