Intel Free Press managing editor, veteran tech and SMB journalist, communications pro always on the hunt for the next great story.
Is now the time for China’s own Silicon Valley?
Not yet from the perspective of @jamesfallows of The Atlantic, but he believes these are the key indicators to watch as China moves to the next level:
1. A closing of the gap in average Internet speed between China and other nations
2. The emergence of globally recognized corporate brand names based in China
3. International talent coming to Chinese universities in significant numbers
The rise of herbicide-resistant superweeds or how the GM ‘genie’ is out of the bottle.
The timeline from FDA approval in the 90s to “five million hectares of superweed-infested U.S. farmland” today.
Majority of manufacturing jobs (hi-tech in particular) in metro area finds Brookings
Busting the myth that slideshows drive huge traffic…or why readers aren’t stupid and galleries can damage your brand @alexismadrigal takes a look.
If you’re trying to juice page views, your staff will ineluctably be forced to make galleries. Where else can they get a 10x or 20x multiplier on their work? I can guarantee you that will not help you break the kinds of stories or do the kinds of analysis that will keep people coming back. Not only that, but it’s demoralizing to your best people, the ones who want to be out there producing their best work.
Worse, readers may click through your slideshow, but they’ll hate you a liiitttle bit more than they did when they got to the site. And I bet they’ll feel the same way about whatever advertiser was unlucky enough to get stuck on the page with some stupid thing that a reporter did with a little bit of hate in his heart and fingertips.
That won’t be visible to you in your analytics, but what reader of the Internet has not felt that pang: “This site doesn’t really value me or my time.” You can get a page view spike that’s actually anegative for your brand. And the more the slideshow spreads because of a clever headline or just because the topic is hot, the farther that brand damage spreads. Congratulations! You juiced the stats with an invisible poison!
“Oh the humanity.” 75 years ago today, the Hindenburg crashed in Lakehurst, N.J. killing 35 people. The event ensured the legacy of announcer Herbert Morrison and jump started the radio news age.
As @GreeterDan chronicles on CNET, it also marked the end of airships as a rational, albeit expensive and luxurious, transport option. Though already being eclipsed by airplanes, there was a time when dirigibles “ruled the sky.” That rule ended in less than a minute as Hindenberg crashed to the ground in flames.
In retrospect, ”It was just crazy and dangerous to operate a ship that had 7 million cubic feet of fuel. It’s a flying bomb,” as Daniel Grossman, an Atlanta lawyer who operates Airships.net said.
Yet before that “flying bomb” burst into flames, it was the pinacle of luxurious travel ferrying the likes of Douglas Fairbanks and Walter Chrysler across the Atlantic.
From cave painting to smartphones…the evolution of communication
Copy machines v. iPads…2012 v. 1962…or what if Don Draper worked today.
The 10 companies that “own” the consumer brand market
5 Reasons for Declining Confidence in the Press from @jayrosen_nyu
As you can see from the chart, the percentage of Americans who had a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in the news media has declined from over 70 percent shortly after Watergate to about 44 percent today.
Why?
- All institutions are less trusted.
- Bad actors
- Liberal bias
- Working the refs
- Something went awry
Concedes Rosen, “None of these explanations quite do it for me.”
Click through for detail on each point and a lively conversation in the comments.
Social Media Takes Over the News? #newsmedia
Professional journalists…use Twitter all the time to break news quickly before writing up full articles.
…Online news now generates more revenue than print newspapers.
But the trend toward Internet and social media-based news — and the accompanying rush to be first to report a story — also comes with pitfalls. Some 50% of news consumers have received “breaking news” via social media, only to find out later it was erroneously reported.
