The O-town Scene

Scene the O-Town Vol. 2, No. 10 www.otownscene.com 102 Chestnut St., P.O. Box 250, Oneonta, NY 13820 (607) 432-1000, ext. 255, editor@otownscene.com EDITOR/DESIGNER Cassandra Miller ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR OF THE DAILY STAR Adrienne Wise PUBLISHER Armand Nardi CONTRIBUTORS Josh Baldo, Sam Benedict, Mark Boshnack, Kurtis Breed, John Champlin, Trevor Hayes, Ashok Malhotra, Dunstan McNutt, Shirley O'Shea, Emily Popek, Mark Simonson, Sam Spokony and Jennifer Tighe. EDITOR OF THE DAILY STAR Sam Pollak ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Sean Lewis The O-Town Scene is published Thursdays by The Daily Star Inc. Free copies are distributed throughout Oneonta, as well as parts of Otsego, Delaware and Schoharie counties. Member of The Associated Press and CNHI News Service EDITOR'S NOTE Our cover boy, Mike Popek, is one of the many intriguing people who unassumingly live in the area. This quiet guy, who is Scene contributor Emily Popek's husband, started a blog to make sharing interesting stuff he found in the books he sells at his family's used book store more convenient for his friends to see. The blog, a basic set up that he simply posts what he finds in used books with the book he finds them in, includes no interpretation from him; it's all about the "forgotten bookmarks" (also the name of the blog). Popek lets viewers interpret the combinations and come up with stories themselves for the pot leaf found in a microwave cookbook or the Barry Bonds base- ball coin found in "Fair Ball" by Bob Costas. The idea was genius, and even though he 2 O-Town Scene Dec. 8, 2011 had no intention for the blog to be anything on a grand scale, he was soon being contacted by agents who showered him with offers. He recently published his first collection, a book form of his blog that includes many items that have not been posted on the Web. Popek is also a contributor to Forbes magazine and The Huffington Post _ he's a pretty impressive dude. And it all started with a blog, something that didn't exist a decade ago. In this issue, columnist Sam Spokony delves into the issue of information sharing on the Internet, a conduit of communication not many people used 15 years ago. He talks about how communication has been changing since Plato's time when a written language was introduced, and how there are always people who initially resist those changes. In the newspaper and magazine industry, the shift of more people getting their informa- tion online has posed a business problem for print products. People just aren't looking to newspapers or magazines for information the way they used to. Our newsrooms have gotten cut down to a skeletal staff of people who do the work of at least two or three positions combined. As someone with a print journalism degree, a 20-year relationship with the local newspaper and 12 magazine subscriptions, this change is hard to accept. I'm usually a resister when it comes to new technology. In college, I held onto my por- table Walkman CD player even though all of my classmates had started carrying iPods. I hesitantly accepted an iPod for Christmas five years ago, warmed to its efficiency and chic design, and now I can't imagine reverting to changing CDs constantly. I have to be dragged into new technology trends, especially those that cross into the area of communication and journalism. Whether you're holding a copy of this issue at a coffee shop while sipping a latte, or scanning articles online, thanks for reading. Cassandra Miller is the founding editor of the O-Town Scene. She can be reached at editor@otown- scene.com.

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