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January 3, 2013
19:22 • 4 months ago
swagandpassion asks: Hey SFB. Are there fundamental differences with Libya and Syria as far as Western powers intervening? Logistically I can assume Europe had more interest in a stable Libya & Obama leading behind scenes, but is intervention not a good idea for Syria?

Scott had a really long answer to this, so we’re gonna jump it, so we don’t just give you a long block of text. Here’s the tl;dr version: The biggest challenge raised is from Russia and China, and it’s making it difficult for western forces to get involved.

Anyway, click on to read. — Ernie @ SFB

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December 19, 2012
09:01 • 5 months ago
swagandpassion asks: I'm glad Obama is person of the year, but what clout does TIME have? Is this the social/political version of the most beautiful person in the world? Or can Obama say being chosen is a referendum of himself and his overall administration?

» SFB says: Well, Hitler once won the award, so I wouldn’t necessarily call it an award for the “most beautiful” — probably more of the “most important,” good or bad. Obama won a second term, so it was probably a referendum on his work. — Ernie @ SFB

February 15, 2012
16:31 • 1 year ago
swagandpassion asks: Just thinking about the changes within the journalism industry and the shift towards digital media and different business models, I thought about SFB. Are you guys using the ad based model?

» SFB says: We use an ad-based model, but honestly, SFB hasn’t been so much about the business side of things as experimentation with news. So if it doesn’t make us rich, no big deal. It’s great for trying things. It’s great for taking risk, though. I’ll say this much, though: Advertising is a tough game on Tumblr, because most of your readers go through the dashboard where there aren’t ads, and ads on the dashboard would be controversial — you saw the frustration with the “highlighted” posts of late, for example. An open mention, by the way: If there was an ad-type who wanted to talk with us about all this, or who had any ideas for monetization, we’re totally game. It’d be great to make this something we could pay the rent with, but honestly it’s not our 100 percent focus. — Ernie @ SFB

 

ShortFormBlog is the product of Ernie Smith, Seth Millstein, Chris Tognotti, Sami Main, Scott Craft, Matthew Keys, Julius the laid-off RSS robot, awesome links from awesome sources, a hacked version of Wordpress, Tumblr's Tumblarity, the letter Q, the number 13 and a series of tubes.

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