This trend has publishers scrambling to design media that is friendly to readers where traditional web content has focused on videos, interactive graphs, and podcasts. Part of that design will be aesthetic but there is more to it than that.

Imagine tablet news as a source that is continually upgraded right in front of your eyes. All related products and events can appear on your screen.

Mario Garcia has spent over forty years designing newspaper layouts and scrutinizing ways to make things more appealing and now he is faced with the new challenge of tablet computers.

“The tablet is a very unique medium, and you simply do not dump content from the newspaper into it,” says Garcia.

He continues,”Print is designed for the brain and the eye – the tablet is designed for the brain, eye and finger.”

For Garcia it more than just aesthetic design, its about the psychology of the user and creating an experience on the tablet that other mediums don’t provide.

He explains, “People expect more of a relaxing experience there, but every time we go for a total lean-back experience, we discover that people also want to lean forward, for news updates before bed, or whenever they want to get that last update of the day”.

When asked about who he thinks is getting it right with tablet computer editions of news he says The Orange County (Calif.) Register has got his vote. In magazines he claims that Readers Digest has really caught his attention.

It will be interesting to see how tablets continue to change the way we read, dicepher information, and subscribe to periodicals. It’s something I haven’t given much thought to until now.

Rick Fox speaking to WebProNews at the BlogWorld Expo about his passion for new media was one of these moments. Fox, who is known for his successful NBA, acting, and producing career, told us that he turned to the Internet because he wanted to tell his story.

He is currently working on a Web series called Off Season, which is a comedy based on a basketball player that is struggling to stay out of trouble. Fox told us he tried Hollywood but found that his standards and its standards didn’t match.

“What I realized rather quickly was that the Internet provided me the same opportunity that television provides or the movies provide… it’s a self-distribution model that is there for all of us if we’re passionate enough and persistent enough to bring our story to life,” said Fox.

Even though it’s not always easy to ‘make it big’ online, the opportunities and potential for success are much greater than they are offline. According to Fox, “we are all received online,” whether it is by one person or one million people.

“The thing about the Web is that viral effect that great content can have where, instantly, you can go from one minute sitting in your living room and ranting about something that just bothers you, and you find that 1 million other people out there in the world are bothered by the same thing,” he said.

Fox went on to say that the world’s perception of what entertainment is, isn’t really what people want to see. This is why John Doe is able to create a remix of a song and get more hits than the original song itself.

He believes that the future of the entertainment industry lies in the individuals that create content based on their point of view. For too long, people in high places have tried to dictate what society wants, but the Internet has changed this. Fox told us that the entertainment opportunities online would increase moving forward and that the people who have embraced the space early will go on to tell us who the next generation of entertainers will be.

“Those people that are brave enough to step out and have that persistence of speaking to 1-10 followers one day and [are] now speaking to 10 million people – these are the people that are going to be galvanizing communities and they are gonna curate content… and they’re gonna tell us what we should be focused on, and they’re gonna become the next generation of entertainers,” said Fox.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

What are some silly examples of what your friends have said on Facebook? Tell us your story in the comments.

Jonathan Standefer and Matthew Genitempo realized that their friends were saying some pretty crazy things and decided to catalog their findings. At the encouragement of a friend, the two launched their catalog, which they called Lamebook, in 2009.

The site took off and currently receives between 1,000-2,000 submissions each day. The story, however, doesn’t end there. Standefer told WebProNews that he received a call one day from Facebook’s legal counsel saying they were infringing or diluting its trademark rights.

Standefer said that Facebook wanted them to take the word “book” out of their site’s name. Additionally, the social network was concerned that users would confuse Lamebook and Facebook.

Incidentally, Standefer and Genitempo had a friend that worked at Facebook that told them Facebook would occasionally send out company-wide emails about Lamebook posts.

“I was relieved when I found that out,” said Genitempo.

Based on the call from Facebook’s legal counsel, the company apparently changed their views regarding Lamebook. After the call, Standefer and Genitempo were actually the first to file any legal action. The two filed a declaratory judgment, which was quickly followed by a countersuit from Facebook.

At this point, the case is moving slowly. However, Genitempo and Standefer believe that the situation raises an even bigger issue regarding satire and parody in new media. In traditional media, for example, it’s perfectly okay for Jon Stewart and the cast of SNL to poke fun at just about anything. But when it comes to bloggers and online personalities, it appears to be a different story.

“We’re a parody – we’re an obvious parody… they don’t come after Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert for doing their news shows, and those are obvious parodies,” Genitempo said.

Standefer jumped in and said, “Obviously with Lamebook, the trademark, the name – you immediately know that ‘oh, this is parody of Facebook.’” He further stated, “People aren’t going to go to our site and be like, ‘Where do I log in?’”

While the two are passionate about raising awareness about the inconsistencies between traditional media and new media, they said the circumstances have been “a really great learning experience.”

In addition, they both were able to quit their jobs and concentrate on Lamebook full-time. They also have an iPhone app, a book coming out this fall, and a calendar for 2012.

If anyone would like to help their cause, they are taking donations toward their legal fund. According to their progress bar, they are a little over halfway toward reaching their goal.

So, while it hasn’t been all bad news for Lamebook, do you think Facebook is taking the situation too far?

More WebProNews Videos

WebProNews recently spoke with popular radio and podcast personality Adam Carolla. After being fired from his radio show, he started a podcast and after just two weeks, it reached 2.4 million downloads. Some people consider him a pioneer in podcasting, but he doesn’t seem to really think of it that way. "I was doing a radio show, and then they fired me," he says.

Should you wait until you lose your job to start trying something new? Tell us what you think. 

His friend then told him he should do a podcast. After explaining to him what a podcast was, he convinced Carolla to sign on. "I’m flattered that people think of me as some sort of podcast pioneer," Carolla tells WebProNews. "There are people who were doing it before I was doing it. There will be people doing it after I was doing it. We didn’t invent anything. Maybe we were a little more consistent about it or approached it in a little different way, and you know, if people like to give me more credit than I deserve, I’m always willing to take it."

"But you know also, the whole pioneering thing, you know a lot of people say, ‘well, you got in on the ground floor of this’ and they act like you bought Macintosh or Apple stock, you know, in 1979," he continues. "It’s not quite the same. It’s more like…I always tell people, ‘the guys who played in the NFL in the 50′s were sort of pioneers, but those guys made 8 grand a year, and had to work at used car lots during the off season with no benefits,’ so pioneer…not necessarily a rich pioneer…you’d be much better off playing in the NFL now and making millions of dollars, so it’s somewhat analogous in that it’s nice to be known as the first guy to the party and the pioneer and all that stuff, but on the other hand, you don’t get rich just because you were there first."

Inspiring words for anyone who may think they are late to the game at this point. The fact is that it’s still very early in the game, particularly when it comes to monetization. 

"When it comes to advertisers and monetizing the podcast, there’s nothing that people have done and are aware of and so when you’re trying to get ad dollars from companies and they have traditionally used terrestrial radio and print and cable television and network television and sky writing and banners on the back of airplanes and blimps and everything else, this is new," says Carolla. "And people are a little weird about new, and it’s sort of like…I remember about ten years ago, people wanted us to eat ostrich meat, and they’d go ‘well it tastes like beef and it’s lean and it has less fat than beef and it’s better for you and it’s cheaper per pound, and people went…’I don’t know. I never ate ostrich growing up. That seems weird to me.’ and you’re like what’s the difference…"

"So there’s that little transition, and you can tell them until you’re blue in the face ‘hey, it’s better and it’s leaner and it’s cheaper and it’s whatever’, and they’re still like, ‘I want a burger.’ So that’s what you’re dealing with," continues. "Now eventually, you start getting people going ‘hey, I tried that ostrich burger and it’s pretty solid,’ and then eventually, their kids grow up eating ostrich burger and it makes no difference to them, and they start preferring it over the beef, because it’s cheaper and leaner and whatever else it is. So there is that transition where no matter how much you tell them, and how good it is for them, there’s still [the] old school that goes, ‘I don’t know.’ But, we’ve seen all that change in the last six months. I mean it just changed. People are stepping up. They’re advertising. They’re getting their checkbooks out. They’re not writing anything on them, but they’re getting the checkbook out…but they understand, a couple hundred thousand people’s a couple hundred thousand people. It doesn’t matter what they’re listening to or how they’re listening to it."

As far as content production, Carolla doesn’t see new media as much different than old media. "There’s not much to it. It’s not that different….everyone tries to kind of spin it into something different, but you get a microphone, and sometimes you get a camera, and you sit there and talk, and you tell jokes or you have some provocative conversation, and either people want to hear it or see it or they don’t, and you put it up on the computer vs. the TV set or on an MP3 player vs. the car stereo or radio, but either way, it’s just you talking and people listening…"

Carolla’s talking about podcasting, but you can see where this logic would apply across the whole new media board.

Is new media really that different than old media? Share your thoughts.

Almost everyone I heard speak at Blogworld basically said this in one form of this or another. I don’t think it was anything anyone didn’t know before they went into the show, but it was the different ways of creating content and engaging that presenters spoke of that attendees could take home and think about. It was the stories of causes and effects of said content and engagement, showing what can actually be achieved. 

If you watched any of our live coverage, you may have saw our interviews with people like Scott Stratten (who did the event’s opening keynote), LiveStrong CEO Doug Ulman (who spoke during the first day’s closing keynote), Scott Monty (Ford’s Social Media Director), Brian Clark of Copyblogger and Darren Rowse of Problogger (who both spoke during  day 2 keynote, Adam Carolla (who has the most downloaded Podcast on iTunes and spoke during the closing keynote), and Rick Calvert, CEO and co-founder of BlogWorld & New Media Expo. That’s just to name a few (we’ll be posting the video regularly at videos.webpronews.com). 

Each of these people, in different ways, represent the effects of new media on society. Carolla represents an old media celebrity breaking away from the old system and creating something special with a new format. Clark and Rowse represent finding great success through blogging and hard work. Monty represents how a brand can stay on the cutting edge of new media and technologies. Ulman represents how new media has greatly changed the world for the better, in terms of generating interest and money for important causes. Stratten represents how you can turn yourself into a brand, while being yourself. Calvert, along with BlogWorld Co-founder Dave Cynkin represent the coming together of all types of personalities, opportunities, industries and channels with common goals: creating great content and engaging with people. 

Penn Jillette, a name often associated with Las Vegas whether BlogWorld is going on or not, had the most entertaining way of describing engagement out of anyone at the show, as he participated in the closing keynote "talk show" with Carolla, MyDamnChannel‘s Rob Barnett, and others. He says that with Twitter, we’re seeing "an incredible increase in intimacy". 

Jillette also said, "There is no such thing as new media. It’s just people." If nothing else, that is probably the one thing that should be taken away from a three-day event filled with speeches, presentations, exhibits, parties, networking, and interviews. It’s just people. 

Read coverage from the event here. See photos on our Facebook page. 

The White House called the posting of such documents "irresponsible", but New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet is quoted as saying, "I think it was clear to them, in our conversations, that we were handling it with care."  The New York Times has expressed that its own staff conducted the research necessary to form its story, as WikiLeaks simply provided the documents.

The Atlantic has an interesting piece about how "WikiLeaks May Have Just Changed the Media," calling the event "a milestone in the new news ecosystem." Alexis Madrigal, senior editor for TheAtlantic.com writes:

Traditional media organizations are increasingly reaching out to different kinds of smaller outfits for help compiling data and conducting investigations. NPR is partnering with several journalism startups to deliver their information out to a larger audience. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University broke a large story on renewable energy in association with ABC’s World News Tonight. ProPublica’s 32 full-time investigative reporters offer their stories exclusively to a traditional media player.

New conduits have opened into the most highly regarded newsrooms in the country; while that’s probably a good thing, it adds a layer of complexity to a story like this. While ProPublica and others are certainly journalism outfits, WikiLeaks is neither here nor there. The video that caused their last news splash — "Collateral Murder" — seemed like an attempt at an editorial. The group was harshly criticized in many quarters.

"Internet advocates love to say that information likes to be free," wrote Mashable’s Samuel Axon recently when he compiled a list of innovative sites that could reshape the news. "There are few greater examples of this than WikiLeaks, which has played an important role in several political scandals and controversies."

Wikipedia points to other notable leaks that have been published at WikiLeaks in the past. These include an apparent Somali assassination order, Guantánamo Bay procedures, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account contents, Internet censorship lists, 9/11 pager messages, and other U.S. intelligence reports.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is quoted as telling the Guardian, "This situation is different in that it’s not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner … but rather that people can give back. So people around the world who are reading this are able to comment on it and put it in context and understand the full situation. That is not something that has previously occurred. And that is something that can only be brought about as a result of the Internet."

There’s no question that point has been made loud and clear this time.

Pollak talked about his online chat show at KevinPollakChatShow.com. He also proceeded to do impersonations of Christopher Walken and William Shatner, and talked about making fun of Larry King. Pollak acknowledged that his site isn’t a very good one. It’s not incredibly well-designed. It is, however, successful. He noted that he has Jason Calacanis as a partner.

After Pollak, they brought out the guys from Chad Vader, the people responsible for this:

They talked about how they got started and how unbelievable their success was. Then they brought out Jenny the Bloggess, who blogs for serveral publications. She admitted that she was a bit nervous and had to have alcohol before she came out. At that point, Kawasaki pulled a bottle of wine from the desk and they all drank out of the bottle, and handed it to the audience. It was then passed around the room.

Some people weren’t particularly thrilled with this part of the show from the sound of it. Blogger David Risley, who was in attendance, wrote this about the keynote on his blog:

The closing keynote was a bit of a train wreck. Kevin Pollack is absolutely hilarious. The Chad Vader guys and the Bloggess were a stretch. The keynote was dirty. I heard words come out of Guy Kawasaki’s mouth that I would have never expected (dude, you’ve got a brand to uphold – don’t blow it!). All in all, this was gutter-level humor I would have expected from a late night comedy special from crappy comedians on HBO. This is Blogworld and it is worthy of respect. Let’s act like it. I’m not opposed to a little foul language. I use it myself sometimes on this blog to get the point across. But, there are limits.

I get the impression, however,  that most people had a lot of fun with the keynote. It wasn’t just about fun though. There was also a point to be made.

The main takeaway was this: The web has allowed each of these people to be stars in their own way, and in ways that traditional media would never have allowed. Pollak said that he was approached by a major studio who wanted him to take his show to them, but they wouldn’t let him do 2-hour interviews, so he declined. He can do it however he wants online.

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld.

Robin Antin, who apparently "created" the Pussycat Dolls, for example, said that new media creates an opportunity to reach the world. Edwards added that there’s a great entertainment quality to social media, but that the device isn’t as important as the content.

Dupri talked about how new media cuts the middle man out. A celebrity can have direct contact with others. He doesn’t care about having a million followers because he can’t talk to all of them. He says to use social media to your own ability and for "what it should be used for." For him, this means engagement.

Topics touched upon in the session included how much is too much information, with regards to private vs. public, and celebrities leaving Twitter. Edwards says people want to know you, but not that well. The message has the weight, he says. They want to know what celebrities care about.

Antin says that your life is exposed with new media, and even though you put yourself out there, you have to be able to handle it. Dupri adds that it’s about control. People use the tools as toys, but they have to control it, he says. Otherwise it will all fall apart.

Dupri says he gives people the ability to see and live through him, which encourages fans to interact with each other too. He doesn’t want someone to tell him who is fans are. With new media, he can find out for himself.

Finally, Edwards noted that an "exciting" aspect about the digital age is the reach that comes with it, which can be used for good causes. He is currently working to build a children’s hospital in Africa. He said playing a doctor on ER for 8 years had quite an impact on him. Now he’s using new media outlets to help raise the money and awareness.

With social media, you can get the info out to everyone. This, he says, is "an amazing thing that just didn’t exist before."

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld.

As you probably know, the debate about blogs and journalism is a controversial one, and has really been going on for years. The emergence of social networks has really only fueled the debate. Considering reports that most Twitter users are looking for news, the debate will not likely be cooling down anytime soon.

Solis began by suggesting that new media is outperforming traditional media. Lemon jumped right in and disagreed, saying that people go to CNN to find a trusted source, and that people get their info from them and other sources and then go and re-tweet and blog about it.

Rosen spoke about growth in the industry and said that the pieces are starting to get filled in. The live web has enhanced it, but also made it more competitive, he says, noting that in the beginning new media was similar to old media, but not anymore.

Hewitt suggests that there are plenty of growth opportunities, but for new networks, it’s hard to get noticed and will be even harder in another ten years. There are numerous questions, such as: where are the jobs going to come from and how will journalists get paid?

Lemon says traditional media and new media need to work together. They shouldn’t fight. Earl agrees.

Rosen says that before news breaks, the facts and verification have to be there, but it’s not true that only professional journalists do this. Hewitt agrees, adding that new media evolution involves the human aspect.

Solis asks the speakers if the "statusphere" (status updates) is the salvation for traditional news. Lemon says that traditional news organizations took a while, but are now being transparent, and that "big media" gives new media understanding.

Rosen says that new media is shared more horizontally as opposed to the former vertical way from big media, and that part of that horizontal shift is humanizing it. "Give bloggers and regular people credit." It needs to be a "mutual" relationship. Lemon says that bloggers can’t be as responsible as the original journalists who researched topics.

When asked if the school of journalism has a place in the future, Hewitt says in his experience, they’re teaching irrelevant tactics. Rosen says they used to segregate between newspapers, magazines, and broadcast, but not anymore. Now, he says, they combine and incorporate the web and yield a new media system.

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld.

"Marketers have been aware of the effectiveness of building relationships and trust with content since long before the Internet," said Gordon Plutsky, Director of Marketing and Research, King Fish. "Technological change has rapidly increased media channel options and the patterns of information consumption among consumers. More and more marketers are abandoning old media — and traditional advertising — to venture out on their own with original content."

Findings from the study include:

- 86% of respondents’ companies are currently creating or plan to create original content for their customers and prospects in the coming year.

- 81% believe that brands and companies can create content that is as engaging and informative as content created by media companies.

- 74% feel that original content and media are most effective for generating marketing ROI.

- 70% are spending more today to reach customers and prospects directly with branded content than they did three years ago.

The entire report is available for free download. It gets into responses about the most effective way to communicate with customers and prospects, marketing budget, in-house/outside resources, measurement, etc.