Pundit - somebody who expresses opinion: a critic or authority on a subject, especially in the media

Kibitz - to interfere or give unwanted advice, especially when watching a card game

There aren't many places in the world where people use a map of their home state as their gravestone. Texas is one.

Texas is unlike any place else, and Austin is unlike any place in Texas. In a state that has the highest death row population in the US, Austin is home to the organisation that overturns death penalty convictions.

At the Mega Conference held there in February, there were two major themes: editorial outsourcing and video.

Sessions that discussed selling techniques, and revenue proportions were met with quiet asides and grumbling, "we know all this."

The video sessions, to me at least, were at times perplexing, and at times made me think I had been selling my vision our industry four years too early.

In one large session, successive publishers showed samples of their video content and said the expected: "we cover the events that local television no longer covers: town board meetings, parades, and high school sporting events." And the unexpected, ''we don't want to look professional, we want to stand out as something local and unpolished.''

Sessions included budgets for a studio, step-by-step how-tos, and how to sell advertising.

"We don't want to look professional..." I think we all need to ponder that for a while.

The US legislature has not been asleep at the wheel: Beginning this past January 1, any content that was broadcast must adhere to the same federal regulations and standards when it is distributed on the web.

This means, for example, any piece that is re-purposed for the web must include broadcast-standard captioning. I almost lost a piece of business over this until the prospect was nice enough to marry us up with another vendor who is compliant.

On the production side, outsourcing editorial production is gaining momentum. Gatehouse is leading with more than 200 newspapers sending their copyediting and page layout to their Austin facility. Other newspaper chains are entering the fray, either offering similar services or offering complementary services such as ad makeup. Gatehouse will even author articles, which I think lends itself naturally to native advertising.

eType Services offers the same service to players too small for the Gatehouses of the world. A regional player, eType finds its market expanding organically as it services become known.

Software vendors who do not capture one of these major chains offering services, or partner with a service provider, may find their universe of potential clients shrinking rapidly.

It may not be long before our image of an American newspaper is a storefront with a sign overhead, a managing editor and some reporters on the editorial side, and a publisher and some salespeople on the advertising side, with everything else outsourced.

I recently started hunting down the many sales I thought I lost last year.

Hurrying down the hallway in front of our stand was the president of the newspaper division of a Midwest media conglomerate. I called out and asked what he had finally bought. He looked at me and laughed, open mouthed, ''nothing!''

They decided to re-examine their revenue and get their business in order before buying anything. Without irony, he told me that they were working with an advertiser: they had bought a mailing list, processed it through a service that the United States Postal Service provides, married it to a demographic database and were doing direct mail.

He thought this was amazing and wonderful. Imagine, you can send targeted pieces by mail!

Five years ago, a startup I did had as its slogan "Where the community comes to learn about itself." We tried to sell services to build a programme for newspapers where they would broadcast local events such as town meetings over the web. We envisioned using something like Go-To-Webinar, where community members could be engaged and ask questions.

We built an app called JReporter that engaged the community by allowing users to send in user generated content (remember UGC?), allowed newspapers to send out headlines and breaking news, and ask for participation, all based on demographics and geolocation, with integral advertising opportunities.

We ran out of money before we ever found a market.

The head one of the companies that does editorial outsourcing buttonholed me at the show. "Do you still have JReporter? Can I market it to my customers?"

I put him in touch with the engineer who wrote the lion's share of the code, and suggested they work together. If it turns a profit, send me an appropriate royalty.

I'm about to become a pundit, or perhaps more rightly stated, a kibitzer.

On Lake Union in the centre of Seattle is a 9.5-metre sloop-rigged sailboat called Caro Babbo. On April 15, my partner Jennifer, her Alzheimer-ridden mother, Hilary and I will leave Seattle to sail to Juneau, Alaska.

A dear friend and business colleague told me a few years ago that sailing was a physical undertaking and at some point I would no longer be able to do it. ''Go, and go sooner rather than later.'' This Mega Conference was my last industry conference.

Being a part of the newspaper industry is one of the things in my life I am most proud of. Our industry plays a critical role not only in the lives of our readers, but in our countries.

Completely leaving the industry is inconceivable.

My boat was built and had its heyday 40 some odd years ago. I'm in the process of equipping it with necessary but not superfluous electronics for our era. The cooker I bought was designed in the 1930s and is essentially unchanged because it is the best at what it does.

Reporting, especially the investigative reporting, community reporting and constant oversight of authority is something that newspapers do very well and is essential to a free society. The infrastructure that distributes this reporting and supports it is necessary but peripheral, like new electronics that I've added to my boat.

I buy what is necessary and what I can afford in order to complete my mission: getting the three of us from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, and back.

A technology infrastructure will give me access to the internet for weather, navigation, safety and news. That infrastructure supports our mission. Using it, I will also continue to read newspapers, to read about the newspaper industry, and write about it.

• Contact John at john@jjcs.com, http://CaroBabbo.com