Can United's New Hemisphere's Magazine Redesign Take Off?

At a time when publishers are considering/preparing for an inevitable shift to an onlne-only business model, business travel columnist Joe Sharkey at the New York Times reported on changes to United Airline's Hemispheres, its print monthly.

"An In-Flight Magazine Is Given an Upgrade" provides a look at the plight of in-flight magazines, explains why what Hemispheres is doing is interesting, and provides some insight into how the magazine is assembled.

Even as WiFi becomes available on increasing numbers of flights, print can still exist at takeoff and landings, when you're not allowed to use electronic devices.

The strength of print was the theme of another Times article, "Hearst’s Contrarian Strategy Pays Off" by blog favorite Richard Perez-Pena. Hearst's magazines actually don't post all its articles on the web. To get them, you actually have to subscribe or purchase them. They've been successful at that, even being able to raise newsstand costs during a recession without lossing readership.

When Google News' Search is Too Good -- Part II

The New York Times' Noam Cohen wrote an article that takes a deeper look to an issue this blog identified in Septmber, When Google News' Search is Too Good. Check out "Spinning a Web of Lies at Digital Speed.

The article looks at ireport.com, CNN's user-generated site, which has posted some wrong information that nevertheless got picked up as true. Some for Digg.

Jay Adelson, Digg's chief executive, told the Times, "There is almost a short-seller mentaility in the blogosphere. We allow anyone to submit on a level playing field. We allow the digital democracy to be the fact checkers. There is definitely some risk to that."

Citizen journalism has its risks. It will be a challenge to PR functions to approach these sites to defend negative news -- just as it will be a challenge to use them effectively to promote positive news without being seen as too self-serving. Transparency may address the situation in part, but will not eliminate it.

When Google News' Search is Too Good

Turns out that UAL, parent company of United Airlines, is not going bankrupt. But shareholders found out only after shares dropped $3.50 on rumors.

What fed the rumor?

Google News, whose web crawler found an old, undated article from 2002 when UAL did file for bankruptcy. Since the article was undated (it has since been sourced and dated), it pushed the article out as new.

After Nasdaq investigated, the truth came out.

But not until after people lost money.

With a current client, we saw some news that should have been posted on Yahoo! but didn't make it. No one lost money on the glitch, but it shows one thing that we sometimes forget.

Google and Yahoo! are great, but they are far from perfect.

Check out "A Mistaken News Report Hurts United" and "United Airlines Issues Statement."