At a meeting with the Executive Editor of the Tampa Tribune, during a discussion of traditional media integrating new technologies into their business model, I remarked, casually at the time, but now I think it oh-so-seriously, that the people who understand online news media the least are newspapers.
Today’s case in point, The St. Petersburg Times is asking readers for names for a new Facebook page linked to its (how boring) “Things To Do” section and two of the three choices use the word “cheap,” while the other one implies there’s nothing to do except during the weekend.
There’s “Ridiculously cheap, outrageously fun in Tampa Bay” or “Spend the weekend, not your money in Tampa Bay” or “So cheap, so fun in Tampa Bay.”
I vote for just ridiculous, because that’s the only way to describe the Times‘ latest online effort. Every ‘thing to do’ is not necessarily cheap. Cheap is for perfume. Certainly, not everything the Times will list as something to do can be described as cheap. And certainly, I don’t need a directory of flea markets and early bird specials.
