The future is now.

Both for me, as I bid farewell to The News Tribune, and for my colleagues here who are going to do great things after I leave.

My decision to pursue other opportunities should not be confused with the notion that I don't think opportunities still exist at The News Tribune. I’m leaving the best job I’ve ever had, working with the best people I’ve ever worked with. So the decision was not an easy one.

I am indebted to the people of The News Tribune for the opportunities that I have before me now. Their willingness to innovate and experiment has provided me with the experiences that I am now invited to share with others in the industry at conferences and workshops. They encouraged me to bring an entrepreneurial spirit to the operation, which in turn led to a entrepreneurial spirit consuming me.

I will miss being a part of the great things the TNT will accomplish in the coming months and years. There are great advantages to having a web site with tremendous brand loyalty and thousands of visitors every day to test a new vision or a new idea. I will miss that, for sure.

Newsrooms will continue to innovate. But I feel that innovation on the business model should be more closely integrated to the content strategy than a traditional newspaper organization can allow. In effect, I’m placing a personal bet that developing new ideas for news and information that are tied to the business model is the best way to move the needle for local publishers.

It’s risky, for sure. But risk is inherent in entrepreneurship and transforming the business of local news and information won’t happen without a healthy dose of it.

I think it's an exciting time. But I just quit a great job to go off and do my own thing during the worst economy in recent memory, so I won't blame you if you think I'm crazy.

Cheers.

Friday is my last day at The News Tribune. And with my transition, this blog will be retired.

Online in the South Sound launched in March 2006. I appreciate those who have visited and contributed to this community and will miss writing here. Honestly, though, it's always grated on me that I wasn't able to give it more time and attention.

I am leaving my position at The News Tribune to pursue other opportunities. I will be focusing my attention on my Journalism 2.0 activities, including more speaking and consulting and also writing an updated version to my book. Next week, for example, I'm traveling to Europe to speak at conferences in Portugal and Denmark.

I am also leading a startup company called Serra Media that is building interactive applications and digital platforms for local publishers. I like to think it's a way for me to do what I've been doing these past nine years running online news sites - specifically the innovation and experimentation - but do it for many web sites instead of just one.

I will continue to blog and Twitter and remain active in the South Sound technology scene. I will also always be a friend to The News Tribune and on Friday will blog here about how I'm leaving the best job I've ever had.

Andrew Fry asks about the fate of newspapers in his latest post. And gives me fair warning that he'll be putting me on the spot with this question when I visit his class in a couple weeks.

LostRemote shows us how hyperlocal blogs are building audience and building a sustainable business in Seattle. And makes a key point that I’ve been echoing recently: thousands of out-of-work newspaper journalists could change the game.

Successful local start-up news sites are usually staffed with experience in journalism and online media. Now that thousands more newspaper journalists don’t have a day job, it figures that a number of them will sign up for a Wordpress account and look to fill a niche in their community for local news and information.

What will that mean for the newspaper, especially a mid-sized daily like the TNT? Not much, since hyperlocal blogs that focus on neighborhood-level news will be covering ground the newspaper hasn't focused on in years.

The newspapers' challenge is to ramp up its online business while continuing to produce a print product that brings home most of the bacon. So cuts will continue, until a level is found that is sustainable while maintaining profits. But there will be holes to fill (like the real estate blog Fry referred to) while executives change the oil on this car as it drives down the freeway.

Phil Meyer argued recently that the newspaper of the future should be smaller and targeted to the elite. I'm not sure if that's the right direction for a paper like the Tribune, but the product and service will continue to change as news and information adapt to this new ecosystem called the digital age.

You've heard about Twitter by now and may still be wondering "what's the point?" But tonight will be an interesting time to use the service, both locally and nationally.

True, it takes a while to get your head around how this technology improves communication beyond email and blog posts. But, like most of the best things on the web, it's about the community.

The News Tribune's main Twitter account has 135 followers and our new sports account has about 30. That seems like a pretty small number compared to the 100,000-plus households we deliver a newspaper every day, but Twitter is less about publishing and more about connecting.

And it's perfect for mobile.

Followers use "hash marks" - namely a @ or # plus the Twitter account name - to reply to specific Twitterers they follow. This allows direct contact between two people and is the core of what makes Twitter different.

I found more than 230 people signed up for Twitter who list Tacoma, WA as their location. Still, not a lot of people. But look at all the technology development happening around Twitter.

So we’re now using Twitter to send alerts with local high school football game updates to your mobile device. Just sign up for the Twitter service and follow us at twitter.com/tntsports. Or, if you're at a computer tonight, follow along online at the same URL.

And then there's that campaign thing going on. It will be entertaining - or maddening - to watch the global Twitterstream during the presidential debate tonight. Follow along here: http://election.twitter.com/

While The News Tribune has had our share of comings and goings in recent months (I'm still around part-time, in case you're wondering), the Seattle newspapers collectively lost three of the best bloggers in the Puget Sound this month.

John Cook and Todd Bishop are leaving the P-I to start new technology ventures at the Puget Sound Business Journal. This is good news for tech info consumers since Cook and Bishop formed what Lost Remote called the "Techcrunch of Seattle" with their P-I blogs on venture capital and Microsoft.

David Postman, the Seattle Times' political blogger, left the paper to join Paul Allen's Vulcan in media relations.

In case you missed it, football season is back and with it brings loads of page views to our web site for coverage of the Seahawks (and Huskies, Cougars and high schools). Just check out the top 10 stories from last month to see how dominant this topic is on our web site.

As I've noted before, our Seahawks audience is national, meaning those stories have a decided advantage over most of our other content (not many people in Buffalo, N.Y. wondering about potholes in Tacoma, for example.)

Most popular multimedia:

Most popular blogs:

1. Seahawks Insider
2. Lights & Sirens
3. Political Buzz
4. Huskies Insider
5. Mariners Insider
6. Biz Buzz
7. TNT Diner
8. Bring the Noise
9. Prep Blog
10. Word on the street
11. Open House
12. Adventure Guys
13. FOB Tacoma
14. Inside the Editorial Page
15. Online in the South Sound

On the cover of today's newspaper is a message inviting readers to sign up for Breaking News Alerts from The News Tribune so you can be "among the first to know" who will be tapped as running mates for Obama and McCain. What about all those people who already signed up for Obama's email or text alert for the same information?

I know several people locally who are signed up - including one who I'm certain is NOT voting for the Illinois senator in November - and it will be interesting to see whether they know the news before the news business knows the news.

Like most newsrooms on "Veepwatch" today, we're anxiously anticipating the announcement (so we know what will be leading our web site and newspaper). But instead of expecting the wires to break the news, we're expecting an individual in the room to receive a text or email from the Obama campaign with the news. If that happens, then any news consumer who signed up for the alert will truly be the first to know.

UPDATE: Yes, it worked. My wife woke up at 2 in the morning for some reason when she heard her phone beep. It was a text message with the Veepnews. So when I stirred about 40 minutes later, she told me the news and I got out of be and sent a breaking news alert from my iPhone.

UPDATE 2: Not exactly. The AP leak spoiled the party, but made for a fresh newspaper Saturday morning.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders fame provided a great roundup of what elements make a blog good. Interestingly, in looking at the nine characteristics, I see some advantages for mainstream media bloggers and others for independent bloggers. Here's his list (visit his post to read descriptions of each):

1. Good blogs have a voice.

2. Good blogs reflect focused obsessions.

3. Good blogs are the product of "Attention times Interest."

4. Good blog posts are made of paragraphs.

5. Good "non-post" blogs have style and curation.

6. Good blogs are weird.

7. Good blogs make you want to start your own blog.

8. Good blogs try.

9. Good blogs know when to break their own rules.

Full-time reporters who cover a beat for a news organization and contribute to a blog on that topic have an advantage with Nos. 3, 4 and 8. Since they are paid to work 40 hours a week (or more, if you cover sports) they can be more invested than an independent blogger, unless that blogger has "turned pro" and is supported financially by blogging and doesn't have the distraction of a day job, of course.

Independent bloggers have the advantage in Nos. 1, 2, 6 and 9 since they can write their own rules without worry about editors "directing" their focus. And then, of course, they can break those rules.

Regardless of whether you see it through these lenses or not, if you blog or like to read blogs, Mann's post is priceless.

Crosscut published the third of its 3-part series on political blogs today, focusing on mainstream media blogs. Blogs from the Tri-City Herald, Seattle Times and Oregonian are featured (while our Political Buzz gets an "honorable mention" of sorts) along with this lead-in:

Today, a newspaper without a posse of blogs is so passé. The New York Times currently hosts more than 70 blogs, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has more than 29 staff-written blogs and dozens of reader blogs. The Tri-City Herald has 12, the Everett Herald has 17, The Seattle Times has 20, and The Oregonian has more than 50 blogs.

Overkill? Never heard of it.

While the print media might have been late to the blogosphere's party, there's a handful of local media-backed blogs making a splash in state politics.

In case you're wondering, we have about 30 staff blogs at the TNT, although the number fluctuates as some come and go (any idea what we should do with our Sonics blog?)

The first two parts of the Crosscut series focused the top independent political blogs and a roundup of the rest.

Exhibit A. as evidence the Seahawks got back to practice last month? A glance at our most popular stories from July.

In case you missed Sunday's paper, you should know about a new section we launched on the web site over the weekend. It's called SoundInfo and it has links to all kinds of information that is relevant to anyone who lives or works (or just cares about) Tacoma, Pierce County or the South Sound. Here's how we describe the site:

Introducing SoundInfo, a gateway to information on topics from government salaries to movie times. From public records and our own reporting, we've created searchable databases and interactive maps that will help you navigate life in the South Sound.

Our executive editor provided an overview with his Sunday column and reporter Jason Hagey took a look at the salaries of Tacoma Power officials to lead the coverage in the newspaper.

This is a popular concept at many newspaper web sites around the country. Most "database pages" that others have launched have generated loads of page views and equal amounts of controversy from public employees concerned for their privacy. We've seen plenty of web traffic but not much in the way of criticism. (Our managing editor blogged about our lack of blowback earlier today.)

Maybe South Sounders are more technically savvy and already knew where to find this data.

That was how reporter Sean Robinson set up the data from a new study released by the Readership Institute as he sent a link to the Newsroom via email today. The study found strong interest in the printed newspaper among readers, which goes directly counter to all the "print is dead" talk we are used to reading.

The short answer is that reading customers aren't deserting newspapers at anything approaching the rate that advertising customers are. That is no consolation for newspaper company employees who are losing their jobs, and it's a challenge, to say the least, for a smaller staff to produce, sell and deliver a high-quality local news report for the people who want it.

But make no mistake: lots of people still want it and lots are paying attention to the local newspaper.

This doesn't surprise me. Even though I'm the editor of the web site, when I'm talking with people in the community I mostly field questions and comments about the newspaper, not the web site. So my anecdotal research mirrors what the Readership Institute found.

Unfortunately that doesn't make the economics of publishing a daily newspaper in today's environment any easier. It's just nice when the news about the industry isn't ALL bad.