Media

Rob Pegoraro wrote an interesting piece on how stories can, and have, gone wrong.

Harry Marks:

Business Insider, CNet, ZDNet, eWeek, Gizmodo, and the rest (there really are too many to name) aren’t news organizations, they’re the online equivalents of 24-hour cable news noise networks with half the facts and one-third the personalities.These websites perpetuate a myth that they are well-informed, knowledgable news outlets that tell the world what it needs to know. What I’ve learned, however, is just the opposite: they’re ad-driven FUD machines that run on pageviews stolen from attention-deficient readers who would rather digest a shocking headline on a digital tabloid than read thoughtful commentary provided on an actual news site.

Harry brings up so many great points. Read it.

Marcelo Somers:

Our job as independent writers isn’t to be first or even to get the most pageviews. It’s to answer the question of “so what?”. Taken as a whole, our sites should tell a unique story that no one else can, with storylines that develop over time that help bring order to the chaos of what we cover.

Marcelo has a lot of good points in his article. To me blogging is about honesty and personality. I hate reading something that is just bland words with no feeling or conviction. I want to know how the writer feels about the subject they are writing about.

That’s what I try to do. It doesn’t mean everyone agrees with what I write, and that’s okay, but I am giving you my honest opinion.

It was around this time that Reed saw The Washington Post story with the wrong date of the Titanic collision and brought the story to the class figuring they’d spot it. They did, hence the correction letter.

Fred Wilson:

The new media world has its pros and cons. The pros are that I’ve got a blog to set the record straight and that everybody is recording everything. The negatives are that bloggers don’t feel compelled to write accurate headlines and twitter can amplify the inaccuracies when those headlines get tweeted and retweeted.

After almost 20 years of writing news stories and blogs about Apple, it’s become very clear to me that large media companies do not get blogging. This isn’t new, but it’s not changing either. […]

We began the Perian project over 6 years ago. We wanted to simplify viewing your content. Our team has attained that goal and with that in mind, Perian will be retired soon. Our stewardship has been a blast but it’s time for all of us to move on.

Perian allows you to play a variety of audio and video formats on your Mac. I’ve been using it for years and it’s still on every Mac I own.

Joshua Gross:

Today, TheNextWeb took a little bit of that away from me by basically plagiarizing my post (pic), being sneaky about it, and defending it.

The response by The Next Web is terrible.

We figure this story got skewed because PandoDaily is going through its own troubles, and looking for a target to project its drama onto; Sometimes not wanting to seem weak makes you seem weak.

Ouch. You can also look at this scathing article about PandoDaily.

Alexis Madrigal:

I’m sympathetic to the business concerns of the media industry. I really am. But this myth that slideshows are the path to salvation has got to be put into a rocket and sent hurtling into the sun. People know when your product is cheap; there is no “trick” of the web.

Please make them go away.

I signed up for this yesterday to give it a try. It’s a curated list of stories that people you follow find interesting. You can find friends through Twitter or Facebook to make things a bit easier. You can also check out the staff recommendations.

There’s so much crap around the Internet these days, I’m all for looking through some good stories. I like it so far.

Very sad.

Matt Alexander:

Producing a weblog – whether you choose to contribute substantive content of your own or not – is not a matter of competition, but of self-expression.

I agree with Matt. I encourage all new writers to have a voice of their own, not just follow the crowd. I follow people, not companies.

I agree with Marco.

New York Times: The Curator’s Code will use a symbol resembling a sideways S to express that a piece of content came directly from another source, and a different figure — a curved arrowlike symbol — to signal what is … Continued

Go watch it.

Andrew Beaujon for Poynter:

Krystal Myers’ editorial for the Lenoir City High School student newspaper about how atheists like her don’t have the same rights as Christians met a somewhat ironic fate: It was not published. School officials feared “the potential for disruption in the school.”

Ryan Cash and his views on Flickr.

An infographic showing the history of radio via Jim Coudal.

In recent weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time considering the thought process that has engendered some of the worst managerial decisions of the past year or so. Observing RIM’s spiralling failures, for instance, it’s difficult to discern precisely what has been driving such spectacularly flawed products, announcements, and marketing choices. Even on a much lower end of the scale, amidst the countless gimmicky iPhone accessories on display at Macworld, the bright booths and out-of-place “booth babes” all seem to ask the simple question: “why?” […]

[caption id="attachment_19574" align="alignnone" width="280" caption=""2012 SXSW Opening Day Bash" Amazon sampler"][/caption]

SXSW in Austin, TX is often thought of as a tech show but there is a huge music component. Every year, up and coming bands play the show in the hopes of getting noticed or getting a wider audience. And every year, Amazon posts a selection of free music from those bands.

This year’s selection is from bands like Pillow fight, Bright Moments, Polica and others.

BGR:

I’m tired of reading nonsense and of interacting with people that solely troll this site just to get a rise out of other commenters and start a holy war in the comments section. I’m tired of having to delete crap and I’m tired of people complaining that a few thousand people ruin it for millions. Maybe I’m just tired of you.

Another site turns of story comments. BGR is one of the biggest in recent months to do it though.

No way in hell I would ever do that.

While Super Bowl ads require a substantial investment, they tend to get a measurable marketing bump from their prominent placement. According to Nielsen, ads that aired during 2011’s Super Bowl XLV were, on average, 58 percent more memorable than commercials airing during regular programming in the first quarter of 2011. In addition, brand awareness for commercials airing during the Super Bowl was up to 275 percent higher than awareness for the same creative during regular programming.

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