After a week off, Dan Primack has landed at CNN/Fortune’s web site, more or less picking up where he left off at Thomson Reuters’ peHUB. He started work yesterday and already has posted a slew of stories about Elevation Partners, angel investors vs. traditional VCs, and other VC/private equity doings.

Dan’s daily email from his new perch, Term Sheet, has yet to start. You can sign up here.

For now, finding Dan’s stuff is a challenge. He’s working for Time Warner’s CNN.com web site, which is a behemoth that includes content not only from CNN, but also from traditional Time titles such as Sports Illustrated, People, Money and Fortune. It took me a few clicks, but I will spare you the search and give you the address of his Term Sheet page: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/category/term-sheet/.

Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

I’m sure Primack will build this into a success over time, but for now, I think he has some work to do to stand out on this very crowded web site. For fun, just try going to CNN.com or CNN Money and see if you can easily find Primack and his articles.

What’s an “online influencer?” The phrase sounds lofty, and is meant to describe someone who is actively involved with sharing information on sites like Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

But according to Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there’s a simpler definition that works just as well: “someone who shows up.” In other words, in today’s connected world, all you really have to do to distinguish yourself is to be active in online communities.

And how do you “work” with them? Simply, you engage them, Rainie says. You connect with them, let them know you have seen what they are writing/saying/posting, and offer your input, feedback, point of view or additional information. That’s really it.

Rainie, who is a terrific speaker, was the guest today on a Bulldog Reporter audio conference. One of his big points is that we are now in an era of “networked individualism,” in which people find connect and support from all types of sources and not just their friends and neighbors. That means that business, institutions and brands can be as connected to people as they want to be, serving as “friends,” allies, conversationalists, and information sources.

Some other insights:

• Pew is very interested in the next wave of location-based apps, such as foursquare, that represent a melding of the information-based Internet with GPS technology, or as he put it, geo-knowledge systems.
• Pew is also working on research into how the Internet has changed all manner of institutions, and how teenagers are living their lives in this connected world.
• Asked to look into the future, Rainie said the biggest change is likely to be a “smarter” web, in which the computers become even better at interacting with us based on our preferences and other factors.

News flash: I just moved to an office in downtown San Francisco — woohoo! I love The City, and now I have a chance to be here everyday again. I last worked in SF in 1997.

One thing that has changed since 1997 — there are a LOT more Starbucks in downtown SF. No duh. There are Starbucks EVERYWHERE in the U.S. — 6,700 total locations [probably excluding franchisees, such as those in museums and Barnes & Noble].

Now there is going to be reliable, free WiFi hotspots all over urban/suburban America in Starbucks starting July 1.

As soon as I heard this news, I immediately started reconsidering my expensive $60/month broadband wireless card. Yes, it comes in handy when I really need it, but it is becoming less and less necessary as more free hotspots crop up. And if I drop it, with the money I will save, I can always splurge on hotel WiFi when I need to.

But this isn’t about me.

This is about the larger question of free municipal WiFi — something that you may remember was touted as a slam dunk by now, but hasn’t happened. Why? Because it’s harder to do than it looks, and where it is installed, it’s largely unreliable.

Now, there’s going to be a free, RELIABLE alternative — Starbucks, and likely the sidewalks right around your closest ‘Bucks, and probably around lots of other coffeeshops that will no longer be able to insist that you buy something before letting you use their WiFi. [Not to mention the 11,000 McDonalds that already offer it]

What Starbucks did for lattes — made them easy to get and reliably prepared — I predict they are going to do for WiFi.

Brilliant move by Starbucks — but — what about the money? Starbucks charges ~$3-4 for a premium cup of coffee, but they are giving away the WiFi — how’s that going to work?

The answer to that is in the second part of their release, about the Starbucks Digital Network. For now, they are talking about the free content that their WiFi users will have access to, but just you wait — they will figure out ways to separate you from your money through this network, I’m sure of it. And that’s how they will make some money on this, while changing the equation of whether you need your own network access service anymore.

ABS Capital is a growth equity investment firm with more than $2 billion in capital under management. Unlike many venture capital and private equity firms, it has fully embraced social media and is currently working on a new web site to make it even easier for Internet users to connect with the firm and its portfolio companies.

Stephanie Carter, head of marketing and communications for the firm, spoke today at the PEI Investor Relations and Communications Forum.

Carter said most of her social media efforts have occurred during the past year, after she brought in a 25-year-old intern who worked her way into a full-time job and who is “reverse-mentoring” Carter.

The firm has a Facebook page and encourages its partners to have their own pages. In recognition of the fact that some people research the firm on LinkedIn, Carter has worked with partners to update their LinkedIn profiles even if they themselves don’t use the service.

ABS uses Google Analytics to track traffic on its web site, and one of the key discoveries was that most visitors spent only three minutes on their site looking for information about the partners or portfolio companies. So the ABS web site is being redesigned to make it easier to find that information, with less emphasis on developing written content about the firm that few visitors were reading.

ABS is focused on later-stage investing, so it is constantly interested in connecting with company CEOs, senior executives and board members. By being active in social media, Carter said that ABS is telling these people, “wherever you want to meet us, fine.”

What’s perhaps most remarkable about this case study is that ABS Capital is not using social media because it has a particular interest in Internet companies or social media as an investment. It is using social media because it recognizes that it’s a valuable business tool to help it achieve its objectives.

The New York Times plans to start charging for some of its online content on January 1, 2011, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The decision to start charging had been revealed previously. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller gave the date certain at a media event last week.

Earlier, the Times said that it would start a “metered model,” under which the newspaper’s website “will offer users free access to a set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number.”

A couple of years ago, they tried to put their editorial/op-ed content behind a pay wall, and the plan failed miserably and they opened it up.

The whole debacle of newspapers posting all their previously paid print content online has been one of the major problems for newspapers in the Internet era. At the time they did it, the thinking was that they had to give away their content to capture “eyeballs,” and that they would figure out how to get paid later. They never did, and now they find themselves with millions of readers who have become addicted to free access to journalist-produced content — which is quite expensive to produce.

If anyone can pioneer a limited revenue model, it’s the Times. They aren’t the greatest newspaper in the world for nothing. They innovated many elements of the media that we have long taken for granted, such as the op-ed page and front-page news summaries.

The real question is how much they could possibly generate with this metered model, and whether it will contribute in a meaningful way to the high cost of newsgathering.

Let’s face it — if you’re operating a business these days, people expect to find you on the Internet. And very likely, they will form first impressions of you, your company and your offerings from what they find on the web.

I’m always surprised when I run across small businesses or solo consultants who don’t have a web site or one that is hopelessly out-of-date. Come on, people! How hard is to it put up a blog-based web site that’s clean, simple and easy to navigate? Or at least a simple one-page landing page with your name, some art and contact info?

Then there are the big players, consumer brands that send powerful and sophisticated messages. What do their initial web pages say about who they are?

The Sunday New York Times took a look at the web sites of some brands in the news, including Toyota and Maclaren, the stroller-maker. For, as the Times said:

A company shows anxiety on its face — that is, on its Web site, which has become the face of the modern corporation. Visit sites for recently troubled or confused enterprises, including Maclaren, Toyota, Playtex, Tylenol and, yes, John Edwards, and you’ll find a range of digital ways of dealing with distress.

Here’s their conclusion:

There’s a lesson in this tour. Web sites should update or shut down; the ones that hang around collecting cobwebs have an almost frightening, hollow-eyed quality. If your plans change, you should note the revision publicly, and manifest confidence online. If you hit a losing streak or your plans crumble, as did the plans announced on JohnEdwards.com, you should close up Web shop as soon as possible — and maybe keep to yourself for a while.

I don’t agree about this last point. John Edwards needs to have a public presence on the web, but I agree, it should be short and to the point: Here’s me, I’m still out here, here a sentence or two about what I’m doing, and here’s how you can contact me (some generic contact info).

I am one who believes there will always be a chasm between the media and PR, unless and until the media dies and all media is PR. Which I hope does not happen.

I’ve been working on the media/PR divide much of my career. I was known as a sympathic media person who helped PR people figure out if they had a story for me, and as a PR person, I’ve worked hard to teach PR people how to do a better job interacting with the media.

I’ve mostly considered it a lost cause to try to educate the media about PR, even though that was one of my original goals. Media people generally split into two camps: those who “get” the role of PR and deal with it, and those who “hate” PR and always bitch about it. Sometimes those in the latter group migrate to the former, but they need to do it in their own time. No use trying to teach them — their ears do not hear.

Despite this persistent divide, some people obviously think it can be overcome. At least, that appears to be the gist of the strategy of a new company, Plato’s Forms, which says is mission is:

developing solutions for companies and journalists that help address some of these challenging aspects of communications in the online media environment.

At this time, they say no more. In Silicon Valley-speak, they are in “stealth” mode, meaning they are developing their offering behind closed doors and plan to make a big splash when they unveil it at a later date. For now, they’ve got a half-mil to work with, partly from the pocket of founder Darryl Siry.

Their name, btw, refers to the philosopher Plato, who, their web site says, “held that we could not comprehend the true form of things, and could only grasp the reflections of their true meaning, as if they were shadows reflected on the wall.” At least one philosophy major disputes this reading, however, judging from the comments about the company on a TechCrunch post.

PRSA finally took the wraps off its new web site. It was long overdue. The old one was a mess, and did not represent the industry well. It was worse than a case of the “cobbler’s children.” The old site screamed: we’re not very competent.

This new one says, we get it (2007 edition). That is to say, it is clean, easy to navigate, but static. There’s no video on the homepage, no Twitter feed, no industry news on the homepage. The rotating images on the homepage are clearly clipart, and pretty generic “businesspeople” at that, rather than real PR people in action [how about shots at the national conference, PR people working with a journalist, PR people working with a graphic artist? just some thoughts].

Nevertheless, an overall vast improvement.

One serious nit to pick, however: where did they get their map of the U.S.? Specifically, take a look at the shape of Alaska. What is that, the GOP elephant version of Alaska?

Here’s what Alaska really looks like:

It doesn’t all have to be serious — you can have some fun with your business-oriented web site. For instance, I’ve decided to add my Springsteen writing to this web site.

But that’s nothing compared to the awesome job these guys have done with their VC firm web site, Foundry Group. I’m also a big U2 fan so I recognized the poses immediately. And doesn’t Brad Feld (3rd from left) look a little like Bono?