Facing Extinction, Chicago Tribune Adapts to teh Intarwebs
December 30th, 2008 at 22:58 by toby
So I was reading the latest story on the whole sordid Blagojevich scandal today on the Chicago Tribune’s website when I noticed this lovely graphic in the bottom-right corner titled “Colonel Tribune Recommends”. Colonel Tribune is apparently the Chicago Tribune’s “Web Ambassador”.
Now folks, this is just a stroke (pardon the pun) of brilliance. Faced with staff layoffs and crippling ad revenue declines, the Chicago Tribune knew that it had to somehow embrace this brave, new media world. And what’s a more fitting way to depict an obsolete, dying dinosaur like the Chicago Tribune than a confused-looking, disoriented old man wearing a hat made out of newspaper?
Intrigued, I did a bit more looking into Col. Tribune. He has his own page on the Tribune’s website, complete with links to his Facebook profile, Flickr feed, and Twitter page. It seems that the Colonel is quite the Web-2.0-savvy curmudgeon!
I checked out the Colonel’s Flickr feed and found to my horror that apparently wearing newspaper hats is now very hip in Chicago. These people look about as excited as someone who was forced to attend a boring company-sponsored after-hours party on a Friday night. Ahem…
So, welcome to the exciting world of the World Wide Web, Col. Tribune! I’m sure you’ll do your company proud as its public web ambassador while it continues its inevitable death spiral towards oblivion. Now get off my lawn.
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