The lack of competitive online and mobile products from newspapers has left a huge opening for startups.

And that’s good news for a lot of us.

If you’re an entrepreneurial journalist, maybe you should be happy there is very little competition in the online landscape. Yes, I know that there are some companies like the Las Vegas Sun, Lawrence Journal-World, Washington Post, New York Times and some others doing innovative things online, but the vast majority of newspapers have craptastic Web sites.

Small community papers should be most afraid. These are often the papers with the worst Web sites (some don’t have any and many have barely functional ones). They rarely have good archives, almost never allow comments and discussion and many don’t update in-between print editions.

Plus, the barriers to entry for doing small-town journalism (be it offline or online) are much lower. A basic WordPress installation would be much better than most small-town newspapers’ Web sites.

Someone is going to benefit from the poor effort that most newspapers are putting online. This is a perfect opportunity for entrepreneurs to move in and defeat a weak enemy and give people a better product at the same time.

On May 8th, I made a post about how a previous post from a year earlier had a resurgence in traffic.

I thought that traffic would eventually subside, but I was wrong. In less than 3 months, that post has almost doubled the amount of page views it has:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, blogging has taught so much about how the Web works. When I made that post, I never envisioned that more than a year later it would still be receiving consistent traffic.

The Web works so much different than print. With a daily newspaper, for instance, all the views for a story basically come in one shot on the day an article is published. The day I launched that post (and the day after) are nowhere near the biggest days of traffic for that post.

That post also never had a huge day of traffic, and posts don’t need to generate giant days of traffic to be able to bring in a lot of traffic to a blog in the aggregate. About 90 was the most page views that post ever received in one day, but it has consistently drawn traffic. It has about 1,400 page views now, and in a year, it will probably have between 2,000-3,000.

A couple months ago I made a big SEO push on this blog. I changed the URL structure, put the post titles before my blog name, made sure I wrote headlines with lots of keywords for SEO, developed a site map and made some other changes to the site. I knew that my summer might be busy (I did BeatBlogging.org and Stripes at the same time during June), but I didn’t want my traffic to drop off that much.

And it hasn’t. While, I haven’t been setting records, July will probably be my second-highest month in terms of traffic for the JI. Not bad, considering I don’t post that much anymore, and I haven’t had a big, really popular post in awhile (BeatBlogging.Org is where my best work is these days).

But what I do have is a lot of long tail traffic. 165 posts received traffic yesterday, in large part due to strong SEO. With each post I make (this is No. 301), that long tail traffic gets more robust. Most of my traffic comes in via search engines and referrals right now.

Every journalist should at least experiment with blogging. I have been doing Web work since the the 90s, but blogging has taught me so much about the link economy of the Web. More journalists need to understand that economy.

It’s how the Web works.

Philly.com has several openings for internships that Yoni Greenbaum says aren’t your average internships.

You won’t be getting coffee or doing other menial work, but rather doing actual work. And by actual work, I don’t mean just collecting clips to put in a binder, but real, modern Web work. Imagine that!

At Philly.com you won’t be opening mail or answering phones. Our interns get trained to step into every roll from video production to homepage management. Current interns are helping to build special pages and micro-sites, produce video shows, manage the homepage and are actually having fun. If you want a different type of internship and think you have the right skills/perspective then drop me a line.

If I was looking for an internship, I’d certainly apply to get in on some of the exciting things that philly.com is doing.

But seriously, you’ll want to have some clips too, whether they be in print, online or — gasp! — on a blog.

I received an e-mail today from a reader who had a story to share about being stifled by corporate and management. The good news for journalism is that this person isn’t down on journalism itself, just some journalism companies. Unfortunately, this is not a unique story in today’s journalism world:

I’m beginning to liken my job to that of working at McDonald’s. It’s your basic fast-food fare that feeds the same stuff everyday, and we’re stifled by corporate and management to do things their way without fail. It’s the same culture with a few people who want to do better.

During a recent natural disaster the site did very with direct traffic, garnering more than 1 million page views. The site normally does about 200,000 a day. 1 million sounds pretty good, but it could have been more (updates on inclement weather are big traffic drivers):

Anyway, my boss (pretty much there for the paycheck and hours) decides not to stream our TV coverage because “he wanted to have our helicopter coverage without our station’s bug). People come to our site during work and they sure don’t have TVs in their offices, so why wouldn’t they expect to have our breaking news coverage streaming, too. We’ve done it for every other event where I’ve been working. That takes me back to my analogy. I feel like my bosses were satisfied because they got an extra Big Mac in their combo when I feel we could have had a steak.

Note: I have edited this post at the request of the original author to protect their identity better.

More and more talented journalists (often young) are leaving journalism for other industries.

Not because they fear being laid off or fired, but because the culture at newspapers (especially newspaper corporations) doesn’t allow for the kind of innovation necessary to save newspapers. Case in point: Braden Nicholson left the Indianapolis Star because corporate knew how to ruin every good idea:

You know what is a bummer about this? When INTake was first launched, the young men and women working there were so stoked that some of them actually slept on the office floor rather than take a break at home. It used to be fashionable for older journalists to bitch about young reporters not having “fire in the belly.” Well, these kids had fire in the belly.

Braden said it best. Corporate doused the fire.

Newspapers need that enthusiasm and fire to save themselves. This is do-or-die time for newspapers. This is not the time for red tape and bureaucracy.

Perhaps even more illuminating than Nicholson leaving journalism for another industry, is the comments left on the Gannett Blog. The first comment — anonymous, of course — has all the hallmarks of a curmudgeon that is shouting down new ideas (the kind of newsroom cancers that are killing newspapers):

Many of us at Indy are pleased to see Braden leave the Star. He was an arrogant kid who believed that he was smarter than the rest of us here.

Yes, at 29, Nicholson is certainly a kid. Another classy comment that wreaks of a curmudgeon:

IndyStar is full of a bunch of punks who think they are all innovators. I left there recently and always believed these little shit-stains were all immature.

On the other hand, we have comments about why people left Gannett because of curmudgeons:

I left the company a number of months ago and for good reason. If I were 20 years older, I would have been just fine, but because I wasn’t, the EE thought it necessary to let me know I wouldn’t be “respected.” (The same guy who no one respects in that newsroom).

Looks like this poison spreads in all Gannett newsrooms. I always thought Greenville was just unique. This attitude toward young people (aka future editors) will be the death knell of Gannett. Eventually the last 50-year-old will leave and there will be no one left to take their place.

I have heard of Gannett having cancerous newsrooms before. My girlfriend left a mid-size daily Gannett newspaper because of the newsroom culture (ageism and sexism abound). And I’ve heard it from other people about other Gannett newspapers.

This isn’t a unique Gannett problem, but corporate has to get its act together. Each newsroom should be a laboratory for innovation. That means corporate has to stop inhibiting innovation.

“I’m convinced that newspapers need to rise up and take responsibility not just for the quality of the news, but for the quality of the conversation,” - Monia Guzman.

Instead of complaining that comments sections on newspaper Web sites are worthless, newspapers need to start actively cultivating conversations. The Web is about community, and communities are about conversations. Are newspapers in or out?

Head over to BeatBlogging.Org to read and listen to my full interview with Guzman, the first online reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Part of her job is to cultivate and analyze conversations on the PI’s Web site. Shouldn’t ever newspaper have at least one journalist who does this?

Bad things can happen:

I’m just saying.

Yes, it is a tough time for journalism graduates — or anyone looking for a journalism job — but there are jobs available for people with desirable skills.

Recent journalism graduate Kyle Hansen just accepted a job at the Las Vegas Sun. More noteworthy, is that in this terrible time for journalism companies and the economy, he had interviews in five different states with newspapers. Five different states.

What skills does Hansen have that most recent journalism graduates don’t? Well, for starters, he blogs. It doesn’t have to be the best or most popular blog, but having a blog shows potential employers that Hansen is willing to try out new tools and that he has an understanding of the power of blogging.

Hansen also has multimedia skills, which include some knowledge of video editing, Flash and Web design. No one is saying that Hansen needs to be an expert in any of those areas, but the simple fact that he is inquisitive is a major plus for employers.

Not only can he write (which every journalism graduate should be able to do), but Hansen also has Web and multimedia skills. People like him will find employment.

The average, run-of-the-mill journalism graduate will have a tough time finding employment, especially at a desirable destination like the Sun, which is arguably the most desirable journalism destination in the U.S. right now. But journalists with modern skill sets are still in demand.

And it’s never too late to update your skill set.

Timothy Kennedy, the publisher of The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., announced 35-40 layoffs yesterday at the 110,000-circulation newspaper.

But that’s not the real lede for me. In the middle of his memo he writes, “More than ever our financial results reflect the broken business model of the past.”

I agree with him that the old business model that newspapers operated under is broken. Many people agree with that. What I don’t see, however, is a new business model in his memo.

All I see are layoffs. Oh, and, a closing of a few bureaus, and some crap about changing the zoning of the print editions.

But how does Kennedy plan on growing revenue? How does Kennedy plan on monetizing the Web better? How does Kennedy plan on making The Morning Call a more relevant news source in the 21st century?

So, what’s the new business model of the future, besides laying off 40 employees? Oh I know, laying off 40 more 6 months from now. Got it.

Layoffs are not a business model.

I want to relate a story from two years ago about a missed opportunity at a 25,000-circulation daily newspaper.

I was talking with the top editors at this newspaper about my Web experience and some of my thoughts on what newspapers needed to do to make themselves more competitive on the Web. The question of money always arises, however.

How do we pay for this? Who funds research and development? How do we convince the publisher and owner to loosen the purse strings?

The editor in chief had an idea how to pay for some innovation at her paper. The problem was the owner. He didn’t see a need to spend money on the Web.

Contrary to popular belief, working for a family-owned newspaper is not always better than working for a corporate one. The owner, an older gentlemen, had decided his paper needed a new printing press — a $20 million facility.

The editor in chief suggested that he make some sacrifices with the printing press and instead divert some of that money to R&D for the Web site. She reasoned that even $500,000 — 1/40th of the money — would make a big difference at their modest newspaper.

She was unable to persuade the owner to spend some money on R&D for new media. That was in 2006, when the industry was in considerably better shape.

I bet the owner really regrets that decision now. And I’m sure the editor in chief realizes what a massive missed opportunity that was.

In 2006, the housing market was booming in the Cleveland area, but since then the housing market has collapsed and the economy has been hit hard. Now that paper — like papers all over the country — are forced with hard decisions on what to cut to bring expenses down.

It’s tough to justify spending money on R&D when many papers have to make drastic cuts, especially in an area like the Web, where newspapers traditionally have not made much money, if any at all. The economy will get better, and ad revenue will climb again.

The best time to invest in the future is when things are going well. Don’t expect the good times to last forever. Many newspapers did nothing until things got really bad.

Things will get better. And when profit margins are their fatest, we should invest the most in the future. Let’s learn from the past to make the future better.

We have to learn from our mistakes, or else we’re doomed to repeat them.