New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change.
Reader comments have been added to the front page of NYTimes.com. Disgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget writes that "it will definitely help increase the site's popularity." Hank, this is the New York Times. Having reader comments next to top headlines won't increase their popularity. It will dilute the brand. I guess the Times really is just a fancy blog.
"All the emergency lights are flashing on at least the newsroom floors of the New York Times. An announcement said there has been some kind of problem, and they are investigating the cause. The security system seemed totally messed up when people were coming in this morning. It doesn't seem all that serious though." THE FALCON CANNOT HEAR THE FALCONER, RENZO PIANO. Update: An announcement! "The alarm is false. Please resume normal activities. There is no need for evacuation."
Each Friday, New York Times General Manager Vivian Schiller and deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write a letter on webby advances at the paper. From today's: "Web readers are different from newspaper readers. For one thing, they don't really organize their browsing along sectional lines." Thank you. Item! It's your paper now: "User. Generated. Content. Write it 100 times on the blackboard. Last week City Room featured an item about fishing in New York City... A couple of hours later, a reader submitted a video he shot of fishermen on a pier in Bay Ridge using this form we set up for that purpose. We have talented users. Let's use them." Hey, you're a user, reader!
The New York Times bought About.com from Primedia in 2005. The site, a tedious network of "experts," is an entirely separate business division. How's that working out? Well, here's a picture from Flushing's Main Street of what the New York Times has named the best new burger in Queens! Oh, wait, what's that apostrophe and that hard-to-see black print? Ohhh. It's the best new burger in Queens according to "The New York Times' About.com." Yeesh. It's just not good for the esteemed brand when search engine consultant and Queens About.com guide John Roleke can get put on par with Times food critics. (Though who knows! Maybe Mr. Roleke is an untapped genius resource with a brilliant palate!)
"meerkat manor" "funerals"
You know what? I'm just not done with today's insanely irritating Thomas Friedman op-ed in the Times. (Ugh, TimesSelect, come back! Untear down this paywall!) Friedman's beef with the do-gooding college children of our age is that they're just all Facebookey. "But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country's own good." Really? Online equals... quiet? Dude. "Generation Quiet" is one bad little coinage that is so not going to stick around—not in a world where the youngs are so loudly overdisclosing on Facebook walls and opinionating on the blogs. I thought the olds hated the internet exactly because it was so loud?
Globe-trotting taker of conclusions from anecdotes (and New York Times columnist) Thomas Friedman has been to some (four) college campuses! There he has seen that the kids of today are doing the good work, that they travel the world building hospitals abroad and snuggling babies with AIDS and just generally building a wonderful future—"in record numbers," whatever numbers those might be. None of these colleges were in New York, by the way—you selfish, future-hating children of N.Y.U.! This trip comforted him: "One of the things I feared most after 9/11—that my daughters would not be able to travel the world with the same carefree attitude my wife and I did at their age—has not come to pass." You know, funny, that did not even rate on my list of greatest fears after 9/11! Was more worried about the smoke getting in the windows through the wet towels, and the Team America world war that followed, but yeah, carefree attitudes for tourists sounds nice too.
One of the things about being a stay-at-home writer is that you have perhaps a little bit too much time to peruse and write blogs! We were reminded of this by chick lit author Jennifer Weiner's rant in the comments of the Times' 'Paper Cuts' blog, which she continued on over at her own blog 'Snark Spot' (really). She has a bone to pick with an author who'd yearningly mentioned her books' consistent presence on bookstore shelves. "Be careful what you wish for, oh shelfmate o' mine! If you wrote chick lit—provided it was any good—you would indeed find your books on the shelf of most every store. But your books would not be reviewed twice by the Times."
Our decrepit and vacuous society has given birth to one of the more disturbing trends we've seen in awhile. The city of Los Angeles' most recent victims are junior varsity photogs 14-year-old Austin and 15-year-old Blaine, who runs Pint Size Paparazzi, with the help of thousands of dollars in equipment from their totally fucked-up parents, who don't seem concerned by Blaine's statement to Sunday's Times Style section: "I'm going to let this go as far as it takes me,'said Blaine, fidgeting with his V800. 'I want to be friends with the celebrities more than take photos of them. I kind of wish I was going to the parties with them.'"
Nitpickers have noticed that today's New York Times writeup on Boing Boing TV refers to "sci-fi themes in shows like ... Pushing Up Daisies." The show's called Pushing Daisies. A minor point, but anyone who's survived an NYT fact-checking call has to wonder if there's a Sliding Scale of Accuracy at the paper that lets media writers off easy. This same article claims "Xeni Jardin serves as a screen-saver for fanboys everywhere." Ever seen that?
Read/WriteWeb complains about being forced to register to view content on NYTimes.com. Oh, shut up and register, already. The newspaper releases almost all of its articles for free and you're still not happy? If you're that opposed to giving the Gray Lady your name and email address, try BugMeNot. [Read/WriteWeb]
Each Friday, deputy managing editor Jon Landman and NYT.com general manager Vivian Schiller send out an email to New York Times staffers on the subject of innovation of a digital nature. We read it to take the temperature inside the paper. Some notable moments from this week's installment: "We are way past the point of arguing (aren't we?) about whether blogs or articles make better journalism. The answer, of course, is 'Both.'" And: "Webbies like to say, 'Iterate.' It gets worse! They love to say 'Iterative.' Horrible words. Great ideas. The point is, you can start something on the web that isn't perfect. While it sits there, you make it better. (Try that in the newspaper—by the time you iterate, it's fish wrap.)"
David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a humiliating column today correcting a huge pricing error in his last piece. He wrote about cellphone startup Cubic Telecom, which carries international phone calls over the Internet to give really cheap rates. Pogue listed off a bunch of rates to places like Greece or Iraq and excitedly wrote that "the appropriate world traveler's response ought to be involuntary drooling." Except the prices he quoted were just plain wrong. That'll stop up your salivary glands.
TimesTV critic Alessandra Stanley reviews the season premiere of "30 Rock" and finds it lacking. She places some of the blame on guest star Jerry Seinfeld: "[Seinfeld] shows up at Rockefeller Center to complain, and that's when the show goes a little wobbly: Mr. Seinfeld is strangely ill at ease playing himself, making his self-impersonation unpersuasive." How unfortunate! If only Seinfeld had any prior experience portraying a stand-up comedian named Jerry Seinfeld! [NYT]
Portfolio econ-blogger Zubin Jelveh makes the case that hiding some Times content behind a paywall for the last two years cost the newspaper growth, and therefore cash. (Unfortunately, and unrelentingly, traffic equals cash. Stay tuned for some naked celebrity pictures later today!) Comparing the Times' web growth to a number of sort-of competitors, Zubin calculates that the Times lost out on growth of 1.3 billion page views, and asks and answers: "So is 1.3 billion worth page views $20 million over two years? Not knowing anything about their inventory, I'd argue yes." The traffic calculations seem a bit over the top, but we'll still sign on to the conclusion.
Longtime New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp has passed away at the age of 59. A memo to the paper's staff from Bill Keller and Sam Sifton was just released.
From the Times, on how yachts must have helicopters and minisubs now: "'Today, a megayacht is indispensable,' said Olivier Milliex, head of yacht finance at the Dutch bank ING. 'It's not like 15 years ago, when a yacht was a luxury item.'" You know, I'm not sure if I really have anything to add! It's just not like 15 years ago, is it!
