Via Romenesko: flyover country is getting ignored by national players as regional press gets thinner.

Lots of great stuff in this NYT article about online distractions. Some meat:

In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.

⒜I was surprised by how easily people were distracted and how long it took them to get back to the task,⒝ said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft research scientist and co-author, with Shamsi Iqbal of the University of Illinois, of a paper on the study that will be presented next month.

â’œIf itâ”s this bad at Microsoft,⒝ Mr. Horvitz added, â’œit has to be bad at other companies, too.⒝

Starbucks employee rant migrates from Craigslist to the Starbuck’s gossip blog.

Head over here to toast the troups and send a beer to Iraq. My toast and lousy photo.

Bryan Rahija is a heck of a political blogad salesman. At SXSW, we discovered he’s also an ace-designer of lego-logos.

Q: When did you start doing legos?

A: When I was, I don’t know, four.

Q: And when did you stop?

A: I’ve never stopped playing with legos.

Q: You have a set back at your house?

A: No, I keep them in several boxes at my folks’ house.

Q: How long did this take you?

A: About twenty minutes.

Q: Any tips for aspiring contestants?

A: Think vertically.

Q: Anything else you’d like to say?

A: I’d like to thank my mom and dad. I look forward to seeing what the competition brings to the table next year.

Reading Matt’s blog, just learned about Cathy Seipp’s terminal hours. She was a much loved LA journalist. Links to Matt and Amy and Cathy’s blog.

Today, Dupont is launching ads pitched at the blogosphere promoting a bunch of videos with (my fellow SXSW blogebrity panelist) Amanda Congdon. Here they are…
Shelter from the Storm. Protecting the Protectors: Firefighters. Protecting the Protectors: Police. Glass Houses. Car Artists.

According to Forbes,

The Face of fame is changing. The ranks of the world’s celebrities used to be dominated by millionaire actors, athletes and musicians, but the Internet has leveled the playing field. A kid with a video camera has access to as large an audience as the biggest Hollywood star. A mom with a blog can attract more readers than a best-selling author. And an opinionated entrepreneur can become a guru to millions.

In fact, in a universe that is now intensely quantifiable, Forbes definition of fame is still incredibly arbitrary. Compare Forbes’ “webceleb” popularity with monthly page impressions (from Blogads and Sitemeter.)

What’s the biggest driver of Forbes popularity? Being a woman clearly hurts, but proximity to a body of salt water (and Forbes reporter?) helps more.

Wow, the Wall Street Journal says that its ad revenues were off 10% in February versus the same period a year ago. (Here’s the
press release.) Either we’re in a major recession or the paper business is returning to the pulp from whence it came, beaten to death by the web. Given the 50% rise in “pure online” revs, probably the latter. (Although the jump could also reflect an online-ad-friendly redesign last March and prior under-attention to online ad sales?)

Advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal decreased 10.0% in February on a 6.6% decrease in advertising volume, due to declines in the technology, financial, general and classified advertising categories. Technology advertising volume decreased 12.2% as decreases in communications and personal computers advertising were partially offset by increases in software and office products advertising. Financial advertising volume decreased 9.8% primarily due to a decrease in retail advertising partially offset by an increase in wholesale advertising. General advertising volume decreased 5.4% as decreases in auto, pharmaceutical, corporate, aviation and other general business advertising were partially offset by increases in travel, luxury goods and other consumer advertising. Classified advertising volume decreased 3.8% due to a decrease in real estate advertising partially offset by an increase in other classified advertising.

At Barron’s, total advertising revenue increased 0.5% in February on a 0.6% decrease in advertising pages due to an increase in financial advertising partially offset by decreases in general and technology advertising.

International advertising revenue increased 16.6% in February due to increases in general, financial and classified advertising partially offset by a decrease in technology advertising at The Wall Street Journal Asia and The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Local Media Group advertising revenue, on a same property basis, decreased 2.4% in February on an 8.4% decline in volume. Decreases in non-daily (down 16.8%), classified (down 4.5%) and display (down 0.9%) advertising revenue were partially offset by increases in pure* online (up 49.7%) and preprint (up 1.6%) advertising revenue.