• by Lauren Berger , Jennifer Coleman , July 20, 2006

Dig into a smorgasbord of the mediarati's summer indulgences, preferences, and nostalgic memories

Compiled by Lauren Berger and curated by Jennifer Coleman

Do you miss your online "routine" when you're on vacation, or does your BlackBerry accompany you everywhere?

"My Treo is my baby. That's what I call it, 'the baby.' When it cries,I answer its calls of distress; when it spits e-mails, I clean 'em up."

Laurel Touby, Founder, CEO and Cyberhostess, Mediabistro

"I'm having my BlackBerry waterproofed so it's immune to both fresh and salt water. Then I'm commissioning some custom Prada trunks to have a special pocket sewn in so I can scream at my staff mid-backstroke."

David Hauslaib, Founder, Jossip

"Everywhere!"

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief, Wired Magazine, Author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

"No and no."

Frank Rich, Columnist, The New York Times

"I always try to get offline as often as possible. Sometimes I feel I'm jacked into a vast digital plasma of information: The only escape is to go cold turkey. Then I return to about a thousand e-mails."

Adam Penenberg, Journalist and Assistant Professor of Journalism, New York University

"It took me until just three months ago to finally cave in and get a cell phone, and I just lost it. In other words, I prefer to be unconnected."

Cinco Paul, Screenwriter, "Horton Hears a Who," "Bubble Boy," and "The Santa Clause 2"

"I'd like to miss my online routine when I'm on vacation...last year I got frostbite doing e-mails on a chair lift in Utah. Our jobs these days are 24/7."

Charlie Rutman, CEO, MPG North America

"Um, not really. I am always online, even on vacation. It is easier to have fun and relax if I am at least in the loop for an hour a day."

Shawn Gold, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Content, MySpace

What media event are you looking forward to this summer?

"The reading at Radio City Music Hall by JK Rowling, John Irving, and Stephen King."

Tina Sharkey, Senior Vice President, AOL

"Burning Man  an experiment in freedom of expression."

Shawn Gold, MySpace

"I'm laying low except for seeing a couple of friends' Broadway-bound shows in L.A. and San Francisco as I pass through California on vacation. I have a book tour in the fall, which will overdose me on media events for the rest of the year and then some."

Frank Rich, The New York Times

 "My favorite media event of the summer is, and has always been, a non-event: the summer hiatus from all my regular TV shows. It's wonderful not to have the pressure of a full TiVo waiting for me each weekend. Oh, and I guess I'll be counting the minutes till Katie starts at CBS, too."

Jesse Oxfeld, Former Gawker Editor

"I'm most looking forward to the pre-eminent media event of the year. It's called August, and it's this month where the industry shuts down so we can all hit the beach with the trashy novels we've been bashing all year."

David Hauslaib, Jossip

"I am a huge music fan. With Network Live, I get to go to some of the best shows and concerts. Coming up, we have shows with The Futureheads and French Kicks in L.A., Los Lonely Boys in NYC, and the Fray in Denver."

Elisa Wiefel, Director of Marketing, Network Live

What book(s) are you reading now?

"Let People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Choinard (the founder of Patagonia); Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band (M"tley Crüe bio); and a biography of Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt."

Dylan Stableford, Managing Editor, Media News, Mediabistro

"Saturday by Ian McEwan. Next book will be The Search by John Battele. I also read The Little Engine That Could and Green Eggs and Ham about 10 times a day, because my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter loves them."

Adam Penenberg, New York University

"A real mix of stuff. Scott Anderson's Moonlight Hotel, Sebastian Junger's Death in Belmont, Abby Ellin's Teenage Waistland, Tom Zoellner's The Heartless Stone  basically, all books by my friends :)."

Laurel Touby, Mediabistro

"To my seven-year-old, Inkheart to my four-year-old, The Magic Treehouse, to myself, The Time Traveler's Wife, Kite Runner, and The Question of Happiness."

Tina Sharkey, AOL

"I'm about halfway through Desperate Networks by Bill Carter, and next up is Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard."

Scott Moore, Vice President of Content Operations, Yahoo

What magazines do you indulge in during the summer?

"People on airplanes and Scientific American, which is People magazine for science."

Shawn Gold, MySpace

"I read the same ones year-round: The New Yorker, New York Magazine, 442 (soccer magazine), The Beat (reggae), and of course ESPN the Magazine."

John Skipper, Executive Vice President of Content, ESPN

"The only offline magazines I read regularly are Newsweek and The New York Times Sunday magazine. I dropped all the rest for lack of time. Of course, online is a whole different story...Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, HuffPo, Slate, Drudge, and Real Clear Politics."

Scott Moore, Yahoo

"Magazines are an addiction for me  I subscribe to more than 20! Top in the rotation are Rolling Stone, Spin, Newsweek, and BusinessWeek, but I ain't gonna lie  there's nothing like a little US Weekly on the beach during a sunny So Cal afternoon. In the end, my all-time favorite read is the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It's still the best paper in the country, hands down."

Elisa Wiefel, Network Live

What are you listening to on your iPod? Watching on your video iPod?

"I recently upgraded to the Treo 700p and use that as my portable audio and video device. It gives me access to bits of satellite radio, my tunes, sports updates, live video feeds, snippets of content, and mobisodes, as well as anything I might have recorded to make my commute a little more entertaining."

Nick Pahade, Denuo

"Brad Mehldau, Sufjan Stevens, Nellie McKay, Antony and the Johnsons, and the classics: Miles, Monk, and anything Sondheim. No video iPod. I admire it in principle but fear it would push me over the edge."

Frank Rich, The New York Times

"Various podcasts, like Danah Boyd on social computing and the Gilmore Gang. On music, all Sting all the time. I am spinning up a mix of Maroon 5, Lauryn Hill, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, REM, U2, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and a little John Mayer."

Tina Sharkey, AOL  

What movies have you seen recently, and what movies are you looking forward to?

"'An Inconvenient Truth' was awesome. I thought it was going to be depressing, but it wasn't. I even paid for two girls who were on the fence about it at a nail salon to go see it for themselves."

Laurel Touby, Mediabistro

"I saw 'Cars' with my kids. It was fantastic. My kids do this fun thing where they negotiate who gets 'to be' which character. I chose 'Mater.'" 

Scott Moore, Yahoo

"Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Army of Shadows' is the best movie I've seen since my favorite movie of last year, David Cronenberg's 'History of Violence.'"

Frank Rich, The New York Times

"Last seen: 'Thank You For Smoking.' Looking forward to whatever SciFi geekout my wife allows to the top of the Netflix queue."

Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine

What shows are you watching on TV? What are you DVRing?

"I am obsessed with 'CSI' and this great show on the Science channel called 'Survivorman.' Basically, this survival expert goes into a different environment for seven days with only a camera and what he could be reasonably expected to have with him in that environment. And of course, as a liberal, I have a TiVo full of 'The Daily Show.'"

Elisa Wiefel, Network Live

"'Big Love.' And every variation of 'Law & Order' that exists. Plus, endless loops of CNN."

Laurel Touby, Mediabistro

"My daughters and my wife have pretty much taken over both of our DVRs, so outside of 'SpongeBob,' 'Sesame Street,' 'Dora,' and 'Noggin,' you will find things like 'The Daily Show,' and I am still a loyal follower of 'The Simpsons.' I am also a HD junkie, so anything on the Discovery Channel, plus the World Cup, have been both thrilling and stunning to watch in HD on my DVR."

Nick Pahade, Denuo

"Sports and more sports."

John Skipper, ESPN

"I'm totally into 'Entourage.' And I'm in withdrawal over '24.' I DVR everything, including sports. I'm the television business's worst nightmare in that sense. Well, except HBO and Showtime, who don't care."

Scott Moore, Yahoo

"With '24' and 'American Idol' seasons over, I can't say that I am watching much TV. Psyched to see what Katie can deliver, but I will have to DVR that as well, in addition to 'The Daily Show.'"

Tina Sharkey, AOL

How has your media consumption changed over the years?

"For me, primetime is dead. It is all my time now. What I want, when I want it, and how I want it. On my laptop, on my iPod, time-shifted on my DVR, in the back of the minivan with my kids on DVD, or not at all. It's all about choice, isn't it? Sometimes I choose to sit it out. We all need a break now and then."

Tina Sharkey, AOL

"My day, every day, is absorbed with media consumption, and thinking about the trends in how others consume media. Summer is a time for a little less personal media consumption, and instead a little more time with my three kids from whom I can learn a lot more about everything, including trends related to the future of media consumption, than from any additional media I may take in."

Tom Rogers, CEO, TiVo

"I used to read more magazines but fewer newspapers and books than I read now. I have always been very interested in film, but fairly selective about the movies I see. I still do very little reading online, whether for work or for pleasure. I like to hold what I read in my hands."

Myron Levin, The Los Angeles Times

"With the exception of the Sunday New York Times, I don't read newspaper in print anymore (although I now read more newspapers than ever online). I still read as many magazines and far more books (mostly due to an active book club and researching my own book). Everything else I read is online, and most of that is via RSS, rather than visiting Web sites." 

Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine