Nerdist favicon is an animated gif. Nice.
(Sorry, animation not included above. Click through to see it in action.)
Through Felix Salmon, I discovered a smart use of Scribd, which allows users to embed readable pdfs.
I’m also kind of loving Scribd’s swagger:
Scribd has maximized the power of the web to bring readers and creators of written content together, regardless of physical or format constraints. History has witnessed only a handful of major innovations in publishing and reading: cave drawings, the invention of written language, the printing press, the Internet. We’re experiencing another pivotal moment in this history. Join us for the next revolution.
Who needs humility?
It's Instapaper for ads—and it now has $43M in funding
Scott Kurnit, founder of About.com, has raised $43M (!) for AdKeeper, “a way for advertisers to include a ‘keep’ button on their ads so users can save the ads somewhere and browse them later.”
Don’t know exactly what the user is “keeping” when they click on the button. Is it the URL? The ad itself? The most important thing to note is that it keeps the user from the having to click away from the content they are currently enjoying and that’s key.
Another thought: Perhaps they should rename the company to DealKeeper. I don’t know how large a market there is for wanting a place to store all the ads we want to revisit, but I do know that as companies like Groupon increase and advertisers get better at targeting users with deals, a service that could save all of the deals I’m interested in one place would have value. And then, advertisers could pitch to users based on the types of deals they saved. Double monetization!
Emily M. Olson, the managing editor of The Register Citizen, a small newspaper in Torrington, Connecticut, tells The New York Times.
Her paper is undergoing a radical reinvention. Its staff of 10 has thrown open the paper’s doors to the public and invited them in.
The idea of the cafe, public lounge and free Wi-Fi isn’t to make money on coffee. It’s to let the public see The Register Citizen as its space. The same thought underlies the public meetings and open newsroom, the opening of the company’s archives, the public spaces for bloggers and the meeting room that will host courses on blogging and journalism, so residents can write and link to the site.
What’s most striking about this transformation is not the public or educational element. It’s the notion that a newspaper would define itself around its function as defined by its web product, rather than its print product. The way this paper is now structured, the way it operates in the world, is inspired by the role it plays and seeks to play online. They’re not just paying lip service to the idea of community. They are going out into the world and trying to build it.
Coming soon to journalism: Matt Thompson sees the “Speakularity” and universal instant transcription
Worst part of reporting and best use of interns: Transcription. I’m sure there are a lot of journalists out there, both old and young, that would love to see this kind of technology mature.
As Matt describes, Google Transcribe isn’t too far away. Just check out this Automatic Captions in YouTube Demo. In addition, SpeakerText looks promising.
But if you’re need something that works now and transcribed with accuracy by people? Try Amazon Mechanical Turk (Waxy review) or CastingWords.
The New York Times has been on a bit of a roll lately. They’ve saved themselves from potential financial ruin, dispensed with their social media editor because everyone’s on the social media tip now, begun licensing their homegrown iPad publishing technology, convinced some that the metered paywall is not such a bad idea, let readers balance the national budget, added anchored paragraph links or “deep links” to their site and their redesign of the Op-Ed pages has been well-received. And now … this. Innovation is alive at the Times.
To compliment the NYT Magazine’s 10th Anniversary Year in Ideas issue, they created this stunning interactive. It’s looks great. It works great. It celebrates typography. It’s got an animated video, illustrations and a making of the cover video. It’s about good ideas … and it represents one more. It’s near perfect.
[Thanks, Gillian.]
We’ll be publishing a new genre of long-form journalism and nonfiction, direct to your iPhone, iPad, and other tablet and e-readers.
Somewhere in Brooklyn, this is happening.
Atavist stories aren’t static: Some may evolve in response to our readers, or simply expand and change as new facts come to light. Some may even involve the readers in the story itself.
Interesting. I’m intrigued. Tell me more, please.
The model: You’ll be able to purchase each Atavist story from inside the free Atavist app, which is available in the iTunes store for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. We’ll soon be available on Android devices as well. For Kindles, readers can purchase a text-only version of each story. All of the proceeds are shared between The Atavist and the author. You’ll be able to comment on the stories, and share them in a few different ways.
This has the makings of a very smart idea. Train readers to consider each article as its own individual piece of purchasable content. People can browse and pay for what they want. It opens the door to quality, serialized work. It’s a good way to keep price points down and lower the barrier to entry. Also, it’s a novel idea to have the author share directly in the sales of their work. Attaway to represent, Brooklyn.
It was hard to choose a quote from this article. The thought process behind the transformation of The Atlantic is so spot on, its leadership should teach a master class on how to manage the transition from print-only to web.
How many of today’s publishers can related to David G. Bradley’s useless tinkering:
He tried going out on sales calls with his advertising staff, only to find that his presence in meetings was a distraction. He sank money into printing the magazine on higher quality paper, only to find that it was a waste. He raised the price of a subscription. He lowered the price of a subscription.
Obviously, none of these things worked. What did? They fully engaged the web. Brilliant.
The Daily : An iPad Only Daily Newspaper
You have to hand it to Murdoch. The man is willing to invest in a vision.
Also, I love John Koblin’s lede:
It was late May, around 2 a.m., and Murdoch was in his New York penthouse on Fifth Avenue having a tough time falling asleep when a vision came to him: publishing a daily news report that would be exclusively made for the iPad and other tablet devices. There would be no print product.
News Corp. has spent the last three months assembling a newsroom that will soon be about 100 staffers strong. The Daily will launch in beta mode sometime around Christmas, and will be introduced to the public on the iPad and other tablet devices in early 2011. It is expected to cost 99 cents a week, or about $4.25 a month. It will come out - as the name suggests - seven days a week. The operation is currently working out of the 26th floor of the News Corp. Building on Sixth Avenue in a space that looks like a veritable construction zone. The staff’s permanent home will be on the ninth floor, and they’ll move down once it’s ready.
Among the writers and editors recruited to be part of The Daily:
- Greg Clayman : Heading up publishing
- Richard Johnson : Gossip, Hollywood and Los Angeles bureau
- Sasha Frere-Jones : Entertainment and culture
- Mike Nizza, Steve Alperin, Pete Picton : Managing editors
- Molly Young
‘20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web’
via Daring Fireball
Web-based e-book from the Google Chrome team. Content-wise, it strikes me as a nearly perfect layman’s explanation of what web … Read More »
Informative and a beautiful example of a reading experience that can only be had on their website.
