Archive for the 'Business' Category

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A Sign of the Times: “Extra” Lets You Really Read All About It

Published by Jarred on December 5, 2008 in Business, News and Web 2.0. View Comments

Too much wordplay in that title? Nah.

Times Extra associates articles from across the web with NYT headlines

In an interesting move, the New York Times has started to beta test a feature called “Times Extra” on their homepage (to try it out, click “Try Our Extra Homepage” to the right of the search box). Once enabled, each headline will be accompanied by a box full of links to related stories across the web — be they from blogs or even rival newspapers.

The service is powered by Blogrunner, a service bought by the NYT sometime in 2005 (I briefly gushed about it in the opening paragraph of this post on the social graph back in January, but haven’t used it regularly since). Blogrunner runs as its own service at blogrunner.com, but it has also been providing links on the NYT tech page since November 2007. It uses a mix of computer algorithms and human editorial oversight to match and organize articles based on topic and theme. For example, check out this clustering based on a NYT article about the Big Three, or this one based on the Official Google Blog post announcing the general availability of Friend Connect.

The step from geeky sidebar widget to a fairly prominent beta test on the latest and most important headlines is large and bold — and the management is fully aware of it, too.

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Here’s What I’m Thinking About

Published by Taylor on December 5, 2008 in Business, Consumer Behavior, Environment, Philanthropy, Politics and Social Entrepreneurship. View Comments

Taking a page out of Ezra Klein’s playbook (and continuing our trend here of shamelessly copying features from other blogs…ahem), here are a few things I keep meaning to write about:

The NC legislature commissioned a study report by a few of the best environmental and public policy academics in the state to look at water quantity and allocation. The report, currently in draft form (PDF), is very well done and a nice synthesis of policy and science. Water quantity is not the sexiest issue, but after recent severe droughts I think more folks are starting to give water policy the attention it deserves.
The Acumen Fund invests in social enterprises around the world–businesses, generally operating at a below-market return for investors, that have as central tenets to their mission alleviating a social problem or improving lives of vulnerable populations. A recent think piece by Acumen’s Chief Investment Officer, Simple Measures for Social Enterprise (PDF), is a good reminder for social investors and philanthropists alike that sometimes just capturing consistent and reliable data can lead to greater improvements than the thorough impact assessments we all think of as ideal.
I’ve been meaning to write about Nate Silver (creator and whiz behind fivethirtyeight.com) for a while. Even though the election is long past, this NY Times profile is worth a look.
Speaking of the NY Times, this piece from the Magazine about the Netflix recommendation engine and the “Napoleon Dynamite problem” is fascinating (apparently Napoleon Dynamite is a love/hate kind of movie, and it’s nearly impossible to consistently predict whether someone will like it based on their other movie preferences).

Making Twitter Work for the Masses

Published by Jarred on September 30, 2008 in Blogging, Business, Politics and Web 2.0. View Comments

Back in February, I attempted to demystify Twitter for the non-tech oriented. The service was (and still is) trying to find its place in the crowded marketplace of tech innovations. It’s been plagued by serious downtime, and has even had to cut back on some of its features in order to provide more stability. While it continues to slowly gain recognition outside the narrow audience of technophiles, it still suffers from a big problem: you can’t explain it to your grandmother in just a few sentences.

The easiest way I know how to explain Twitter is as a “microblogging system” or “a tricked out Facebook status update”. In my blog post I called it a combination of text messaging, Facebook status, blogging, and instant messaging. Little to none of that would make sense to someone who doesn’t own a computer. Of course, it’s not like those people are the audience for Twitter. But if you can’t quickly and easily explain your product to audiences that aren’t already embedded in these developments, how can you become relevant or attractive to them?

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Taking Stock of Books

Published by Jarred on August 4, 2008 in Books and Business. View Comments

this book makes a lot of cents

[Update: By posting this, I neither recommend nor endorse Tao Lin's stock proposal below. Anyone considering this investment should independently research the viability and legality of the proposal, and should probably consult a financial advisor and/or a lawyer. I endorse the theoretical exploration of the idea that Tao Lin has seized upon -- nothing more, nothing less.]

We seem to have some sort of obsession with the future of books here at Tropophilia. Maybe because books are living examples of the way an entire industry part of the human experience is being challenged by the nascent digital era. Whatever it is, we seem to cover books and reading fairly frequently on this blog. Here’s another post to add to the list.

Taylor pointed me to this quick blurb on the Freakonomics blog yesterday:

When rogue author Tao Lin set out to write his second novel, he realized he would need to raise some capital to sustain himself. So he has decided to sell shares in 60 percent of the U.S. royalties for his forthcoming, as-yet-untitled book.

Not only will the scheme defray his financial risk if the book does poorly, but Lin hopes that shareholders will promote his book out of self-interest.

Hi-o! What?! Who does this 25 year old think he is? Well, I’ll tell you what I think he is. I think he’s a genius.

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Old Media Attempts New Media: NY Times Reader and MSNBC Spectra

Published by Taylor on June 24, 2008 in Business, Computing, News and Reading. View Comments

Do two of something constitute a trend? Assuming that the two examples I’ve encountered are not the only instances of the “trend” that I’ll describe, let’s say that the answer is yes. Folks, we’re seeing a trend (that’s right, I said it) of old media giants (the NY Times and NBC News/MSNBC) attempting to capture some slice of the new media market by introducing what I’ll call “selective aggregator” software programs.

The examples I’ll write about in a moment are “selective” insofar as they focus a user’s attention EXCLUSIVELY on content produced by the respective news company. The programs are aggregators in that they function (theoretically) by responding to the information preferences and desires of users, aggregating information into a single interface. The two examples I’ve seen are NY Times Reader for Mac and MSNBC Spectra.

I read a number of blog posts a few weeks ago about the beta release of NY Times Reader for Mac (screenshot at right). It’s essentially an on- and off-line freestanding application that is intended to mimic the experience of reading an actual NY Times paper in a way that the NY Times website and RSS feeds do not. The program is a free download in beta phase, but will likely be a $14.95/month investment when it is released in full. From the Times site:

In building Times Reader for the Mac we’ve focused on providing the core set of features that have made the PC version popular. These include the easy-to-read paginated format, the ability to view the paper offline, a seven-day archive, text search, the ability to adjust the font size and access to Premium Crosswords.

Particularly in the near-term, a product like the reader application could* provide a nice entry point for more traditionally-minded readers who want their daily NY Times fix but are turned off by the (oftentimes overwhelming) NY Times homepage. These same readers are unlikely to subscribe to feeds, so a freestanding application could hold a great deal of appeal.

As for geeks like me, it’s not a tool I would use–particularly not if I had to pay for it. The same desire for one-stop reading that makes me VERY selective of which articles I’ll click through from the NY Times feed on Google Reader makes me loathe to open a separate application in order to access limited content. This is in many ways a band-aid instead of a novel solution to lagging readership: the features are focused on the past, not the future. Offline readibility is great, but if the Times offered full articles through their feed, we could view it offline in Google Reader just like most blogs. Likewise, an advertisement-free interface is nice but (I would contend) less important to younger users who are accustomed to ignoring banner ads.

I found MSNBC Spectra through a simple one-line recommendation on DailyKos: “Woah, this is cool.” I felt the same way…for the first 20 seconds I used the application. Then I became nauseous and convinced that this is, in fact, the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen. Let me explain.

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