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 Virginia Heffernan, Blogger, The Medium, New York Times
On YouTube, we’re in a bunker, and the enemies are always, always closing in. The ceilings are low. The air is stifling. A disheveled leader is delusional. This is the premise of more than 100 videos on the Web–the work of satirists who for years have been snatching video and audio from “Downfall,” the 2004 German movie of Hitler’s demise, and doctoring it to tell a range of stories about personal travails and world politics.
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The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
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Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.