Oh, noooo:
In an effort to reduce the numerous emails the League of American Orchestras sends its members, early in 2009 we will launch The Hub, the go-to source for orchestra news. Media View (formerly known as In the News) will cease as an e-newsletter and move to The Hub, a new page on the League’s website, where it will be updated daily. The Hub will also contain everything you need to know about what is happening in our field, new appointments, and the essential information and services the League provides.
As previously stated, I lurve The League’s “In the News”. I’m sure surveys told them they send too many e mails, but maybe there could have been opt-out/opt-in boxes: I want “In the News”, but I don’t want “From the Field”. I’m not going to remember to go to “The Hub” every day; I want to pay for the headlines to come to me! Ah well, the people have spoken.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE. Our very own ArtsJournal has a daily newsletter with arts headlines and mini article summaries pulled from publications around the world neatly organized into categories. Plus, you get highlights from scintillating blogs such as this one. Musical America also sends out a newsletter on Fridays with headlines from their site. Unfortunately you have to pay to read the full articles, but it’s still convenient to be able to tick-tick-tick skim through the headlines.
Other suggestions to fill the “In the News” hole in my life are welcome.
Well this is really silly. On Dec 4 I receive “In the News” as I have for years. On Dec 5, as you did, I receive a re-branded e-newsletter called “Media View” (“formerly known as ‘In the News'” – that’s formerly as in yesterday), which contains the news you quote above.
So apart from losing the newsletter (I’m with you on that), the news of the change is engineered in a very strange way. Why not keep right on calling it “In the News” until it moves to the “hub” in January and becomes “Media View”?
But speaking of hubs, and since you’re calling for suggested alternatives, there’s Arts Hub, which has a US version:
http://www.artshub.com/us/about-arts-hub.asp
and UK version:
http://www.artshub.co.uk/uk/default.asp
as well as the Australian site:
http://www.artshub.com.au/au/default.asp
Arts Hub sends out news bulletins three times a week.
The other great thing about emailed news bulletins is that once filed away they become a quick-search archive of news, especially if the precis is done well. On the other hand, perhaps in moving news to an online hub LoAO just might make a change I’ve been longing for: clickable links to the original article.
…and who can forget when “The American Symphony Orchestra League” renamed themselves for no apparent reason as “The League Of American Orchestras” a year or so back? How much energy and money went into THAT? And has it increased their membership, I wonder?
In the same vein, is the heading “Media View” cooler – trendier? – than “In the News”? Of course not. (It doesn’t even make sense to me, come to think of it.) Seems like more rebranding for rebranding’s sake. Arts organizations wasting, wasting, wasting resources.
Maybe this is obvious and you probably already thought of it, but I bet the site will have an rss feed..?
I thought of it, but…it remains to be seen! It’s a bit disconcerting that they didn’t mention it as an option in their e mails. Thanks for reading! -AA