By Steven Roll
ASBPE President

Harry McCracken, former editor-in-chief, of PC World, and editor of the recently launched personal technology blog Technologizer, recently started another blog featuring his observations on the media business. It’s called McCracken On Media.

McCracken said he intends to use his blog to:

share the lessons I’m learning, as well as other stuff I’ve discovered over a couple of decades in the media biz. I’ll also comment on major news that transpires during this most interesting, surprising, and ultimately rewarding time to be in the media industry. I hope you’ll enjoy reading McCracken on Media (feel free to call it MoM for short); just as important, I hope you’ll contribute,too, by commenting on my posts.

So far, I would say the flavor of MoM is one part Seth Godin (the ultra hip marketing guru), with a teaspoon of Lifehacker (limitless source of cool Web apps.), and a pinch of Malcolm Gladwell (riffs on counterintuitive observations).

His first post highlights how critical it is for any content Web site to focus on building a community. To do this, McCracken explains, it is critical to make it easy for people to participate. A free Web application that accomplishes this goal is Poll Daddy, he says.

Another post takes aim at the myth that there is a cadre of young media professionals known as “digital natives” who are especially suited working on all things digital. The real digital natives are sixteen, McCracken says. He notes that this makes the rest of us digital immigrants.

McCracken also casts doubt on the conventional pearls of wisdom that Web activity should be focused on mornings and weekdays, and headlines should be stuffed with key words.

Hopefully, the RSS feed I’ve subscribed to from the McCracken on Media blog will keep my Bloglines account full of unconventional observations about digital media.