Monday bullets

• Paul Glister agrees with us that, done properly, SMS is the Next Big Thing
• Sam Whitmore sways me back away from the dark side on the paying reporters by clicks idea. Does so mostly by (unknowingly, I'm sure) using my own ideas in the counter-argument: But as we discussed, commercial publishing is now influenced by the same popularity-driven metrics that poisoned broadcasting and film. The genie is out of the bottle on that one. That being the case, why not create an alternative set of metrics that take traditional journalistic responsibilities--to readers and to society--into account?
• James Altucher @ TheStreet (subscription req.) has really great stuff on MSM v. blogs so I'll quote liberally (emphasis mine):

Jerry Seinfeld said it best: "It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day just exactly fits in the newspaper."...

My advice: Follow the model (or try to acquire) Weblogs and Gawker. These companies host the blogs of 100 or so "thought leaders" on a variety of subjects and just let them go to it. The media companies can set journalists up with blogs to complement traditional news coverage and syndicate everything via RSS so that readers can pick and choose the topics they are interested in. And they should not be afraid to link to other sites and news sources...

The metric I would use now to value the old school media companies is how eagerly they are taking up the new model and admitting that the world is different than they ever thought it would be. The Times closes its earnings release by saying, "the Times Company is committed to growth. ... We hope to reward our shareholders, as well as our readers, viewers and advertisers." Yeah, good luck with that.

Like we said.