Monthly Archives: July 2009

An opportunity for the AP

It helps to recognize that the Associated Press is exactly what its name denotes: an association of presses. Specifically, newspapers. Fifteen hundred of them. Needless to say, newspapers are having a hard time. (Hell, I gave them some, myself, yesterday.) … Continue reading

Posted in Berkman, Blogging, Business, Future, Ideas, infrastructure, Journalism, News, problems, VRM | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Ya gotta be born sometime

Seems I share a birthday with Benito Mussolini, Dag Hamarskjöld, Elizabeth Dole, Peter Jennings, Ken Burns, Wil Wheaton and about 1/365th of the world’s population. I also see here that ENIAC, “the first general-purpose electronic computer“, and I were fired … Continue reading

Posted in Events, Fun, Health, Life, Past, Places | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments

Are newspapers a larval stage?

“Saving newspapers” is beginning to look like saving caterpillars. Or worse, like caterpillars saving themselves. That’s was the message I got from Rick Edmonds’ API Report to Exec Summit: Paid Content Is the Future for News Web Sites, in Poynter, … Continue reading

Posted in Business, Future, Ideas, infrastructure, Journalism, Places, problems | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

What’s 10,241,704.22kb between ex-friends?

[Later, on 1 October 2009… This matter has been resolved. The charge for going over has been dropped, the service restored and good will along with it. Thanks to both @sprintcares and the chat person at My Sprint.] So I … Continue reading

Posted in Business, Call center hell, problems, VRM | Tagged , , , , | 37 Comments

Cluefest

In the month since it hit the streets (at least here in the U.S.), I’ve been surprised at how little those who like Cluetrain know about the new, 10th anniversary edition of the book. Many assume that it’s a fancy … Continue reading

Posted in Cluetrain, Events | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Why WQXR is better off as a public radio station

In his comment to my last post about the sale of WQXR to WNYC (and in his own blog post here), Sean Reiser makes an important point: One of the unique things about the QXR was it’s relationship with the … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Business, Future, infrastructure, Live Web, News, Places, problems, radio, VRM | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 115 Comments

Earth: Bringer of Lunch

The kid goes to bed every night lately while treating himself to a classical piece on his bedroom stereo. Tonight, our last (a bonus, thanks to a plane that didn’t fly) in Santa Barbara before returning to Boston tomorrow, he … Continue reading

Posted in Fun, Life, music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

From Z to A

I understand Zappos selling out to Amazon (even the Amazon logo, which leads from A to Z, makes sense of it) but the news still depresses me. Zappos is a cause as well as a brand. That cause is relationship. … Continue reading

Posted in Business, Future, News, VRM | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

A jovian black eye

When I read that an impact had been spotted on Jupiter, I figured it was somewhere other than the equator, which would be a bulls-eye. Even Shoemaker-Levy, a huge comet broken into a string of pieces, slammed like a series … Continue reading

Posted in Past, Photography, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

More on WNYC(s) + WQXR(s)

Edward Rosten and I have been having an interesting dialog in the comment section of my last post, which was mostly about WNYC buying WQXR from the New York Times (which has owned it forever) for $11.5 million — and … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Business, Future, Ideas, infrastructure, radio | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments