Everyblock has launched. It's local news culled from (any and all available) services, including photos, news, restaurant inspections, classified ads, and civic announcements. Sounds pretty dry, but looking at
my old neighborhood in San Francisco, there's a wealth of hyperlocal information that you can't get in one place. They're currently in three major metro areas of the US with many more to come --
their launch announcement has more. This site was spearheaded by
Adrian Holovaty, a pioneer of the intersection between journalism and computer science, and
winner of a $1million grant last year to build such sites.
posted by mathowie
on Jan 23, 2008 -
34 comments
It has been said that reality is all about perspective -- a camera is a pinhole view of the world that frequently filters out much of the story. With that in mind,
check out this video of the familiar "I have a scream" speech by Dean. I'm no Dean supporter, but from down in the trenches it doesn't look nearly as bad as it played on TV. Obviously the video you've seen on the news has the best part and the audience noise turned down, but from this vantage point, the speech almost seems appropriate for the crowd and the moment (but was still a lapse in judgement to forget cameras were rolling). I hope this isn't too subtle of a point -- forget all the politics involved -- this is a fascinating look at a familiar scene that was looped for the past week, but from an entirely different perspective and a different story emerges. [via
Vidiot]
posted by mathowie
on Jan 30, 2004 -
51 comments
Stupid new marketing word of the day: "Advertorial" (spotted on
this NY Times page).
Here's a screenshot - what exactly are they trying to say? Do their advertisements now contain editorial copy that should help shoppers make a more informed decision, or are they just trying to fool us into thinking these advertisements have more credibility because they are "editorialized"? (disclaimer: I hate marketing BS)
posted by mathowie
on May 31, 2000 -
14 comments
The San Francisco Examiner is up for sale? I didn't even know this. I'm surprised no dotcoms have swooped in to buy the dead trees media. Apparently, they need a buyer very soon, or the paper will merge with the SF Chronicle. Will SF become yet another one-newspaper city? Sad...
posted by mathowie
on Jan 29, 2000 -
1 comment
Recently, MTV had a special on 'hackers' (scroll down to last weeks show), but apparently the people they contacted for background info didn't give them an interesting enough story.
So the guys made one up. The guy behind it all says he was just trying to make MTV's journalists look bad, but that's restating the obvious. Of course MTV is clueless and goes to any length to create a story. The worst part is that MTV isn't alone in this, every news outlet does this. The nightly news looks the way it does for the same reasons, it's all about entertainment.
posted by mathowie
on Oct 18, 1999 -
0 comments
The LA Times is working on a new look. My first impression is 'huh?' I know they contracted out
Frog Design, which usually does good work, but have these guys ever tested this on anyone? It's over 700 pixels wide, the custom tabs on the left take up half the screen space, leaving little for articles (and taking all the focus away from the news). Why would you go to a Newspaper site, but for news? I hope this is an early beta, because it needs work.
posted by mathowie
on Sep 22, 1999 -
0 comments
