Several covers of the now defunct JPG magazine. Photo courtesy of Graham Ballantyne.

One of the most interesting (social) media ventures of the past couple of years has been San Francisco-based 8020 Publishing. Here's how it worked: anyone could submit pictures and articles via the Internet for the company's two publications (JPG, devoted to photography, and Everywhere, which focused on travel); online readers voted on their favorite submissions; and a small staff of 10 assembled the layouts into a magazine available for free as a downloadable PDF or at newsstands for $6.

Backed by C|Net founder Halsey Minor, the concept of a crowdsourced magazine was so ingenious that University of Mississippi professor and Mr. Magazine blogger Samir Husni told the New York Times in 2007, “You’re going to see more of this....I don’t think it’s just about getting cheap content into a magazine. Seeing their own work in print makes people feel like part of a community.”

Today, it would appear that such a community was not enough. Reporter Brad Stone posted on the New York Times' Bits blog that 8020 publishing is shutting down, taking with it JPG and Everywhere. Stone wrote:

JPG had a circulation of around 50,000 and had recently secured some prominent space on newsstands around the country.

But ultimately the money ran out, and Mr. Minor declined to invest more, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. 8020 was attempting to either raise more money from other investors or to sell itself to big media names, including the Meredith Corporation and Conde Nast, but with no success. Mr. Minor could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The 18 employees who worked for 8020 were given the holiday week off. On Tuesday, they received individual telephone calls and e-mail messages telling them that the company had exhausted its options and was shutting down.

A Logitech webcam attached to a laptop. Photo courtesy of Mofetos.

For prospective college students, the interview has long been one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the admissions process. Now, according to a recent Associated Press story, colleges are beginning to bring the admissions interview into the 21st century by conducting them online via webcams. As the story explains:

Wake Forest uses a webcam version of Skype for their online interviews. The technology allowed [Avery] Cullinan and about 30 other hopefuls to use a computer-mounted video camera and microphone to speak with an admissions officer through the Internet, "face to face" on a computer screen.

After a successful round of Web-based interviews in the early admission process, Wake Forest offered the program to its entire undergraduate applicant pool--a decision that doubled the number of requests for such interviews.

"We decided this would be a wonderful alternative to the face-to-face interview," [Wake Forest admissions director Martha] Allman said. "We have to stay attuned to how students receive information and how they communicate."

Cover art for the Criterion Collection edition of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm"

Back in my DVD buying heyday, scanning The Criterion Collection section of Tower Records (R.I.P.) or the Virgin Megastore was an essential part of movie shopping. Some of the movies I'd already seen ("Dead Ringers") and others I hadn't ("The Seven Samurai"), but the care and dedication of the folks at Criterion always added a little extra something to my viewing experience. So it's welcome news that the company has started streaming some of its movies online. Here's how Laurence Lerman wrote up the news for Video Business:

Titles will be available online as streaming video for $5 for a one-week rental. The rental fee can be applied toward the purchase of that film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc when it is bought online at www.criterion.com. Criterion also initiated a "frequent flyer" program wherein every dollar spent earns the purchaser a point; 500 points yields a $50 gift certificate redeemable at the Web site.

"The rental fee counting toward the purchase of the DVD or Blu-ray was a direct response to the fact that, even though we've spent a huge amount of time developing an encoding workflow and a set of compression standards that we truly believe is the most film-like streaming experience on the Web, we still feel we can't offer video worth buying over the Internet," said Becker. "If you love these movies and really want to see them in high quality versions, you should buy the DVD or the Blu-ray disc."