 |
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
 |
With tech’s reality a little too dystopian, The Verge is turning to science fiction for inspirationAnd turning away a bit from Facebook video: “Our video lives on YouTube. We’re going to program for the YouTube audience.” By Christine Schmidt. |
 |
How many paying subscribers do you need to keep a money-losing magazine afloat? Arkansas Life finds out“Here we are in 2019 and while it may be easier to read a free digital copy or an article that your friend shares, a quality, printed publication showcasing your state is VITAL.” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Wired / Louise Matsakis
Google gives Wikimedia $3 million →
“Wikimedia and Google will soon broaden Project Tiger, a joint initiative they launched in 2017 to increase the number of Wikipedia articles written in underrepresented languages in India, and to include 10 new languages in a handful of countries and regions. It will now be called GLOW, Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia.”
Variety / Janko Roettgers
Netflix users on iOS can now post what they’re watching directly to their Instagram Story →
This would be a good feature for a news app to copy: “Here’s what I’m reading right now.”
Press Gazette / Freddy Mayhew
The Guardian earns its first Oscar nomination →
“Black Sheep follows the true story of Cornelius Walker whose mother moved him and his family from London to Essex after the murder of ten-year-old Damilola Taylor. Walker lived near Taylor, was the same age and also black. ‘Cornelius suddenly found himself living on a white estate run by racists,’ the Guardian description of the film says.”
FiveThirtyEight
Is media coverage of the Mueller investigation a problem? →
“…reporters are not perfect. And editing systems are never completely foolproof. But the internet means that mistakes never go away, so reporters who've had problems in the past should expect to see those reputation issues dragged up again and again if they continue to get in tough spots, especially if they work on important stories, like those about the special counsel's investigation.”
The Daily Beast / Maxwell Tani
Gawker 2.0 implodes as its only reporters quit →
“On Wednesday morning, the site's only two full-time writers — former Vanity Fair writer Maya Kosoff and former Cosmopolitan writer Anna Breslaw — announced in a statement to The Daily Beast that they have left over concerns about Carson Griffith, the recently hired editorial director.”
First Draft News
First Draft leaves Shorenstein and will now operate as an independent entity in London and New York →
“We are building on our pioneering work around elections in the US, France, UK, Germany, Brazil and Nigeria to support the development of sustainable, collaborative efforts globally in 2019. We have plans to support projects in Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain and Uruguay, plus a cross-border project to investigate misinformation tactics and trends in Europe.”
Wired / Lauren Goode
Have phones become boring? Well, they’re about to get weird →
“Our glass slabs will be punctuated by pop-out cameras, foldable displays, hole-punched notches, and invisible fingerprint sensors. These features will be marketed as innovations. Some will be innovative. Some will just be weird, in the way that tech inevitably feels forced when design decisions are borne out of a need to make mature products appear exciting and new.”
Wall Street Journal / Jeffrey Trachtenberg
Condé Nast will put all its titles behind paywalls by the end of this year →
“Condé Nast currently has three titles behind metered paywalls that allow access to four free articles each month: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired…Ms. Ray said it wasn't clear what form the paywalls would take for each of the other titles, which include Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue, the tech website Ars Technica, and Them, which serves the LGBTQ community.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
The Economist launches a daily news podcast with eight staffers →
“The Economist plans to differentiate by delivering stories with a world view, drawing on its global correspondents as well as covering news that doesn't always make the headlines but still has significance. Case in point: During pilot episodes, it featured how the changing sales of mooncakes — sent as gifts or sometimes bribes in China — act as a barometer on the health of the economy.”