But maybe not. Michael Crichton, for instance, had insisted in 1993 that “what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.” Crichton, of course, wrote “Jurassic Park,” so we must defer to him on dinosaur expertise. But he was far wide of the mark on the extinction of mass media, so perhaps his vision about newspapers in particular was also flawed.

A hint of where Crichton’s vision went wrong can likely be found in the same speech, where he said this:

“More and more, people understand that they pay for information. Online databases charge by the minute. As the link between payment and information becomes more explicit, consumers will naturally want better information. They’ll demand it, and they’ll be willing to pay for it. There is going to be — I would argue there already is — a market for extremely high-quality information. …”

But that’s not what happened, at least outside of trade publishing (industry newspapers, magazines, and newsletters). The closed online services of the 1980s (CompuServe had started its service in 1979) and early 1990s, with their usage fees, gave way in the mid and late 1990s to the open Web. Prodigy, which already in 1991 boasted a million members, was sold at a billion-dollar loss in May 1996, just 18 months after the release of the test version of the Netscape Navigator browser.

And notions of what consumers would pay for — and what they should even be asked to pay for — were turned on their heads. By early 1996 the media theorist (and former Grateful Dead lyricist) John Perry Barlow was writing in Wired that the optimal price for information in many cases was … free. “Most soft goods,” Barlow declared, “increase in value as they become more common. Familiarity is an important asset in the world of information. It may often be true that the best way to raise demand for your product is to give it away.”

And that is precisely what newspaper publishers and others fairly quickly sought to do.

The rest of this e-essay is available on iTunes.

Richard Tofel is general manager of ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit investigative journalism newsroom. At ProPublica, he has responsibility for all of its non-journalism operations, including communications, legal, development, finance and budgeting, and human resources. He was formerly the assistant publisher of The Wall Street Journal and, earlier, an assistant managing editor of the paper; vice president, corporate communications for Dow Jones & Company; and an assistant general counsel of Dow Jones.

The sponsorship is the first example of how EA expects to monetize demos of games going forward. The technology it built to do so is called EA Signal, which allows for advertising in demos, including the ability to insert videos of celebrity appearances and developer interviews or other tutorials into the game.

Brands and marketers can also conduct contests and sweepstakes inside games.

In the case of Madden NFL 12, EA is trying a little bit of everything the first time around. Along with the chance to win a car, the demo lets players watch videos and learn new elements of the game.

The videos feature Van Bernardino, who goes by the name “Prodigy” and is known in gaming circles for being a champion Madden NFL videogame player. In the video, he drives a Chevy Cruze down California’s coast to meet up with former New Orleans Saints halfback and Super Bowl champion Reggie Bush.

Together, Prodigy and Bush demonstrate how to play the game, and give specific instructions on how to run an “audible.” That’s when the quarterback decides to run a different play at the last minute and calls it out to his players.

If a player uses an audible to score a touchdown, he or she will receive a special code. The code must be entered on the Madden NFL 12 Facebook fan page for a chance to win a 2011 Chevy Cruze.

Most of EA’s big console releases have a demo, so this will only be the first of many brand partnerships.

Last year the Madden demo was played by more than two million gamers. Overall, EA says it reaches about 70 million users on both Xbox and PlayStation through its demos. That’s a sizeable audience.

“In the console environment, one of the great places to identify value is in the demo,” EA’s SVP Dave Madden said. “They are in a buying mode. It’s the right mind-set.”

The full version of Madden comes on Aug. 30, and the contest ends Sept. 30.

Here is the whole CBS interview on “60 Minutes” of Mark Zuckerberg, which aired last night.

The quick poll of the piece on Twitter and in the blogosphere: The Facebook co-founder and CEO did great and his Harvard University nemisii, the Winklevoss twins, looked goony and graspy (even though Zuck did sandbag them).

And, yes, BoomTown said the Winklevii got enough dough for their role in social networking history and the “toddler CEO” turned out to be a prodigy. Also, that veteran television correspondent Lesley Stahl is a “fuddy-duddy” (she asked and I keed!).

But see for yourself, in two parts:

This Sunday, the CBS television news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy.

Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. His “was-that-a-question?” response to an obvious question by Stahl was a near classic in geek communications.

Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules an incredibly powerful tech company worth gazillions more (good), has developed into a very polished leader (good) and even had a big Hollywood movie called “The Social Network” made about him (not so good).

Presumably, Stahl will cover all that in her new chat with him, which includes a visit to Facebook’s new Palo Alto, Calif. HQ.

Stahl also interviewed me again and pistol-whipped me–okay, she just asked–until I took back my snarkiest remark from the first one, in which I called Zuckerberg a “toddler CEO.”

My new take, now sporting smart-lady glasses and much grayer hair: The toddler has turned out to be a prodigy!

In other words, the worm has officially turned.

Stahl also wanted to know about the rivalry with Google, the fallout of the movie, my epic de-hoodie-ing of Zuckerberg at D8 conference and what-up with the Winklevii (whom, I believe, I called “hambones.”)

Here is a small taste of the new piece, which airs at 7 pm this Sunday, followed by the entire one from 2008 and the blog post I did about it:

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks-tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

The New Yorker finally came out with its profile of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today, titled “The Face of Facebook.”

And while the magazine piece by Jose Antonio Vargas reads well, there is not much new in it for those who have followed the career of the innovative young wunderkind of social networking.

Exeter computer prodigy, Harvard computer prodigy, Silicon Valley computer prodigy. Throw in the Winklevii’s ceaseless quest to say they could have been somebody (they couldn’t have been), mix in Sean Parker and set to bake to billions.

Vargas did score a few interviews with Zuckerberg, including a visit to his current home and a short glimpse of him interacting with his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan.

But, like Zuckerberg himself, it’s kind of all gray T-shirt and hoodie and working at Facebook.

The best part is Hollywood writer Aaron Sorkin, who penned the upcoming Zuckerberg-slasher, “The Social Network,” finding out his subject loves his television classic “The West Wing.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” he responded to Vargas.

Oh, suck it up, Aaron, as Mark surely will have to when the movie comes out October 1.

Until then and as usual: Gray T-shirt, hood and, of course, Facebook.

This week: We took a trip to a little company called Google (GOOG) to talk with Chris Messina, Google’s open Web advocate. Openness? Google? We couldn’t pass this up.

Who: Chris Messina

What: Open Web advocate

Why: Chris has been in early on all kinds of pioneering open Web projects. He helped run Spread Firefox–Mozilla’s community marketing effort–co-founded the BarCamp user-generated un-conferences, and single-handedly invented the Twitter hashtag: #. No joke. He just made the move to the search giant.

Where: Factory Joe (blog); @chrismessina (Twitter); Googleplex (analog place)

Who Else: Open standards are Messina’s forte, but he’s been preaching the gospel of openness to many Google teams.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile:

Worst Job: You know, I’ve led a pretty padded life, but I guess my worst one was when I was a janitor in a print shop while living in Switzerland. I was living in an attic in this tiny town to attend this Swiss design school–which I didn’t like at all–and this is how I made my meager living while there.

Has a Geek Crush on: I first started learning Web design by reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s book. There are lots, though. More related to the stuff I’m doing now, I think John Panzer is a big unsung hero, he’s the one pushing the Salmon stuff (Google’s open comment project) forward.

Gadget of the Moment: I still love my first-generation Apple (AAPL) iPhone. It doesn’t have 3G and it’s slow as molasses, but I really like the form factor, the metallic finish, everything. It also allows you to take screenshots, which is the one thing really missing from Android.

Biggest Difference Being at Google: Even more email, if you can believe it.

Design Geekiness: My favorite font ever is Pennsylvania by Christian Schwartz. I also like Bello, Flama and Tungsten.

Bio in 140 Characters

Born in New Hampshire, he trained as a communication designer at Carnegie Mellon. He left for California and has been into the open Web ever since.

The Five Questions

What does being an open Web advocate at Google mean? Does it feel like you are working for “The Man”?

Generally what I’m doing here is a lot like what I used to do, actually. I have contact with a lot of different developer teams, and I talk to them about how they can use open standards in their work. Right now though, mostly I’m working on Google Buzz, doing developer relations and helping design the Buzz APIs. We’re trying to create these technologies based on stuff from the grassroots communities where these things already exist, as opposed to inventing our own standards. We document everything on the Google code site and then we just talk about it. It’s a little bit of an evangelism role, in the sense that we have to go out and be a part of the community and be a router for information back into Google.

Big companies seem to have their own agendas and needs to be met, and what I’m realizing now is that a lot of times, they also don’t have time or a way to go out and find the places where these needs are and these tools are already being developed. There are a lot of people who are really hungry for this information, but maybe just didn’t know where to go.

So how do you see Google Buzz as a part of the social Web landscape, now that you’ve been on the inside?

We approached it from a “pieces that are loosely joined” perspective so that we can spit out smaller communities that are self-sufficient, rather than one big monolithic project like Facebook Connect. We built Buzz so that Google can be one place that hosts the underlying technologies, but the capabilities can be spread and used by anyone who wants that social functionality.

The goal is to create a much larger social Web that is dispersed, as opposed to another monolithic silo that sort of sucks in a lot of activity and doesn’t let anything out. Facebook is just the most recent silo, there have been lots in the past. AOL (AOL). Prodigy. A lot of times they don’t mean to be that, but it just happens.

How do you see the competing philosophies of openness and proprietary technology and information at play on the social Web?

I think the way that I look at it is that facilitating choice is actually a good way to ensure you remain competitive. Also, right now, the social Web is in such infancy that competing on what is available now seems so premature. I’d rather see us spend the next five or 10 years building out the social Web so that we have good standards for identity, good standards for authentication and open ways to bring your friends with you to any site on the Web.

Because we’ve never had this social data before, there’s this mentality that it’s solid gold, and we should be hoarding it keeping it from everyone and only letting out little bits. In reality, I think markets work best when there is a flow of data. If I can’t take my data out of one network and move it into another, like I can move credit card balances from one to the other, then I think we are inhibiting the types of things we should be building, which will be much richer.

I already sign into 10 Google products a day with the same account. Is my Google account going to become more like Facebook Connect?

Well, the technology is there, but it’s more a question of motivation. It’s actually a problem I’ve been working on for the last two or three years. The first question is, how do you provide choice to people when they want to log in (what do you ask for)? The other question is, why would they use any one service or other, given the choice?

Facebook has solved that problem by just eliminating the choice. You just choose Facebook Connect, click a button, and it will be fine. And it works pretty well.

A barrier for us is that our tools are built on standards like openID and OAuth that were designed by people who cared a lot more about privacy. As a result of that, a technology based on openID doesn’t automatically come with all the social data that make modern applications work. We are actually working with Facebook on this problem, because it turns out the hardest thing to figure out is just what to put on the user interface–how do you quickly ask people what they’d like to share? We want to avoid making Web sites look like the side of a Nascar.

Google’s push into mobile is based on open standards. How do you see that proliferating??

You know, even the iPhone is actually just a platform that interacts with a bunch of open standards and accepted systems. It relies on 3G, sends email, SMS, takes pictures that are compressed and connects to other devices via Bluetooth–they are all open standards and protocols that have enabled these great tools. I think people are going to want more. I’m intrigued by Android, and it, plus the devices it runs on, are really getting there.

The In Living Color Interview