Remember, this stuff makes our lives easier, not harder

LMdirect!, our re-designed e-newsletter, debuts next month.

Podcasts, blogs and a new e-newsletter format: Just a taste of the improved digital products on their way to your inbox from Landscape Management.

You can't read a newspaper, scan a magazine cover or watch your local news anymore without seeing or hearing some reference to the new wave of digital media. Heck, even "blog" and "podcast" are sort of ancient terms as far as this evolving technology goes.

Sometimes I think the tech universe likes to invent new terms every now and then just to make technology sound a lot harder than it is. Case in point: A "blog" is just a Web page that's updated more. A "podcast" is just an audio and/or video file you can watch or listen to from a Web page.

It's the Starbucks theory: Call something by a new name and that item's popularity soars. A "venti" by any other name is still a large. (Yet a "tall" is a "small," but we won't get into that.)

Like every other news outlet around, we're trying to deliver what you want, the way you want it. Today, that means news is delivered beyond the pages of the traditional magazine because busy people don't spend three hours at once reading magazines from cover to cover for news.

Despite some initial confusion, all of this digital technology is meant to make our lives easier, not harder. That goes for LM readers too. Check out some of our digital products if you haven't already:

• LM's blog: We've been blogging for a year already. Check out Editor in Chief Ron Hall's frank comments on industry issues, insider news and wacky stuff. Our monthly InfoTech columnist Tyler Whitaker also has a fantastic blog that makes tech issues exciting and accessible.

• Podcasting: This is a great, easy way to hear and see a speaker or even a whole event without buying a plane ticket. Try it out by visiting our recent Grassroots Lawn Care Forum podcast. Open the link, click around, easy as pie. Then visit iTunes and search for free podcasts from other news sources you visit every day.

Finally, LM is about to launch our new, improved bi-weekly e-newsletter, LMdirect! If you're already a subscriber you don't have to do anything, just wait to be wowed in September. If not, now's the time. Visit www.landscapemanagement.net to sign up. (From our home page, click into an article and the online sign up sheet will be on the right of the page.)

Our new format will be an easier read, with lots of Web-exclusive content, news and issues, field reports and more.

So yes, this is the last issue of LM Week in Review, but LMdirect! will be even better.

Got any suggestions about digital content? Send me a good, old-fashioned e-mail.