I have been following CNN’s I-Report initiative and have been pretty impressed with how they are engaging readers/viewers by having them submit news content.  The photos, videos, and text add a new dimension to CNN.com where the reports capture images and videos of breaking news events that CNN reporters could never cover.  It is as if the CNN.com news force has multiplied infinitesimally.  Their photo tips on the I-Report tool kit, however basic, are quite helpful.  Here are a number of photos submitted by readers meeting

Two weeks ago, I got an email from the managing editor at Schmap travel guides on Flickr asking to use one of my photos for their online travel guide. Intrigued, I clicked on the link to check out this new online travel site. Schmap provides both online and desktop versions of their travel guide for 200 destinations with user-generated photos and reviews. Read more about them here. Their terms & conditions stated that if I agreed to provide my photo at no cost to them,

In this interesting article on Adotas, Dilip Dasilva – CEO of ad agency Exponential – shares the six trends that he sees ahead for 2008:    The Promise of 1-1 Marketing Realized  Online Video Achieves Target-ability  New Local Advertising Platforms Will Emerge  Beyond Clicks — Improvements in effectiveness measurement  Semantic Tools Attract Advertising Spend  Virtual Worlds Go Niche    

      My friend Xun put together this entertaining series of photos on his blog combining his friends’ faces at Chilango magazine (Mexico City’s leading magazine city guide) and the Mexican paper currency. Nice!!  

Every day I get on the metro here in Mexico City, I see/hear a vendor at every metro stop selling pirated music for 120 songs for $10 pesos which is the equivalent of $0.90 USD. Amazing and sad. These vendors selling illegally copied music are essentially training the public here to expect music for almost nothing in comparison to prices for legal CD’s or downloads. No wonder that Warner Music saw a 58% drop in net income. See article at the WSJ here.

  This is one of my favorite videos to show clients about the future of the media business.  Even though part of it are scary, but the good thing is that it gets media folks thinking and experimenting.

This article originally appeared on iMediaConnection. Business blogging has passed the tipping point. Today, executives and professionals in the media, marketing, technology and public relations industries get much of their information from blogs and strategize about how to incorporate blogging into their marketing, advertising and communications campaigns. Debbie Weil, author of “The Corporate Blogging Book,” says “Whether or not you choose to launch a blog, you need to be reading blogs. Your employees and/or competitors are most likely already blogging about your industry niche —

Dave Morgan, the founder of Tacoda spoke at an IAB Mexico event back in September and one of his comments keeps resonating with me.  I often discuss this statistic with friends.  He said that on average, newspaper costs are increasing 4 percent per year while newspaper revenues are decreasing 6 percent per year (in the United States).  Increases in printing, delivery (i.e. petroleum), and labor are driving costs up for US newspapers.  Services like Craig’s List, eBay, and Monster are stealing classified revenue from newspapers.  And

I saw a great movie the other night: King Corn. The documentary is about two recent college graduates from Boston who decide to go on a cross-country road trip: Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis. They stop at a University medical center and end up getting a hair test to see what they are made up of biologically. The scientist tells them that they are 70% corn. What? They say they haven’t eaten corn in years! The scientist tells them that most foods are made up

As a part of my ongoing responsibilites in building the online sales team at Time Inc Mexico (Grupo Editorial Expansion), I wanted to do something more than sharing reading material and having everyone sign up for email newsletters, as described in my previous post. Gustavo Ross who with his wife Anna founded and runs Activ@mente, one of the first interactive agencies in Mexico City, was telling me one day about the Friday afternoon sessions he has in his office. Each week they share something new