Bits Pics: A Global Graveyard for Dead Computers
Grim photo essay on Africa's obsession with harvesting the raw materials in computer equipment.
Interesting observation on big media's early iPad apps from Ryan Chittum at CJR
One big missing feature in the WSJ and NYT iPad apps: You can’t copy text. Take a screen cap of it all you want, but you can’t get the actual text. That’s a basic function on a computer, and the iPad has a clever cut-and-paste function, but it doesn’t work here.
That would seem to be a conscious decision and not just a missing feature in these quasi-beta apps. If so it will make it hard to blog or email about a story. Of course, it will also make it harder for people to rip off whole stories on splogs, and it could lesson the relevance of aggregators.
via cjr.org
NYT has more coverage of pay models from the British newspapers
“At a defining moment for journalism, this is a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition,” Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, said in the statement.
The company did not make a direct reference to when or how it planned to charge for access to The Sun, the largest circulation daily in Britain, but Mrs. Brooks said further changes to the Internet model would be forthcoming.
“This is just the start,” she said. “The Times and The Sunday Times are the first of our four titles in the U.K. to move to this new approach. We will continue to develop our digital products and to invest and innovate for our customers.”
via nytimes.com
NYT's Bits Blog Has A Sneak Peek At Foursquare's Upcoming Dashboard & Analytics
"Another test customer, P.C.C. Natural Markets, a Seattle-based organic foods company, saw a large number of new Foursquare users coming to its stores over the weekend and used the analytics tool to figure out where they were coming from."
WSJ Making Moves To Break NYT’s Hold On Big Retailers | paidContent
AdAge reports. While the NYT has expressed confidence in its ability to maintain its long-standing relationship with major marketers, the WSJ is already taking aggressive steps to force advertisers to choose where to put their finite ad dollars.
via paidcontent.org
Nick Bilton Speculates On The Upcoming Apple Tablet
"I found an old Hewlett-Packard slate computer under my desk and showed the width of the screen to try to illustrate what a potential 10-inch device might look like."
Ken Doctor Poses Nine Questions For The NYT's Metering Model Nine Questions: New York Times Goes Metered | paidContent
via paidcontent.org
"What’s the downside? Other than major blogosphere blowback—winds developing tweet by tweet—the Times runs the risk of TimesSelect 2. If readers, and lots of them run into paywalls and decide to quickly move on to still-free sources—sources as top-notch as the BBC, Reuters (NYSE: TRI), NBC, NPR and many more—then the model could fall apart: the Times would lose its mojo as top digital (non-aggregator) news site and retard its digital ad potential. That’s what makes it a big bet. "
Peter Kafka "The New York Times Officially Starts Construction on its Paywall: “Metered Model” Coming 2011"
And he gets the "image of the day for that story" award.
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"Both are have-cake/eat-cake strategies: Generate as big as an audience as possible to sell to advertisers, while extracting a second revenue stream from hard-core readers. The Times, which is reportedly generating $100 million a year from Web display ads, wants to do the same thing."
George Dearing
Founder @ Dearing Group LLC.
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