All the news that fits

Can The New York Times still be the national newspaper of record? And does that even matter anymore? The paper's motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print." That's much different than today's news model, which seems to be "All the News that Fits."

Take Twitter: 140 characters. That's it. Of course, many people cheat by including links to (gasp!) longer messages. But the whole point of Twitter is to answer the question: What are you doing? To which I reply: Who needs to know? Anyway, now that Twitter has been co-opted by marketeers and politicians, will the public move on to the next cool (and, I hope, lengthier) communications vehicle?

Brevity can be an art. Smith magazine is the self-billed "Creators of Six-Word Memoirs." After asking readers to summarize their own lives in a single sentence, they published the results in Not Quite What I Was Planning. Clever, but not as complete as Ernest Hemingway, who once wrote this telling story in six words, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

I like a quick read as much as the next guy, but sometimes less is just, well, less. Less filling. Less satisfying. Less engaging. The standard excuse people offer is, "Well, you know, nobody likes to read anymore."

C'mon. People like to eat fried foods, snack on ice cream, drink alcohol, and sit on their butts watching TV. That doesn't mean it's what we should do. Instead, we try to watch our diets, add more fruits and vegetables, cut down on portion size, walk the dog, and get to the gym.

Tweeting may be fun now and then, but give me something worthwhile to read--something I can sink my teeth into--and it will kick around in my head, generating new thoughts and ideas, for years to come.

Unique...or not

On this April Fool's Day, I realize what a big fool I've been thinking about how unique I am. It's an exercise that all businesses should do when trying to distinguish themselves from the competition. Where I fail in the uniqueness category is my name.

According to the site How Many of Me, of all the 306,125,973 people in the U.S, of those over the age of 13:

• 690,307 have the first name Amy;
• 12,276 have the last name Binder; and
  
• 28 are named Amy Binder.

So, I'm not the "one and only" Amy Binder, except (I hope) to my husband (a Greenstine). But if I work the numbers, at least I'm one in a million--or two or ten.

Wanna see how many of you there are? Visit How Many of Me.

Broad run, singular focus

I've written about Students Run Philly Style before because I'm a big fan of the cause and there's nothing more motivating than to see these kids in a race. Pair this group with Philadelphia's Broad Street 10 Miler on May 3rd and you've got a winning combination.

For this premier race, 400 kids and more than 80 volunteers from SRPS are training for that straight shot down Broad Street, right past City Hall and into South Philly. They've got the determination, they've got the miles under their belts, all they need is some $$$ to help offset the entry fees...and everything else that goes into sustaining the SRPS program.

There's a great fundraising Web site: Run for Philly's Future. Even in tough economic times, it's good to support a cause that focuses on youth, fitness, and running.

SRPS wants to turn the tide on grim statistics for Philly kids:
(From the web site)"50% of our children are obese or at risk for becoming so and almost half of our high school students will not graduate on time. Add a high rate of youth violence and the future for a Philadelphia teen grows bleaker. With your support, we can turn a grim picture into a hopeful one. Students Run provides youth with the opportunity to live a healthy lifestyle while connecting to a caring adult mentor in an environment that emphasizes goal-setting, teamwork & effort."

I'm sold. And my credit card now has a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Info overload, ideas overdrive

The evolution of the Internet to Web 2.0 and beyond has made it that much more useful...and that much more time-consuming. It's almost guaranteed that once I subscribe to an RSS feed, I rarely check it. I never plan to ignore someone I really want to follow, it's just that other things clamor for my attention. And don't even mention Twitter. I'm still wondering who can care that much about what everyone they know is doing at every minute of the day.

This is why I am so enamored of two sites that make it easy for me to get the information I want. Both have relatively simple Web sites. Nothing fancy or Flash-y here, which soothes my content-focused soul. And both leverage their Web presence with push emails to make sure they reach me. Most important, the info they deliver is culled from many places to provide a single source--and great value.

• If you or someone you know is looking for work, especially in communications, check out Ned's Job of the Week. Be sure to sign up for the weekly emails. While I'm not in the market for a full-time gig, it always helps to know who's hiring.
  
  
• If you're interested in being a spokesperson in your area of expertise, or you're doing PR work for clients, check out Help a Reporter Out. Peter Shankman does a fantastic job of sending out queries not once, not twice, but three times a day. If you're looking for press coverage, this is a perfect place to start, allowing you to contact reporters when they want to hear from you--and with exactly the information they're looking for.

And for those of you who are tired of being bombarded with too many tweets or posts or RSSssss, put your brain to work. Maybe you can introduce the next novel way to communicate based on the "less is more" principle. At least I hope someone can.