By no means am I saying that there isn’t a place in the future for print media, but I believe that its place in the world will change. No longer will print media be where people turn for news, instead I believe that more and more people will look to the internet – we are seeing this already, is isn’t a new thing. Print media will transform into a place for feature articles and longer pieces, mainly due to the major advantage that online journalism has over print: speed. Print media still has the advantage of portability currently, which is why it still has a place with feature articles and the like, but even that content is available online and will be made more accessible with the advent of e-readers, UMPCs, and other fun gadgets.

I can think of many times I have been up in the wee hours of the morning preparing an article on a piece of news that has just dropped. I can write a story and publish it online before most print media outlets are even aware of it. Take the announcement of the iPhone for example: I was preparing an article during Steve Jobs’ keynote, with the article live on MobileBurn not 30 seconds after the facts were revealed. Tech magazines would have had to wait until the following month at least to report on the news, and even newspapers would have had to have held off for an afternoon edition, if not the next day. It just makes sense for people to turn to the most recently updated news source, which will almost always be the internet.

Online media also has the ability to be very specialized. At MobileBurn, we do better reviews of handsets than almost any print publication out there. We know phones, it’s what we do. Most magazines have to cover a broader range of subject matter, and as such do not have the same depth of knowledge on all topics. The perfect publication would be made up of specialists reporting on what they know best, and this is far easier online. It does happen in print, but through RSS feeds and other syndication technology readers now have the ability to view exactly the content they like, rather than one publication choosing who is the best in a field.

I have no problem writing feature articles for print media, I quite enjoy it, but I really do believe in online media.

Unlike Barry Allwood at MobileScraper (like the name), I think this is a great idea – with a caveat. Like Barry, I hate Motorola’s confusing naming. Why are vowels so bad, Motorola? What I do like, however, are names like LG’s Chocolate. Think about the auto industry, manufacturers do not name their vehicles with long, confusing numbers, but instead give them names that are memorable, which increases model awareness and encourages word of mouth marketing.

I don’t think a pure name based system is the answer, though; Too many names will get just as confusing as the numbers. What I would love to see is manufacturers using names for ranges of products, which are then broken down with short, easy to remember numbers. Samsung, which I previously called the worst offender, has actually begun introducing this method (though only on a very small range of handsets currently). Samsung has its ‘Ultra’ range, which is then broken down into numbers based on the thickness of the handset (Ultra 9.9, Ultra 6.9), and while I don’t particularly like the decimal point in there, I think this is the way of the future.

Imagine it, the Ford SMAD-1901 – pretty memorable…

Be a Good Dad contends that SMS text messaging won’t ruin a child’s spelling and grammar skills, and will in actuality help them know when to write with slang and when to write formally. This is an interesting argument, and if a careful eye is placed on children, could indeed work. As a side note, Be a Good Dad seems like a very good blog for fathers to read, so be sure to check it out.

Someone should introduce Be a Good Dad to the Firefly and Migo handsets though, as well as other available handsets for kids, as they answer almost all the features the article requests in a handset for kids.

After the announcements of the MOTOKRZR K1 and MOTORIZR Z3, I really thought that Motorola was going to give me something new. But with no shipping date for these handsets in sight, what has the company given us? That’s right – RAZRs in new colors… again… Though this time it comes in the form of ‘Tattoos’ for the aging handset.

One day, Motorola is going to really surprise me with a handset that just makes me go ‘wow.’