Philly News Alternatives

What's news?

I have been cast in the middle of a mostly-friendly debate with some friends recently, over the viability of newspapers saving themselves by charging for online content.

My fundamental argument is that controlling content is now both impossible and counterproductive, but as an aside, I thought I might assemble a few of the alternatives readers would find online if the company that owns my local papers – The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News – stopped offering their content for free via philly.com.

Several other local print products are present online as well, including
philadelphia weekly, City Paper, Philadelphia Business Journal, The Bulletin, Philadelphia Gay News, Tribune, Al Dia, Philadelphia Magazine, South Philly Review and the The Philadelphia Sunday Sun.

You can watch TV news, or visit each station’s web site: 3, 6, 10, & 29
Philly has an all-news radio station: KYW  and public radio news: WHYY
You can search for Philadelphia news via Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, newsbystate.com and get your sports directly from the teams: Eagles, Phillies, 76ers & Flyers

Beyond local, try: Yahoo News, Google News, MSN, AOL and newsbystate.com. Read the New York Times, Washington Post and USA TODAY; TIME, Newsweek, U.S. News, The Economist and THE NEW YORKER

There will be blogs, including www.phawker.com, www.philebrity.com,phillyist.com phillyskyline.com & technicallyphilly.com.

www.youngphillypolitics.com and college papers online, including: The Temple News, The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Triangle, Collegian, The Hawk & The Villanovan

Most people, however, seem to be more interested in a little thing called social media, including:
MySpace, facebook, LALA.COM, VIRB, twitter, change.org, bebo, flickr, photobucket, tribe,
del.icio.us, Flixster, digg, ryze, Linked in, PhotoReflect.com, VDIDDY, video codezone
vidiLife, Clip Shack, webshots, vod:pod, fliqz, current.tv, motionbox, dabble, bebo,
Google Video, eyespot, ourmedia, YAHOO! VIDEO, stashSpace.com, photobucket,
HOOK.TV, My Yahoo, iGoogle, Google Reader, newsgator, my.aol,
netvibes, bloglines, plusmo, newsalloy, Excite UK Info, netomat hub, fwicki, flurry,
My Webwag, Attensa, ZapTXT, del.icio.us, thefreedictionary, Odeo, Pageflakes,
Podcast Ready, reddit.com,  Digg, Newsvine, StumbleUpon, and Technorati

There will be more.

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Disclosures: I worked for the Daily News for 17 years. I would prefer to see both papers thrive.