Tom Davidson

Matt Mullenweg is at it again. He’s the creator of WordPress, one of the free tools that’s reinventing the world of media and the very definition of what it means to be a “journalist.” How does Mullenweg justify giving away the results of years of work? Then working more untold hours on upgrades (helllll-ooooo Version 3!)? Then [...]

Over at the GrowthSpur blog, Mark Potts and I have posted about a bunch of free tools we like that are highly useful for entrepreneurial journalists. (Oh – and that jokey lead about hardware stores? Not a joke. I’m so bad that the Fabulous Sue Corbett (trademark pending) jabbed me in a one-act play about Noah’s [...]

Offered with no comment, and minimal context: The writer, Eileen Spiegler, is a longtime colleague, and a gifted copy editor. From her online musings on a random Wednesday: “Sometimes I wish the newspaper was as interesting as my Twitter stream.” Discuss, please.

OK, I know that I rant about Moore’s Law continually. It’s the key driver of the digital age. It’s why things that seem incomprehensible get invented, and it’s why things that flopped spectacularly just a few years ago are common and successful today. But many people – traditional journalists especially – struggle to get Moore’s [...]

Eleven years ago, I caught the break of my life: I got a one-year Knight Fellowship at Stanford. (I still find it so shocking that I rarely mention it. Friends say it usually takes at least 18 seconds before I bring it up in conversation.) I’m unabashed about how grateful I am to the program [...]

Publlishing hyperlocal information? Getting some grant money for it now from a local foundation? Or running a local foundation that’s interested in doing more to improve the flow of information, especially as traditional media suffer 1,000 cuts? Here’s a chance to double down – and also gain access to significant training, guidance and knowledge. The Knight [...]

I had a quick conversation the other day with someone interested in using my colleagues at GrowthSpur  to help launch his news web site. As usual, I encouraged him to charge ahead – but urged him to pick a niche, not launch a general news web site. This goes against years of training and experience [...]

I’ve written before about how Moore’s Law  and its corrolaries in the software world inexorably make web tech cheaper and simpler by the year. But don’t take my word for it. A comment and a software release last week make the point better than I can. Serial entrepreneur Dave Morgan dropped an offhand comment during [...]

Pete Townshend – yes, that greybeard who played at the Super Bowl the other night – has always been one of my favorite pithy writers. Don’t Get Fooled Again’s best line may be its last – “Meet the new boss/ Same as the old boss.” In this decade of unparalleled tumult at American newspapers, that [...]

I’ve ranted a couple of times already about how journopreneurs need to make smart, inexpensive choices – especially about technology. Over at the GrowthSpur blog, my colleague Dave Chase offers his thoughts (also live at OJR) about picking a good online content management system. Dave speaks from vast experience. He was on the launch team [...]