by Martin Langeveld, Contributor, Nieman Journalism Lab
Yet another stage of the New York Times’s exploration of paid content options has come to light via Gawker, which has posted the text of two potential content packages, labeled “Silver” and “Gold.”
by Joshua Benton, Director, Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University
We all know that The New York Times and other papers have been thinking hard about finding ways to charge readers for the news on their web sites, and there’s evidence that the decision-making process is moving along.
Silicon Valley was abuzz Wednesday with news that the Justice Department had begun an antitrust investigation into the hiring practices of some of the best-known companies in the technology and biotech industries, including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Genentech.
by Elizabeth Holmes, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The Knot is launching 75 new localized sites in the hopes of reaching brides-to-be from Tampa to Tucson.
David Liu, CEO of the wedding Web site, said the idea is to provide the “ingredients” that people planning weddings seek out. Brides are best served by content available in their specific location, he said. Likewise, wedding vendors want to advertise in bridal outlets that target a region.
by Katharine Q. Seelye, Writer, The Caucus, The New York Times
Vivek Kundra, who was on leave from his new appointment by President Obama as the federal government’s chief information officer, has been reinstated, the White House said today.
White House officials confirmed to The New York Times that Mr. Kundra had been reinstated today; it was first reported this afternoon by Techpresident.com without confirmation.
The hurricane is coming. You have 20 minutes to grab the objects in your house that are most important to you. What do you reach for first?
That’s a question asked by Rob Walker, who writes the Consumed column for The New York Times, at the very end of Objectified, director Gary Hustwit’s brilliant documentary about industrial design. The film, which premiered here at South by Southwest to a packed house Saturday, is an examination of the objects that surround us — the gadgets, furniture, cars, appliances and everyday things that we collect, consume and, ultimately, throw away.
The idea that people won’t pay for content online has become such a part of the Web orthodoxy that New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller risked getting lynched earlier this month for merely musing about paid models for the online editions of his paper. But some successful paid sites hint that free content need not be the model the media are forever stuck with.
by Virginia Heffernan, Blogger, The Medium, New York Times
In 2007, a college student explained to me that he preferred Facebook to MySpace because MySpace (in his view) was for emo kids who liked Death Cab for Cutie and Facebook was for clever kids who liked words. “The Facebook interface is minimalist and not stupid or smeared with fingerpaint like MySpace,” he said, if I remember right. “It leaves room for wit.”
by Todd Bishop, Co-Founder and Managing Editor, TechFlash
The Xbox 360’s exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV add-on, “The Lost and Damned,” debuted yesterday to generally positive reviews. That’s good news for Microsoft–especially considering how much the company paid for rights to the extra downloadable episode. Seth Schiesel’s New York Times review gives you a good sense of what $25 million buys a console company these days.
Five major U.K. carriers are banding together to pool customer data so that it can be put into a giant database and then be used to sell advertising, The Register reports today. How long do you think it will take before this “database” idea lands on American shores?
by John Markoff, Technology Writer, The New York Times
The cellphone is the world’s most ubiquitous computer. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. That metaphor is the map.
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