AdAge’s Andrew Hampp chronicled s a recent National Cable & Telecommunications Associates panel in which ‘media moguls’ like Rupert Murdoch talked about their answers to paid content moving forward. While HBO is working on an online on demand product, Murdoch and News Co. has plans to create their own e-reader, sounding eerily similar to the Kindle.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch said in a keynote interview with Fox Business News reporter Neil Cavuto that preserving the Journal’s subscription model online has been one of the biggest no-brainers since he acquired the financial newspaper in 2007.

“The question is, Should we allow Google to steal our copyrights? The paper has no trouble in charging $60 to $100 a year solely for the website. We’ve got about 1 million people doing that, and it’s not a gold mine, but it’s not bad,” he said.

But in order to maintain loyalty among readers who get their news online, on their BlackBerries and, increasingly, their Kindles, News Corp., which is also the parent of Fox News, is developing its own e-reader for newspapers, one with a larger screen to better emulate the print experience. “You can update it, leave it by your bed at night and there’s your newspaper,” Mr. Murdoch said.

The problem with Murdoch’s WSJ example is this, and forgive me for stealing the term from someone else I can’t recall right now. A WSJ subscription is an ‘expense account purchase,’ plain and simple. The real test applies to general interest magazines and newspapers that perhaps don’t have a direct effect on the business world.

What’s equally puzzling and frustrating is the notion that News Co. thinks they can develop the hardware necessary to provide a quality user experience. And with other media companies trying to jump into the hardware fray (Hearst, etc…) are we, as consumers, destined to have four or five ‘e-readers,’ plus the netbook, cell phone and iPod.

It’s simply not realistic.

But, with that said, competition fuels innovation, so may the best media ‘mogul win. I just hope that consumers aren’t the losers.

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Jeff Jarvis wrote a very intuitive post on APIs – application programming interface – and how The Guardian newspaper is turning the keys to the content kingdom over for building and distributing apps. He writes:

The Guardian’s offers more than headlines: articles, video, galleries, everything. It also adds one more important element to its offering: a business model, creating an ad network for users of the API.

Upendra Shardanand, my partner at and the founder of Daylife, has been saying for a few years that APIs are the future of distribution. The Guardian says its API will put its content “into the fabric of the internet.”

Jarvis continues on to say that the old media way is to attempt to bring the people to your site. Now, we must bring the content to the people. Build ads around widgets that readers will use more frequently to keep up with news. Very cool. But will big media companies truly ‘get it,’ or will they continue to see traffic, time on site and page views as the measuring sticks of success. Perhaps more importantly, how will media buyers see these widgets and apps versus the static web site?

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With the news that Murdoch is going hyper-local by buying a second Brooklyn paper, is this a sign of what’s to come for a longer-term strategy? Regional and localized papers aren’t hurting nearly as bad as other media entities. A regional ad network, perhaps? Without doing any research, has News Corp been buying smaller papers in any other markets? Curius to see if this is a test market of sorts in his own backyard…

It’s a goofy and archaic idea, says Read Write Web‘s Lardinois. PaidContent’s David Kaplan, agrees, although with a bit more objectivity.

“… For the most part, newspapers need to get out of the hardware business, not into it.”

Yet again, an idea that would require additional piece of equipment to purchase/rent/store in or around your house/office. I have trouble downloading my daily news podcasts. I can’t fathom the thought of messing with a printer for my custom newspaper. We have to do better than this.

As tax time approaches once again for those filing annually, the archaic methods of government entities never ceases to amaze me. Case in point: keeping receipts for tax purposes. Some folks scan in their receipts; others use a filing system — but for most of us, it’s a  good old shoebox.

Hence the name of Shoeboxed, a small business that literally takes your tax-deductible receipts (or any receipts for that matter) and will scan them in and organize them for your records. Prices are affordable, and if you’re going for more than the standard deduction, more than likely well worth the money it would otherwise cost to scan, file or god forbid, have to sort due to an audit.

And for the sales guy or networking guru, they scan business cards as well.

Shoeboxed

My mentor and grad school professor Samir Husni is taking his love of magazines to a new level by launching a Magazine Innovation Center on the campus of Ole Miss. This non-profit think tank will explore how to keep magazines relevant and innovative as other forms of medai continue to grow – with our without a true business model.

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