The power of the
Reddit AMA: Forbes on the "interview revolution that has everyone talking." "Comedian
Louis CK took a chance on a Reddit AMA by offering Redditors the chance to purchase his Live at Beacon Theater performance for $5 through his website. The result: over $1 million in sales in the first 10 days and a new distribution method. (
previously) ... One New York Times bestselling author I spoke to saw their Amazon rank jump from 800 to 400 and stick, meaning a spike in hundreds and possibly thousands of books a day for more than a week." Just today,
Kevin Smith and
Steve Albini stopped by to chat with Redditors; other celebs who have done AMAs include
Bob Odenkirk,
Ken Jennings and
Molly Ringwald. But it's not all about celebrities -- ordinary people with interesting stories do AMAs as well, including a
former "Daily Show" intern and a
couple who met through a Craig's List missed connections ad.
posted by Clustercuss
on May 8, 2012 -
74 comments
The Media Map: Who's Reading What And Where: [Forbes] We worked with Bitly and its data on millions of Web clicks to find the most influential media outlets in the country. This map shows which news sources are read and shared at above-average levels by state. Roll over and click on the media outlets below to see where they influence readers and which stories were big hits. Updated monthly to reflect the latest trends.
More about the map.
posted by Fizz
on Mar 27, 2012 -
19 comments
"In one corner of Manoj Bhargava’s office is a cemetery of sorts. It’s a Formica bookcase, its shelves lined with hundreds of garishly colored screw-top plastic bottles not much taller than shot glasses. Front and center is a Cadillac-red bottle of 5-Hour Energy, the two-ounce caffeine and vitamin elixir that purports to keep you alert without crashing. In eight years 5-Hour has gone from nowhere to $1 billion in retail sales. Truckers swear by it. So do the traders in Oliver Stone’s 2010 sequel to
Wall Street. So do hungover students.
It’s $3 a bottle, and it has made Bhargava a fortune."
posted by vidur
on Feb 9, 2012 -
59 comments
Why are Indian Reservations So Poor? Forbes writer John Koppisch says it's because of a lack of individual property rights. In a
detailed response, the executive director of non-profit organization Village Earth says: "I find it ironic how academics and journalists try to come up with new theories to explain poverty on reservations but fail to take into account the obvious. The government owes Native Americans at least 45 Billion dollars yet, in the settlement offered by the Obama administration, they are being compensated for less that .06% of that."
[more inside]
posted by desjardins
on Dec 14, 2011 -
101 comments
"This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time. Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ratio will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry."
posted by the young rope-rider
on Dec 3, 2011 -
147 comments
How
Dropbox said "No" to Steve Jobs and lived happily ever after. (So far.)
posted by Trurl
on Oct 24, 2011 -
110 comments
Tevis Howard, a 2007 Brown University graduate and recent recipient of the
Draper Richards Fellowship and the
Rainer Arnhold Fellowship, is the 2005 Founder and Executive Director of
KOMAZA, a non-profit community-based organization in Kenya. KOMAZA's mission is to "end chronic poverty in Kenya by promoting health, economic growth, education, and infrastructure development" through a tree farming
social enterprise. Partnering with the
Tree Biotechnology Project, KOMAZA plants
fast-growning, drought-tolerant Eucalyptus trees as a cash crop for rural, substinance farming communities.
[more inside]
posted by lunit
on Apr 10, 2008 -
7 comments
What it costs to live well in the United States. According to Forbes, living well for a family of four in New York City requires an annual income of $483,800,
compared to $189,923 in Wichita, Kansas. Of course, living well, according to the
methodology, involves a vacation home, a BMW 325i and a Lexus RX 330, weekends at the Ritz, and almost no savings, so you might want to skip one of these things if you are a few bucks shy. Also worth noting, the most expensive
ZIP codes and
houses in the United States (and
the world). Are you living well?
posted by blahblahblah
on Apr 25, 2006 -
83 comments
Speaking Of weight loss and exercise... Those who like their booze also like their nicotine. People who drink to excess also tend to be chronic smokers, and a new report suggests the combination of the two might prove more toxic than either one alone. a small study found chronic smoking + alcohol dependence = increased severity of brain damage. The frontal lobes (short-term storage sites) turn out to be the most damaged. A separate study used rats to show that alcoholism and excessive food intake may share the same chemical pathways in the brain.
Forbes has the HealthDayNews report that focuses mainly on the smokes,
MSNBC looks more at the eats. They also have an interesting
Addictions Sections. Could it be that some folks are just prone to addictions and everyone settles on something different?
posted by Blake
on Dec 17, 2004 -
21 comments
U.S. job growth strongest in 4 years in March. Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the Labor Department said, the biggest gain since April 2000. However, the unemployment rate actually ticked upward from 5.6%, the two-year low seen in January and February, to 5.7% in March.
Note in passing that this took place during the Bush administration!
posted by msacheson
on Apr 2, 2004 -
67 comments
Sex makes you smell better. Er, in that it improves your sense of smell. And it reduces the risk of heart disease. And relieves pain. And even improves
teeth. This Forbes article explains those and other health benefits of getting a little something-something.
posted by NortonDC
on Oct 9, 2003 -
33 comments
City as Loser? Iron City was ranked last out of 40 cities in this year's "Best Cities for Singles" in Forbes magazine. Not that Forbes is the ultimate arbiter of the single life (don't they specialize in male readers over 35 with money?), but your best defense of Pittsburgh or your own medium- or small-sized town would be appreciated.
posted by engelr
on Jun 11, 2002 -
26 comments
Imagine losing almost $6 billion of your own personal fortune in a year and
still being the richest damn human in the known universe, hands down, with no one even close. (If i must, here's a link to the new
Forbes list.) What I want to know is, how come out of the approximately 500 billionaires on the list, only 35 are women, and of those, only ONE made it herself. All the other
super rich dames on the globe either married bucks, or got 'em from daddy.
posted by jellybuzz
on Mar 1, 2002 -
21 comments
Is a technology of ecstasy worth the risk? My favourite critic
Barbara Ehrenreich writes a real thought-provoker for Forbes.
"We don't need ecstasy, of course. For that matter, we don't need plain old genitally driven orgasms either; humans can get along just fine and even reproduce without them. But we are, for unknown evolutionary reasons, wired for ecstatic experience--never mind that our current social arrangements do not encourage it. Since ancient techniques of ecstasy like the danced ritual are no longer easily applicable, why not develop new ones, more congenial to an overpopulated and urbanized world?" Well, why not? Aldous Huxley's Soma is
way overdue anyway.
posted by theplayethic
on Jan 31, 2002 -
18 comments
Robert Johnson is the first black billionaire, and ranks #172 on the
list of richest Americans after he sold BET to Viacom. Does he have a social responsibilty to show more than T&A and comedy on BET, or is he being unfairly singled out?
posted by owillis
on Sep 29, 2001 -
32 comments
Forbes Celebrity 100 Why can't people become commodities? Invest in Julia Roberts, because she has future growth potential, sell GWB because his earnings have peaked, rate Clinton neutral until his latest scandal is over...
posted by owillis
on Mar 5, 2001 -
6 comments
