May 2012
“If these rumors are true, it seems like Digg may have finally found its exit....”
– Rumor: Digg to be Acquired by The Washington Post
spdracerx:
Where I End And You Begin -...
The End Of Hulu →
parislemon:
It was (sorta) fun while it lasted.
Actually, it wasn’t all that fun. Plus, I always felt like there was the very real possibility that in the end, stupidity would win out. As it will.
Can’t believe it lasted this long. Still in disbelief that it worked at all.
“Fast-forward four years to September 2011: KPBS completed its transformation...”
– Current.org | KPBS: multiplatform news, 2012
Watch
Paul Miller: I’m leaving the internet for a year | The Verge
Microsoft to Take Stake in Nook Unit of Barnes &... →
Microsoft announced on Monday that it would invest $300 million in Barnes & Noble’s Nook division for a 17.6 percent stake. The deal values the e-reader business at $1.7 billion.
The move by Microsoft will help bolster the standing of Barnes & Noble’s fastest-growing unit. The bookstore giant had said this year that it was exploring strategic options for the business, including a...
April 2012
“So 16 percent of bestselling titles are exclusive to the Kindle Store — and the...”
– Daring Fireball: Good Quarter for Amazon
Subtraction.com: Designing New York’s Future →
The Center for an Urgan Future argues that “New York City graduates twice as many students in design and architecture as any other U.S. city, but the city’s design schools are not only providing the talent pipeline for New York’s creative industries— they have become critical catalysts for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth.” Download the full report as a PDF here.
“Poking into the sky, the first column of the 100th floor of 1 World Trade Center...”
– 1 World Trade Center Will Reclaim the Sky in Lower Manhattan - NYTimes.com
“The conclusion to be drawn is that, given a two-month window within which to...”
– How long does it take to ‘launch’ a smartphone? | The Verge
“Google’s harvesting of e-mails, passwords and other sensitive personal...”
– Google Engineer Told Others of Data Collection, F.C.C. Report Reveals - NYTimes.com
“True invention requires that we push away from our comfort zone. In fashion,...”
– Innovation is Ugly | design mind
Who or what exactly is The New York Times’ R&D... →
But beyond an interesting advertising idea, Ricochet is being run out of an interesting new structural idea at NYT HQ. It’s part of a newly formed unit called R&D Ventures, a spin-off from the Times Company’s R&D Lab, a unit we’ve written a lot about. Michael Zimbalist, vice president of research and development operations for the Times Co., told me the new group is a more commercially...
“There is no way, absolutely no way, that KCET can survive as a television...”
– KCET still in flux after bolting PBS in 2011 - latimes.com
The newsonomics of 99-cent media » Nieman... →
It’s a fool’s paradise of pricing out there in the digital world, right now, at least for wily consumers. The Department of Justice’s ebook suit and related settlements only complicate things. Five and ten years ago we were wondering whether people would ever pay for digital media — Newsweek’s Steven Levy took us into the terra incognita in “Meet the Napster Generation” back in 2000. But now the...
What is the purpose of a newspaper? — GigaOm →
Reuters blogger Felix Salmon recently wrote about what he saw as a hypothetical business opportunity for the cash-strapped New York Times: namely, selling early access to news scoops like the paper’s expose on Walmart. The idea drew a fair amount of criticism (including some from me), and that critical reaction said a lot about where newspapers find themselves now, as digital pressures require...
owndisorder:
Jigsaw falling into place -...
Margin Call →
parislemon:
Continuing on the Apple margin kick, this is arguably the craziest thing: as Horace Dediu points out, Apple’s margin was so high last quarter that it surpassed the margin of both Google and Microsoft.
As a reminder, Apple is (mainly) a hardware company while Google is (mainly) an advertising company and Microsoft is (mainly) a software company. That is not supposed to happen.
...
5by5 | The Critical Path #35: Joys and Sorrows →
A review of Apple’s performance in the first calendar quarter. Covering the iPhone’s predictability, greater China and international opportunity swamping the US opportunity, the iPad surprise and what mobile means to Apple. Dan and Horace ponder what it means for the largest company in the world to also be the fastest growing company in the world. We discuss whether there is a mobile...
“The bill also would create a chief innovation officer for the Postal Service to...”
– Senate Passes Bill to Overhaul Postal Service - NYTimes.com
Shane's 2012 NFL Mock Draft
1) Colts: Andrew Luck, QB - Stanford 2) Redskins: Robert Griffin III, QB - Baylor 3) Vikings: Matt Kalil, OT - USC 4) Browns: Trent Richardson, RB - Alabama 5) Bucs: Morris Clailborne, CB - LSU 6) Rams: Justin Blackmon, WR - OSU 7) Jags: Melvin Ingram, OLB - South Carolina 8) Dolphins: Michael Floyd, WR - Notre Dame 9) Panthers: Michael Brockers, DT - LSU 10) Bills: Riley Reiff, OT - Iowa 11)...
5by5 | Back to Work #64: Frozen Poster →
TOPIC: The Surprising Problems of “Doing What You Love”
Merlin has some follow up on Agency: be in control of what you give away and why you charge what you charge, and Dan is interested in what happens when you stop loving what you love when you do it as a job.
There are no guarantees, so don’t mistake the Federalist Papers for Constitutional Law, and if you miss the signs...
Made In The USA: An Export Boom : NPR →
Two years ago, President Obama laid out a goal to double American exports in five years. Today, American products and services are in demand around the world, but that’s not the only reason the U.S. is on pace to meet Obama’s goal.
"Microsoft Is The Best!" — Unnamed Microsoft...
parislemon:
Earlier today, I wrote an anti-Microsoft post. Actually, it wasn’t so anti-Microsoft, I thought I was decidedly fair. My thesis was basically that Microsoft was done in the consumer space, but that they’d continue to do well as an enterprise company going forward.
Essentially, they’d follow the IBM path. Nothing wrong with that. IBM is still a great company, they’re just different...
Apple's US K12 customers snapped up two iPads for... →
Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer noted in the company’s Q2 conference call that US K-12 education customers had purchased twice as many iPads as Macs, despite also setting a new record in Mac sales for the quarter. Oppenheimer noted that the San Diego school district purchased 10,000 iPads in the quarter, and plans to buy over 15,000 additional iPads in the June...
“The legal framework governing space behavior is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967,...”
– James Cameron’s Trillion-Dollar Question - Businessweek 