In a nod to the popularity of video games, Massive Incorporated, a video game advertising network, today will announce the signing of 12 new advertisers, including Paramount Pictures, which will promote the movies "The Longest Yard," "Aeon Flux," and "The War of the Worlds." Other advertisers include Coca-Cola, Intel Corp, Universal Pictures, Comcast G4, Nestle, Honda, T-Mobile, UPN, New Line Cinema, Verizon DSL, and Dunkin' Donuts.

The marketing brochure for the 2005 AAN Convention was mailed to AAN members and other prospective attendees on Friday, April 8. Management-level employees were sent materials which include programming details and a schedule-at-a-glance, and publishers will also receive registration forms. The deadline for early-bird registration this year is Friday, April 22.

AAN-member papers grabbed over 60 percent of the nominations in the newspaper categories of the 2005 James Beard Foundation Awards. Robb Walsh of Houston Press was nominated for two awards while his New Times colleagues were nominated for seven others. In an e-mail to Washington City Paper staff announcing food critic Todd Kliman's nomination, editor Erik Wemple called the Beard awards "the Oscars of food writing." For a complete list of the nominees, visit this page.

Like many people who spent their careers putting mostly black ink on white paper so it could be thrown on people's porches at 5 a.m., I have been worrying about the future of newspapers. Most of the content newspapers provide is available free online and many of our best advertisers have found they can reach their best customers more efficiently using lower-cost, Web-based alternatives.

One of the essential facts newspaper ad people never talk about is the inherent inefficiency in newspaper advertising — and that this inefficiency is what drives profitability. In fact, the old Newspaper Advertising Bureau created a clever marketing name for the phenomenon — The Thin Market Concept — and used it to get customers to buy more ads.