Interesting tidbits from around the web for August 22nd through August 29th
What I’m paying attention to for August 22nd through August 29th:
- Impact of Digital Revolution on Ad Agencies – Interesting take on how to rejigger agencies by @saneel… pointed out to me by @thedurham on Facebook. A little self-promotional toward the end but the first 3/4 is well worth the click.
- Could film ‘Social Network’ affect Facebook’s brand? – USATODAY.com – Nice piece on the new Facebook movie at USAToday… or perhaps I'm prejudiced because it quotes me.
- Future of news: Insider Dave Morgan touts new media » Knoxville News Sentinel – Great interview with Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan (@davemorgannyc) about the future of journalism.
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
Interesting tidbits from around the web for August 18th through August 21st
What I’m paying attention to for August 18th through August 21st:
- Cultural Studies – The Littlest Redshirts – Postponing Kindergarten – NYTimes.com – "“Redshirting” of kindergartners — the term comes from the practice of postponing the participation of college athletes in competitive games — became increasingly widespread in the 1990s, and shows no signs of waning."
- E-reading: Revolution in the making or fading fad? – "HSINCHU, Taiwan — The marriage of an American technology firm and a Taiwanese display panel manufacturer has helped make digital reading a prospective challenger to paper as the main medium for transmitting printed information."
- BermanBraun and Starcom to Work Together – NYTimes.com – "BermanBraun was founded in 2007 by Gail Berman, formerly a top executive at Paramount Pictures and Fox Broadcasting, and Lloyd Braun, who previously led divisions of the Walt Disney Company and Yahoo.<br />
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"Ms. Berman said the company’s goal was to deliver 50 million unique users through various sites within a couple of years. “At that point you’re really talking about something — that’s a huge network,” Ms. Berman said.<br />
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"The deal gives Starcom clients a first look at BermanBraun’s new sites and their new ideas about the format of ads. But the deal is not exclusive, meaning that BermanBraun can continue to sell advertising to Starcom rivals." - Yahoo Eyes Women’s Social-Networking Site CafeMom for $100 Million | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD – "According to numerous sources, Yahoo is eager to close a deal to acquire CafeMom, a social-networking and community site aimed at mothers, in a move aimed at turbocharging its often-meandering strategy in the important women's space."
- ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Versus The Unfortunate Tendency To Review The Audience : Monkey See : NPR – Very smart meta-review of Scott Pilgrim by NPR.
Links for August 17th through August 18th
Things I’m tracking for August 17th through August 18th:
- Your Brain on Computers – The Unplugged Challenge – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com – More from the NYT's fascinating "Your Brain on Computers" series… a video series. Chilling but inspiring.
- Beloit College Mindset List – Always a must-read about how the incoming freshman class has different references than years past.
- Chris Anderson: What I Read | The Atlantic Wire –
- Tax reform for the rich and ultra-rich : The New Yorker – "The explosion in wealth at the very top of the pyramid has given rise to what the commentator Matt Miller has called a “lower upper class”—doctors, lawyers, accountants, even some journalists, who make very good livings but enjoy nothing like the rewards that come to their peers in finance or in the executive suite. The lower upper class exerts a cultural influence out of proportion to its size, and so its anger toward the upper upper class—toward outrageous executive salaries and Wall Street shenanigans—could be a powerful force for reforming the way we deal with inequality. This is one case where simpler isn’t better. In a society that’s becoming more stratified, a sensible tax system should draw more distinctions, not fewer. The U.S. is now a place where the rich and the ultra-rich really inhabit different worlds… They should probably inhabit different tax brackets, too. "
- What Online Content Will People Pay For? : MarketingProfs –
- Your Brain on Computers – Studying the Brain Off the Grid, Professors Find Clarity – NYTimes.com – Fascinating article… anybody who enjoys Nicholas Carr's work should read this… part of a series.
Links for August 15th through August 16th
Things I’m tracking for August 15th through August 16th:
- Did ‘Star Wars’ become a toy story? Producer Gary Kurtz looks back [Updated] | Hero Complex | Los Angeles Times –
- Boredom Is Extinct – Magazine – The Atlantic – "People used to talk about boredom as though it were a thing, not a mood—a sort of physical object. It “descended” on you. You “escaped” from it, you “fled” it. Or you “dispelled” it, as though it were a fog. This wasn’t always easy to do; sometimes the boredom was just too thick, too “heavy.” Trapped in the back of a car on a long road trip, stuck on a flight without a book or magazine, or seated beside a dull stranger at a formal social gathering, the best you could do to “lift” the boredom, to muster a bit of leverage against its mass, was to imagine that you were somewhere else (or perhaps even someone else), doing something else."
- On Disliking Mad Men « Just TV – Long scholarly article about the show– a show about which I have mixed feelings. "As a scholar and fan of contemporary narratively complex television serials, one of my blindspots has been Mad Men, a show about which I’ve mentioned on this blog has little appeal to me. Thus it was a bit surprising months ago when I was invited to contribute to a forthcoming book of collected essays on the show – the editors knew that I didn’t like the show, and wanted me to write about why. I accepted the invitation as a kind of challenge, and the results are posted below."
- Hulu Is Seen as Readying to Go Public – NYTimes.com – "Led by Jason Kilar, a former Amazon.com executive, Hulu has grown to become one of the biggest sources of online video on the Web. It features content from most major TV networks — CBS and CW are two exceptions — and several movie studios like MGM and Lions Gate.<br />
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But Hulu is still confronting big questions about its future prospects. The company has long been believed to be second only to YouTube in terms of online viewers. But a revision to comScore’s methodology sent Hulu’s viewership numbers plummeting, to 24 million in June from 43.5 million in May." - Technology Review: How HTML5 Will Shake Up the Web – Nice primer on why HTML5 is important: "Experts say that what HTML5 does behind the scenes–such as its network communications and browser storage features–could make pages load faster (particularly on sluggish mobile devices), make Web applications work more smoothly, and even enable browsers to read older Web pages more easily."
Links for August 12th through August 15th
Things I’m tracking for August 12th through August 15th:
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- Did Shopkick Just Change The Check-In Game? You Be The Judge [Video] – "The minute you enter a Best Buy location, your phone recognizes it and you get points and a message that there are deals available at this location. You can also use it to scan items and get more points and other potential deals.<br />
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"Unlike other location-based apps, this doesn’t use GPS (or even WiFi triangulation), instead this is a custom hardware plus app system shopkick created and installs in partner stores. This means no more fake check-ins and it allows the app to do some other potentially interesting things.<br />
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"…While shopkick isn’t a full-on rival to the popular Foursquare and others in the check-in space, it is interesting that they’re going after the type of experience that those guys are trying to establish between consumers and retailers. As Foursquare’s Tristan Walker said at our CrunchUp event last week, they’re attempting to “socialize loyalty.” He also noted that everyone was looking for a location-based coupon Holy Grail that doesn’t exist." - 10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World | Max Gladwell – "Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for go."
- TV in the 50s. – Fantastic photo by Evert F. Baumgardner, ca. 1958.
- CBS Interactive’s TV.com enters social-TV race with Relay (exclusive) – "CBS Interactive is giving television the Foursquare treatment.<br />
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"The digital division is beta-testing TV.com Relay, a service that transplants Foursquare’s combination of user check-ins and badge rewards from brick-and-mortar venues to TV shows.<br />
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"With Relay, you can check in on a particular program and make new friends chatting about your favorite shows or check out what your old friends are watching and pick up a new TV habit."