Media

Truly unprecedented in iBooks 2

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David Smith: All Apple is doing with this restriction is saying that if you directly profit from this free tool and platform that we have created, then we deserve our cut. Which seems entirely fair to me. The range of … Continued

Business

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Some of those falls have got to hurt. […]

The secrets Apple keeps

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Fortune has published an excerpt from senior editor-at-large Adam Lashinsky new book, “Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired–and Secretive–Company Really Works”: Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly … Continued

Infographics and lazy journalism

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TNW:

I’m not saying that infographics should be banished from the Web. There are plenty of great ones being created by the likes JESS3, and startups often publish ‘Here’s how fast we’re growing!’ visualisations which are newsworthy and well worth sharing, but until journalists and bloggers stop being lured by the quick hit of sub-par infographic, without being 100% certain they know what they’re linking to is correct and well-researched, the plague will continue.

Definitely some good points in there.

Consistency

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The Angry Drunk asks for a little consistency from writers on the Web.

Failed promise of The Verge

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Ben Brooks:

Then Topolsky and crew launched their next big thing: The Verge. It’s what they envisioned tech reporting to be when they left Engadget, but unfortunately for them it sucks.

Ben just goes off on The Verge — not about the design of the Website, not about advertisements, but about the writing.

A journalist or ‘a crazy lady with WordPress’

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Defining what a journalist is has become more difficult in the last decade. Mathew Ingram at GigaOM takes a look at the challenges and how things have changed with Twitter and bloggers entering the fray.

Louis CK makes $500k in three days selling $5 video

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The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it

That’s awesome.

CNET calls Gruber a ‘fanboi’

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Brooke Crothers on CNET: Take the blog Daring Fireball. It offers some solid analysis. But in the end it’s a fanboi site, assailing the misinformed or pointing out how wrong or disliked the Android competition is. That kind of attitude … Continued

Getting a job

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Get out of the box. Stop thinking there is a magical process to getting a job if you follow the rules. Hone in on 3-5 companies that you’re passionate about and get creative. Meet people, find employees of the company a year before you are graduating and send informational emails through LinkedIn. Go to industry events. Heck, send them a 20 foot tall painting in the mail((Credit to Merlin Mann on Back to Work for this idea.))! Do all of this with the intention of learning more, not necessarily getting a job, because if you wait until you need a job, it’s too late.

I agree with the two main points here. There is no magical solution and if you need it, it’s already too late.

I will add this because I’ve seen it so many times in the last 17 years as a technology journalist: Don’t burn your bridges on the way up. It’s a long way down if there’s nobody to help you when you fall.

Editorial cartoon plagiarism

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The Daily Cartoonist:

As a general rule, as long as the cartoonist isn’t light-boxing, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even the ones cited above can be excused when looked at individually (the ‘nationalized’ cartoons are easy word gags based on the topic of the day). Collectively, however, the matter gets harder to explain away. Only Jeff knows for sure and the only on-the-record response he’s given me was that “it’s a coincidence.”

All of the examples seem a bit too close for my liking.

Frustration with magazines on the iPad

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I’m convinced that the people who actually write for magazines, edit them and publish them have never actually tried using their iPad versions for more than a few moments. If they actually did try to use their publication’s app as the actual means to read each issue, things would have to improve. Right? RIGHT?!

Justin Williams tears apart GQ, Esquire and Sports Illustrated for their poor implementation on the iPad. He also offers 10 solutions magazine publishers could use to help themselves.

Better blogging

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Dan Frommer gives his advice on how to write a better blog. There are definitely some good tips in here.

One of my main rules for writing: Be honest with yourself and your readers.

Facebook settles with the FTC

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Reuters: Facebook has agreed to settle an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into deceptive privacy practices, committing to cease making false claims and to submit to independent audits for 20 years.

∞ More on readable news sites

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Rian van der Merwe: I’m worried that the wells of attention are being drilled to depletion by linkbait headlines, ad-infested pages, “jumps” and random pagination, and content that is engineered to be “consumed” in 1 minute or less of quick … Continued

∞ Streaming TV works

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Matt Alexander on CBS turning down Apple’s offer for streaming TV: The streaming model works. Once you’ve experienced the joy of watching what you want, when you want, it’s difficult to go back to regular television consumption. And yet, here … Continued

∞ New world journalism

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Mat Honan for Gizmodo: Mobile devices are turning us all into reporters. The citizen journalist hasn’t been such an important player since the days of the American Revolution. That’s largely been a cell phone phenomena; everyday people can both record … Continued

∞ Single dipping

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Marco Arment on magazines that charge for digital versions and have ads: It’s no wonder ad-free traditional-style magazines are so difficult to fund. But that doesn’t change my dissatisfaction with flipping past ads every few pages as I’m trying to … Continued

∞ Paying for digital publications

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A well thought out piece from Shadoe Huard on what he would like to see from digital publications and what would make him part with his money to pay for them.

∞ Netflix loses 800,000 subscribers

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GigaOM: Netflix’s subscriber attrition in the wake of a price hike and separation of its streaming and DVD businesses is even greater than first thought. The company ended the quarter with 23.8 million subscribers in the third quarter, which is … Continued