Among HuffPo’s top 11:

• iPod: little needs to be said, except, do you remember your life before having gigabytes of music in your pocket to listen to on demand?
• iTunes: made digital music downloads mainstream
• TiVo: the neutron bomb that hit TV. Do you remember when you had to watch TV in the order it was presented, or pop in a VHS tape to “time-shift”? How last millennium!
• Blackberrys/crackberrys/iPhones/PDAs in general: a computer on your belt or in your purse that is way more powerful than the computer you used to have on your desk, and it’s a phone and it’s connected to the web too!
• Kindle: still on the upswing, but do you remember where you were when Gutenberg invented the printing press? (don’t worry, it was 1439). You’ll tell your grandkids about seeing the first e-book. Yes, it’s that big.
• USB flash drives: flash memory in general is an absolutely revolutionary tool, as it allows us to record visual images (photos, video) on tiny devices that can go anywhere and record anything (which can then be uploaded on the worldwide communications platform we call The Internet). It also allows us to carry up to 300GB of data in our back pocket and hand it (say, nuclear secrets) to anyone we want.
• HDTV: 50 years after the commercialization of TV, the next step in picture quality, opening up all sorts of possibilities, but mostly, allowing men to watch football on giant screens.

Huffpo’s list is mainly “gadgets,” in other words tech hardware with some nifty software inside. What about things that were either sold or used only as software, on existing hardware? No diff really, but Huffpo skipped those, so here are a few I’d add:

• Google: came out in 98-99, but it didn’t gain popularity until 2000. Changed web search from a frustrating and incomplete exercise into an extension of our brains and thoughts.
• Facebook: changed online personas from sock puppets/imaginary selves to real people knitting their lives together.
• Twitter: it’s the first wave of the ‘real time web’ where information is shared almost as soon as it is created
• Blogging/content management systems: Took the creation of web content away from computer professionals and put it in the hands of everyone.
• Wikipedia: the open documentation and organization of all the world’s information
• YouTube: the first major step toward moving TV/video content onto the web. Trust me, by the end of the next decade, you won’t use a satellite dish or cable or rabbit ears to get TV content. It will all come over the Internet.
• Skype: buh bye, copper phone lines. Hullo, cheap voice and video phone calls over the web.
• BitTorrent: An amazingly simple way to share huge files containing entertainment (movies, concerts) over the net. I can now download a three hour, 1GB Springsteen show in about 15 minutes. At the beginning of the decade I was trading audio tapes by mail with people. How easy will it be in another decade?

What does stun me is all the media and sponsor handwringing and clucking that has ensued now that the stories about Tiger’s wild party life have burst into the open. Where were you, golf media, when Tiger had a bottle of Cristal in one hand and a babe on each arm? Were you partying along with him? Were you up in your rooms playing Nintendo? Or were you just flat out clueless?

And sponsors, starting with Accenture: you mean to tell me that you didn’t check out Tiger’s behavior before or while you employed him? You didn’t do any due diligence to find out if the image you were buying was real? And you want me to trust you (Accenture) with my corporate consulting work?

It seems clear to me that the media, sponsors and the PGA tour all turned a blind eye toward Tiger’s behavior, for one good ‘ol fashioned reason: money. The man has made billions for all the parties above, boosting ratings and selling soap. He was their cash cow, their golden goose. To call him on his behavior would have been commercial suicide.

I understand that too. But spare me the holier-than-thou statements now generally along the lines of “we didn’t know” or “he doesn’t represent the right image for us.” Puh-leeze. How about “we knew all along but we didn’t say anything, so we share the blame for this unfortunate situation, and we’ll do a better job next time.”

PS — And then there’s his wife, Elin Nordegren. She knew before she married Tiger that he was a major ladies man, yet she jumped on the gravy train as well. Here’s People mag, via the NY Daily News:

Nordegren’s friends tell People she knew about Woods’ extracurricular activities but that he promised before their marriage that he would change.

“Elin had talked to other golfers and their wives about Tiger’s wild parties,” a friend told the magazine. “When she asked Tiger about it, he said he would stop doing it. And she believed him. But he never did.”

I’d been wondering about the relevance of E&P in past months, so after getting over the initial shock, this decision comes as no surprise. E&P played an essential role in the newspaper industry in the pre-computer and pre-Internet days, but those days are gone forever. And like most of the media is covered, E&P had no real clue how to change with the times. Organizations like Media Bistro simply ate their lunch.

i just wanted to take a moment to note the passing of this trade magazine. It certainly signals the end of an era, amid the continuing death watch for major American newspapers.

This is not, as many assume, simply because the Internet came along and took away a lot of the advertising base, although that certainly has hastened their demise. It is, in my view, because the managers and journalists who run the nation’s big city newspapers got fat, lazy and complacent, well before the popularization of the Internet. They have only now really and truly woken up from this slumber, and it is probably way too late. Sorry guys.

The fact is that, even today, virtually all of the journalism on big city media web sites is subsidized, one way or the other, by the print side of the house. Even if the print side is losing money, it is still employing high-paid veteran journalists, whose articles are then posted on the paper’s web site. There, despite robust online traffic, those articles won’t generate nearly enough revenue to pay the salary of said journalists.

At some point, this model will become unsustainable, and those veteran journalist jobs will be gone. They will either not be replaced or they will be replaced by much, much cheaper labor.

I took the title of this post from an august conference at Yale Law School a few weeks back called “Journalism and the New Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messenger?” As the rest of the title of my post says, that is indeed the question.

I would have liked to attend the conference, but I only learned of it today, and besides, I don’t fly across the country for such things, unfortunately. But in a semi-ironic twist, I may very well wind up watching some of the proceedings from the comfort of my home or office, because they have posted video of the panels.

Two main forms of advertising supported the newspapers we know today: display ads from regional retailers, and classified ads, largely from auto dealerships and employers. These forms of advertising skyrocketed after the Second World War, as new and expanded metropolitan areas developed.

Guess what happened next: the world changed. The metro areas got developed, and the Internet came along. Both types of advertisers no longer needed the traditional regional newspaper to spread their message, and so they largely stopped advertising in them.

It was those revenues that supported the newspaper journalism we know today. And now they are gone, and they ain’t never comin’ back.

That doesn’t mean the practice of journalism goes away. But the cash cow that underwrote it has run out of milk. And for the most part, the managers and journalists who run big city newspapers are still flatfooted. It was probably never likely that they would lead the next revolution, but it’s always hard to watch people struggling with their economic mortality.

I’m going to end this stemwinder with a few thoughts about how the messenger might get paid:

• The non-profit model: There’s no reason why a non-profit can’t be the publisher of a newspaper. It is in this case (the St. Pete Times), and has been for years.
• Non-profit, part 2: Free-standing non-profits, such as Pro Publica, can also raise money, pay journalists and distribute their stories.
• Cheaper labor: pipe the City Council meeting to India. Have a writer there watch it and write the story. Fire or reassign the rumpled reporter who used to sit there to do more in-depth pieces.
• Change the advertising-to-content mix: It’s amazing how much stuff publishers are posting on the net, with so little advertising around it. Spread the content a lot thinner, and get more ads.

I’m not a big believer in the so-called objectivity of the mainstream media, but for years Dobbs has even crossed that line and used his show, ostensibly about business and finance news, to spout his wingnut opinions. Because CNN’s ratings suck so bad, the bigwigs there had little choice but to live with it, because Dobbs was one of their original and top personalities.

He crossed the point of no return when he insisted on keeping the Obama birth certificate story alive on his CNN show, even after the network itself fully debunked the story.

Good riddance to a flaccid corporate cheerleader and megaphone for racism.

This is not April Fools, and this is not a joke. The Tweeter in question, Justin Halpern, had already signed a book deal with HarperCollins. He’s got more than 700,000 followers for a Twitter feed he only started in August.

BTW, what did you do with your summer?

Here are a couple of gems from what is, absolutely, a very fun guy and his son:

• “Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that.”
• “I hate paying bills… Son, don’t say “me too.” I didn’t say that looking to relate to you. I said it instead of “go away.”
• The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain’t like he knows the cure for cancer and he just ain’t spitting it out.”
• “Just pay the parking ticket. Don’t be so outraged. You’re not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You double parked.”

How this turns into a PG-rated CBS sitcom is a good question. “Stuff My Dad Says” isn’t likely to be half as funny, and “funny stuff that happens in my family” has been done, and done, and done, starting with “I Love Lucy” in the 1950s.

Of course, in today’s world, getting the deal, getting to make a pilot and even just getting to make a few bad episodes before being cancelled is an excellent way to a) make a living and b) leapfrog onto other projects.

Per my opening line: this IS a sign of the present and future. Life has moved online (duh) and mainstream, mass market communicators are finally taking notice. Look for more such crossovers on a TV, in a book, or on a movie screen near you.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been involved with PRSA’s Silicon Valley Chapter, and our big event of the year is “Media Predicts,” a lively dinner, networking opportunity and panel discussion of predictions for next year in technology. It’s on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at the Computer History Museum, and it draws 300 people and dozens of top tech PR agencies and corporate PR departments.

This year, we’ve added two new wrinkles — an opening stand-up comedy monologue by name-brand comic Will Durst, and a “Student Silent Auction” in which top PR students from San Jose State are auctioning themselves off [proceeds to their school's PR program] to be PR interns at agencies or companies.

As my title implies, I think this is turning into the top must-attend event in PR on the West Coast, assuming you have a business interest in technology [and these days, who doesn't?]. It’s a see-and-be-seen opportunity for the tech PR community, which is especially valuable in this Twittering/Facebooking/email world of impersonal communications.

Here’s the list of tech media speakers, followed by a list of the companies who have already signed up to sponsor this event and host tables. For more information, go to the PRSA Silicon Valley page or the registration page.

• Ben Worthen, Wall Street Journal & Digits
• Brad Stone, New York Times & Bits Blog
• Byron Acohido, USA Today, LastWatchDog
• Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg News
• Matt Marshall, VentureBeat & DEMO
• Om Malik, GigaOM
• Steven Levy, WIRED
• Jim Goldman, CNBC (moderator)
• Duffy Jennings, SFGate (emcee)

Sponsors so far:

Premier Event Sponsor:

• Yahoo

Platinum:

• Microsoft
• SAP

Gold:

• Blanc & Otus
• Market Wire
• Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
• Trainer Communications
• Weber Shandwick

Bronze:

• Access Communications
• A&R Edelman
• Brunswick
• Dell
• Eastwick
• Fleishman-Hillard
• BusinessWire
• SanDisk
• Voce
• Waggener Edstrom

They are:

• Novelty: things that don’t happen everyday
• Familiarity: things that DO happen every day, such as the weather, the City Council and the stock market
• Big money and winners: the ups and downs of public and private institutions are always grist for news stories; everyone loves a winner
• Risk-takers: people who put their money, reputation, health or safety at risk
• Cat-fights: want coverage? Pick a fight
• Your wallet: everyone likes to learn more about how to make money, save it or spend it
• Sex, celebrities and scandal: because they have universal appeal

The story that prompted this post is this: cute blond female twins who want to work in journalism. This story appeared in the New York Times. Seriously.

Bucket analysis of this story:

• Cute blond twins = sex
• Want to work in the media = the media’s favorite big institution, itself.
• Killing themselves to get a job = risk-takers, esp. if you are a cute blond twin
• And don’t forget novelty! They’re cute young blond girl twins! How unusual!

Here’s another story making the rounds: Rush Limbaugh’s desire to become a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams of the NFL. It has generated, for sure, the most publicity ever for someone who wants to buy a non-controlling interest in an NFL team. Limbaugh knows exactly what he’s doing — here’s an interview to that effect.

Bucket analysis:

• Limbaugh = celebrity
• NFL = familiarity and big money
• Wants to buy small piece of NFL team = catfight!

See how easy it is!

Today’s example comes from Monday’s New York Times, where David Carr relates the story of his friend and neighbor, Thomas Moran, who left his thrilling but insecure newspaper job covering New Jersey politics for the safe but dull-as-dishwater world of corporate PR at local utility company PSEG.

At least, that’s how Carr characterizes Moran’s two worlds. Here’s how Carr describes being a journalist:

Sure, being a newsie is a grind…but it beats working by a mile. Every day is a caper, and most reporters are attention-deprived adrenaline junkies who care only for the next story. Journalists are like cops, hugging the job close and savoring the rest of their life as they can.

Let me just say that nothing in my journalism career came close to that experience. It was more like working in an insurance office, people sitting at cubes, working quietly, talking on the phone or typing.

And here’s how Carr characterizes Moran’s PR job:

“… a good job representing the interests of a large corporation… At neighborhood gatherings, we couldn’t help but notice that the once lively and mouthy Mr. Moran was bringing a dark cloud with him wherever he went…For 18 months, Mr. Moran’s nose was pressed against the glass of his nicely appointed 10th floor corporate office in Newark, watching the world go by, mostly without him.

I’m not going to idealize PR, but I’ve never felt like I had my nose pressed against the glass watching the world go by in my post-media PR career. To the contrary. I felt like an observer, not a player, when I was in the media, and I feel like a player, and not just an observer, in PR.

The end of the story is that after his miserable time in corporate PR, Moran made his way back to the ivory tower insecurity of the newsroom to get his adrenaline fix.

Chalk one up for the powerful media columnist of the New York Times using precious paper, ink and electrons to prop up and perpetuate the myths of the crusading ink-stained journalist and the zombied PR person. What else would you expect?

For one thing, traditional print and electronic media are far from dead and buried. They may be on the decline, but they’re not gone yet and may still survive in some viable form or another.

For another, new media models are popping up all over the place, and while none has been a stratospheric business success yet, they are surviving and growing and figuring out how to make money.

As a media relations pro (and I assume you are), you need to stay on top of the media’s evolution and be able to talk and think knowledgeably about it. So, here’s a link to a Neiman Journalism Lab article called “Five newsrooms H.L. Mencken wouldn’t recognize.”

It’s a behind-the-scenes tour of the news operations of Talking Points Memo, Gawker Media, Daily Telegraph, Valley Independent Sentinel and the Seattle Spokesman-Review.

BTW, who was H.L. Mencken? Good question — here’s your answer.

And while we’re on the subject of media evolution, here’s an interview with the newly named “social media editor” of the NY Times, Jennifer Preston.