Every time you open a publication, you are bound to stumble upon an up and coming media concept.  They are small, they are uniform, they are scan tags.  These small images that viewers capture, via their camera phones, are popping up everywhere!  But what’s really the appeal?

Scan tags come in two formats, a QR code and a MS (Microsoft) tag.  To the untrained eye these two tag types look very similar but functionally, they are worlds apart.  The QR code is compiled similar to a bar code.  It is made up of pixels and always displayed in black and white.  Whereas the MS tag is made up of small triangular patterns and can be displayed in both black and white and four color formats.

According to almost all media articles out there, MS tags are the way to go.  They can be captured with ease unto sometimes faulty camera phones and are able to provide the publishers with scan demographic information.  Additionally, MS tags are built with Reed-Solomon error correction so that even if the tag is damaged, to some extent, the scan will remain readable.

After reading all these articles praising the MS tags and downplaying the effectiveness of the QR codes, I decided to perform a little science experiment.  In order to form a somewhat unbiased opinion on the tags, I would test their functionality.  With many newspapers, magazines, and sports brochures in hand, I was sure to get some real answers…

Well, that was until they came out with the new-fabulous-way-to-read-content-that-made-my-life-complete. Okay, so it’s just an app for my iPad, but it is a great idea. I’m referring, of course, to Flipboard. It’s essentially a news reader that aggregates content from your social networks, news feeds and blogs and gives you back your own version of a social magazine. What makes it so great? Two things really: It’s always current and it’s always stuff you’re interested in.

Gone are the days when you browsed a bit here, read a little there. Flipboard, along with other apps like Pulse and FLUD, is drastically changing the way we receive content. Now, you don’t even have to try to weed through the stuff you don’t care about–for all intents and purposes, it just doesn’t exist. And if you’re only seeing the content you actually care about, think about what kind of position that puts marketers in. Hang onto your hats, boys, it’s back to the drawing boards. Again. And if hindsight has taught us anything, it’s that in this digital age, the new new thing is only new for a minute.

And what’s the new new new thing? You can now get this technology right on your PC with paper.li. The same idea without the app. It’s not quite as extensive, but it’s getting there. Who would have thought?

Do you still pick up the paper in the morning? Read the headlines while sipping your morning coffee? Or do you scroll through the news on your ipad or blackberry on your way into the office? Well if you’re like a lot of people these days then you probably get your news online.

Once for free but now… you might have to start paying for it.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette joins a small but growing list of newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and Newsday that already charge for some access to their websites. According to the Boston Globe, “the Worcester T&G will begin charging some online readers for locally produced news content on its website, www.telegram.com.”

Currently, all online content is available for free to T&G newspaper subscribers however nonsubscribers are only allowed to read as many as 10 staff-produced articles a month. If nonsubscribers wish to exceed that number, they must pay a fee. Only stories written by T&G staff will be subject to fees. All other content will remain free to all users, such as stories from news services, photo galleries, and videos.

How will these changes affect your readership? Will you pay for online content or go back to reading the newspaper the “old fashion” way?

In an interview Jonathan Fildes for BBC News, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announces that we may see commercial accounts this year. Stone reiterates that Twitter will “always be free to everyone whether it’s commercial or personal,” but the paid features will be an “additional layer of access to learn more about your twitter account; get some feedback, get some analytics so you can become a better Twitterer.” This is a paid service I’m excited to hear more about. Monetizing Twitter is something we’ve been waiting for, and I appreciate that the founders understand that the everyday Twitterer would never cough up a dime for the service.

Paying for the Projo on the otherhand… First off, the wishy-washy statementI read in the PBN was that Providence Journal parent company A.H. Belo Corp. is considering charging for online content for one of its three papers (The Journal, The Dallas Morning News or The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California). The move would also remove the publication’s content from popular news site Google News. I wonder what you all think about the Projo possibly charging for online content (as if the 8 million requests for you to sign up as a registered user aren’t annoying enough).

This makes me think back to another moment in the Biz Stone interview. Stone recalls co-founder Evan Williams‘ response to the statement “Twitter is fun but is not useful.” “Neither is ice cream,” he retorted. In the same respect, how could we compare something that is neither fun nor useful…

On Sunday morning I woke up before the kids, grabbed my cup of coffee, sat at the kitchen table and read the Boston Globe section by section, folding and flipping while the tips of my fingers slowly turned gray… Wait wait wait, that isn’t exactly how it went. With mug in hand, I booted up my laptop, went to my favorites and clicked on www.boston.com.

Question # 1: How many other people do this?

 I frequent the site and noticed that Boston.com has both a Facebook page and Twitter account. As of Monday, they had 8,000+ fans and 10,835 Twitter followers. As everyone has seen lately, newspaper circulation has been dropping — to borrow from the eloquent Snoop Dog — “like it’s hot” and the Boston Globe is no exception and yes I read that online. See a related post I wrote about Boston.com possibly charging to read news.

Question #2: If you are a Facebook Fan of Boston.com and they start charging you to read or become a subscriber, will you still be a Fan?

For now, I’ll enjoy my coffee, Boston Globe and become your FB Fan. But it might be short lived!

“Apple hates personality stuff and press intrusion. ‘We want to discourage profiles’. Strong words from an Apple PR. Apparently Apple didn’t want the Sunday Times to publish the 4000 word plus profile for the fact that it may reveal more about jobs past, present, and future than the company is willing to disclose.

I think Transparency is overwhelmingly important in a day when most of American’s financial powerhouses (GM, FORD, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT) are proving to be less and less trustworthy with the future of our economy. Apple is no exception. Like the former mentioned, Apple has a ton of money, and therefore a ton of power in America. I think every good organization can attribute much of its success to good leadership. That said, Jobs has an obligation, by my standings, to show that he is an honest, trustworthy, ethical, real person, capable of sustaining the influential role he plays in the worlds technology society.

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So Facebook has ‘accidentally’ disclosed that it has plans for a new site, dubbed Facebook lite. Unlike the current Facebook site, Facebook lite offers users a simplified, no-frills Facebook experience – eerily similar to Twitter, Facebooks biggest competitor.

But Facebook claims that its new chip-off-the-old-block is merely the manifestation of a solution to many worldwide users’ biggest problem with Facebook. Bandwidth. Because of the news sites nature, Facebook says load times are much quicker, even on machines running slower than broadband speeds, and much of the unneeded content typically see on a given Facebook page is conveniently absent.

The interesting thing is, this new site was releases, get this, on accident! Thats right, the message was sent out to select international Facebook users before the company had initially planed. Even so, I think it may have just been Facebook’way of saying “look, we wont be the next Myspace – we see you twitter, but we are just over the horizon – not going anywhere”!

For years my browser’s homepage has been http://www.boston.com/. Well not any more after reading this article The Boston Globe will soon begin charging for its website, publisher P. Steven Ainsley told the paper’s union bosses.

What will I do? Where will I find my news? (insert sarcasm here)

I used to get my “Breaking News” from Boston.com but for months I’ve been staying “in the know” from Twitter (and as everyone knows Twitterers know everything first. They even knew about Jeff Goldblum death before Jeff Goldblum did).

Actually maybe the Globe is onto something here. Post your comments if you are not willing to pay for this blog. Your silence will indicate your willingness to fork over your credit card number (I take all major CCs).

 So I guess I’ll be looking for a new homepage soon. Any recommendations?

The campaign asks sites to include code that detects IE6 visitors and encourages them to upgrade to Firefox, IE8, or Google Chrome. On Tuesday the movement composed of around a dozen sites, today that number exceeds 70 participants.

The sites jumping on board are by no means insignificant: they include established internet startups, consulting firms and (of course) design blogs. As the sites creator, David Rusenko,stated on Tuesday, that the aim is to target both personal users who are behind the times and put pressure on corporate IT departments. Ultimately the aim of this campaign is to try and push the outdated IE6 out for new, more compatible browsers.

Google, on Wednesday, anounced that it has agreed to buy On2 Technologies, which sells video compression software, in a stock deal valued at about $106 million. The per-share price was 57 percent above On2’s closing stock price on Tuesday, and On2’s shares soared on the news.

Similar to Google’s 2006 acquisition of YouTube at a reported $1.6 Billion, the deal with give Google a much needed pull in the world of online videos. Even so, Many question the ROI and justification of Google’s purchase of not only On2, but YouTube alike.