New York Times’ 5-year fight with patent troll may cost millions
Innovation?
Even as belt-tightening has led the New York Times to close sections and shed reporters, the Gray Lady is spending large sums on legal…
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Sony tells media to hide hacking news, but threats ring hollow
Good luck with that
As Sony’s misery grows over a massive hacking incident, the studio is lashing out in a desperate way: it is warning news agencies…
Fork in the road for Node.js
Agita in Node.js land
Node.js, the popular server-side JavaScript environment, may be heading for a fork as a group outside of Joyent has posted its own project…
Is your favorite title in Google’s Android best apps of 2014?
So many great apps out there
With hundreds of thousands of Android apps to choose from, this list of 75 from Google is a solid, broad grouping. There’s a few I would have put on there though. How about you?
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On-demand parking war heats up as Luxe’s rival ZIRX comes to LA
ZIRX, one of the new on-demand parking apps to emerge in the last six months, has just expanded to Los Angeles. It’s following closely on the heels of its competitor Luxe, which announced its LA move last week. The parking wars are heating up.
Reddit makes its next big business move with acquisition of mobile app Alien Blue
Reddit takes its first grown up steps since raising funding by acquiring Reddit app Alien Blue. What does the purchase say about the company’s trajectory?
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Based on this deleted Josh Miller tweet, Yik Yak may have inspired Facebook’s new anonymity app
The person leading Facebook’s anonymity app development think that dark horse Yik Yak is “the real tech story,” not Secret or Ello.
This bootstrapped company wants to fill the college-shaped hole Facebook left behind
Co-eds want a social media place to call their own, and Facebook isn’t serving that purpose anymore. eCampus Ventures is hoping to meet the need with its trifecta of apps, for finding roommates, comparing textbook costs, and meeting fellow students in your dorm.
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New York Times video op-ed by “Internet’s Own Boy” director makes the case for net neutrality
A video hosted by the New York Times makes a powerful argument for net neutrality, and also shows how traditional media outlets are re-imagining the definition of an “op-ed.”
The New York Times is looking to machine learning to help it understand reader behavior
Chris Wiggins, a theoretical physicist and mathematician who is the chief data scientist for the New York Times, says he is trying to help the paper detect patterns in the data about user behavior so that it can make better decisions about the product.
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Reddit is having the same problem as traditional media: Defining what the news is
Critics of Reddit point to a moderator’s repeated removal of a Glenn Greenwald story as proof that the site can’t be trusted to do journalism, but in reality the moderator’s behavior is no worse — and in some ways better — than that of a newspaper editor
There is no one Twitter experience — there is only your Twitter experience
Yes, Twitter is becoming filled with more noise and possibly less signal, as Jenna Wortham argues in the New York Times — but it’s also true that much of that experience is a result of how we choose to use the service
Ezra Klein bolts the Post for his own venture — did the paper just lose another Politico?
After his offer of a co-ownership deal was rebuffed, Wonkblog founder Ezra Klein is leaving the Washington Post for his own venture — a departure that reminds more than one media watcher of how the Post lost what would eventually become Politico.
Google kills Currents, launches a Flipboard-style Newsstand with support for newspaper paywalls
Google is stepping up its media game with the launch of Newsstand, a Flipboard-style reading app for Android that also supports subscription walls for newspapers and magazines and replaces its existing Currents reader
N.S.A. Experiment Traced U.S. Cellphone Locations
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/us/nsa-experiment-traced-us-cellphone-locations.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 As it turns out, one of the biggest “scares” of NSA’s power over our electronic data — targeting people through cell…
Kindle is big in Japan — some lessons for hardware’s future
The future of hardware is a tight symbiosis of hardware, software and connectivity and content as a service. Whether it is apps, books, movies or anything else — the more you engage with a platform, the more likely it will beat rivals. Amazon is a good example.
Condé Nast gets deeper into e-commerce, leads $20M round in French luxury resale site
Condé Nast, the publishing powerhouse behind brands like Vogue and Vanity Fair, has led a $20 million investment in luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective.
7 stories to read this weekend
Nomads, death of used book stores, clothing factories in American South, Time Warner and CBS fight, music discovery (or not), making love like a movie star and fighting cancer are some of the stories on the weekend reading menu this week.
40daysofdating: An awesome new kind of long-form story telling
40daysofdating is a website that combines text, photos and video to tell the story of two friends Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman who after failing at finding love, are dating each other and sharing the experience. It is like reality television, except for the web.
A Digital Life: “Orange is the New Black” shows Netflix gets how millennials watch TV
The generation that’s grown up with free content on the internet is also used to having television when they want it, wherever they want it — a premise that Netflix seems to understand best. Here’s why.
Star political blogger Nate Silver leaves New York Times for ESPN
The New York Times is losing a famous political writer as Nate Silver, founder of the popular FiveThirtyEight blog, leaves for ESPN. The move reflects a shift of power between media outlets and star reporters.
Privacy advocates call out mobile health developers for ‘abysmal’ security protections
As more users download apps to track their fitness and health goals, the non-profit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse says mobile health developers need to shape up their standards for protecting user data.
The quantified baby: Do parents really need infant-ready sensor tech?
Sensor technology is making its way into diapers, onesies and other baby gear to give parents a new data-rich window into their babies’ wellbeing. But is that much data really a good thing?
Digital First Media partners with NewsCred for content boost
A legacy newspaper company led by a digital evangelist appears to have made a shrewd move by partnering with an up-and-coming tech-heavy syndication service.
FundersClub announces $1.1 million fund specifically for recent YC graduates
11 companies from the most recent Y Combinator batch will recieve funding from FundersClub, a new model for venture capital that found a good deal of interest in funding those companies.
Look, here’s an RSS reader for Google Glass
Here’s an RSS reader app for Google Glass. Users can save articles to Pocket or email them to themselves to read later.
As sports TV costs soar, leagues find new ways to slice up video dollars
Professional sports video is worth many billions of dollars — and the leagues are getting smarter about parcelling it out in small pieces to sell across different platforms.
7 stories to read this weekend
Costa Rica’s killer bull, fear in Cyprus, crimes of Ranbaxy and BitCoin bubble — that along with basketball uber coach Phil Jackson are part of this week’s reading material. Of course, question to ponder: briefs or boxers, how did they get into men’s pants.
Our connected future: What to expect when elevators and toys start phoning home
Connected products are becoming more common. Which means that even after a product goes out the door, the company responsible can still keep an eye on it. That has big repercussions for business and consumers.
NYT’s Jill Abramson: Social media has changed how editors oversee major stories
Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times, addressed media trends at Wired’s conference in New York City.
New York Times launches web-only documentaries with Retro Report
The New York Times is launching a series of short, web-only documentaries with nonprofit Retro Report. The weekly 10- to 15-minute documentaries will run on the NYT’s baby boomer blog and will examine events of the past.
NYT says new products to be profitable by late 2014
The New York Times is planning new lower-priced digital subscriptions for certain types of digital content. Executives provided some — but not many details on the company’s earnings call.
What I learned at paidContent Live: No one has all the answers on the future of media, and that’s good
One thing that emerged from our media conference was that there is no single solution when it comes to the future of content, or the monetization of media — and that is probably a good thing.
New York Times closes another loophole in its digital paywall
A popular trick, called NYClean, to get around the New York Times’ article limit no longer works. The development coincides with the Times’ ongoing effort to shut down loopholes around its digital subscription.
7 stories for the weekend
A 101-year-old marathoner, who U.S. gets weather forecasts wrong, what does 212 have to do with rotary dial, India’s rice revolution, Armed Forces and their treatment of women, rise and fall of Alex Rodriguez and amazing chef Curtis Duffy. Read on …
News and the new amplification reality
The media outlets apart from bringing readers news and information now have to embrace a new role: become amplifiers of the right kind of news including that directly shared by sources. Here is why I think so.
Updated: Time Warner reportedly in talks to sell most of its magazines to Meredith
Time Warner is reportedly looking to sell off most of its magazines to Meredith, the publisher of titles like Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal.
Snapchat raises $13.5 million Series A led by Benchmark Capital
Snapchat, the popular app that lets you send sort-of-disappearing photos, has raised a $13.5 million Series A led by Benchmark Capital and looks to dominate the photo and video messaging arena
New York Times and Wall Street Journal drop paywalls as Winter Storm Nemo hits New York
Want to get emergency storm updates — or just binge out on sports coverage or old David Brooks columns during the storm? Now’s your chance as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal offer free access to their websites.
What would a New York Times for the youngs look like?
The New York Times is considering some kind of “entry-level” product aimed at a younger audience. What would this product look like and what should it cost? As a (late) twenty-something, I felt qualified to speculate.
7 stories to read this weekend
Drugs, baseball and Alex Rodriguez, yeah nothing new here, except new allegations; John Cheever, unplugged; Steven Cohen, the art collector; a family lost in time; Frenchman who knows too much; and hanging out in West Bank.
Time waits for no man: Are deep cuts at the media giant just the beginning?
Hammered by declining print advertising revenue in much the same way newspapers have been, Time Inc. announced that it is laying off about 500 of its staff. But are the cuts the end, or just the beginning?
The social network where we’re all just a number
Do you ever wish you were just a number on a social network, and didn’t have to reveal your true identity to the people you chat with online? Meet Social Number, where all your social interactions can take place among numbers.
This is why WikiLeaks is important, and why the NYT should be defending it
The debate over whether WikiLeaks should be seen as a media entity like the New York Times took on a new urgency this week after the military prosecutor in whistleblower Bradley Manning’s trial said he sees no difference between the two.
Henry Blodget isn’t telling us the most important thing about Business Insider
Henry Blodget of Business Insider has opened up about his site’s growth and other metrics, but for someone who is promoting transparency, he hasn’t told us the most important things we need to know in order to tell whether BI is successful or not.
Ebook prices aren’t dropping faster because they weren’t too high before
A piece in the New York Times says ebook prices aren’t falling rapidly because the growth rate of ebooks isn’t as rapid as it once was and e-readers are falling in price. But that explanation doesn’t tell the whole story.
Why 2012 was the year of the e-single
E-singles — stories somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 words, usually nonfiction, and sold as inexpensive ebooks — are the format for our time. Here’s why.
Twitter switches up top executives in COO, CFO roles
Twitter has switched up two top executive positions, moving the company’s former chief financial officer to become chief operating officer, and implementing the former Zynga chief financial officer into that role at Twitter. The changes come as Twitter works to monetize and solidify its growth.
Report: Despite Systrom’s denial, Twitter made $525M offer for Instagram
A report from the New York Times said Twitter offered Instagram $525 million to acquire the photo-sharing startup before the company went and agreed to a sale by Facebook. Potential legal issues might rest on whether Twitter’s offer was ever considered a formal one.
What we’ll see in 2013 in digital media
What does next year have in store for the digital content business? Our media team offers some predictions, from cord cutting and apps to self publishing and paywalls.
West meets east: Silicon Valley accelerator to tackle the future of journalism
An unlikely startup accelerator has cropped up in San Francisco Monday, aimed at tackling the big problems in journalism and media from a Silicon Valley perspective, where entrepreneurs aim to change how people consume information and aren’t afraid to fail.
The Economist unbundles digital from print subscriptions
It used to be an article of faith that a print subscription would give you access to a publication’s online offerings. That assumption is being tested by one magazine’s decision to “unbundle” its digital privileges.
Pocket launches read-it-later partnership with Matter
Read-it-later-service Pocket announced a partnership with Matter, the Kickstarter-backed science journalism startup. This is Pocket’s first publisher partnership. Subscribers to Matter can also access the stories from Pocket.
Techmeme founder: Give me human editors and the New York Times
Gabe Rivera has been at the vanguard of technology driven journalism through sites like Techmeme and Mediagazer. At a recent event, he discussed the limits of algorithms and the need for human curation.
If data is the new oil, don’t end up being BP
The US presidential election was further proof that 2012 has been a good year to be a quant — and being a data scientist has never been sexier. But data is nothing without trust, says former Last.fm executive Matthew Hawn.
How the NYT created its “512 Paths to the White House” data tool
When the New York Times started working on its electoral calculations tool for the 2012 election, Shan Carter said at the Visualized conference Friday, they decided two things: “It shouldn’t include electoral votes or calculations.”
Commutist Podcast: Election dissection, ditching DSL and dumping the iPad
How did different media perform on election night? How many screens did you use? We talk about the political coverage as well as AT&T ditching its old copper networks and whether the iPad mini is the truest iPad experience.
Why the NYT announced Obama’s win 49 minutes after Obama did
Last night, as the results of the 2012 election rolled in, millions of Americans were glued to their TVs, computers and smartphones. But those who had relied on Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight throughout the campaign had to turn to TV networks and Twitter at the end.
Ferriss: Even if I sell a million Kindle books, some people will call it a failure
On November 20, Amazon will publish one of the biggest titles on its inaugural NY list: The 4-Hour Chef by bestselling author Tim Ferriss. Mediocre sales of Penny Marshall’s memoir are hanging over Ferriss’s launch.
Twitter takes aim at Instagram with its own shot at photo filters
It might look like just a touch of color, but photo filters could represent a significant move on Twitter’s part into the photo space, previously dominated by Facebook and Instagram and one of the most valuable areas on the web.
Bad things: Martha Stewart Living announces layoffs, fewer magazines
Facing declining advertising pages and the need to emphasize digital as audiences turn away from print, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced it will stop selling “Everyday Food” as a standalone monthly magazine and will sell off “Whole Living.” It is also laying off 70 employees.
Ebook Bestsellers Breakdown: October 26, 2012
This weekly feature (back after a brief hiatus) looks at the books that are selling better in digital format than in print. This week’s picks: Two books from self-published author Michelle Leighton, who’s just signed a deal with traditional publisher Penguin.
Three questions for the New York Times Co
Each quarter, the New York Times Company tells a familiar story about digital revenue on the horizon that will one day offset its print declines. Here are three questions that can reveal whether the company’s digital promises will come true.
News.me says goodbye, places blame on Twitter
The folks at News.me closed their doors to future iOS downloads on Wednesday, saying they would no longer attempt to compete with Twitter in the curation space as the social network closes down on third-party requirements. In other words, another Twitter app bites the dust.
Notorious ad hijacker spreads to more media, retail sites
Sambreel made news last year for injecting unauthorized ads into Facebook and Google. Now, the company and its questionable tactics are spreading across the internet.
What news brand has the most pull on Twitter? Finally, some answers
A new study shows that the BBC and the New York Times have the most reach and influence on Twitter among news organizations. The findings are just a taste of what we can expect as researchers apply data-based network analysis to patterns of news consumption.
Commutist interview: Joy of X author Steven Strogatz
Math classes may have bored you in high school, but math concepts are increasingly important for today’s entrepreneur. Prof. Steven Strogatz talks on the podcast with us about what math business leaders need to know in an increasingly data-driven world.
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: “Twitter is a city company”
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo talked with advocates for the city of San Francisco Thursday, talking about how Twitter’s move into office space in the city has helped the company keep options for growing larger and allowed employees to be flexible.
The power of IT (it’s not all in energy consumption)
In its series on data centers and power the New York Times ignored many of the strides the industry is making toward energy efficiency, but it the bigger problem is that it ignored the potential of the web to reduce our energy consumption.
5 reasons why live video news will never be the same
Easy steaming means live news has become a commodity. Four experts offered their take on what this means and what news companies must do to adapt.
7 must read stories from around the web
Facebook’s Chinese ambitions, the falling price of flash storage, a chat with Web daddy Sir Tim Berners-Lee, rise of the swarm robots and why do people continue to reject science are some of the topics in this bonus back-to-work installment of Om Says reading list.
What newspapers and other media could learn from Reddit
Reddit has grown to become one of the most high-profile online communities, one that has even played a journalistic role in some recent cases. Among the things that newspapers and other media entities could learn from Reddit are the benefits of a strong and engaged community.
New York Times tangles with patent trolls
The patent troll problem is spreading from the tech sector to media companies. Rather than paying off the trolls, the New York Times is holding its ground in two major patent cases.
Diller’s IAC to buy NYT’s About Group for $300 million
Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive will buy the New York Times’ About Group in a $300 million cash deal. Peter Horan’s Answers.com had been set to buy About.com for $270 million before Diller got in a late-stage bid last week.
New York Times to sell About.com to Answers.com
The New York Times is in discussions to sell information site About.com to Answers.com for a reported $270 million.
First they came for WikiLeaks, then the New York Times
There are signs that the U.S. government wants to target mainstream journalists and media outlets for the same kind of investigation that WikiLeaks has been subjected to for publishing classified information, which makes it even more important to defend WikiLeaks’ status as a media entity.
Zite adds LA Times, Chicago Tribune, others to its publishers program
Personalized reading app Zite is adding additional publishers to its three-month-old publisher program. New additions include The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hearst’s “Harper’s Bazaar,” the International Business Times and others. All will have their own sections within Zite.
Twitter faces the same dilemma as the New York Times
Beneath the furor over Twitter’s clampdown on its API is the same dilemma that many traditional media companies like the New York Times are also confronting — namely, how much should you be an open platform, and how much should you be a destination?
Does Flipboard need to rethink its revenue-share formula with publishers?
It’s like getting dumped on the day of your big promotion. That’s how Flipboard must have felt after two prominent magazines said they were leaving just hours after the popular news aggregator announced a groundbreaking partnership with the New York Times.
Jonah Lehrer, self-borrowing and the problem with “big ideas”
Newly appointed New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer — author of the bestselling books “Imagine,” “How We Decide” and “Proust Was a Neuroscientist” and a former editor at Wired — has been discovered recycling his own material for different publications. It isn’t that surprising.
Kleiner Perkins files response to lawsuit, ‘vigorously denies’ discrimination
Venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers filed a response in California state court on Wednesday, “vigorously” denying partner Ellen Pao’s allegations of sexual discrimination by the company, and requesting Pao’s lawsuit be dismissed. The company said Pao’s failure to advance in the company wasn’t gender discrimination.
Twitter’s expanded tweets are a double-edged sword
Twitter’s new feature, which shows enhanced content for certain media partners such as the New York Times, is another example of how the service can be both a partner and a competitor for media companies in the ongoing battle for users’ attention.
Twitter’s role in delivering media grows with expanded Tweets
Twitter announced today that it will partner with a variety of online media companies to provide enhanced versions of “expanded Tweets,” giving users more in-depth previews of content without leaving Twitter’s site. The change comes as Twitter blurs the line between content provider and producer.
The New York Times and the Sulzberger Soap Opera: 3 Takeaways
New York magazine set the media world a-chatter this weekend with a swirling tale of intrigue and in-fighting at the New York Times.The article is plump with gossip but also drives home the crucial business challenges the Times must address sooner than later.
Print dies a little more as Postmedia announces cuts
Just days after U.S.-based media chain Advance Publications announced printing cutbacks and layoffs at its New Orleans and Alabama papers, a national newspaper chain in Canada said it is cutting back, laying off more staff and looking to erect paywalls at several of its papers.
New Orleans, newspapers and the beginning of the end
As painful as the decision to stop printing daily may be for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and its staff, it grappling with a reality that almost every newspaper will have to face sooner or later, whether they want to or not.
Why newspapers need to lose the ‘view from nowhere’
Newspapers are suffering from a number of problems, but one is the nature of the product that many still produce — the monolithic, ruthlessly objective, single-voiced editorial style most have grown accustomed to doesn’t work in a world where anyone and everyone can be a publisher.
Why Jeff Bezos’ latest plan should scare fashion retailers
Amazon.com (s AMZN) is making a move into high fashion business, the New York Times reports. And in order to get profits from this high margin business, the company is willing to lose a ton of money. And that is bad news for the traditional retailers.
Amazon snags another book industry vet: Sara Nelson, former Publishers Weekly EIC
Just about a year after it hired publishing industry vet Larry Kirshbaum to launch a New York-based imprint, Amazon is announcing a new high-profile hire: Sara Nelson, the former books editor for Oprah’s “O” magazine and, before that, editor-in-chief of trade mag “Publishers Weekly.”
Search engines have same speech rights as the New York Times, says Google report
Just as the New York Times can decide “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.
Report
How to navigate the new world of digital advertising
Data is at the center of every phase of the workflow for digital advertising, which means it’s absolutely crucial for doing business in that space. Thanks to a new ecosystem designed to serve the sell-and-buy side of digital advertising, that data can now be leveraged, but the new landscape also makes online advertising a far more complex space than it was even a few years ago. This report looks at the ways in which automated, dynamic ad buying and selling is affecting the online media marketplace for display advertising. It explains how publishers can push back against the devaluation of their inventory and how advertisers can best employ these new technologies.
Digital circulation up 63% for U.S. newspapers
According to the latest U.S.circulation numbers, more than 14% of U..S. newspaper circulation is digital — up 63% over last year. How did the top 25 papers fare?
Cisco memo: We can’t build anything
Cisco in an internal memo outlined its plans for the changing nature of networking. It also acknowledged a $100 million investment in Insieme, a company started by three Cisco executives and that it can buy it for upto $750 million. Read the memo & what it means.
The 2012 Pulitzers: The medium doesn’t matter
The Huffington Post won a Pulitzer Prize Monday, an important prize from a group that not too long ago thought the medium was the message — and has since learned that the work is the message.
paidContent 2012 adds Pulitzer Prize-winning author to already rich roster
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo, one of the newest additions to the PaidContent 2012 lineup, will talk about the changing publishing landscape, including how authors are affected by the battle over e-book pricing,
Coming soon: the Twitter story penned by the Times’ Nick Bilton
What we know about Bilton’s new book deal.
Why digital-native media will (almost) always win
Although the writing has been on the wall for traditional print-based media for some time, few companies have made any dramatic steps to try and adapt because they are too busy running their existing businesses. That’s why digital-native entities will almost always win.
Repeat after me: business is always about the customer
If you are in business, it is always about the customer. Simple as that message is, it is something of a forgotten lesson in modern times. Companies keep confusing who they serve and why they are in business, as an outgoing Goldman Sachs banker reminds us.
The value of stillness
Often we only learn to value something when we feel its absence, so perhaps it makes sense that perpetually roaming travel writer Pico Iyer is a powerful advocate for stillness. In a recent interview he discusses the value of quiet for the perpetually plugged-in.
Godin to authors: You have no right to make money any more
New tools like the Kindle have led to an explosion of self-published books, but that has meant more competition for existing authors. How do they make money now? Writer Seth Godin says they first have to give up the idea that they deserve to be paid.
People don’t care about scoops, they care about trust
A new survey funded by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark looked at public attitudes toward the news media and found that only a tiny fraction of those surveyed care whether a news source is the first to report something. The most important quality by far was trustworthiness.
The NYT needs a lot more than just a paywall
The New York Times has signed up over 300,000 people to its digital subscription plan, but that doesn’t even come close to making up for continued declines in ad revenue. A new CEO is going to have to think creatively about where the paper goes now.
How the Huffington Post became a new-media behemoth
In addition to some eye-popping figures for page views and unique visitors, the latest Huffington Post statistics show that if there’s one thing the site knows how to do, it’s how to get reader engagement that other news sites and publishers can only dream of.
Memo to media: Supply and demand are out of your hands
Too many media giants are happy to have a little disruption, provided it doesn’t change the supply-demand equation they have always relied on. But the reality is that this equation has already been blown to smithereens, and they had better figure out how to adapt.
Looks like there’s no Pulitzer for Twitter reporting
A spokesman for the board that oversees the Pulitzer Prize awards for journalism says live reporting of a news event using Twitter would not qualify for a Pulitzer unless it also appeared on a traditional news website. But does that definition fit how journalism works now?
Martin Nisenholtz, Senior VP of Digital, leaving New York Times
Martin Nisenholtz, one of the most respected executives in the online media is leaving the New York Times, where he has been senior vice president of digital operations for quite a while and has helped oversee the Times digital efforts move into new directions.
The Future of Media: Brands Are Publishers Now Too
The publishing world continues to expand, with high-end group shopping service Gilt Groupe launching its own cooking magazine and the New York Times Library releasing a magazine-style iPad app. As the tools to publish become cheaper and cheaper, brands are becoming publishers in their own right.
Quarterly Wrap-up
Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
But while Android’s momentum is undeniable, it is increasingly hindered by the growing threat of malware and the very real problem of fragmentation. Google is moving aggressively to address both challenges, but the vulnerabilities of an opensource platform have never been more apparent for the Internet search giant.
Will iPad & Tablets Be Our Sunday Paper?
From Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, it seems more and more newspapers are turning to tablets in an effort to capture a fraction of our daily attention. As this graphic illustrates, iPad is well on its way.
Report
Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks
AOL’s recent acquisition of the Huffington Post for $315 million has centered a lot of attention on its content strategy — big part of which is automating and standardizing content that attracts search-related advertising. While there are some clear benefits to this “content farm” approach to content, there are also some significant disadvantages. Here we look at some of the leaders in this sector and their histories, as well as the key risks and benefits of the content farm strategy. Companies mentioned in this report include AOL, The Huffington Post, MySpace, Demand Media, Google and Associated Content. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.
Report
Can Online Video Show Us the Future of Newspapers?
Earlier this month, the New York Times admitted that its popular technology columnist David Pogue occupied a certain gray area of ethics due to his sidelines as a writer of software manuals. As Public Editor Clark Hoyt observed in a piece for the op-ed section: “His multiple interests and loyalties raise interesting ethical issues in this new age when individual journalists can become brands of their own, stars who seem to transcend the old rules that sharply limited outside activity and demanded an overriding obligation to The Times and its readers.”
This is a trend that’s spilled over into online video, as the Times and other old-school publications have begun incorporating new media elements into their coverage. While a growing number of web series are being created under the watch of traditional newspapers, it’s worth noting that those series are fronted not by a faceless editorial entity, but a dynamic and pre-established personality.
We Heart Data Center Engineers
For those of you underappreciated server jockeys keeping data center costs down and utilization up using duct tape and homemade software, the…
How Clinton Campaign Mimics An Over-funded Startup
If we’ve learned anything from the desperate fight between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the democratic nomination for President, it…
