Online Media Cultist

Back when I used to read print publications on a regular basis (seems like so very long ago now!) I enjoyed reading Newsweek cover-to-cover. A favorite feature of mine – that they still do and offer online – is called Conventional Wisdom, where they run down personalities and stories of the week, giving each an up, down, or sideways arrow indicating who is gaining or falling in influence, good will, or some other factor based on the particulars.

Based on stories I’m following this morning, I thought I’d try something sort of similar.

Rising
* FriendFeed – Continues to be the darling of the tech geek early adopter set. I noted earlier this week that Steve Rubel thinks it could be the next Google. Today, Dembot runs down factors that are contributing to its success.

* MySpace – Readying a major site redesign, set to roll out next week. Webware notes that the UI will see a major upgrade, including “the homepage, navigation tools, profile editor, search features, and the MySpaceTV player.” Maybe Tom and company read my piece, called The rambling shambling social networking funhouse that is MySpace, and took heed?

Falling
* Yahoo – Mike Arrington at TechCrunch absolutely rips apart Yahoo’s search marketing deal with Google. The upshot, Arrington foresees, is the end of any counterbalance to Google in search, strengthening a monopoly and imperiling the health of the Internet economy as a whole.

* Associated Press – The AP has filed DMCA takedown requests against Drudge Report counter-balancer Drudge Retort for… linking to AP stories and using short excerpts in the process. If this case is given any headway at all, the entire nature of how information is shared on the Internet will need to change radically. Best quip award goes to Mathew Ingram: “It’s not only dumb, but ultimately futile.”

The sideways arrow
* Twitter – Still struggling with scaling issues, it has managed to stave off any major bad press this week. It needs to keep doing that, week in and week out, if it wants to keep upstart FriendFeed off its heels.

* Brad Garrett – Garrett, or the really deep-voiced deadpan dude from Everybody Loves Raymond, will star in an online reality show called “Dating Brad Garrett”. Reality shows have long seemed to be the perfect venture to find early success through online-first distribution, so perhaps Garrett’s relative star power will help this show to find an audience. The show will be available on Crackle.com, as well as YouTube, Hulu, and a bunch of other video websites. t