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Thursday, April 28, 2016
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Wired’s making the long and slow switch to HTTPS and it wants to help other news sites do the sameWith its HTTPS implementation, Wired’s starting with its security vertical and for users who pay for the ad-free version of the site. By Ricardo Bilton. |
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The Guardian's first VR project makes viewers experience the horrors of solitary confinement“It's a story which is all about space and the environment you're in. Even though this is a small space, the story is all about that space." By Ricardo Bilton. |
What We’re Reading
The Verge / Adi Robertson
The New York Times is sending out a second round of Google Cardboards →
Next month, the Times will send out 300,000 Cardboard headsets to its “most loyal” digital customers, based on subscription length. Their arrival will coincide with the May 19th release of its eighth VR production: Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart.
PR Newswire
Crain’s city-based, personalized business newsletters launch in dozens of new cities →
The newsletters, which rely on human editors and an algorithm-based “intelligence engine,” are customized to readers’ interests and reading habits.
ProPublica / Derek Willis
ProPublica has taken over The New York Times’ Inside Congress database →
It’s also launching Represent, a project that will let users track members, votes, and bills in Congress.
Sports Illustrated / Richard Deitsch
ESPN exec Marie Donoghue on the launch of The Undefeated and the future of FiveThirtyEight →
“I ultimately think The Undefeated is additive for ESPN. I think it provides new entry points for potentially previously untapped audiences and experiences with ESPN. It broadens our audience.”
Bloomberg.com / Sarah Frier
Snapchat users watch 10 billion videos each day →
“More than a third of Snapchat's daily users create "Stories," broadcasting photos and videos from their lives that last 24 hours, according to people familiar with the matter. Now users are watching 10 billion videos a day on the application, up from 8 billion in February, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public.”
Digiday / Hilary Milnes
It’s 2016 and Vogue is finally releasing a mobile app →
“The iPhone app, out today, is a blend of site and magazine content, with a dash of Snapchat-like functionality. Using an algorithm, it pulls together a daily feed of eight stories tailored for the user by reading patterns. The feed's interface is reminiscent of a Snapchat Discover story: users swipe right through headlines, and swipe up if they want to read the full article.”
The Wall Street Journal / Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook revenue soars on ad growth →
"Businesses are no longer asking if they should market on mobile, they're asking how," Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said. "This is a shift that we think we're very well-positioned to take advantage of and build on."
Poynter / Benjamin Mullin
Bloomberg is creating a 10-person newsroom team to focus on automation initiatives →
“The time spent laboriously trying to chase down facts can be spent trying to explain them. We can impose order, transparency and rigor in a field which is something of a wild west at the moment,” Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait announced in a memo to staff.
Digiday / Lucia Moses
Small publishers are left adrift by shift to platforms →
"Platforms are trying to get as much scale as possible," says Michael Macher, publisher of The Awl Network, which has thrown in its lot with Medium. "They're incentivized to work well with big ones."
BuzzFeed / Alex Kantrowitz
As social platforms shift attention to video, content creators win power and dollars →
Facebook is already paying media companies and celebrities to post video via its Live product. The company is offering around $250,000 for 20 posts per month over a three-month period, according to one source with knowledge of the arrangement. (BuzzFeed is among the group of paid media partners.)
The Financial Times / John Gapper
The Guardian: Dark days for a liberal beacon →
“The combination of a business crisis with a showdown on corporate governance comes amid a wider loss of faith in the publishing model [former editor Alan] Rusbridger embraced.”
Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast / Dan Kennedy
Billionaires and their newspapers →
In this Harvard Kennedy School podcast, Northeastern prof. Dan Kennedy, a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, discusses the fates of The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and the Orange County Register.
From Fuego
John Boehner talks election, time in office —www.stanforddaily.com
‘Normal America’ Is Not A Small Town Of White People —fivethirtyeight.com
A New Way to Keep an Eye on Who Represents You in Congress —www.propublica.org
Snapchat User Content Fuels Jump to 10 Billion Daily Video Views —www.bloomberg.com
Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.