As a former print journalist, I have often lamented the demise of an entire industry that was once the “Fourth Pillar” of America’s experiment with democracy. I keep a constant vigil by checking out Newspaper Death Watch, which chronicles the buried bones of the nation’s metro dailies. Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and informed them once again that their business model was defunct and broken. However, there was a silver lining in his message: “There’s every reason to believe that eventually we’ll solve this,” he said, indicating that new online advertising and subscription models are evolving quickly.

One new approach to online journalism will be launched May 4 with Civil Beat, the brainchild of Pierre Omidyar, who started eBay in 1995 and now lives in Honolulu. He is banking on the fact that fellow Hawaiians will pay $19.95 a month to read and comment on local and community news. Civil Beat is positioning itself as a virtual civic square where reporters will write about issues relevant to Hawaii, converse with readers, and host discussion forums.

According to Editor John Temple: “As we do our reporting work, we’ll share our experiences, using Twitter and a blog-like approach on each beat. We’ll bring you along, we’ll point out important developments, and ask for your help and your thoughts. When we’ve come to our own conclusion about an issue, our editorial board will let you know what we think. We think it’s important to take a stand and propose concrete steps, even if you won’t always agree with us. We hope that by sharing our point of view , it’ll help you sharpen your own thinking. Of course, we’ll be inviting you to do the same with us. We believe civil debate and discussion are essential parts of good journalism, and a positive way to create a better community. And that even goes for our reporter-hosts, who’ll be free to let you know when they disagree with the board, just the way you might.”

Civil Beat has its work cut out for it. Ultimately, the reinvention of journalism may be decided not by online content, but by enabling devices, such as the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle. Just has the iPod reinvented how music was to be consumed, creating a device-driven business model to counter the Napster phenomenon, the iPad may also help create a revenue platform for what’s left of professional journalists.

Until then, I will keep my watch and hope that the Fourth Pillar survives and thrives in a new form that engages community, not just solicits readership.

The confluence of Brand Experience and User Experience has been happening for some time. Brand marketing has evolved over the last century to become its own science, complete with a myriad of theories on brand positioning, messaging, control and valuation. The champions of brand proliferated, with many companies recruiting armies of brand managers inspired by the successful P&G model. On the flip side, the newcomers to the brand stage were ushered in with the rise of the Internet in the ’80s and ’90s. However, these denizens of the digital realm were relegated to silos within many organizations – Webmasters, Online Marketing Managers, Digital Marketing Exectutives, seemed to operate in the shadow realm of brand strategy.

Today, more than ever, these two worlds are interdependent.  While the proliferation of social media along with the fragmentation of the media audience has posed challenges for traditional brand managers, a new breed of brand architects are emerging that are both digitally savvy and brand astute. This is apparent with the emergence of a new form of agency that is proficient in both brand and the user experience. Case in point: 4ORCE Digital in St. Louis recently invested more than $200,000 developing a state-of-the-art UX Lab for its clients and prospects, and has an entire team of UX experts that perform “deep dives” on the user experience. Why? 4ORCE, like many other leading brand and digital agencies understand that agencies can no longer have credibility talking brand when they are not thought leaders in the digital ecosystems that speak the brand language every day: User Interaction, User Personas, Social Media Marketing, Web Analytics, and the list goes on. Brand IS user experience and vice versa. Perhaps we are entering a new era in Brandology that calls for Brand Experience Optimization. Similar to how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps companies optimize their websites so they are front-and-center in terms of relevancy, Brand Experience Optimization is the unification of brand strategy and digital application to transform the customer experience at various touch points – online, point-of-sale, mobile apps, in addition to internal culture. For tomorrow’s leaders, the most relevant brands, will be the most optimized. So, get ready to start hiring your Brand Optimization Manager.