I had the pleasure of sitting through an hour of PowerPoint today, the results of a local market study that Belden Associates conducted for The News Tribune. The highlights from the 1,202 phone interviews with Pierce County residents in May:

- 75% accessed anything on the Internet in the past 30 days
- 8 % visit thenewstribune.com on an average weekday (about 44,000 people)
- 17% visited thenewstribune.com in the past 7 days
- 26% visited thenewstribune.com in the past 30 days
- 47% have ever visited thenewstribune.com

By comparison, 68% (393,000 people) have read the printed TNT in the past seven days. So no, print is not dead, despite lots of proclamations to the contrary.

In fact, only 3% of the county visits thenewstribune.com without ever picking up the printed TNT. About 14% use both products while 54% use the printed paper only (remember, 25% of the county doesn't use the Internet). Some 29% of the county doesn't touch the TNT in either format. Ever.

What's wrong with them?

Andrew Fry started it a month ago (and dragged Dan Voelpel with him), then Erik Emery jumped in and was followed by thriceallamerican (who wrote the best headline). I've been meaning to Simpsonize myself for weeks now, and finally got around to it today.

Am I happy with my yellow, 2-D likeness? Sure, although it will probably be the only time I carry a briefcase.

It's a pretty sweet marketing ploy by Burger King, if nothing else. And I like how they are up front about it and don't make you register until you've seen yourself Simpsonized. No, it doesn't make me want a Whopper right now, but if it's corporate advertising dollars that made the site happen, so be it.

Tacoma-based Single Track Mind, a club for mountain bike enthusiasts, has merged with the larger (and Seattle-based) Backcountry Bicycle Club. The reason this matters to a blog about cool online stuff is that the BBTC site recently added a killer trail guide for us dirtheads.

By combining a Google map and the MediaWiki platform that runs Wikipedia, the BBTC web gurus developed an intuitive and collaborative site for mountain bikers looking for a new trail. This is another entry into the new concept of the GeoWeb, combined with the user-powered Web 2.0, and it's a powerful trend.

I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of bright young journalists in Nashville this week. All former interns of the Freedom Forum’s diversity program, they were reporters, photographers and editors from newspapers of all sizes from all over the country.

To spark a provocative discussion, I showed a video I found on YouTube. Originally created by a professor at Kansas State named Michael Wesch, the story of how it became viral and was viewed more than 3 million times is interesting. But not as interesting (or creepy) as the video, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us." Enjoy ...

I like the new look Tacoma Community College unveiled online recently.

Rather than bury links to the content, the homepage is concise yet eminently functional with most links available from there. There's even a big "Start Here" graphic on the top of the page, and then "Questions" answered with links in the middle of the page.

While I don't particularly like the rotating Flash promo box on news sites, it works well on a marketing/information site like this.

My biggest nit would be the video: it plays in Windows Media, which only about a third of the computers on the Web have. It should follow the industry standard now and play in Flash. But it was a good idea to have video testimonials; lets the web visitor "meet" some of the students there.

Mitch Robinson was kind enough to forward this link, highlighting a local tie to the recent news of TV celebrity Merv Griffin's passing.

Seems the South Sound's own celebrity spiritual entity, J.Z. Knight, aka Ramtha, appeared on Merv's show at one point. Here's how.

Web sites live in dog years, right? So it's no small accomplishment that the brainchild of local blogger Kevin Freitas turned one yesterday.

Congratulations, Kevin.

While it may feel like winter around there past couple of weeks with all the gray skies and precipitation, it's actually summer which means the white stuff has left us and the ski lifts have halted. But that doesn't stop the fanatics of turns-all-year.com, who were profiled yesterday with a nice story on KUOW.

Photos from the recent Slush Cup festival are definitely worth a look.

Not surprisingly, coverage of the Zina Linnik case dominated the most viewed stories from July. For an archive of all our coverage, go here.

1. Body of missing Tacoma girl found (Sand)
2. A horror movie come to life (Robinson)
3. Ridnour trade talk emerging (Williams)
4. Tacoma girl, 12, snatched from alley (Kawada)
5. Lewis, Magic agree to five-year contract (Williams)
6. Amber Alert issued for missing 12-year-old girl (Kawada)
7. Ex-attorney, son found dead in apartment (Lynn)
8. Suspect named could be linked to other crimes (Staff)
9. Narrows Bridge Opening Day Festivities (Reader photos)
10. It's open: Sneakers, paws, strollers create first traffic jam (Carson)