This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• Sync Google Calendar and Contacts with Mobile Devices — The last reason for not switching to Gmail is gone: Google’s email, calendar, and contacts now sync with all the recent mobile devices on the market.
• How Marketers Can Overcome Tradeshow Depression [cartoon] — Providing moral support to your fellow vendors in the trenches…
• 10 Websites To Make You A Photoshop Ninja — I’ve begun to step through a couple of these, and while I’m still more of a flailing white belt than a ninja, the results so far are promising.
• GTD Summit — A conference for David Allen Co’s productivity method and its adherents. While all the GTDers are at a conference together, will any Things actually Get Done elsewhere?
• 15 Companies That Might Not Survive 2009 — Who else might be joining Circuit City in bankruptcy? Some of these wouldn’t sadden me too much, but Krispy Kreme would be a damn shame…
• 60+ Resources For Entrepreneurs To Step Up and Take Charge — I can’t vouch for all of these links, but I browsed a number of them and it looks like a great resource. Worth a bookmark and occasional re-visit.
• This is why you’re fat. — A silly but delicious link. My favorite is the mega-doublestuff Oreo.

The newspaper industry is collapsing, and publishers, journalists, and editors are in an understandable panic. One of the various remedies that has recently gained currency—if you’ll excuse the pun—is called micropayments. They feature prominently in Time’s current cover story, How to Save Your Newspaper.

In You Can’t Sell News By The Slice, the NY Times explains:¹

Micropayments are systems that make it easy to pay small amounts of money. (Your subway card is an example.) You could pay a nickel to read an article, or a dime for a whole day’s newspaper.

The prescription of micropayments is, in fact, how not to save a newspaper. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do, akin to a medieval doctor’s insistence that the King’s illness can be solved with the application of more leeches.  Clay Shirky² explains why small payments won’t save publishers:

The essential thing to understand about small payments is that users don’t like being nickel-and-dimed. We have the phrase ‘nickel-and-dimed’ because this dislike is both general and strong. The result is that small payment systems don’t survive contact with online markets, because we express our hatred of small payments by switching to alternatives, whether supported by subscription or subsidy.

Both pieces make many other interesting points, and are highly recommended if the fields of e-commerce and/or publishing interest you.

1. Once upon a time, I owned not one but two of the Slate umbrellas that Kinsley mentions, earned through my early patronage of Microsoft’s online magazine. Sadly, one was destroyed and the other was lost during a move. I would absolutely love to have another one, if anyone reading this is ever in a position to raid that closet of leftovers. [↩]
2. I’ve previously covered, admiringly, some of Shirky’s thoughts on these topics. [↩]

This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• Amazon.com unveils slimmer Kindle 2. No color, but it talks. — The new Kindle is half the size, with 25% battery life and significantly improved storage (now 2gb). HUALUGHLAUA (Homer-esque drooling sounds)…
• Error message cake: Or why human proofreaders are still needed — The unintentionally funny consequences of online ordering systems.
• Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously) — A simple yet revolutionary step in the history of technology: it’s time to start getting rid of power cords. This breakthrough is closer than you might think!
• Google Latitude keeps tabs on friends’ locations — From a technological standpoint, this new geo-app market is a ground-breaking advance in mobile technology and social networking. From a personal point of view, I am wary.
• I Am Here: One Man’s Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle — This piece explains why am I wary (re: above) of geotagging applications.
• Interactive Graphic: Map of Popular Super Bowl Words Used on Twitter — Fascinating and fun interactive feature from the NY Times. Try the option to just watch the emoticons…
• The world’s first 12-megapixel cameraphone is coming — It’s probably time to start adding new features to phones instead of just improving the camera indefinitely. How about projectors?
• Economy Pinches the Billable Hour at Law Firms — Clients and lawyers alike are relieved that the economic downturn may provide an opportunity to rid ourselves of the perverse incentives created by the billable hour system.
• Menstrual calendar apps…for men — One for the iPhone is called PMS Buddy. Says the founder: "Women don’t appreciate it when you come home and maybe things are a little tense and the man says ‘Hey, do you have PMS?’" Ya think?