I’ll be keynoting the journalism track at the New Communications Forum in Las Vegas March 7-9. The topic is a favorite of mine: How Web 2.0 is revolutionizing mainstream media. I’ll look at the profound impact of blogs on newsgathering and in particular how “blog swarms” can turn one person’s experience into a global news phenomenon almost overnight.

There’s lot of other good stuff to check out, too: 28 interactive sessions in four conference tracks focusing on corporate communications, PR, marketing and advertising, new media and journalism. It’s also just a good thing to support the Society for New Communications Research, a non-profit that’s doing important primary research in new media.

Go to the conference website to register and use discount code 612SHN to catch a $200 break on the registration fee.

InformationWeek’s Charles Babcock, who’s hands-down the best IT reporter in the industry press, has an outstanding cover package on open source this week. He writes about something that open-source aficianados don’t like to discuss: the fact that the majority of open-source projects go nowhere, whether because of lack of user interest, developer distraction or competition from more successful alternatives.

This is a big issue for IT organizations, of course. Bet a big project on the wrong horse and you can end up wasting a ton of time and money. There are winners and losers in the commercial software world, of course, but that business has the benefit of an active media and analyst community that keeps tabs on the players. There is no such monitor in open source, although Babcock notes some fledgling projects such as FLOSSmole that are trying to provide that service. Basically, everyone’s on his or her own and you take your best guess at whether the software you’re adopting will be around in five years.

The piece opens with a great anecdote about an open-source project that foundered because of a legal dispute involving the company that was trying to commercialize it. Babcock goes on to relay a lot of solid advice on how to avoid mistakes. This is an innovative take on an important market issue that I haven’t seen covered before.

Sally Falkow has an enlightening post on the nature of social media traffic. A lot of people come quickly and then leave. There’s no commitment or stickiness. She cites Scott Karp comparing Digg traffic to a “pack of wild dogs.”

I’ve always been a big believer in digital democracy, but companies like Diebold make me wonder if we’re really grown up enough to handle it.

Princeton professor and info security legend Edward Felton has been a thorn in Diebold’s side. Last fall, he and two graduate students demonstrated how they could easily introduce vote-altering viruses into Diebold’s electronic voting machine. Diebold responded by adding a hinged, locked door over the memory card reader. Diebold was so proud of the solution that it boasted about it on its website.

In a wonderful post from last week, Felton’s graduate assistant, Alex Haldeman, describes how he was able to deduce from photos on Diebold’s site the type of key and ridge configuration needed to unlock the door. He made three keys to look like the ones in the Diebold photograph and, amazingly, two of them worked. So Diebold’s clever solution was undone by its own promotion. All Diebold machines use the same lock, by the way. It’s one used in hotel mini-bars and apparently pretty easy to pick.

The L.A. Times, in what is perhaps a precursor to the problems brewing at other newspapers, has announced a strategy to revamp its editorial profile to lead with online reporting. When you look at the numbers, though, you have to wonder if it’s too little, too late:

MediaPost quoting Editor James O’Shea: “‘In 2004, automotive print advertising at the Los Angeles Times totaled $102 million. And what will it be this year? $55 million.’ While the company made up some of the difference in Web ads, O’Shea said the paper was losing more in print ads than it was recouping online.”

Omigod! The paper lost 46% of its automotive advertising in a single year? How can you change your business model fast enough to make up for that??

No matter how the social media market develops, you can be sure there’ll be a robust business for outdoor advertising. Just try this on your blog!

Hats off to Bill Marriott who, at 75, is diving into the blogosphere. He ‘ll dictate his entries to a secretary, who’ll type them into the blog authoring system. Hey, it’s a start! Why don’t more CEOs do this?
https://www.blogs.marriott.com

The New Influencers promotional/informational website is up and running. Well, maybe not so much running as toddling, since there’s a lot of work still to be done. I’ll eventually have links to ever blogger/podcaster who was interviewed or mentioned in the book, along with what I’m calling “online footnotes.” Those are commented links to important and interesting information from the book.

It’s a work-in-progress, so I’d be pleased to hear your comments and suggestions.

The best line I’ve read about Time magazine’s choice of all of us as the Person of the Year comes from Pop Sugar:

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

Fortunately, a very large number of people do, and that’s why Time‘s recognition is apropos. New media has given millions of people a voice to share that energy and passion with others. Maybe not a lot of others, but even if only a few people listen to what they say, that’s enough.

Critics are trashing Time‘s choice as a wimp cop-out, a pander to advertisers. I think it’s a master stroke. What other story was this big this year? The quagmire in Iraq? The Democrats’ victory in the election? The earthquake in Hawaii? Fifty years from now, no one will remember these things, but 50 years from now the world will be a very different place because of what happened on YouTube, MySpace and thousands of other online meeting places that barely existed a year ago.

It was 25 years ago that Time named the personal computer Machine of the Year. That was a pretty prophetic choice. This is no less visionary.

In a recent Tech Nation interview, author Steven Levy told host Moira Gunn that he was fortunate to be covering the Internet because it’s the biggest story of our generation. I think he made a good point. The global revolution in information discovery and dissemination will change our future fundamentally. It will touch every institution in our society. And now each of us can play a part in it. What bigger story is there than that?