This is what you get on google search.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Greyhound+station+in+San+Francisco&btnG=Search

This is what you get on google maps.

Greyhound Station

So it has the Greyhound station at San Jose Ave, so I got a bus all the way down for I was staying at Broadway. But I couldn’t find it so I ask people and they pointed me in the right direction heading back up to where I was staying. I still couldn’t find it so I got into a taxi and the taxi took me to the SF Transbay Terminal.

So the Greyhound station was at the SF Transbay Terminal just off 1st street so I had went on a wild goose chase now for a company which is based in San Francisco and can’t get simple local information right just think what other information is incorrect on google maps.

SF Transbay Terminal

I love this picture of Steve Ballmer could this guy get anymore out of touch with technology, this guy would make anyone’s dad look cool. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, was in Tokyo on Thursday to launch the new Windows Live services, playing down the threat of Google by saying “That Google wasn’t ahead of Microsoft in anyway online except with search.”

“We all know that you are special Steve, but dude wake up.”

Image from Techcrunch

Click here for full article from the International Herald Tribune.

If you think about it these companies are all complaining about how the internet is killing their business model, well welcome to the real world the strong survive and the weak die. Some of the casualties last month was the magazine Business 2.0 when Time inc amid a downturn in advertising revenue. So instead of thinking new ways of restructuring the magazine they killed it, so that it wouldn’t disappoint its share holders.

So what is the reason they give for a down turn in advertising.

“Business magazines are highly vulnerable because the Web is so front and center for their readership,”says Peter Kreisky, an independent magazine consultant who has done consulting work for Time Inc. and Condé Nast.

I think a ten year old kid could tell you that. So why don’t they create good websites which has the latest news, simple they think it is stupid to invest money into good web design and good content because they don’t see the return in their investment. So they keep plodding along using their old business model.

When they do have a website they have stupid adverts like the New York Times advert that comes up full page and you have to press the skip ad button, did your web designer not leave the year 1996. So what business models have the print media created for the internet, paid subscribers which was a great success. Which is why Rupert Murdoch is doing away with it at the wall street journal for he understands that times are changing.

I have to say that the London Times website is the best design I have ever seen for a print media company. But no doubt if you ask them they will tell you that less people are buying newspapers these days.

So what is the greatest threat for print media is it a million monkey’s with a million typewriters aka blogs or is it rss feeds were users can pick and choose of what information they get, and from where. The thing is if print media don’t wake up and smell the coffee, they will find out that one day no one has bought the coffee, sugar or the milk and that the kettle has been repossessed.

So what is the solution it is rather simple, employ good and talented web designers give them scope and freedom don’t out source. Get them to make a site which is easy to navigate and follow the rules of keep it simple stupid, get them to create a framework and an online community which is not temporary but lasting for the future which you can build upon.

Then add the content make sure your website has the latest content four times in a day not once a week like the CNN website make the content brief. Make sure you have rss feeds for each subject heading and stream out the latest news. For talented members in your team make sure they have a blog and make it personal. Let the members of the public to add there views and opinion’s give them a voice or let them rate or create the content in there online community.

You sell them advertising space in the magazines so why not give them a deal where they can have advertising space on your site as well so you are driving traffic to their site and promoting their product. So you are killing two birds with one stone. Have less adverts in the magazines and on your website after all less is more.

On the website have stories which are brief but in the magazine have longer articles and more in depth and articles you wouldn’t read online let the reader know what is upcoming in the magazine just like a cinema trailer tells you what a film is like you have to keep the customer hooked. Then a week later or month later publish those stories on the internet. Then most of all have a full archive of all the stories that is published that year. Then after the year a person has to pay to access your full archive.

But their is a million ideas you can do, just the print media companies don’t want to innovate.

Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Cheers John

For I want to do something with the design but since I have limited themes it looks like I will just have to go down the Css route, which takes time something which we all wish we had more of.

My domain for this site is www.interwebdesign.net.