Newspapers have been in trouble for some time.  The surge in free online news sources put a strain on all print media, especially newspapers.  Jokes have been made on sites like The Onion where they “reported” that The Boston Globe had tailored its print edition to its three remaining subscribers.  Due to the vicious cycle of low subscriber bases and lower ad rates, newspapers across the country—and even the world—have been laboring to stay afloat.

While many solutions have been posited including forcing very frequent readers of online news to pay a fee or integrating online and print advertisements, no one has found the solution to arguably the newspaper industry’s largest threat ever. Earlier this month,  The Times decided to place a “paywall” on their site after having had enough with providing premium content to readers free of charge. The Times’ paywall works very simply.  When one logs onto the site, it appears as it did in the past.  The top stories of the day grace the opening screen along with categories to go into the “paper” and an average amount of advertising.  As soon as any story, category, picture, video etc is clicked on, an interstitial pops up informing the reader that this site is now available only by subscription.

This type of window is usually dismissed as simple nuisance of online advertising, but in this case, it is no joke.  If the window is closed, the user is returned to the homepage with no hope of finishing that story about the Sri Lankan cricket player or the Prime Minister David Cameron’s latest policy.

By being the first major newspaper in the world to enact such a system, they may have given the rest of the online newspaper community an example of one way not to solve their monetization problem.  After only three weeks, metrics taken by Experian Hitwise show that readership has dropped by an astonishing 90% since February.  (This was all reported in an article in The Guardian, which did not cost a pent to view).  Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Times, believes that if the new business model takes off, it could prove to be much more lucrative than the advertising model that most online news sites currently run on.

While it remains to be seen what the newspaper industry will do to keep itself alive, it looks, at this early stage at least, like a paywall for any and all information on a newspaper website is a better way to keep people away than attract them.

General Stanley McChrystal and his staff have succeeded in shaking up how the war in Afghanistan will be run.  It came, however, at the cost of their jobs.  Michael Hastings, a reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine got the opportunity of a lifetime when a volcano eruption grounded him in France with the general and his staff for an extended road trip to Berlin.  They granted him unprecedented access to the inner workings of the high command.  Ultimately, their sharp, uncensored rhetoric lost McChrystal his job.

The assignment, as executive editor Eric Bates laid it out, was a simple profile of the general.  Hastings goal was to give the audience a look at the strategy in Afghanistan through the eyes of its architect.  Hastings wrote that story, but for some reason, McChrystal and his staff in no way censored their average day-to-day banter when the reporter was around.  They made no stipulations as to which conversations could and could not be used in the article, and even seemed to direct their snide comments about officials towards Hastings that they may be included in the story.  What was the logic behind this?  Was there any?  Did anyone stop and say, “We could all get canned for this?”  The reporter found himself asking the very same questions.  In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Michael Hastings seemed to indicate that the general and his staff seemed to have some sort of agenda…that they wanted to shake things up a bit.

So from a PR standpoint, why and how did this happen?  Hastings posited that McChrystal’s press advisors might have accepted the request in order to expose the situation surrounding Afghanistan and the strategy therein to a new demographic.  This is a perfectly sound reasoning to have Rolling Stone come in and do a profile.  The blunder occurred in not monitoring or prepping General McChrystal on how to behave and what to say around the reporter.  One would think that a seasoned military man would know what is acceptable rhetoric and what crosses the line, but as Hastings pointed out in an interview, “When war becomes your life, it makes it difficult to create good policy.”  Perhaps it also prevents you from realizing when you are walking head first into a PR disaster and potentially the end of an otherwise illustrious career.

At an on-campus eatery yesterday at the University of Pennsylvania, I was surprised to find options for lunch that are rarely offered at a dining hall. A pizza, stacked with vegetables and a pesto sauce on whole wheat crust being one. I asked the dining hall employee why the pizza had no cheese, a necessary evil in any slice I would order, and he replied, “It’s Earth Day.” I nodded, puzzled. “I’m sorry…what?” I probed. “It’s pasteurized.”

Forty years since the advent of Earth Day, it seems that everyone is cashing in on the holiday. Yesterday, Earth Day consumers could buy Greenzys, a stuffed animal collection introduced by FAO Schwarz made from soy fibers, or take a Gray Line Sightseeing tour to “green” destinations in New York City. Earth Day, simply put, has become a marketing and revenue gold mine. Activist Denis Hayes organized the first Earth Day, and in a recent interview with The New York Times said, “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green.” So what is an eco-activist to do? Accept the nature – no pun intended – of this newly commoditized holiday, steeped in consumerism, because for the first time, people are actually paying attention? Or return to the Earth Day of 40 years ago, when no one seemed to care, but at least factories weren’t pumping more carbon into the atmosphere to make Greenzys?

It is a difficult choice, but it seems green enthusiasts have begrudgingly chosen to accept commoditization in return for social visibility. And as a result, companies with “green” marketing initiatives seem to be raking in the green. All except for dairy producers, I guess, because it’s pasteurized – which I’m still not sure I really get.

How much thought do you put into your tweets? On April 14, the  Library of Congress announced (through its Facebook and Twitter pages) that it will archive all publicly available tweets that have been posted to Twitter since the medium’s inception in 2006. Twitter agreed to donate its archive of public tweets to the library.

This new partnership between Twitter and the Library of Congress is not designed to invade our privacy, but instead to document the way we communicate.

According to the New York Times, “the Library of Congress wants to store tweets to give researchers a better way to revisit discussions of significant events, including the tweets that occurred after President Obama’s election in 2008, during the protests in Iran last year and the earthquakes in Haiti and elsewhere this year.”

The Library’s interest in Tweets highlights the importance of Twitter as a communication tool. The medium is a great way to gauge what is happening in the world, from pop culture to sports to current events. Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) travels through twitter much in the same way that word spreads through a crowd or a high school. Simply glancing at the “trending topics” on Twitter can give you a good sense of the buzz of the day.

Businesses and politicians alike have already jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, realizing the potential it has to reach as mass audience in a short period of time and to capture public opinion. It makes sense that that government would want to keep a public record of reactions to events and issues that help shape our lives.

The Library will have access to tweets beginning six months after they are posted, and will update its database continuously.

So think twice before you tweet—not only because other people will be able to read your status update for years to come, but also because it is making history.

Looking for a quiet weekend getaway in Honesdale, Pennsylvania? Try staying at Schrute Farms “the number one beet-related agroturism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania.”

The destination’s TripAdvisor Page contains a map, list of nearby restaurants and attractions, travel fair deals, 220 photos, and more than six hundred user reviews that describe personal “experiences” at Schrute Farms—both positive and negative, giving the bed and breakfast an 81% approval rating overall.

But look a little closer and you will see that Schrute Farms is not real. It is a fictional beet farm, and is the property of Dwight K. Schrute—a character on NBC’s The Office. TripAdvisor posted a warning on its site: “Message from TripAdvisor: As seen on NBC’s The Office. Have fun reading these reviews – go on, add your own! Just don’t try to book a visit here, because this fictional place doesn’t really exist.”

It seems strange that TripAdvisor would create an entire web page devoted to an imaginary destination. However, according to a March 29 article in the New York Times, TripAdvisor’s strategy has proven more smart than silly: In a 2007 episode of The Office, Dwight used TripAdvisor when he turned Schrute Farms into a bed and breakfast. Multiple characters wrote reviews of Dwight’s B&B on the show. Since then, reruns and DVD’s featuring this episode have drawn large numbers of visitors to TripAdvisor—which means more attention and more business for the travel site.

TripAdvisor first made the Schrute Farms page as a joke. Creative Office fans playing along contributed many of the detailed reviews of Schrute Farms on the site. But the effects of this product placement have gone far beyond fun for TripAdvisor.

Simply mentioning and showing the TripAdvisor brand in a hit show turned into tangible business for the company, reminding us that even fictional beet farms can have real consequences and sometimes what appear to be the silliest marketing strategies are actually the smartest.

With only three bedrooms, Schrute Farms is sure to fill up quickly. So book your reservations—or write your review—today.