Saturday morning with the blogs

From Gannett's move into citizen journalism to the latest attempt at censoring the Dixie Chicks, student blogs at Journalism of the Web are hopping. Here is the latest roundup.

Gannett takes the plunge. Chris Estrada is psyched about the giant newspaper chain's "Information Center" initiative, by which Gannett papers will embrace hyperlocalism, citizen journalism and a 24/7 news ethos. Rachel Slajda also writes about Gannett's experiment, and voices some skepticism about the language being used to describe it: "Nothing like nonsensical corporate jargon to save newspapers."

High-altitude annoyance. Celia Soudry is less than thrilled with plans to allow folks to yap on their cell phones while flying. Even though the service will cost $3.50 a minute, Soudry believes our tech-obsessed society will embrace it.

Speeding from the scene. Chelsea Petersen is amazed at how quickly the news media moved on following Deval Patrick's big win. By the next morning, she writes, Boston.com was treating it as old news.

Most valuable logo. Evan Brunell continues to update us on the redesign of his sports Web site, Most Valuable Network. Ever coy, Brunell writes, "I won't be showing the logo here, but rest assured that it's an edgy logo ..."

A world without paper. Jane Mackay covers a talk by one of our fabulous guest speakers, William Powers of the National Journal. Powers, who's spending a semester at Harvard's Shorenstein Center, is thinking about what we'll miss when paper is gone.

Marketing by censorship. Lisa Panora reports on the Dixie Chicks' latest marketing breakthrough: NBC's decision to ban an ad for their documentary "Shut Up and Sing." Like any good netizen, Panora provides us with a link to the trailer.

Microsoft's domain. Rajashree Joshi ponders Microsoft's decision to give away Internet domain names for free as part of its Office Live product for businesses, and thinks it's mostly a good idea.

Candid camera. Thomas Chen issues a warning to professors: when you see a student aiming his cell phone at you, he might be taking a picture so that he can upload it to RateMyProfessor.com. Good grief.