Less bluster; more ballyhoo

Buzzmachine Jeff Jarvis often asks "What Would Google Do?" to outline a digital strategy, but maybe the question media companies need to ask is "What would P.T. Barnum Do?"

Tom Grubisich urges newspapers to leverage their Google links to the gaudy max instead of lamenting about the search giant.

To be blunt, what newspapers have to do is emulate the marketing savvy of the carnival. When you came to the freak show, you were greeted by spectacularly clothed, fast-talking barker. Standing next to the barker was the "bearded lady" or "wild man of Borneo" or some other bizarre creature - a tantalizing sampling of what was insidethe tent. Buy a ticket for 50 cents, and you could satisfy your socially incorrect curiosity.

Newspaper barkers would have an easier job than the carnival barker. They don't have to sell tickets. But they do have to do a better job of selling their content.

All we have to do is get them into the tent.

(More on the media frenzy surrounding "The Bearded Lady of Geneva," pictured above.)