Archive for the 'News' Category

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Stop Creating for a Moment and Enjoy? We’re Fine, Thanks

Published by Taylor on January 26, 2009 in Culture, News and Politics. View Comments

cameraobamaIf you had been in the crowd pictured here, at President Obama’s Youth Inaugural Ball, would you have whipped out a digital camera to capture a shot of the first couple from among the mass of young people?  Would you have tried to snap a quick picture on your iPhone?  Texted your best friend?  Twittered frantically: “STANDING 30 FT FROM THE NEW PRES!!”? Blogged about it the next day?

Adam Frucci on Gizmodo had a strong reaction to this image:

“[E]veryone wants their own unique shot. Is this obsessive documentation worth it?

This is definitely something I’ve noticed a lot of lately: people are more interested in taking photos of something they’re witnessing than actually, you know, witnessing it. These people are all looking at LCD screens instead of the new Presidential couple standing in front of them.”

I too initially rolled my eyes at this trend.  But the more I think about it, the more I believe that what we’re witnessing in this picture and in our lived experience is actually a reflection of how we’ve grown to…well…experience anything of significance.  And I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing…

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Breaking The News

Published by Jarred on December 31, 2008 in Business and News. View Comments

I told myself that, this time, I really wasn’t going to blog about it.  As with my recent post on the future of writing, I felt that there is sometimes too much hyperbole about the Web tolling the bell for familiar habits and industries… and that I had done my fair share of furthering the exaggerated panic.  This time, though, is a little different.

Newspapers are dying.

This isn’t particularly breaking news: I remember discussing the topic in 2005 during a French class in Paris.  The competition for French newspapers like Le Monde at that time was coming mostly from the free alternatives that were available on the street and in the Metro.  Several American papers were quick to see this trend, and began to offer a free mini version of their full paper; the Washington Post Express, for example, is popular with commuters in D.C.  Today, however, the newspaper industry’s number one enemy is — surprise surprise — the Internet.  The speed with which readers are moving from getting their news in print to finding it online is bringing the industry’s predicament to a nasty head.

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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

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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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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CNN Shirts: The News Is Now For Sale

Published by Jarred on May 7, 2008 in Business and News. View Comments

So I opened CNN.com tonight to check out the primary returns and get the latest from Myanmar, and next to several of the headlines I saw a new icon. I’m used to seeing the little white camera button that drives readers to video coverage… but this time, there was also something that looked like a little t-shirt. And, of course, I clicked it.

What I was presented with was fairly disgusting to me. I was taken to the product page for a custom t-shirt with the headline in question in large letters on the front (in this case, “Obama: We’re close to the nomination”) accompanied by, in smaller letters, “I just saw it on CNN.com” and the date and time the story was published. It can be yours, for just $15.00!

Does anyone else think this is kinda sad? I mean, first of all, who’s going to buy this? Even if there is an earth-shattering or mildly amusing headline (another available slogan/headline is “Suspect leads cops on golf cart chase”)… should it really be CNN selling or promoting these? It reminds me a little too much of The Onion Store — and that’s fake news, people.

Is it a bad thing that news networks are turning their stories into commodotized sound bites that get slapped on t-shirts, mugs, etc.? Doesn’t this promote sensationalism and deemphasize good content? Even if it’s OK for CNN to do this… should the links be so prominent, on the same level as links to video news?

To me, this is just another sad sign of the media sinking lower and lower. But what do you think? Am I just overreacting?

Images unapologetically screen captured from CNN.