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I remember Phillipe Kahn primarily as the CEO of database and programming tool maker Borland International, but he is also credited with inventing the camera phone in 1997, yes, in 1997. And he's the only to have a photo to prove it, a photo shot of his newborn daughter on June 11, 1997. This video extends upon an ad Best Buy will air during the Super Bowl.

The Sacramento Bee fired award-winning photographer Bryan Patrick Friday after finding three cases, going back to 2009, in which he digitally manipulated photographs.

Patrick was suspended earlier this week when a reader raised questions about a published photo he had… Read more

Site's share offer will create new billionaires and millionaires – but analysts worry about its capacity for growth and many users fear for their privacy

Management consultant and business expert Peter Cohan does not plan on investing in Facebook stock any time soon. The author of 10 business books, including Capital Rising and Export Now, took a look at the social media network's filings for its coming share sale, which could value it as high as $100bn, and knew he would take a pass. "Everything is so hyped. They are tapping a bubble," he said. Nor does Cohan intend even to join Facebook. "I hope that I can outlast it," he said.

That sort of scepticism has not been the dominant tone of what must rank as one of the most remarkable weeks in the history of the internet. It saw Facebook complete its journey from its birth in a Harvard dorm room to going public, in a move that will create hundreds of new millionaires among its employees and turn its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, into one of the richest and most powerful people in the world – on paper, at least.

Documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claimed that it had a staggering 845 million active monthly users, half of whom sign in every day, $3.7bn in annual revenue and a rocketing growth rate. It also has a very healthy profit margin of 27%, just above fellow internet giant Google. This is a company that seems to give the final lie to the image of tech firms as coming prematurely to market with more in the way of wild dreams than a solid balance sheet.

No wonder Facebook has achieved the almost impossible for a modern American corporation in being not only the subject of a Hollywood movie, but the subject of one that was exciting and critically acclaimed. Yet amid all the merited praise of Facebook's astonishing rise, it is possible to find sceptics about the future.

Facebook is entering a very different world from the one in which it grew up as a brash Silicon Valley startup. It will face different pressures now it has come of age. Even among those who reacted positively to Facebook's move last week it was possible to detect a change of mood. "It is a very valuable company. But there will be bumps on the road ahead," said David Sherman, professor of accounting at Northeastern University in Boston.

Facebook is unusual in that its biggest asset is not really something it makes. It is not a product in the traditional sense of the word and there is not a single service that it provides. Instead Facebook's true value lies with its vast user base and the myriad, ever-shifting ways in which its members use the website.

That mother lode of personal profiles is what advertisers prize above all. The information that Facebook harvests and stores on its users is a goldmine for marketers and any company serious about selling its products in the 21st century.

But one problem Facebook faces is how to expand that already enormous user base. What started out as a networking site for Harvard students now encompasses almost one in eight people on the planet. Thus the sort of massive exponential growth that has marked Facebook's astonishing rise is simply not going to be possible for much longer.

Coupled with that are problems in areas of the world where Facebook has yet to make its mark, notably parts of Asia where local social media websites have a strong market share, and most particularly China. In its filing to the SEC last week, Facebook mentioned China no fewer than nine times. It is not hard to see why. There are more than half a billion Chinese online, representing a tempting last hunting ground.

China's government is less keen on being infiltrated by a western social media giant. Beijing is notorious for its desire to control the information to which its citizens have access. Facebook has been blocked there for the last three years and, though Facebook's internal culture is less politically opposed to censorship than other internet firms, like Google, it might not be possible to negotiate a way in. The company admitted as much: "We do not know if we will be able to find an approach to manage content and information that will be acceptable to us and to the Chinese government," it said last week.

But Facebook has to find growth somewhere. Now that it plans to go public, it will gain shareholders who will demand nothing less than ever-rising profits each three months. So if broadening its user base might not be easy, another tack would be to deepen it. It could improve the value of its user base by extracting more intimate information from users that is valuable to advertisers, who could deploy it in ever more targeted and sophisticated ways.

Part of that value is Facebook's existence as a place for networks of friends. Advertisers are discovering that people are far more likely to pay attention to ads for products that their friends like, or have been recommended to them by friends, rather than by just clicking on a seemingly random internet advert that appears on their screen. Catherine Tucker, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan school of management, has published a recent paper on such "social advertising" and believes Facebook could unlock huge value with it. "Facebook knows who people's friends are, which can be hugely valuable to marketers. Feeding that social network into the Facebook algorithm creates huge and under-exploited profit potential," Tucker said.

But it may not be that easy. Firstly, the advertising cannot be intrusive. Many experts – as well as ordinary users of Facebook – believe that the more obvious the advertising on the website, the more people will be put off from using Facebook. There is another concern too. It is a common complaint of many Facebook users that the company is too keen to override their worries about privacy.

They resent the idea that Facebook is not simply a useful service that helps them stay in touch with people, but is in fact a gigantic, profit-making company that sees them as a valuable resource to sell to advertisers. Collecting too much data on users and allowing advertisers access to it too obviously could cause them to seek an alternative service. It is a delicate tightrope to walk.

The man most responsible for walking that fine line is Zuckerberg, who who has steered the firm this far. But now that it is coming to the market, Zuckerberg's role is set to come under increasing scrutiny. The needs of a startup – even a huge one – are very different from those of a fully grown corporate behemoth with a floating stock price and outside investors clamouring for returns at all costs.

Some see Zuckerberg as less well equipped to tackle those demands as chief executive than current chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, who has a strong business background and is the company's highest-paid employee. They see Zuckerberg as more of a visionary and a creative force, while Sandberg as the real business brain.

Not that Zuckerberg seems to be stepping away from the frontline of Facebook's development any time soon. He owns about a quarter of the company and agreements with other shareholders mean he holds about 60% of the shares that carry voting powers: effectively, a controlling stake. That is far more than Bill Gates had when Microsoft went public and also more than Google's co-founders had when that firm followed suit. Even in its SEC papers, Zuckerberg showed his individualistic streak by telling potential investors he might make decisions that put Facebook users ahead of Facebook shareholders.

In a letter to investors describing the company's mission, Zuckerberg praised "hacker culture" and said the firm was more interested in its social mission than just making money. "Simply put: we don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services. And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximising profits," Zuckerberg wrote. Some experts welcomed that view. "In the long term that could be a good thing," said Sherman.

Yet Zuckerberg's sentiment will be news to most Wall Street investors, as Facebook is likely to discover soon after its first shares hit the open market. If profits or sales disappoint at any stage, then Facebook's shares will plummet just like those of any other company. "Wall Street will beat your stock down if you don't beat your profits every quarter," said Cohan.

Then there is Google+, the rival social networking website set up by Google. Other potential "Facebook killers" will almost certainly emerge from some starry-eyed student's laptop, just as Facebook itself once did. Another possible problem is the explosive growth of social networks on mobile phones, which currently do not carry much effective advertising and thus blow a hole in Facebook's existing business model.

The brutal fact is that Facebook's future is unknowable. For every pundit wowed by its possible applications and the supposedly infinite numbers of future services, there is another seeing little scope for growth. For every admirer of Zuckerberg who believes in his genius, there is another who thinks pride becomes before a fall. For every investor agog at the prospect of buying a chunk of Facebook's bright future, there is another calling the whole thing a gigantic bubble.

Without the 'permissionless innovation' enabled by the internet, Facebook would not have got off the ground

The number to watch is not the putative $100bn valuation but the 845 million users that Facebook now claims to have. The observation that if Facebook were a country then it would be the third most populous on the planet has become a cliche, but underpinning it is an intriguing question: how did an idea cooked up in a Harvard dorm become so powerful?

Thanks to a compelling movie, The Social Network, we think we know the story. A ferociously gifted Harvard sophomore named Zuckerberg has difficulties with women and vents his frustration by creating an offensive web application that invites users to compare pairs of female students and indicate which is "hottest". He puts this up on the Harvard network where it gets him into trouble with the authorities. Then he lifts an idea from a pair of nice-but-dim Wasp contemporaries who need a programmer and, in a frenzied burst of inspired hacking, implements the idea in computer code, thereby creating an online version of the printed "facebooks" common to elite US universities. This he then launches on an unsuspecting world. The Wasps sue him but lose (though get a settlement). Zuckerberg goes on to become Master of the Universe. Cue music, fade to black.

It's all true, sort of, but the dramatic imperatives of the narrative obscure the really significant bit of the story. So let's rewind. Zuckerberg creates his noxious application, called "Facemash", which appears to be modelled on hotornot.com – and uploads it to the servers on Harvard's internal network. In no time at all there is such a hoo-ha that he has to take it down. (In the film the Harvard authorities take it down, but that's a detail). Zuckerberg is hauled over the coals by the university authorities and labelled a bad boy. Facemash is history.

Next time, though, when The Facebook (as the service was originally called) is ready to go, Zuckerberg doesn't put it on the internal network. Instead, with $1,000 borrowed from a friend he buys space on a hosting service and puts it on the internet. As with Facemash, The Facebook goes viral within Harvard. But this time there's nobody who can shut it down. The bird has flown, and Zuck is on his way to his first billion.

This subtext isn't highlighted in the film, of course, but it's the most significant thing in it, because it explains why the internet is such a disruptive force — and why it's so important for our futures. "What is important in Zuckerberg's story," wrote the Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig in his review of the film, "is not that he's a boy genius. He plainly is, but many are. It's not that he's a socially clumsy (relative to the Harvard elite) boy genius. Every one of them is. And it's not that he invented an amazing product through hard work and insight that millions love. The history of American entrepreneurism is just that history, told with different technologies at different times and places.

What's important here is that Zuckerberg's genius could be embraced by half a billion people within six years of its first being launched, without (and here is the critical bit) asking permission of anyone. The real story is not the invention. It is the platform that makes the invention sing. Zuckerberg didn't invent that platform. He was a hacker (a term of praise) who built for it. And as much as Zuckerberg deserves endless respect from every decent soul for his success, the real hero in this story doesn't even get a credit."

Lessig's right: the really significant thing about the internet is that it's an enabler of "permissionless innovation". And this is no accident: it's a consequence of the way the network was designed. Way back in the 1970s, when Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn were pondering the problem of how to create the internet, they came up with two basic principles: there should be no central ownership or control; and the network should be indifferent to the uses to which it was put. If you had an idea and it could be realised by shipping data across the internet, then the network would do it for you, no questions asked.

Because software is pure "thought stuff" all you need is imagination and programming talent. And you don't need much money, which explains why many of the dominant internet enterprises did not require major investment at the beginning. Tim Berners-Lee launched the web with no funding. Jeff Bezos started Amazon with his savings. Pierre Omidyar did the same with eBay. Shawn Fanning was penniless when he launched Napster, the orginal file-sharing service. Zuckerberg launched Facebook with $1,000 – borrowed from friend Eduardo Saverin.

Facebook is just the latest demonstration of how permissionless innovation is embedded in the internet. For the network, disruption is – as programmers say – "a feature, not a bug": it's what the network was designed to do. That's why established industries and authority structures fear it so much. And it's why we need to make sure that they don't wreck it with clueless regulation.

In the past week we've seen an uprising of angry people, mostly women, offended by the Susan G. Komen Foundation cutting off funding for breast cancer exams at Planned Parenthood clinics. It's just the latest example of how the global news conversation is in the hands of people, not just "the media." And it's what I had in mind over a dozen years ago when I talked about the rise of a new kind of people's journalism.

Seven years ago when we launched a blog-centered community website in Bluffton, SC, there was a lot of talk about "citizen journalism." And there was a lot of disappointment in some corners because it didn't happen quite that way.

What many meant when they said or heard "citizen journalism" was a lay practice resembling professional journalism in the Walter Williams tradition, one where "citizens" "covered" "news."

But what I meant when I said "people's journalism" is not that at all. I meant something more organic, more natural, more spontaneous, more personal, less organized, less structured, less "newsworthy" and less ... well, less reliable.

This is where we are today. We have, through forums, story commenting, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, G+, Tumblr and other venues a free-flowing conversation covering everything from today's lunch plans to the horrors of state brutality in Tahrir Square.

We can apply traditional definitions of "newsworthy" and "journalism" if we like, but there's really not much point. This new news will flow of its own accord, propelled by people's interests. There are no gatekeepers in this environment. Even brutal government supression will fail.

Professional journalism has had years to think about how to adapt to this new reality, and on the whole, it's failed. It's not a replacement. It's a new, complex model that obsoletes some of what pro journalism did in the era of mass media but creates new opportunities for adding value.

"The story" -- a slippery, ill-defined term -- can be a trap, or it can be redefined from the fire-and-forget missile of the last century into a networked living organism more suited for this one. Paul Bradshaw, a journalism prof at City University in London, has described some of the new roles in the context of an investigative team, but the process he's graphed actually applies on many less ambitious levels. It's worth a close look and careful thinking.

I think it helps to begin by understanding that community is a process of sharing, and conversation is its lifeblood. The role of the journalist in this century is to work with the forces unleashed by technology to lead to the same value outputs we've always sought: an informed public that can make wise decisions to govern itself.

We spent a lot of time at the D: Dive Into Media conference talking about the way entertainment gets distributed. But it was also important to talk about the way it gets created. App-maker Khush’s pitch is that it lets everyone become an entertainer, via its music apps that let even the most tone-deaf mumblers create a song.

Here, co-founders Prerna Gupta and Parag Chordia show off some of their creations, including Songify Live, a new app that will let you make music in real-time with an iPhone, even if you’re a tone-deaf mumbler like myself.

I do sort of wish we’d kept audio warrior Neil Young onstage just a few minutes longer, so we could have captured his reaction to all of this:

Swansea's on-loan midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson played a major role in Brendan Rodgers' side coming from behind to register only their second League away win of the season, at West Brom.

The Iceland international, who joined from Hoffenheim last month until the end of the season, cancelled out Marc-Antoine Fortuné's opener and laid on the winner for Danny Graham.

The visitors dominated for long spells as they followed up their 1-1 home draw against Chelsea in mid-week with another impressive performance.

But Albion's woeful home record continued and they have collected just eight points at The Hawthorns compared to 18 on their travels.

Roy Hodgson's side were often left chasing shadows with Sigurdsson and Joe Allen pulling the strings in midfield and Graham a constant threat.

Swansea were soon into their stride and created the first opportunity of the game.

Sigurdsson's shot was blocked from an Allen corner and the follow-up attempt from Angel Rangel was deflected just wide.

Baggies midfielder Youssouf Mulumbu was caught in possession and was relieved to see Allen drag his shot past the post.

James Morrison brought Sigurdsson down 25 yards out and the Swansea player took the free-kick himself and sent it just wide.

In a rare West Brom attack, Gareth McAuley headed wide from a Nicky Shorey cross. Peter Odemwingie's control then let him down when he was found in space by Jerome Thomas.

The threatening Graham missed a good chance to put Swansea ahead after half an hour. He shrugged off the challenge of McAuley when challenging for a Leon Britton free-kick. But, from 12 yards out he shot wide when he should have at least tested Ben Foster.

Albion enjoyed their best spell approaching half-time with Sigurdsson blocking a goal-bound flick from Jonas Olsson.

Michel Vorm was alert to hold onto an Olsson flick from a Graham Dorrans free-kick.

Britton was booked for bringing down Thomas and Swansea appealed in vain for a penalty after a challenge by McAuley on Scott Sinclair.

Olsson was looking Albion's most threatening player at set-pieces and his header was blocked from a Dorrans corner.

But it was against the run of play when Fortuné put West Brom ahead after 53 minutes.

A Dorrans corner was flicked on by Olsson and at the far post Fortuné had time to steady himself before drilling the ball into the corner of the net.

Swansea needed only two minutes to draw level through Sigurdsson.

Britton's ball released the over-lapping Neil Taylor and his low cross was side-footed past Foster by Sigurdsson.

The game turned around with Graham putting Swansea in front after 59 minutes.

This time Sigurdsson was the creator with a low ball to the near post and Graham made no mistake for his 10th goal of the season.

Odemwingie was guilty of a glaring miss when he shot over with the goal at his mercy after a mishit effort from Dorrans had landed in his path.

Then Paul Scharner failed to make proper contact on his shot from 10 yards out after Somen Tchoyi had pulled the ball back into his path.

Morrison was booked for a foul on Britton as Swansea continued to look the more likely to score.

Olsson blocked a shot from the impressive Sigurdsson but in injury-time Vorm denied Fortuné to prevent an undeserved Albion equaliser.

Can't find the right spot for your comment? Post it here, in this open forum. Real Time Comments: parked here, 24/7. (Earlier editions.)

Ferris Bueller, Elton John, Star Wars dogs and Jerry Seinfeld are among the stars of the commercials produced for Super Bowl XLVI

Call it the Broadcast Bootleg. In past years, advertisers have relied on YouTube, Facebook, and their own websites to provide a viral afterlife for their expensive Super Bowl commercials. But now they've finally realized they can do an end run on the big game by releasing commercials before opening kickoff.

Why ruin the surprise of what has traditionally been considered some of the best ads of the year? For one thing, sponsors get more eyeballs for free—a Super Bowl spot runs $3.5 million for 30 seconds this Sunday. For another, they don't have to release the "final cut" until the actual game. That allows teasers and extended versions to be tweeted and analyzed on television long before those tasty pigs in a blanket are served.

The first Super Bowl ads were released in mid-January and so far roughly half of the 50 scheduled to run can be found online. So let's Monday Morning quarterback a few of the more high-profile ads—on Saturday. (Click on the links in the headlines to see the ads).

Matthew Broderick's Day Off for Honda

Last week, John Hughes fans wept with joy when a 10-second teaser with Matthew Broderick and the familiar backbeat of Yello's "Oh Yeah" was released on YouTube. Was Ferris Bueller really coming back for Super Bowl? (After all, most people already get Sundays off.)

A few days later, the answer came when a 2:25 minute version of the ad was released and it turned out to be a commercial for the Honda CR-V. Broderick wasn't playing Ferris, but he might as well have been for all the references to the 1986 film. And since life still moves pretty fast, here are a few inside jokes to watch out for in the commercial. In addition to the obvious shot-for-shot nods to the movie — Broderick with the towel on his head, the performance on the parade float, the flying car—there are more obscure Easter eggs hidden for Ferris fanboys:
• Broderick's agent is named Walter Linder, which is the name written above Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, in the Chez Quis reservation book.
• While on the roller coaster, Broderick is seated in front of guy wearing a Detriot Red Wings jersey—just like his old friend Cameron's.
• The guy who high-fives Broderick at the racetrack is wearing Mr. Rooney-like flip-up sunglasses
• The license plate of Broderick's Honda reads "SOCHOIC," a reference to Ferris' line about Cameron's father's Ferrari. ("It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.") The Ferrari's plate, of course, said "NRVOUS".
• The restaurant valet works for A1 EZ OK PARK—just as Richard Edson did in the movie.

Sadly, the 2:25 ad doesn't feature Alan Ruck (Cameron), Jennifer Grey (Jeanie Bueller), Ben Stein (economics teacher) or the lovely Mia Sara as Sloane. (And there's no way Honda would have hired Jeffrey Jones as Mr. Rooney after his arrest.)

In the end, the 10-second tease seemed too short. The extended version feels too long without the old cast. So let's hope the Goldlocks Theory holds and the 60-second Super Bowl ad scheduled to appear in the third quarter is just right.

.

Acura's "Transaction" with Jerry Seinfeld

After a long absence from Super Bowl commercials, Jerry Seinfeld returns this year with an ad for the Acura NSX that's already had more than 10 million views since it debuted. The concept in the extended version is that Jerry, who's famous for collecting cars, wants to be the first person to own the new NSX. The problem is, there's one person ahead of him in line.

So to convince this guy to give up the car, Jerry makes some Seinfeld-ian attempts at bribery—he does standup in the man's home, tempts him with a dancing holographic monkey, and even resorts to some basic human trafficking. (Jerry offers up actor Larry Thomas, who reprises his role as the Soup Nazi, and tries to sweeten the deal by throwing in the "last living Munchkin.")

And just when it looks like Seinfeld has a deal, another car-obsessed swoops in to make a better one.

Is it funny? Sure. But it's more like a safety than a touchdown.

Volkswagen's "The Bark Side" and "The Dog Strikes Back"

In 2011, Volkswagen won the Super Bowl ad title with "The Force," an adorable Star Wars-inspired commercial about Little Darth Vader. This year, VW returns to the galaxy far, far away with a teaser spot that was released two weeks ago. "The Bark Side" features a chorus of dogs who yelp out a tune that turns into the "Imperial March." (Keep your eye on the silent grey dog in the center of this mutt-ly crew and you can hear Chewbacca's roar.)

The Bark Side has had more than 11 million views since it premiered two weeks ago, but it's not VW's main Super Bowl ad. Pity. It's much funnier than "The Dog Strikes Back" in which a chubby pooch is inspired to loose his pooch after a Beetle zooms by. He then tries to get into shape by cross-training, Rocky III-style.

The commercial takes a Star Wars twist at the end—SPOILER ALERT: I won't spoil it.—but it just doesn't achieve lift-off.

David Beckham Bodywear for H&M

Five years ago, David Beckham became the face of the Emporio Armani underwear collection—because that's really where everyone was looking. In 2012, he's got his own line of tighty whities for H&M and they've produced a 30-second spot that puts the tease in teaser. But if the video's mere 600,000 views is any indication, this is not the kind of tight end people want to see during the Super Bowl.

Pepsi's "The King's Court" with Elton John

Though he's performed with Queen and has been knighted by one, Sir Elton John appears in a new Pepsi commercial released Friday as a bored King who is forced to endure talent auditions. Kind of like Simon Cowell, but with baggier clothes. After some jester performs Nelly's "Hot in Herre," Melanie Amaro, the first X-Factor winner, steps up to belt out Aretha Franklin's "Respect." And King Elton—and the stained-glass windows behind him—are blown away.

A twist at the end sends the king to the dungeon, but the person waiting for him is too cruel a punishment. Madonna would have been funnier.

Audi's "Vampire Party"

Sick of sexy vampires? So is Audi, which sticks a stake in the genre with a sly Super Bowl ad that's already been seen by more than 3 million. In "Vampire Party," Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" plays in the background as a twentysomething bloodsucker drives to a midnight meet-up in the woods. And, score, he's bringing the O+! Except, oops, our hero forgot how powerful the LED headlights are on his new Audi S7, and Twilight becomes daylight.

Suck it, Team Edward. It's a big win for Team Audi.

The New York Times just reported its fourth-quarter results to finish out 2011.

And it's still shrinking.

Despite the launch of an online paywall that has, by any measure, been a big success, the company's revenue for its core news business shrank again in 2011.

And because news expenses rose, profits shrank even more.

The culprit, as ever, is the company's print-ad business, which has shrunk steadily for the past five years.

The trends of the past five years are also likely a sign of the future of the New York Times: Steady restructuring and shrinking until the size of the newsroom and broader organization is finally in line with the size of the company's online business, which is thriving.

We estimate that the digital business will eventually support a newsroom about one-third to one-half the size of the paper's current one.

(The paper's online business, we believe, generates about ~$300 million of annual revenue. This should support newsroom expenses of about $100 million annually, with another $150 million spent on sales, technology, operations and management. We have been told that the paper's current newsroom costs about $200 million a year.)

Fortunately, the New York Times is not in danger of immediate bankruptcy, which it was a few years ago.

Thanks to sharp cost-cutting, the company has returned to profitability. And thanks to frantic debt restructuring during the financial crisis, the NYT has also removed its creditors' foot from its throat and bought several more years to figure out a long-term plan.

But this happy escape has not alleviated the company's long-term problem:

Its core business, the print newspaper, is shrinking, and its digital business, however successful, cannot replace the lost revenue and profitability of the print business.

The chart below lays out the problem: After a century of growth, the New York Times's news business peaked earlier this decade with just over $3 billion in revenue and $500 million of operating profit. In the years since, however, the company's revenue (blue line) and operating profit (green bars) have begun to shrink.

And despite the enormous cost cuts the company has made since the early 2000s (red line), its operating profit--even in these recovery years like 2010 and 2011--doesn't approach the fat years of a decade ago.

Unless the New York Times Company can figure out a way to turn around the print newspaper circulation revenue (highly unlikely), this shrinkage will continue. Even if the online paywall is wildly successful, it will not replace the circulation and ad revenue the company will lose as print subscribers cancel.  And as the print business shrinks, the print cost structure that supports it will have to shrink, too.

Here's the chart. The blue line is news division revenue. The red line is news division expenses. And the green bars, on a different scale, are the news division operating profit.

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Join the conversation about this story »

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Sly Bailey loves profit margins but, with News International under pressure, is this the time to shore up the bottom line?

"I've never seen so much gloom around here," says one well placed Mirror Group hack in the wake of this week's announcement by Trinity Mirror that it is to cut 75 jobs from the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the People. Nor does it help sentiment that Sly Bailey – under fire over pay too – is on holiday in Barbados, which meant it fell to Mark Hollinshead, MD of the company's national newspaper division, to deliver the happy news to assembled reporters earlier this week.

That the natives are restless is hardly surprising. Who is going to look forward to a redundancy round that will affect a high proportion of the 400-strong editorial workforce. But, while Mirror insiders argue that their advertisers (supermarket chains, general retailers) are suffering – and that, therefore, it is time to make savings, the timing remains a little surprising. It is not, after all, that the Trinity Mirror national titles have had it financially: in the first half of last year, with the News of the World still standing, they (with the Record titles included) earned £33.8m – a profit margin of 16.5%

Meanwhile, the eternal rivals over at Wapping have never been more vulnerable. At some point, of course, a Sun on Sunday will arise. But for now the Sunday Mirror and People rank two and four in the Sunday market (with the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times in between). The publisher picked up £4m of extra advertising revenue in December according to Enders Research in the absence of the News of the World, although that is the most lucrative period of the year. Such is the economics of newspapers that an advertising windfall drops straight through to the bottom line.

Even the juggernaut that is the Sun is suffering from some sales softness. Britain's most popular newspaper, which not that long ago hovered around the 3m level, sold 2.53m copies in December, down 6.9% or 186,170 copies on the year. The Mirror, usually the bigger faller, was down 3.6% or 41,258 at 1.09m, while the Record gave up 5.4% at 274,505. The gap remains considerable, but the never ending News of the World phone-hacking saga – and the recent batch of Sun arrests – means that the overall backdrop for Wapping's red top remains problematic.

There may well be good reason for the Mirror to save money in some areas now; there is a lot of management chatter about the new production system, which may well be more efficient. But you have to think that there could be opportunities for editorial reinvestment to take the game to the Sun both in print and online. Say what you like about Rupert Murdoch, but you can't say his tabloid is under-invested in – and it is sustained editorial and marketing spending over a long period that provides the best support for circulation.

Murdoch seeks to generate revenues by achieving scale and market leadership. By contrast, Bailey seems to be focused on maintaining profit margins first and foremost. She has been chief executive for nine years now, during which time the shares have gone from 370p to 47p. Could it be time to try something else?

When one is knee-deep in trying to get the semester's newsroom up and running, it is easy to let the rest of the world go by until something jerks you like a cold shower on the back of the neck.

And so it was when I finally got a second to glance at things early this morning only to find my friend and former AP colleague George Esper had died.

The tributes have been many, and there's little I can add except to remember how I came to know George when he was in Boston and I ran the AP's Providence, R.I., office  There wasn't a time we saw each other in Boston that he didn't invite me into his office to chat, to lend some advice, to hear some gripe and shake a knowing head.

I remember one time I asked him to speak to Rhode Island's SPJ chapter on a Saturday afternoon. He not only drove down but did so early, suggested we get lunch, and spent more than an hour recalling current and past stories that had us both laughing and knowingly shaking our heads.

I had a chance to talk again with George, gee, maybe a year ago now, maybe longer - time becomes a gauzy thing sometimes.

I knew he was in West Virginia at WVU, and it was one of those calls I kept saying I have to make - and one of those that always seems to get too easily shunted aside by other events - things that when we look back on them are truly trivial. George graciously took time to chat for half an hour. I'm glad I made that call. It was so good to hear his voice, one I will never forget and will always be sad to know is now silenced.

About 30 employees of the former New York Times Regional Media Group were notified Friday that their new employer, Halifax Media Group, has decided to lay them off and offer severance packages. The other 20 were offered positions, but only if… Read more

Soldier charged with biggest leak of classified information in US history to face 22 counts, including aiding the enemy

A US army officer has ordered a court martial for Bradley Manning, the soldier charged in the biggest leak of classified information in American history.

Military district of Washington commander Major General Michael Linnington referred all charges against Manning to a general court martial on Friday, the army said in a statement.

The referral means Manning, 24, will stand trial for allegedly giving more than 700,000 secret US documents and a classified combat video to WikiLeaks for publication. He faces 22 counts, including aiding the enemy, and could be imprisoned for life if convicted of that charge.

A judge yet to be appointed will set the trial date.

Defence lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there from late 2009 to mid-2010.

At a preliminary hearing in December, military prosecutors produced evidence that Manning downloaded and electronically transferred to WikiLeaks nearly half a million sensitive battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, and video of a 2007 army helicopter attack that WikiLeaks dubbed "Collateral Murder".

Manning's lawyers countered that others had access to his workplace's computers. They say he was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay soldier at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the US armed forces. The defence also claims Manning's apparent disregard for security rules during training in the US and his increasingly violent outbursts after deployment were red flags that should have prevented him from having been given access to classified material. Manning's lawyers also contend that the material WikiLeaks published did little or no harm to national security.

In the December hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, prosecutors also presented excerpts of online chats found on Manning's personal computer that allegedly document collaboration between him and the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

Federal prosecutors in northern Virginia are investigating Assange and others for allegedly facilitating the disclosures.

'At least when Darth Vader got roped into sorting out the Currys PC World HR department recently he was able to bring some of his dark-side skillset to the table'

A long time ago, in a galaxy not that far away, a couple sit at a sushi bar. "Russ! Russ!" The woman nudges her partner. His attention has drifted towards his new phone and the incredible upgrade service he received. They are interrupted. It's Yoda, and before they can explain that – thanks, but no thanks, you don't need to bother with the Force – Russ finds that both his phones are levitating. Is he impressed by the power of the Force? No. He's annoyed.

So, just to be clear, what we have here is Master Yoda – scourge of the Sith, the Zen Kermit who trained Luke, took on the Emperor and rescued an X-Wing from a Dagobah swamp with the strength of his mind – and they can't believe he doesn't even know, like, durr, you can get "contacts, all numbers" swapped over "without Jedi training". But Yoda just grunts one of his trademark "Hrrghmmmms", picks up his chopsticks and returns to the salmon nigiri in front of him. That's one depressed Jedi. At least when Darth Vader got roped into sorting out the Currys PC World HR department recently he was able to bring some of his dark-side skillset to the table. Yoda is left resigned and alone, a 900-year-old has-been, reduced to the role of "that guy", butting into other people's conversations with unwelcome barfly tricks, not even registering their final insult: "Do you think he tastes of wasabi?" Still, manage to resist rebranding as "Yodafone" did they. Hrrghmmmm.

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By Ryan Chittum The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial today criticizing Mitt Romney for his support for increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation. Few policies are as destructive as the minimum wage at keeping the young and least skilled out of the job market. By setting an arbitrary wage floor, politicians make it impossible for businesses to hire...

Facebook wants the new mobile ad product it is developing to go live before its IPO starts trading, a source tells us.

Lack of mobile ad revenue was one of the few negatives Facebook revealed in its S-1 filing. It's actually a drag on revenue, because Facebook's overall ad business is slowing and more of its users are accessing their accounts on phones.

Thus it makes total sense that Facebook is in a rush to get a new revenue stream online before it sells stock, so that it can convince retail investors that there is future growth in a company whose stock is clearly already over-hyped.

"I heard it from five people in the Palo Alto office," said the source who requested anonymity because they "don't want to get them into trouble [and] I don't want to get in trouble either!"

The source continued, "Obviously it depends on when the product is ready for release of course, though—time scales are not guaranteed by engineering on anything at Facebook."

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