Thursday, November 30, 2006

Dangerous Games

Thinking about testifying in a case that could endanger your life? Thinking about prosecuting a defendant using evidence from informants?

Think again.

Boston.com posted an AP story today about a Web site that identifies informants and undercover agents, whose identities are protected from retaliation for testifying against defendants in court.

WhosaRat.com gives profiles of men and women who have "ratted" on people to the police, sending them to jail. According to story, the creator of the site is a man named Sean Bucci, who was charged with selling marijuana out of his home. Bucci is under house arrest awaiting trial.

The site is registered to a man named Anthony Capone, who holds the domain name with an address in Austrailia. Capone is apparently a spokesman for the site. In the story, he says that the site does not condone violence and is only a resource for men on trial:
"If people got hurt or killed, it's kind of on them. They knew the dangers of becoming an informant," Capone said. "We'd feel bad, don't get me wrong, but things happen to people. If they decide to become an informant, with or without the Web site, that's a possibility."
That's a pretty flimsy response.

Also, on the disclaimer page on the site, the first paragraph says this:
"This web site and the information contained within is definitely not an attempt to intimidate or harass informants or agents or to obstruct justice. This websites purpose is for defendants with few resources to investigate, gather and share information about a witness or law enforcement officer. Freedom of speech , freedom of information act, and an individual's constitutional right to investigate his or her case protect this website. Some Information contained in this website may not be 100 percent accurate and should be used for information / entertainment purposes only."
I wonder who actually believes in this. The information that the site shares easily makes each informant a target. However, there isn't much anyone can do yet. The documents and information that the site posts are of public record and no one's challenged the idea that the site is not protected by free speech. Still, it's a pretty shady Web site, and it makes you wonder just a little more about your privacy in anything that you do.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Orange Alert

Check out Boston.com. I think the site needs money. Currently, it's covered in a sea of orange as Cingular Wireless has an advertisement at the top of the page, a block of them right below the top stories and its logo is being used as a frame for the main page. Soon, we'll be seeing stories that have corporate sponsors. Imagine: Eileen McNamara's Sunday city column brought to you by John Hancock.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday to all.

Not much is going on right now, but I found this story on Boston.com humorous. The Globe is advertising it for Saturday's paper. I'm not sure if the MBTA refunding overpayments is good hard news people will be looking forward to tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Nine innings with Nick Cafardo

Boston.com has a story written by Gordon Edes of the Globe on how the market favors the Red Sox trading Manny Ramirez. The Sox have been trying to deal the funky slugger for three years now and this could be the season that they do it. With other teams handing out figures like $136 million to inferior players, teams might be willing to deal with Ramirez's issues for a relatively bargain price of $78 million over four years (Ramirez is guaranteed $38 million through 2008, but has two option years at $20 million apiece).

Included in the article is a video, not of Gordon Edes, but of Nick Cafardo, who appeared on Red Sox Hot Stove to talk about Ramirez and some of the other items swirling around Boston and the rest of baseball. It's kind of a funny video because of its brevity. Instead of getting real analysis from one of the Red Sox beat reporters, the host asks nine quick questions and Cafardo only has time for one short sentence on each topic. To me, it lacks substance and I ask, why bother at all? I have never seen the whole show, but if you are going to devote 30 minutes to pure hot stove talk, why not let Cafardo talk in a calmer environment instead of rapid-fire agression?

By the way, I've met Cafardo in person and the camera does not do him justice. He is not as wide in real life.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Daily News needs a makeover

I'm a daily reader of the New York Daily News, not for its groundbreaking investigative work, but for it's sports reporting. However, the paper's website is probably the poorest one I read every day.

The Daily News does not provide any original content on its site nor does it have any multimedia. Even the Boston Herald does a decent job of changing pace and making things fresh for its web site.

I find it very surprising that the News has yet to catch on to the Internet scene. The paper has great circulation and has a following, and yet does very little to attract the online community. The farthest it's gone is creating sports blogs. To give you an idea of how unusual this is, here's the Audit Bureau of Circulations' Top 10 newspapers according to circulation:

1. USA Today - 2,549,252
2. The Wall Street Journal - 2,047,127
3. New York Times - 1,623,697
4. Los Angeles Times - 1,172,005
5. Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News - 1,039,340
6. Chicago Tribune - 937,907
7. The Washington Post - 930,619
8. New York Daily News - 780,196
9. New York Post - 708,561
10. Houston Chronicle - 692,586

Only the Daily News has a pedestrian web site with no multimedia and little original online content. The other nine make an effort to create a demand for the websites.

Now I don't mind as much because I use the News' website to read the paper content, but improvements need to be made to attract more people to the site. There does seem to be some hope for the sensational tabloid. On its careers page the News has this written:
The New York Daily News is relaunching its website, NYDailyNews.com. We are looking for candidates with online advertising sales experience to expand the operation of our website. We are in start-up mode - providing excellent growth opportunity.
Good luck to Mort Zuckerman and his crew.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The clock is ticking

The worst kept secret in baseball was finally made public today as the Boston Red Sox were awarded the right to negotiate with Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka after agreeing to pay the Seibu Lions (Matsuzaka's current team) a king's ransom of $51.1 million. Now, the money will only go to Seibu if Matsuzaka signs, but his contract demands, thanks to the notoriously stubborn Scott Boras, will be through the roof and the Sox only have 30 days to complete a deal. It's quite possible that by the end of this, the Sox will have paid Matsuzaka over $100 million. That's pretty good considering that the 26-year-old has no Major League experience whatsoever.

Now you ask what's the new media part of this post? Boston.com made a big deal about this historic moment of giving cash away and would like to remind all Sox fans that Boston is on the clock.

Update: Wednesday, Boston.com has added a clip from YouTube to further introduce Red Sox fans to the Japanese wonder.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Recognizing YouTube

Jesse Spector at the New York Daily News wrote a feature piece that appeared in today's paper about how YouTube is revolutionizing the ability to watch sports video online. The piece goes in depth about the kinds of bizarre videos that can be found online, such as a University of Missouri quarterback who enjoys "gold digging," and a japanese pitcher, who was intimidated by former major leaguer Tony Batista.

You sure can find anything on YouTube.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Stop the Presses!

The tagline for the story reads: From K-Fed to Fed-Ex: Now what? The headline on the page of the story reads: And now what for Kevin Federline?

No, it's not the Boston Herald or the National Enquirer. It's CNN.com.

I'm going to stick to my usual news sources, thank you very much.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Election Day Fun

"I always believed in futures. I hope for a better November...Say hello to good times."
-Jimmy Eat World

Well, the inevitable occurred. Deval Patrick secured his seat in the state house, easily defeating Kerry Healey and two no-names. In my home state of New York, the democrats reigned supreme as Hillary Clinton easily won re-election and Eliot Spitzer won the gubernatorial race.

Now in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race, all Patrick had to do was show up. Healey handed Patrick the election with her awful smear campaign that had one bad advertisement after another. Seriously, the democrats could have put a dead John Kennedy on the ballot and Healey would have swept the corpse into election.

What would have been really funny would be if all the Patrick supporters got complacent after seeing that the polls favored the democratic candidate and didn't vote. Then Healey would have snuck into the office with enough votes. That could have mirrored an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Bart had all the pre-election support in his run for class president, but none of his supporters remembered to vote, and his nemesis Martin Prince won the election, 2-0.

But I digress.

Since I frequent Boston.com and NYTimes.com, I thought I'd post some of my favorite new media features of Election Day coverage:

Check out the sea of blue in Boston.com's map of each town's voting results. I was a little disappointed that the towns of Harvard and Falmouth both voted in favor of Patrick. A friend of mine has lived in each of those towns and he swore on his life that both towns would vote democratic. Healey wins in those areas would have given me the giggles for days.

In the Boston.com photo gallery, be sure to see picture five. I think Patrick's smile is a little forced. He doesn't really want to be seen with this guy right now. Also in the photos is state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who won re-election. She's not a big supporter of Northeastern and the university's policy on expanding. Something to consider.

Also, don't miss the pre-Election Day coverage that Boston. com had. In a flash page, the site provides analysis of the races in the house and senate as the Democrats try to seize control for the first time this decade.

NYTimes.com has a page dedicated to national races where you can click on a map of the U.S. and pick a race in any state whether it be House, Senate or Gubernatorial. There's also a slide show showing the candidates who won and lost last night.

In a side note, Joseph Lieberman won re-election in the senate race in Connecticut. Lieberman was ousted from the Democratic seat in the primary by Ned Lamont, losing the support of his fellow donkeys. Kudos to Lieberman for sticking to his beliefs and his agenda, running as an independent and then showing everyone that his way is still the most popular way.

"We're wide awake and we're thinking. My darling! Believe your votes can mean something!"
-Jimmy Eat World

Monday, November 06, 2006

Smile, you're on RMP

Professors across this great nation, beware and prepare to hide your faces.
RateMyProfessors.com, the site that allows college students to post comments about their favorite and not-so-favorite professors, has added a new feature to its ranking website. It now allows students to upload pictures of the professors they are critiquing onto the site. So now you can match a face to the professor you plan on taking next semester, or the one you plan to avoid at all costs.

This is quite a ridiculous feature because, as we all know, the Internet is not policed and anything can happen. I could put up a photo of a donkey and pass it off as a professor of mine. The site administrators have said that they will keep a watchful eye on phony photos, but honestly, are they are going to be able to check each photo that they receive and make sure it's authentic? According to an article by InsideHigherEd.com, the site received more than 1,200 photographs within 48 hours of offering the new feature.

Who knows how many of those photos are not who they say they are? Regardless, it's a dumb feature that has no business existing. Now, students will be more concerned about bringing their cell phones to class (RMP's tagline for this feature is "Bust out your camera phone and upload your professor's picture today!") and trying to get a quick snapshot of their professors than they will be about that day's lecture.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

No words to describe this

I found this on Deadspin.com, a sports humor blog. If you thought Spanish soccer announcers were funny before, you'll find them funny on a whole new level after this.

Also, I'd recommend Deadspin as regular sports reading. It's good fun.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

To Pay or Not To Pay

I subscribe to Baseball America, a newspaper that focuses mostly on the minor league and college games, though it certainly has its share of major league baseball features. I've been a subscriber since I was 13 years old and have enjoyed its content.

The subscription comes with access to its online content, which is mostly the same as the print edition. So, I get to read the stories online before the paper arrives in my mailbox. While the site does have some items that are free for all to view, including top news stories and statistics, however, most of the site is locked up for subscribers.

Recently, the site has decided to offer podcasts for everyone to listen to for free, giving people more inside analysis at no charge, and it makes me wonder what kind of affect this will have on the circulation of the paper.

Personally, I will not relinquish my subscription, but for those who are more casual readers of the site and the paper could find the podcast adequate enough to satisfy their baseball needs. In listening to the first podcast, which was posted on Oct. 13, the two hosts, Will Lingo and John Manuel, have good chemistry and sound well, but they are limited because it's only a 15-minute broadcast, and because you can talk so much about one subject, it's easy for the listener to get confused or tired of the content.

In the long run, I don't think offering free podcasts will hurt subscription numbers, but I do think that if they keep the same format, podcasts should be for subscribers only. Podcasting is a unique function and as a subscriber who pays $128 for a two-year subscription to the print and online content, I'm a little upset that it's offered for free. Of course, maybe that's Baseball America's plan all along. Maybe they are buttering up people to get hooked on the podcasts and then make it a "subscribers only" feature. I wouldn't be surprised.