chronicle

SF Chronicle erects paywall for 'premium' content

Less than a week after The Washington Post announced its paywall plans, the San Francisco Chronicle followed suit by debuting SFChronicle.com, a site that aims to offer readers "premium" content beyond what they'll find on the Chronicle's SFGate.com site.

As more newspapers are scrambling for profits in the face of sagging print advertising revenue, many are looking to make up for the decline -- and the Chronicle is no exception. The newspaper is looking to drum up more cash by offering in-depth articles and columns for a monthly fee on a site that's … Read more

Fun and addictive port of Kingdom Chronicles strategy game

Kingdom Chronicles for Mac is a port of a popular action strategy game on other platforms. Available as a free download from the App Store, there are in-game purchases that add levels over the base game. Kingdom Chronicles for Mac installs easily.

Kingdom Chronicles for Mac is about an adventurer who has to retake his homeland from a greedy villain. To do this the hero must work with the people in the occupied villages to fight back and retake the land one small area at a time. By controlling the individuals in a city you take on the role of … Read more

Humans take flight over NYC, sort of

Move over, Superman. Humans are flying over the skies of New York City, thanks to marketing agency Thinkmodo.

The viral ad company is flying human-shaped remote-controlled planes around the New York and New Jersey areas to promote the new Fox movie "Chronicle."

In the movie, three teenagers gain a host of superpowers and the ability to fly. The YouTube video showing this controlled phenomenon already has 650,000-plus views, and it's possible more people will see the viral ad than the actual movie. … Read more

A Fantastical adventure

Dream Chronicles - The Chosen Child chronicles the journey of Faye as she travels a fantastical landscape seeking her daughter Lyra, who has been captured by the Fairy Queen. The game uses dreams as a motif to enhance and propel the story as it unfolds. The graphics are rich and detailed, and the game play presents a fun challenge.

Dream Chronicles - The Chosen Child is challenging and engrossing. The story begins in a beautifully decorated tree house full of interesting and unusual items. Some items are clues; others are there to be used for special purposes, and some are … Read more

Blu-ray releases for the week of August 19

This week we have another Oliver Stone film, Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins as our former president. The first season of the highly acclaimed TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is available on Blu-ray but unfortunately without the Governator making an appearance. And for the young girls, rabid fans as they may be, Walt Disney has rushed out a Blu-ray compilation, filled with their favorite Hannah Montana moments from her world concert tour. But this time you won't have to throw down three grand on eBay for tickets. The disc includes a behind-the-scenes documentary and a 3D viewing mode. &… Read more

RIAA reveals how it tracks college file sharing

A painstaking examination of how the RIAA goes about its business hunting down file sharers on college campuses is available online.

The Chronicle of Higher Education visited the offices of the Recording Industry Association of America and got a demonstration.

The RIAA employee, who declined to give his or her name for fear of receiving hate mail, said the organization has hired online copyright enforcer MediaSentry to do most of the heavy lifting. MediaSentry writes scripts to automatically hunt for the names of copyright songs and locate the IP addresses of computers sharing files, and forwards the information to the … Read more

What does Bonds indictment mean for reporters Fainaru-Wada and Williams?

The news that home run record holder Barry Bonds had been indicted came as a shock to much of the bay area yesterday. For several years, Bonds' legal struggle has made headlines and helped shed a light on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, but after such a prolonged saga, it seemed unlikely that the Giants star would go down. His personal trainer Greg Anderson (whom I met while at the Federal Detention Center in Dublin, CA), spent over a year in custody for refusing to cooperate with the grand jury and many believed that Bonds' indictment hinged on the testimony Anderson had refused to provide.

Anderson is out today, but there is no reason that he caved and testified. The grand jury was due to expire next month and its extraordinarily unlikely that he would give up now. Former US Attorney Kevin Ryan confirmed on a radio news program this morning. Anderson's attorney Peter Garagos stated, Law.com, "Frankly I'm aghast. It looks like the government misled me and Greg as well, saying this case couldn't go forward without him."

There are many unanswered questions about why the government brought the indictment when they did, but what's just barely been mentioned is how this turn-of-events will affect Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, whose coverage of the story for the San Francisco Chronicle and their book, Game of Shadows, led to the reporters being subpoenaed and later found in contempt for not revealing their anonymous sources.

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The end of the daily paper?

Every day on my way to work, I pick up the three free daily newspapers that are distributed in San Francisco, and once a week I grab the two (also free weeklies). Even though I can get the San Francisco Chronicle for a quarter at the BART station, it's the rare occasion when I actually decide to plunk down the twenty-five cents. Instead, I usually surf SF Gate and skim the online version of the publication. As Jon Fine at Business Week points out, I'm not the only one.Killing printrequires acknowledging not just that the old mode is dead but also that the future means less revenue and shrunken staffs. This is why it makes sense soonest at a money-losing newspaper already grappling with those realities, and one in a major city that generates enough local ad dollars to support a sizable online business.

On paper, San Francisco is perfect: a Web-centric town, a cash-drain daily, and private ownership. Which does not mean this will happen. San Francisco is the ancestral home of the Hearst empire, the birthplace of William Randolph Hearst and the town where he ran his first paper. It could be hard for Hearst to consider the move on those grounds alone. (In Asher's deposition, though, he said Hearst briefly considered selling the Chronicle in 2005.)He goes on to explain that the Chronicle has 265,000 subscribers, and though that number isn't massive, it's important to keep in mind that there are less than 800,000 people in San Francisco so quite a few people still rely on that daily paper coming to their door. Beyond the old-fashion appeal to the printed word, San Francisco is a city filled with commuters, like me, who rely on public transportation and seize that opportunity to read their daily paper. Perhaps municipal wi-fi and better mobile browsers will lead to commuters surfing instead of thumbing through the paper, but as I look around I see far more papers than Palm's and don't expect things to change anytime soon.

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