First We Take Manhattan Beach

If I'm gonna make it to ten posts today then I have to treat marketing emails in my inbox as "reader tips." Here's a juicy one I personally received from Robertson Barrett, General Manager of Los Angeles Times Interactive and Jeffrey M. Johnson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Los Angeles Times this morning. Prepare yourself for some cheek-clenching media observations.

Dear Registered User,

The Los Angeles Times today launched the first stage of a year-long initiative to improve and expand the newspaper’s Internet offerings, with a special emphasis on utility for Southern Californians...

There's a bunch of other stuff about re-vamping the calendarlive.com feature but I prefer to get my SoCa ToDo's from Defamer and various unmoderated message boards. They also promise a wider, cleaner home page that includes "Pacific Time" which sounds cute if only I knew what that meant. I'm guessing it's an L.A.-insider joke and since I fancy myself a "Young Manhattanite" I plead ignorance to such cryptic surfer lingo. I will continue to monitor these developments of the West Coast's first steps into publishing media online. If we can facilitate democracy for Iraqis, I'm confident we can do the same with the Internet for Southern Californians.
The Paper Of Recording Contracts [LATimes.com]