The Future of Publishing in One Graphic

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Restart the Presses! - Op-Art - NYTimes.com: ".... The thinking here is that if vinyl records, straight razors, slow food and absinthe cocktails can all mount comebacks, there is no reason print can’t as well. The keys are marketing, perception and, frankly, snob appeal, plus a few minor tweaks...."


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AOL White Whale, Patch, and the CEO

It's a sad tale, all wrapped up in ego --

AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp - NYTimes.com: " . . . Armstrong had a sentimental, and some would say debilitating, attachment to Patch. He helped create it in 2007 while a senior executive at Google. When he got the top job at AOL in 2009, he persuaded the company to buy it. Patch then proceeded to churn through leadership, business models and write-downs on the way to its reduced state. The board of AOL, handpicked by Mr. Armstrong, authorized him to invest $50 million on the idea in 2010 and after that, it became a black hole for cash. By the end, it had cost an estimated $300 million. (AOL said the figure was more like $200 million.) Mr. Armstrong’s big dream had become a nightmare that wore out his shareholders and set off a proxy fight in 2012. The hedge fund Starboard Value L.P. ran for three seats on AOL’s board, saying it did not believe Patch was a “viable business.” The insurgents lost the war, but turned out to be right. Mr. Armstrong was able to keep the peace with other AOL investors in part by engineering a $1.1 billion sale of AOL patents to Microsoft and returning much of that value to the shareholders, but the additional time — or was it rope? — that he secured did not change the outcome at Patch. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Economics, Blogosphere, Real Discussion

Where is real discussion occurring? It's online in the blogosphere -- don’t feel nostalgic for the days of authority figures dominating the discourse. Intellectually, in economics at least, these are the good old days. (Paul Krugman - source infra)--

The Facebooking of Economics - NYTimes.com: " . . . Anyway, at this point the real discussion in macro, and to a lesser extent in other fields, is taking place in the econoblogosphere. This is true even for research done at official institutions like the IMF and the Fed: people read their working papers online, and that’s how their work gets incorporated into the discourse. How does the econoblogosphere work? It’s a lot like the 17th-century coffee shop culture Tom Standage describes in his lovely book Writing on the Wall. People with shared interests in effect meet in cyberspace (although many of them are, as it happens, also sitting in real coffee shops at the time, as I am now), exchange ideas, write them up, and make those writeups available to others when they think they’re especially interesting...." (read more at the link above)

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New York Times, Redesigned Website, Native Advertising

The Old Grey Lady going Native!

New York Times to Unveil Redesigned Website Next Week - NYTimes.com: "... Denise Warren, the executive vice president for digital products and services for The Times, said in a statement that the goal was to improve the user experience for both desktop and mobile users. The redesign includes features like responsive designs and faster loading pages, and allows for much more reader engagement with the content. Readers will be able to view comments directly alongside articles. “With more prominent video and photography, the new features are highly immersive and enhance our readers’ ability to share and comment throughout articles,” Jill Abramson, the executive editor, said in the statement. The redesign will also contain a platform featuring content paid for by advertisers. Such content, known as “native advertising,” has raised concerns among some journalists that it could blur the lines between the editorial product and material provided by advertisers."

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