Snippets

The single best sentence or two in everything I read that's worth you reading too. More of me: My Website Twitter Filter by Topic: Journalism | Baseball | Music | Literature | Technology | Health | Social Change | Economics

[jasalc]

But I think newsrooms by-and-large have not paid enough attention to loyalty. By that, I mean visits and repeat visits. It means somebody is a digital reader.

Looking Past ‘The Prism Of Fear’: News Corp’s Data Leader On the End of the Pageview Era

[jasalc]

But when we measure a story’s success by virality, which is what we must do in the age of social media, the content of our popular culture changes. We measure success by what people aren’t afraid to share with their neighbors, rather than what people will read on their own.

Viral Journalism and the Valley of Ambiguity

[jasalc]

The hype around native advertising or metered paywalls is primarily a manifestation of the hope for silver bullets.

An unfinished list of ventures in journalism you should be watching (and why) | David Bauer. Journalist+

[jasalc]

"The advice 'show don’t tell' is a zombie idea, killed 40 years ago by the publication in English of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, yet still sadly wandering the literary landscape ... what is boring in fiction tends to be the hackneyed plots with all their tired old stage business, while the interesting stuff usually lies in what is called the exposition, meaning the writing about whatever is not us."

8 Tips For Creating Great Stories From George R.R. Martin, Junot Diaz, And Other Top Storytellers

[jasalc]

Actually, explains Kevin Delaney, the staff is supposed to produce a complete package, ready to be processed by editors, with links, headline, photos

The Quartz Way (1)

[jasalc]

You can't eat 'reach' and we can't pay salaries with 'brand awareness'. I don't pretend to know other people's business models or strategies. But successful business practices are always about having a close understanding of the costs of what you produce and the origins and mechanics of your revenues and more than anything else the interaction between the two.

Are Operations Like Flipboard Scams Against Publishers? | Talking Points Memo

[jasalc]

“Time spent is not actually a value in itself, but in a world where people have infinite choices, it’s a pretty good measure if people are getting value,” explains Williams.

Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams Lays Out His Plan For The Future Of Media | TechCrunch

[jasalc]

When you’re writing a math paper, you want to be as clear and concise as possible, which is what we have in Portal.

Untold Riches: An Analysis Of Portal’s Level Design | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[jasalc]

There may be an endless supply of over-optimistic start-ups and deep-pocketed patrons willing to produce news despite the dim prospects of a financial return.

The news business could continue to be unprofitable forever. That’s OK.

[jasalc]

The fundamental challenge facing newspapers is to increase the time people spend on their content

Hal Varian: the economics of the newspaper business

[jasalc]

Jeff Bezos must keep one important things in mind: The modernization of print media has always been driven by the magazine industry, not by newspapers

Memo #2 to Jeff Bezos: Let’s talk about news products and design

[jasalc]

We need to move beyond the NBA as a model of starting businesses. We need to move beyond users and revenue as a measure of success. And a business that accepts investment without revenue nor a clear plan to profit hasn’t beaten anything — not even the odds.

For What Shall It Profit -- Bring Me the Head Shot of Glenn Fleishman

[jasalc]

Here’s the point,” he says. “You have 10 or 12 diseases that are all going up dramatically, more or less in parallel—diabetes, obesity, asthma, food allergies, hay fever, eczema, celiac disease. They’re not going up 2 or 3 percent, they’re doubling and quadrupling. Each one may have a different cause. Or there could be one cause that’s providing the fuel, and my hypothesis is that it’s the disappearing microbiota.

Microbes: The Trillions of Creatures Governing Your Health | Smithsonian Magazine

[jasalc]

I am always the last person to eat. It’s part of a compromise I worked out with the skinheads who run the western state prison complex where I am incarcerated.

David Arenberg Reflects on Being Jewish in State Prison | Southern Poverty Law Center

[jasalc]

Those developers and gamers and members of the press and our fans are the people that we can rely on to be at least peripherally interested in what we make and what we say and what we aspire to. They’re the people that you can count on to spread the word when you release a game.

Cloned at Birth: The Story of Ridiculous Fishing | Polygon

[jasalc]

We need to find opportunities in other distribution systems where consumers are not competing with Twitter or Facebook. Maybe our emphasis on online distribution is off?

Smart Readers Are Too Distracted to Dig Smart Content | Raw File | Wired.com

[jasalc]

They don’t crank out dozens of stories each; Pariser estimates only 60 pieces of content are created per week. Interest, not timeliness, is what matters when it comes to social content.

How Upworthy Grew To 10.4 Million Monthly Readers In Its First Year - Business Insider