Dear Omaha World-Herald . . . .

Your website, Omaha.com, stinks. Actually, it sucks, but I know "sucks" isn't the kind of language y'all print.

You took a marginally mediocre (and I'm not talking "almost fair") website that was difficult to navigate, all-but-hid content and was just plain drab and dull, and in one swell foop, you made it worse.

Lots worse.

I go there only when I really, really need to. Trouble for you is, I don't religiously read your print product either. Yeah, I'll skim some of it when I get it in from the driveway, but that's about it.

But, you ask, "Why subscribe but not much read it?"

Well, I suppose you're still happy to have the revenue, but I can explain. Actually, I can't. More precisely, I can but I won't.

* * *

THE DRIFT HERE IS we probably wouldn't subscribe except for those reasons known but to the missus and me. And newspaper circulation figures show -- month after month after depressing month -- that folks (particularly younger folks) aren't buying the newspaper anymore. It sucks to be you in a free-market environment.

I know you probably think I'm an ill-informed buffoon. You would be wrong.

The past 20 years, you see, this thing called "the Internet" has come into prominence -- particularly since the popular explosion of "the World Wide Web" in the mid-'90s. That's where I get my news -- MSNBC, CNN, Drudge, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London, the (London) Daily Telegraph, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, and the list goes on and on.

Alternatively, many folks watch the TV news to get a recent summary of the day's local events. When I want detail on a story -- or if I have some time to kill in "the library" -- I might pick up the World-Herald. Maybe.

That's your problem.

You compound that problem with your crappy website because you do not grasp that it's easier for me to get my news online because -- and read carefully here -- I AM WORKING AT THE COMPUTER ANYWAY.

Give me a compelling web news presence and you might gain some of my valuable time and attention. Otherwise, I have other options. I am not a dope, no matter how fervently you might think -- or wish -- that to be the case. And I am not alone.

There are tens of thousands of us -- maybe hundreds of thousands of us -- right here in River City.

I AM NOT AN UNREASONABLE MAN, nor am I a spiteful one. I will give you a really good tip. This tip could unleash new streams of Internet advertising revenue for you. This tip could make your Web product -- Dare I say it? -- interesting. This could let the World-Herald beat the T-Word Which Must Not Be Spoken at its own game . . . which happens to always involve video and oftentimes involves live news coverage.

You see, Mr. Herald . . . may I call you World? Thanks.

You see, World, it's a multimedia world now. "Convergence" is here. Look at my website, Revolution 21, for example. A website -- with which I haven't done much . . . yet, a blog and a podcast. And I'm one guy. Working with exactly no budget.

OK. HERE IT IS. The Big Tip. Ready?

Slingbox.

Slingbox was designed to let you watch your home TV anywhere in your house -- or anywhere in the world -- as long as you have a Ethernet router and/or an Internet connection. And, of course, a computer . . . or a smart phone.

In San Francisco, the CBS affiliate is repurposing this consumer device, hooking it up to an inexpensive video camera and a mobile-broadband card to do live shots on the cheap. Pennies- on-the-dollar cheap.

From moving vehicles, even. CNET News has the scoop.

Think about it. Forget you're in the newspaper business, because you're not. You are in the media business. You are in the information-dispersal business.

Companies still in the newspaper business are getting their clocks cleaned.

A media business would take this flexible, portable and cheap technology and use it to remake a dull and dysfunctional Internet product. City council meetings could be streamed live on Omaha.com. Ditto school boards. Or the Legislature. Or important press conferences.

How about pre- and postgame roundtables and interviews?

A forward-thinking and involved media company would be taking these thingamajigs and driving traffic to its website by streaming high-school football games live every Thursday and Friday night. (Can anybody say Apple TV? I knew that you could.)

Furthermore, every bit of video could be archived and included in multimedia news packages. And . . . .

You want to hear something else cool about streaming video and audio?

You can insert short commercials into them. You would know this as "additional revenue streams." You want to know how to "monetize" your Web product? That's a darned good way, right there.

LET ME BE BLUNT, World. You have got to wake up and smell the coffee. You have got to crack open an industrial-size bottle of Get-A-Clue.

Newspapers are dying. Fast.

My wife works for yours. She likes her job.

And I'd like it if her job was around for a while, you know?

Sincerely yours,

The Mighty Favog

HAT TIP: Omaha City Weekly Media Watch