The Missourian’s change to a pay model is consistent with industry trends; its method, with everything free for the first 24 hours of publication, is experimental and reflects a core mission of this newspaper to test innovative practices for the news industry.Tom Warhover, executive editor of the Columbia, Mo. Missourian • Regarding the paper’s interesting take on paywalling its content — everything will be free for the first 24 hours, but after the one-day mark, you hit a paywall. (The model corresponds with a suite of new digital apps for the publication.) This is a relatively untried model — most outlets in recent years have preferred to, instead, follow the New York Times’ successful metered paywall model. But the Missourian, which is run by the University of Missouri and staffed by J-school students, is the perfect testbed for an experimental model. The paper was one of the first newspapers to go online, and has a long tradition of trying new things. So it’ll be interesting to see what they do.
We put these skeletons together to make it look like they’re dancing.
In the “ideas we wish we’d thought of” department: This blog is devoted to taking New Yorker cartoons, stripping out the captions, and replacing them with dialogue that describes, in the most literal fashion possible, what is happening. This is our favorite thing since Garfield Minus Garfield.
Here’s the problem: while ‘I’m buying a dream’ makes a certain amount of sense for a $1 lottery ticket, it makes much less sense for $100 vaporware. Just speaking for myself, if I’m spending $100, I want significantly more than just a dream. That’s more money than I’ve spent on lottery tickets in my lifetime.Reuters’ Felix Salmon takes on the idea that Kickstarter’s business model is “selling dreams,” i.e., marketing ideas which may or may not actually happen. Salmon, jumping off commentary by Fast Company’s Ian Bogost, agrees with Bogost (in part) that Kickstarter is like QVC when it first launched — an innovative approach to marketing that’s very social and mixes multiple conceits. But there’s more going on than that, he notes. “Kickstarter neatly wraps that charitable impulse in a commercial transaction, which makes it easier to ask for — and receive — more money than either approach would yield on its own.” Salmon wonders aloud if a handful of high-profile failures might take the whole thing down a few pegs. To those who have donated to Kickstarter projects, was it worth it in the end?
Is this the future of journalism? The currently-in-private-beta iOS app Signal wants to bring a little geolocation, quick sharing, Reddit-style voting and right-place-right-time-ness to the world of citizen journalism — with hopes of making it as simple as Instagram. It looks like a sweet little app, and it’s one that intends to focus less on who is publishing the news, and more on what the news is, wherever it is in the world. When it comes out, we wonder if people will see why.
As pointed out by campbench, the tale of the graphing calculator’s consistent price is not an unnoticed one. (via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal; go visit them to read the full comic!)
By enabling the connection of everyday devices we are pushing the edge of the internet out. By connecting rooms or motors to the internet, you could significantly reduce the amount of energy consumed worldwide.Arm Holdings director Gary Atkinson • Discussing the company’s new “Flycatcher” chip, which intends on stretching out the ways in which the internet could be used. The less than 1mm square chip, officially called Cortex-M0+, brings 32 bits of processing power to devices that may have never had it before — well-suited for devices that use radio or Bluetooth signals to connect. And on top of that, the chips are designed to use very little battery life (with a very low-leakage sleep mode), allowing them to survive months or years on a single charge. So what does that mean for you, average citizen? Basically, devices that before would’ve never used internet access — say, parking meters, traffic lights, stethoscopes or fridges — might get online, too. Neat.
Meet Clarence. He was made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. In some cities, the homeless hawk newspapers as a way to raise income. With the help of the charitable arm of advertising agency BBH New York, Clarence is selling 4G wireless access at SXSW — $2 for 15 minutes. And in case you need said access to follow you while you’re doing something, he’ll follow along and even keep you company. This is cool and kinda innovative.
EDIT: As one or two folks raised concerns about the idea, we asked the Homeless Hotspots folks via Twitter what sort of response they’ve gotten. Here’s what they had to say:
@ShortFormErnie The few concerns (there’ve been some) are from people who haven’t seen 1st hand. Activists & experts generally v positive!
— Homeless Hotspots (@HHSXSW) March 11, 2012
Second EDIT: Please hop over here to see some more of our thoughts on this issue. Ultimately, the key thing is that this is a difficult issue, and difficult issues are prone to debate.
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Years ago, researchers envisioned these tiny computers transmitting information to the Internet. It wasn’t what we envisioned, but it happened. It’s called the smartphone.Yael Maguire, a visiting scientist at M.I.T. and Harvard • On the advancement of phone technologies in more wearable directions. Secret projects led by Google and Apple could allow users to carry around lightweight, connected devices that fit in with what you’re already wearing — think a bracelet-style iPod with the ability to talk to Siri whenever you want. All of this is possible thanks to the invention of the smartphone, which is kind of a wearable computer already. We bet these toys will work perfectly with mock turtlenecks. source (via • follow)
At one point during that meeting in early 2010 at Gates’ waterfront offices in Kirkland, Wash., Gates asked Allard how users get e-mail. Allard, Microsoft’s executive hipster charged with keeping tabs on computing trends, told Gates his team wasn’t trying to build another e-mail experience. He reasoned that everyone who had a Courier would also have a smartphone for quick e-mail writing and retrieval and a PC for more detailed exchanges. Courier users could get e-mail from the Web, Allard said, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
But the device wasn’t intended to be a computer replacement; it was meant to complement PCs. Courier users wouldn’t want or need a feature-rich e-mail application such as Microsoft’s Outlook that lets them switch to conversation views in their inbox or support offline e-mail reading and writing. The key to Courier, Allard’s team argued, was its focus on content creation. Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents.
“This is where Bill had an allergic reaction,” said one Courier worker who talked with an attendee of the meeting. As is his style in product reviews, Gates pressed Allard, challenging the logic of the approach.
It’s not hard to understand Gates’ response. Microsoft makes billions of dollars every year on its Exchange e-mail server software and its Outlook e-mail application. While heated debates are common in Microsoft’s development process, Gates’ concerns didn’t bode well for Courier. He conveyed his opinions to Ballmer, who was gathering data from others at the company as well.
While Steve Jobs was releasing the iPad, Steve Ballmer was killing the Microsoft Courier, possibly the most innovative product concept ever to come out of Redmond. Ballmer was on the fence about the Courier until he talked to Bill Gates. Not long later, the exec behind the idea, J Allard, left the company (though he claims this wasn’t the reason). This is a corporate culture that prints money, but when presented with an amazing idea, kills it. Our heart sinks.
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