At about 46 minutes in, the conversation turned to a recent dispute between Microsoft and the Apache Software Foundation involving the way websites track users with cookies , a key requirement for many online advertisers. Apache, which makes the software that runs most websites, objects, saying users should make that decision, not Microsoft. If you say instead that they help websites and advertisers deliver personalized information that you want, it’s more acceptable. For many in B2B publishing, the future hinges on a simple question: Is online advertising viable? MORE >>

Brooks played a small role in a post I wrote earlier today on the New-Media Survival Guide website suggesting that journalists should write a Firing Manifesto. In what may be a record for journalists getting fired for their social media activities, Khristopher Brooks was sacked yesterday before he even started his job with the  Wilmington (Del.) News Journal. What was his offense? Writing on his blog about getting the job, and using the newspaper’s logo and quoting from the offer letter without permission. Related posts: Nine Keys to a Robust Editorial Career in Social Media. MORE >>

MUD day 13: In an interview in Foreign Policy , published on its website earlier this month, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was asked if he’s shocked to hear that people, including journalists, “use Wikipedia all the time.” ” His response is worth repeating to any journalist that either uses Wikipedia unthinkingly or unthinkingly refuses to use Wikipedia: Journalists all use Wikipedia. The bad journalist gets in trouble because they use it incorrectly; the good journalist knows it’s a place to get oriented and to find out what questions to ask. MORE >>

Some of the implications are obvious: For one, your website needs to be optimized for mobile apps. I went on vacation last month, a pleasant road trip up the Pacific coast to Washington state. didn’t intend it to be an experiment in social media deprivation, but because I had only a dumb cell phone and the occasional borrowed computer, it turned into one. What did I learn by taking a three-week break from social networks? Well, first, despite my digital savvy, I’m not a social media native. can function reasonably well when not tweeting or blogging for several weeks. MORE >>

More persuasive to me is Atlantic Digital editor Bob Cohn’s excellent piece today on the  Folio: website, “ Hiring in the Digital Age.” Earlier this month, Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia Journalism School, wrote a thoughtful argument against the concept of journalists as Swiss Army knives. In his essay for Nieman Journalism Lab , he argued that “one-size-fits-all” journalists trained in a wide variety of digital media skills hurt journalism more than they help it. Asking journalists to do it all, he said, means few of them will do any of it well. Probably both. MORE >>