RSS
FEATURES |
eBUSINESS |
HR |
MANAGEMENT |
MARKETING |
ENTREPRENEUR |
SMALL BUSINESS
INDUSTRIES:
Book Publishing Jobs, Job Listings & Careers Search
Find your next Book Publishing career. Search Book Publishing jobs from thousands of job and career search sites.
A search engine for jobs with a different approach to job and career searches. In one simple search, job
seekers get free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites.
Find your next job in Book Publishing today.
Wilder promoted at Variety
Publishing News: Titles, jobs change in newsroom restructuring -- Kirstin Wilder has been promoted to managing editor of Variety , responsible for overseeing production, finances and personnel for the editorial department.
Army Archerd to receive posthumous award
Publishing News: Late Variety columnist honored by Asbestos Disease Awareness Org -- Variety columnist Army Archerd will be honored posthumously by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) next month in Chicago.
Writer Judith Paige Mitchell dies
Publishing News: Penned adapation of 'Client,' 'Burning Bridges' -- Novelist and TV writer and producer Judith Paige Mitchell died of cancer on Feb. 10 in Los Angeles. She was 77.
Top team set for DC Comics
Publishing News: Lee, DiDio named co-publishers; Johns new CCO -- Warner Bros. has taken another big step in proving to fanboys just how serious it is about bringing more of DC's superheroes to the bigscreen.
New chapter for Goyer
Publishing News: Screenwriter and partner branch into sci-fi books -- Filmmaker David S. Goyer is expanding his dominion to the bookstore.
Writer J.D. Salinger dies
Publishing News: 'Catcher in the Rye' author was 91 -- J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
'People's History' author Howard Zinn dies
Publishing News: Book by leftist political activist was a best-seller -- Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist "A People's History of the United States" became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday of a heart attack in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87.
Detroit broadcaster James Quello dies
Publishing News: Veteran was former FCC commissioner, Variety reporter -- James H. Quello, a former Detroit broadcaster who served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission for 24 years, including as acting chairman of the agency in 1993, died Jan. 25 at his Alexandria, Va., home. He was 95.
NY Times to charge for Web access
Publishing News: Partial paywall will be built this year for 2011 launch -- The New York Times says it will charge readers for full access to its Web site starting in 2011, a risky move aimed at drawing more revenue online without driving away advertisers that want the biggest possible audience.
Celebrating Army Archerd
Publishing News: Spielberg, Poitier, Reiner pay tribute -- At Monday's memorial service for Army Archerd, Steven Spielberg said the late Variety columnist had been "our industry's continuity. He was the link between the golden past and the rapidly changing present."
Hoping for bright future
Publishing News: Scholarship winner pursues path as critic -- With constant cutbacks and some orgs ridding themselves of the position entirely, professional film criticism is not exactly a growth industry.
Disney closes Marvel deal
Publishing News: Studio cements ties with Stan Lee -- Mickey Mouse has officially adopted a whole bunch of superhero playmates.
Google cuts into European news niche
Publishing News: German, Italian newspapers seek legal protection -- In continental Europe the growing controversy over how Google and other search sites are impacting the news industry is taking on contentious tones.
Hollywood Reporter sold to e5 Global Media
Publishing News: Billboard, Adweek, Backstage also acquired -- The Hollywood Reporter has been sold to e5 Global Media, a new company jointly owned by equity partner Pluribus Capital Management and financial services firm Guggenheim Partners.
Hachette Filipacchi plans lifestyle website
Publishing News: Magazine publisher partners with BermanBraun -- Hachette Filipacchi wants its own Wonderwall for women.
Leo Wolinsky named editor of Daily Variety
Publishing News: Former L.A. Times editor, reporter to begin in January -- Leo Wolinsky, an editor and reporter at the Los Angeles Times for 31 years, has been named editor of Daily Variety, encompassing both the L.A. and Gotham editions.
Randy Michaels to top Tribune
Publishing News: Sam Zell names CEO, but remains chairman -- Sam Zell has handed the CEO reins at Tribune Co. to his top lieutenant, Randy Michaels.
NewBay acquires Reed publications
Publishing News: B&C, Multichannel, Twice to be purchased -- New York-based NewBay Media has struck a deal to purchase trade publications Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and Twice from Reed Business Information, parent company of Variety.
Murdoch talks future of online journalism
Publishing News: News Corp. CEO defends pay-for-news model -- To thrive in the digital age, media companies need to persuade consumers to pay for news online by providing compelling information in any form they want, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday.
Charlie Rose subscribes to BusinessWeek column
Publishing News: PBS host to pen weekly piece for news magazine -- Charlie Rose is headed to BusinessWeek. The interviewer and host of the eponymous PBS show will pen a weekly column for the news magazine, featuring interviews with "thinkers, politicians and newsmakers" according to a press release.
Variety.com - Publishing News
The premier source of entertainment news. Turn to Variety.com for timely, credible articles, reviews and analysis of film, TV, music, theater, video, gaming and movie and television production -- information vital to your showbiz career.
Free Top Stock Picks Alerts - Sponsored Link
Ad - www.InvestorSoup.com Mar 17 2010 6:21PM GMT
Borders Execs Eligible for Retention Bonuses
PublishersWeekly.com Mar 17 2010 6:21PM GMT
Miller Leaves HarperStudio to Become Workman Publisher
PublishersWeekly.com Mar 17 2010 6:21PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital Content Available Only on nook(TM)
Street Insider Mar 17 2010 6:10PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital
Business Wire via MSN Money Mar 17 2010 6:10PM GMT
Waterstone?s net loss jumps as earnings restated
Biz Journals Mar 17 2010 6:10PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital Content Available Only on nook?
EuroInvestor.co.uk Mar 17 2010 6:09PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital Content Available Only on nook?
EuroInvestor.co.uk Mar 17 2010 6:09PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital Content Available Only on nook?
Sys-Con Media Mar 17 2010 5:56PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Introduces More in Store: Free, Exclusive Digital Content Available Only on nook
FinanzNachrichten.de Mar 17 2010 5:51PM GMT
Book Publisher Tries Reversing the Fate of Industry with Viral Video
Mashable Mar 17 2010 5:35PM GMT
Barnes & Noble Ahead of Earnings
Traders Huddle Mar 17 2010 5:33PM GMT
John Grisham works to be published as e-books
Daily India Mar 17 2010 5:15PM GMT
Sale price on Entertainment Books full of coupons for restaurants, more
WalletPop Mar 17 2010 5:04PM GMT
Book Signing at Simply Books with Best-Selling Author Jaynie L. Smith
PRLog Mar 17 2010 4:55PM GMT
BORDERS to push book club meetings
Planet Retail Mar 17 2010 4:42PM GMT
Author Gerald Posner acknowledges failure to source material for new book
Macleans Online Mar 17 2010 4:31PM GMT
etc: Another publisher experimented with giving away e-books for free and was met with a 20x increase in book sales. Try before you buy still works!
ArsTechnica Mar 17 2010 4:28PM GMT
Macedonian authors, musicians at Leipzig Book Fair
MTnet Mar 17 2010 4:17PM GMT
Bangladeshi scholar publishes book on Gülen's life, teachings
Cihan Media Services Mar 17 2010 3:49PM GMT
British Bookshops on course for profitability after sale
Drapers Mar 17 2010 3:49PM GMT
Auction Of Rare Jewish American Printed Books. Internet Participation Possible
Jewish Community of Dniepropetrovsk Mar 17 2010 3:28PM GMT
Ingram Book Company Selects SmartDog's Zero Dollar Agreement (ZDA) for Demand-Driven Support of its Oracle Applications
Austin Business Journal Mar 17 2010 3:26PM GMT
Jones Lang LaSalle Featured in Ranjay Gulati's Harvard Business Press Book 'Reorganize for Resilienc
Interest!ALERT Mar 17 2010 3:16PM GMT
Higher oil prices will not be enough for Newfoundland and Labrador to balance the books in its upcoming budget, Premier Danny Williams says.
CBC Mar 17 2010 2:49PM GMT
Jones Lang LaSalle Featured in Ranjay Gulati's Harvard Business Press Book 'Reorganize for Resilience' for Putting Clients First
Earthtimes.org Mar 17 2010 2:44PM GMT
Quality, Depth Vault Romney Book to No. 1 on NYT Best-seller List
NewsMax.com Mar 17 2010 2:34PM GMT
Jones Lang LaSalle Featured in Ranjay Gulati's Harvard Business Press Book 'Reorganize for Resilience' for Putting Clients First
Sys-Con Media Mar 17 2010 2:18PM GMT
Galaxy Press Announces Free iPod Giveaway Contest with Stories from the Golden Age Audio Books
Houston Business Journal Mar 17 2010 1:57PM GMT
Ingram Book Company Selects SmartDog's Zero Dollar Agreement (ZDA) for Demand-Driven Support of its
Interest!ALERT Mar 17 2010 1:35PM GMT
Ingram Book Company Selects SmartDog's Zero Dollar Agreement (ZDA) for Demand-Driven Support of its Oracle Applications
Dallas Business Chronicle Mar 17 2010 1:05PM GMT
Moreover Technologies - Book publishing news
Book publishing news - more than 340 categories of real-time RSS news feeds
Avoid The Newsstand Bloodbath
Distribution can be as brutal as ad sales. But it doesn't have to be. Here are some thoughts on how to best work with and around the system... first up, the newsstand.
What's on Your Back Cover?
Everyone knows that a book’s back cover needs a bar code along with ISBN and price information, but once those are in place, new publishers often are unsure what to add to the back cover of their books. While there are many different views about what should be on a back cover, I believe the best use is to see the back of your book as a mini sales page, including four elements.
Getting Out There
Michael Brooke's eighth article in his series on independent magazine survival gives advice on getting new subscribers. Is bigger better, or does slow and steady win the race?
The Advantages of Self-Publishing
While there has traditionally been a stigma attached to self-publishing, for some writers the option to self-publish has many advantages.
Interview with Independent magazine publisher Woody from Sneaker Freaker
Started as a way to get free shoes, Sneaker Freaker has become a world-wide pheonomenon with a ton of influence in its niche.
Why Book Publishers Should Be on Twitter
When I speak to publishers about the benefits of Twitter, I get one of two reactions. They either respond enthusiastically, or they declare that Twitter is a complete waste of time.
Who are the needles in the haystack?
Michael Brooke's seventh article in his series on independent magazine survival shows you which readers your magazine should be pursuing.
Are Self-Publishing Companies Cheating by Removing the Hurdles to Get Your Books Published Faster?
Are self-published authors not paying their dues? Are self-publishing services encouraging cheating the system? Brent Sampson thinks not.
A to Z of Self-Publishing
This excerpt from The Economical Guide to Self-Publishing: How to Produce and Market Your Book on a Budget takes you through self-publishing from A to Z
What's Your Magazine's Focus?
A ball bearing publisher is not concerned primarily by size but rather by stature. What does that mean? Find out in the sixth installment of The Ball Bearing and the Beach Ball where Michael Brooke talks about focus.
Interview with Gloria Hildebrant of Escarpment Views Magazine
Gloria Hildebrant, a freelance writer and editor, has contributed to many magazines over her career, but now has a magazine of her own. Along with co-publisher Mike Davis, she has a little over one year of publishing Escarpment Views under her belt. Learn how she's keeping her readers and advertisers happy, even in a tough economic climate.
Learn to Write Like Ben Franklin
Ben Franklin wasn’t born a gifted writer. He had a rigorous and demanding method to improve his writing that you can use too.
Selling Advertising
Michael Brooke's fifth article in his series on independent magazine survival shows how a niche publisher can attact and keep advertisers.
Interview with Suzanne Soto-Davies of Silver and Gold Magazine
While some print magazines are looking at a bleak future, Suzanne Soto-Davis has her sights set high. Her two year-old magazine's 55+ demographic is growing, they're a boon to advertisers, and they are avid magazine readers.
5 Ways Authors Can Find Out Who is Buying Their Books
Authors must find out who their readers are in order to build profitable lasting relationships with them. Identifying readers who buy books from bookstores and independent distributors is usually impossible. The solution? Bonus content online.
Magazine Survival Guide : Advertising and Sales
Michael Brooke's fourth article in his series on independent magazine survival explains how he approaches advertising.
A Strategy For Getting Your Self-Published Book into Bookstores
It's fine to say that you don't need to have your books in brick and mortar bookstores as long as you've got the Internet, but every author and publisher wants that real world presence in their local bookstore, and especially in bookstore chains. Here's a strategy to make that happen.
Interview with Cynthia Moyer of Open Magazine
Cynthia Moyer is a social enterprise publisher of a health and living magazine with one of the most unique twists to magazine publication we've seen. Each issue of Open Magazine is focused around one colour, and all the products, stories and articles are linked to that colour. Find out how colour, a social mission, and a strong desire to serve open minded, intelligent women, are driving explosive growth for one magazine.
Magazine Publishers: Let's Get Small!
Michael Brooke's third article in his series on independent magazine survival advises new publishers to be small. Very small.
A Crash Course in Submitting a Children's Book Manuscript
While the submission process may feel like second nature to experienced writers, it's easy to forget that newcomers aren't aware of the specific procedures. And since everyone can benefit
from a refresher course now and then, here's a rundown of the steps.
Why do you want to publish a magazine?
Michael Brooke asks why on earth you're in, or want to enter, this ghastly, cruel marketplace, and has some great advice if you've got the gumption to stick it out.
Booklets, Another Way to Sell Your Books
Why would someone want to turn their book into a booklet? This gives readers a bite-sized palatable introduction to a new topic in their life rather than first delving into a 200-page book as their first experience with new information.
Publishing Books in a Slow Economy
Previous economic downturns have shown that people continue to spend on entertainment. In fact, movie attendance actually spiked during the Great Depression. Some have attributed this to the need to escape bleak reality, and what is better escapism than spending a few hours with a book?
The Ball Bearing and the Beach Ball - Introduction
What does it take to survive, or even thrive, as an independent magazine publisher during these tough financial times? Michael Brooke begins a weekly article series exploring the question.
Consumer Magazines
Consumer magazines generally cater to a non-professional audience whereas trade magazines target a specific profession, trade, or field of science. Some magazines, like computer trade magazines and job listing weeklies, fall into the gray area in between the two categories.
How I Became a Children's Book Author
Multi-genre author Mayra Calvani explains how she went from writing horror fiction to writing books for children, and what she gets out of the experience.
What is a Magazine?
Publishing Central's introduction to magazine publishing begins by trying to narrow down exactly what a magazine is.
Interview with Michael Brooke of Concrete Wave Magazine
Michael Brooke is something of a legend in the skateboarding world. As publisher of Concrete Wave Magazine, he describes himself as a "skater turned publisher," but as our interview reveals, he is as intently passionate about the written word as he is about skateboarding.
Interview with Independent Magazine Publisher Tom Kirkman of Rodmaker Magazine
Ten years ago, Tom Kirkman did what many people would say was nearly impossible. He launched a glossy, color magazine for a small niche market. A decade later, his magazine, Rodmaker Magazine, is still going strong. We interviewed Tom about his successes, difficulties, and lessons learned as a successful independent magazine publisher.
Learn How Kids Can Be Published Authors Too
Kenton Verhoeff is a 12-year old homeschooled boy who has written and published his own book. He offers advice to other young aspiring authors here.
The Rise of Self Publishing
Not long ago, self published books were considered just a few steps above pamphlets run off on a Xerox machine. How did this big change come about?
How To Find A Fashion Magazine Internship
If you are looking to get into fashion magazines as a career, an internship is one of the only ways to break into the business, especially if you want to work for a top level fashion magazine like Allure, Elle or the highly regarded Vogue.
10 Ways to Monetize your Author Blog
If you’re an author who realizes the importance of having a blog to develop a relationship with your existing readers and to find new readers but also needs to write in ways that produce more direct and immediate revenue instead of just tiny blips in the royalty check, then perhaps you need to find a way to make your blog make money for you while it builds your readership.
Publishing Central Updates
Learn about book, magazine and newsletter publishing, plus writing, editing and proofreading tips from Publishing Central.
Jay Leno to Headline White House Correspondents' Association Dinner
CNN reports that Jay Leno will headline this year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner. The comes fresh off Leono's battle for the coveted Tonight Show job with Conan O'Brien and NBC.
Leno agreed earlier this month to appear at the event, before NBC announced his return to hosting "The Tonight Show," the group said. The network's move was prompted by affiliates protesting the poor ratings of Leno's prime-time show.
White House Correspondents' Association dinner will be held in May. The website for the dinner can be found here.
The comedian will share the stage with President Obama at the correspondents' dinner at the Washington Hilton. By tradition, presidents fire jokes at the news corps, political opponents and even themselves at the event, where politicians, journalists and celebrities rub elbows.
Photo: The Jay Leno Show
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
NYTimes.com to Introduce Metered Plan
The New York Times has announced plans to start charging for content on its website at nytimes.com. Users will be allowed to read an unknown number of articles for free each month. To read more articles users will have to pay a fee. Subscribers to the print version of the Times will get unlimited access to nytimes.com.
Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge.
The plan does not come without significant risks. The New York Times has become a world source for news because of the Internet and they risk losing significant traffic if regular users decided not to pay to use the website. If nytimes.com starts losing traffic than the company may have a more difficult time selling advertising.
Executives of The New York Times Company said they wanted to create a system that would have little effect on the millions of occasional visitors to the site, while trying to cash in on the loyalty of more devoted readers. But fundamental features of the plan have not yet been decided, including how much the paper will charge for online subscriptions or how many articles a reader will be allowed to see without paying.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Editor & Publisher Returns Under New Ownership
Editor & Publisher, a leading media industry news source, has returned under new ownership after being closed by Nielsen in December. Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. now owns E&P. Charles McKeown will continue as publisher and Mark Fitzgerald is E&P's new editor.
Charles "Chas" McKeown, who will continue as publisher of E&P, hailed
the sale and the speed and professionalism with which McIntosh and
Nielsen completed the transaction. "Everyone knew what was at stake
here," McKeown said. "Newspapers, which are transforming beyond the
printed page to all forms of digital media, simply could not lose the
one place where the industry could have a conversation with itself and
exchange ideas and best practices for navigating the uncertain waters
ahead, exemplified by our Interactive Media Conference which includes
cable, TV, radio and other media."
Duncan McIntosh said he knew right away he wanted to buy E&P and keep it running. McIntosh said, "Such a critical information source for a newspaper industry so desperately in need of help should not go away. I've
been a reader of E&P over the course of 30 years and know its incredible value to readers and advertisers."
Duncan McIntosh Co. Inc. is the publisher of several well-respected
boating magazines and newspapers, including Boating World magazine; Sea Magazine, America's Western Boating Magazine; The Log Newspaper; and FishRap. The company also produces the Newport Boat Show in the spring and the Lido Yacht Expo in the fall. Both shows are held in California.
Mark Fitzgerald, a 26-year veteran, was named as E&P's new editor. He had most recently served as E&P's editor-at-large.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
RBI Closes Video Business Magazine
Video Business, a home entertain business trade publication, has ceased publication. The January 4 issue was the magazine's last. Video Business says its publisher Reed Business Information (RBI) is in the process of divesting itself of itself of most of its business-to-business publications in the U.S.
Marcy Magiera, editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Video Business, said, "I'm extremely proud of the role VB has played in the home entertainment industry, consistently breaking news, while providing important analysis and insight to our readers for almost three decades. Every staff member and regular contributor here is a first-class business journalist, and I will miss working with this smart, dedicated and caring group of people."
BtoBonline.com reports that Reed Business Information also ceased publishing two other titles, Manufacturing Business Technology and Industrial Distribution. You can read more on the magazine closures at Folio.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Washington Times Cuts Sports Section
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Washington Times has cut its sports section and reduced its newsroom staff by 40%.
The newspaper will revamp to focus on politics, business and investigative reporting. The newspaper's Thursday edition announced the layoffs and said the last sports section would appear Friday. A new print edition will be launched Monday.
The new cuts come in addition to job cuts in early December. The Washington Times sports section was printed for the last time on December 31st.
Among those let go was the newsroom leader, Managing Editor David Jones. The newspaper announced several management changes, though it's not clear who will oversee the newsroom operation. Christopher Dolan was appointed Wednesday as national politics editor and Brett Decker as editorial page editor.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Ashton Kutcher Relaunches Show on YouTube
The CW quickly canceled Ashton Kutcher's model drama, The Beautiful Life, after just two shows. Ashton Kutcher isn't letting that stop his show. He is turning to YouTube to relaunch the show. Reuters reports that Kutcher believes the show can "find its legs on the Web."
"What we feel like we're doing is creating, in some ways, an industry first," Kutcher told Reuters. "A show that couldn't find its legs on television, we believe can find its legs on the Web."
Several episodes that never aired on tv will be aired on YouTube. Ashton Kutcher is hoping he will be able to land sponsors that will allow new web-only episodes of The Beautiful Life to be produced. It is interesting gamble.
Ashton Kutcher also a huge Twitter following to help him drive traffic to the shows on YouTube. The YouTube channel can be found here.
Using his own production company, Kutcher created "The Beautiful Life" as a show that looked at the underside of the modeling industry, including its cut-throat competition.
YouTube and Kutcher are banking on the TV-level quality to attract viewers in a crowded Web landscape that has plenty of expensively made reruns, but not a lot of high-end original content.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Washington Blade Publisher Shuts Down
FishbowlDC reports that Window Media LLC, the nation's largest gay and lesbian newspaper publisher is closing down. Some of the newspapers they publish ininclude the Washington Blade, South Florida Blade & 411 Magazine, Genre Magazine and Southern Voice.
Politico is also confirming that the LGBT publisher is closing its doors. The closure announcement was also posted on the Washington Blade twitter account. The New York Times has also published a story about the publisher closing its doors.
Posted in ____
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
100 Jobs Cut at the Guardian
The Guardian reports that Guardian News and Media (GNM) are cutting 100 jobs at the Guardian. The Guardian's Thursday Technology print section will also be shuttered.
Staff in GNM commercial departments are due to be told about the impact of the latest cost cutting on their jobs by 9 December, while changes at editorial will take longer to complete because cuts are being managed through voluntary redundancies and redeployment. GNM publishes the Guardian, the Observer and the guardian.co.uk website network, which includes MediaGuardian.co.uk, and employs about 1,700 people.
Layoffs have been widespread and deep throughout the newspaper industry over the past several years. This year has been especially brutal thanks to a combination of internet competition and the recession.
GNM also revealed in the series of staff briefings today that the Guardian's Thursday Technology print section will cease publication at the end of the year.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Hachette Filipacchi Media Closes Metropolitan Home and Pointclickhome.com
Hachette Filipacchi Media is shuttering Metropolitan Home magazine. Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. will focus on its other home decor title, Elle Decor, instead. Hachette Filipacchi Media is even closing its home portal Pointclickhome.com.
The WSJ says data from the Publishers Information Bureau indicates ad pages for Metropolitan Home fell 33% in the first nine months of 2009. The December issue of Metropolitan Home will be its very last.
Other home magazines including Conde Nast's Domino and O at Home have also been closed recently because of diminished advertising revenues in the recession.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
TopTenReviews Acquires Space.com, LiveScience.com and Newsarama.com
TopTenReviews has acquired the Consumer Media Division of Imaginova Inc., a privately held company based in New York City. Included in the acquisition are Space.com, LiveScience.com and Newsarama.com. TopTenReviews has established the TechMediaNetwork to incorporate these properties. Combined, 12.2 million people visit TechMediaNetwork sites each month.
"This acquisition expands TopTenReviews' coverage as a trusted technology adviser and strengthens the company as a source of technology news," said TopTenReviews founder and CEO Jerry Ropelato. "We see strong potential for growth in traffic and revenue as a result of the synergy between the sites."
PaidContent says TopTenReviews raised $6 million in 2008.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Fortune Reduces Its Publishing Frequency
Fortune magazine is reducing the number of issues it publishes annually from 25 to 18. Reuters reports that the business magazine may also cut staff.
Fortune, like many other U.S. business magazines, has struggled in the advertising downturn.
The New York Times reports that the cuts are part of a new round of layoffs from magazine publisher Time Inc.
Fortune will publish two issues some months and just one issue during other months, in the new publishing schedule is part of a remodeling that is expected to result in staff cuts and a sharper focus on the long stories that have been its trademark, the Journal said.
The changes are part of another round of budget cuts at Time Inc., the nation's largest magazine publisher. Some layoffs were expected by year's end, though the executive said the number had not yet been determined. The news was reported in Friday's Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal story about the changes at Fortune says big changes are planned for Fortune.com. The WSJ article says the magazine is even considering charging for features like the Fortune 500.
Through September, ad pages across the magazine industry have fallen 27.3 percent this year, but business magazines fared much worse. Fortune, down 34.9 percent, was among the hardest hit, while its closest competitor, Forbes, was down 30.8 percent. Fortune's paid circulation, just over 850,000 in the first half of this year, has changed little in the last decade.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Newsday Starts Charging $5 Weekly Fee
Newsday has announced that people who are not Optimum Online customers or Newsday customers will have to start paying a $5 weekly fee to access Newsday.com.
Those who are not customers of Optimum Online or the newspaper - both owned by Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems Corp. - will have to pay a $5 weekly fee. However, nonpaying customers will have access to some of newsday.com's information, including the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings. There also will be some limited access to Newsday stories.
"We are excited about this model because in addition to a unique ability to immediately reach about 75 percent of Long Island households, we believe the hyper-local approach is right for Long Island," said Debby Krenek, Newsday managing editor and senior vice president/digital.
Newsday described the move as one that would create a "pioneering Web model," combining the newspaper's newsgathering services with Cablevision's electronic distribution capabilities. About 75 percent of Long Island households are Newsday home delivery or Cablevision online customers or both, according to Newsday. Optimum Online customers total 2.5 million in the New York area, the paper said.
$5 a week is a lot to charge for online access. Even the Wall Street Journal doesn't charge that much for an annual online subscription. Dvorak says it amounts to $260 a year. Editor & Publisher says Newsday will "listen" to feedback and may tinker with what content is hidden behind the online newspaper's subsscription wall.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
New York Times Cutting 100 Newsroom Jobs
The New York Times Media Decoder blog is reporting that the Times is cutting 100 newsroom jobs, about 8% of the total newsroom jobs. The job cuts will happen by the end of the year, which is not far away.
The program mirrors one carried out in the spring of 2008, when the paper erased 100 positions in its newsroom, though other jobs were created, so the net reduction was smaller. That round of cuts included some layoffs of journalists - about 15 to 20, though The Times would not disclose the actual figure - which was the first time in memory that had happened.
Media Decoder says the Times is mailing buyout packages to the entire newsroom staff on Thursday and employees have 45 days to decide whether to apply for it. A lot of newspapers and magazines are struggling right now because of the recession and the switch to from print to online news. It reduced advertising dollars from the recession came at a terrible time for the newspaper industry.
The paper has made much deeper reductions in other, non-newsroom departments, where layoffs have occurred several times. But the advertising drop that has pummeled the industry has forced cuts in the news operation as well. The newsroom already has lowered its budgets for freelancers and trimmed other expenses, and employees took a 5 percent pay cut for most of this year.
Reuters has published a memo about the job cuts from New York Times Executive Editor Bill Kelle here.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Get Married Magazine Debuts
Get Married Media has announced the launch of Get Married magazine, a new shopping and trend guide for brides. The wedding magazine includes editorial features on real brides, wedding professionals and experts, as well as an array of inspiring challenges, trend round-ups, product profiles, shopping guides and informative articles.
Get Married is giving the first issue of its magazine for free. Subsequent quarterly issues will be on newsstands beginning January 2010. Annual subscriptions (4 issues) are available at $14.96.
"Get Married magazine is as smart as it is fun, and the response has been tremendously positive from brides, advertisers and wedding professionals. By creating a user-friendly tool that offers choices and guidance on an array of the latest wedding products and trends, we make it easy for brides to simultaneously plan and shop," said Stacie Francombe, founder and president of Get Married Media. "Brides are smart, they are passionate, they like to discover, and they enjoy instant information, and Get Married magazine and getmarried.com afford them the luxury of immediate gratification - it's a girl's dream."
Get Married magazine is closely integrated with the Get Married TV show and GetMarried.com website, which offers brides an interactive experience, including a newly-launched wedding shop that sells products as seen in the magazine, as well as a wedding blog, video segments from the show, articles, image galleries and tools.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Conde Nast Closes Several Publications
The big news in the magazine industry this week was Conde Nast's decision to shutter several publications. The publications being closed include Gourmet, Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride. 180 people at Conde Nast will lose jobs as a result of the titles closing.
The L.A. Times describes a sudden switch at glossy magazines form generous expense accounts to cutbacks and firings.
Generous expense accounts were de rigueur at glossy fashion and lifestyle magazines. Some top editors and publishers enjoyed clothing allowances and mortgage assistance. Even lowly assistants flitted about in chauffeur-driven town cars.
There have been reports that consulting firm McKinsey & Co. put Conde Nast publications through a brutal review. Even with the cuts and closed publications, Conde Nast may still have job cuts and other cost cutting in its future. Slate compares Conde Nast to General Motors. The Guardian says Conde Nast is slated to lose $1 billion in revenue this year. A publisher can't endure that kind of advertising setback without drastic cuts.
But that culture has been turned on its head as the magazine business reels from the battered economy, the drop in advertising revenue and restraints on expenses.
Conde Nast's unexpected closure Monday of venerable Gourmet and three other magazines underscored the swift and brutal fall of what had been one of the city's most elite and free-spending industries.
Meanwhile, Conde Nast is launching a dating site targeted at fashionistas. This does not seem like the type of project that will boost the company's revenues by much.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
New Large Format Pet Magazine Deubts
Tame is a new large format, broad-spectrum pet magazine for the Southwest Area. The format of Tame is slightly larger than your standard magazine. Tame is conscious of the ever growing problem of abandoned and abused pets. It's staff is active in raising awareness and support for local animal charities. A portion of ad sales and subscriptions directly benefit animal rescue efforts.
Tame is a free quarterly publication. You can the website here.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Ebony Magazine May Be Up For Sale
Newsweek has a story that says Johson Publishing may put its flagship publication, Ebony, up for sale.
It's been a year of excruciating decisions for publishing companies-layoffs, pullbacks, closures. Now it appears Johnson Publishing's chairman and CEO, Linda Johnson Rice, has reached what must have been an agonizing decision: Johnson Publishing is seeking a buyer or investor for its flagship publication, Ebony, in an effort aimed at securing the survival of the nation's oldest magazine devoted to African-American life. It's unclear whether the company's other properties, including Jet, would be part of a possible sale.
It's not a good environment to find a buyer or investor for a print magazine in this economy and in the the digital age. However, the strongest brands, like Ebony, should do the best. Ebony's website can be found at EbonyJet.com.
According to media and investment executives familiar with the developments, Chicago-based Rice, the daughter of Ebony's legendary founder, the late John H. Johnson, has approached, among others, Time Inc., Viacom, and private investors that include buyout firms. Time Inc., the world's largest periodical publisher, already owns Essence, a monthly lifestyle, beauty, and fashion magazine for African-American women. Viacom, meanwhile, owns BET (Black Entertainment Television).
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
Poll Finds Just 5% of Brits Would Pay For Online News
A recent PCUK/Harris Poll found that just 5% of British news readers would pay for online news. 75% would immediately switch to an alternative free news source.
Someone should send the results to Rupert Murdoch since he really, really wants users to have to pay.
(via 901am)
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
MSNBC Acquires EveryBlock
MSNBC.com has acquired a local news service called EveryBlock. The service is billed as a news feed for block. It lets users track nearby crimes, restaurant inspections, news and more by zip code.
"EveryBlock's talented team has a track record of innovation in the industry, and we're excited to add them to the msnbc.com brand family," Tillinghast said. "They've broken new ground with their unique approach to collecting, organizing and presenting news down to the block level. Their impact and importance in the community space is extremely valuable and carries promise for journalism and new business models."
EveryBlock's service is offered in about a dozen cities so far. MSNBC also acquired the social news website Newsvine in October 2007.
"Joining with msnbc.com gives us the resources to turn EveryBlock from a cool, useful service into something much bigger," said Adrian Holovaty, founder of EveryBlock. Holovaty and the company's staff of five will remain based in Chicago.
Permalink | Archives | News Feeds
The Write News
News, features and resources for media and publishing professionals.
W3C Serves 130 Million XML DTDs Per Day
A Java application I wrote that reads several dozen RSS feeds started running into trouble with the W3C. Feeds failed with HTTP 503 "Service Unavailable" errors like this one: Server returned HTTP response code: 503 for URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd At first I thought this was a temporary error. HTTP 503 errors are defined to indicate that a server is temporarily overloaded or undergoing maintenance. However, the W3C Systems Team announced in February 2008 that they were dealing with so much traffic for their XML DTD files that they were using 503 errors to deal with bandwidth-hogging XML clients that request the files too often: ... we receive a surprisingly large number of requests for such resources: up to 130 million requests per day, with periods of sustained bandwidth usage of 350Mbps, for resources that haven't changed in years. ... A while ago we put a system in place to monitor our servers for abusive request patterns and send 503 Service Unavailable responses with custom text depending on the nature of the abuse. Our hope was that the authors of misbehaving software and the administrators of sites who deployed it would notice these errors and make the necessary fixes to the software responsible. But many of these systems continue to re-request the same DTDs from our site thousands of times over, even after we have been serving them nothing but 503 errors for hours or days. Although the problem went away for reasons I don't yet understand, I'm looking for a way to read local copies of the XML DTDs with the XOM Java XML library. XOM doesn't yet support XML Catalogs, an XML standard for handling this kind of issue.
Huffington Post Censors Jesse Ventura on 9/11
A March 9 commentary submitted to Huffington Post by former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura was removed after publication by the site, which replaced it with a note stating that contributors are banned from engaging in conspiracy theories: Editor's Note: The Huffington Post's editorial policy, laid out in our blogger guidelines, prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories -- including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post. "I can't believe the Huffington Post today will practice censorship. I've got news for them," Ventura responded to the action. "I won't ever write for em again." I get tired of a lot of the conspiracy stuff posted by users on the Drudge Retort, which gets 2-4 posts a day from Infowars, Prison Planet and similar sites, but I've never banned it. I know it's difficult for Huffington Post to deal with fringe stuff -- the conservative group blog Red State kicked off birthers and truthers last month -- but the Post is doing a public disservice by allowing no discussion at all on a subject. Ventura is a former governor. When prominent people challenge the government, the idea that their views should be censored on the grounds they are a "conspiracy theory" is antithetical to open debate in a free society. Any far-out idea could be dismissed as conspiracist. Would the Post have censored Jim Garrison from writing about the Kennedy assassination? The site is running Jenny McCarthy's dangerous autism vaccine quackery, a view widely discredited by medical experts. To combat the censorship, I republished Ventura's censored 9/11 commentary yesterday and gave it major news banana treatment on the Retort: You didn't see anything about it in the mainstream media, but at a recent conference in San Francisco, more than 1,000 architects and engineers signed a petition demanding that Congress begin a new investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9-11. That's right, these people put their reputations in potential jeopardy -- because they don't buy the government's version of events. They want to know how 200,000 tons of steel disintegrated and fell to the ground in 11 seconds. They question whether the hijacked planes were responsible or whether it could have been a controlled demolition from inside that brought down the twin towers and WTC Building 7. His views aren't faring too well in the Retort discussion. But they deserve to be heard.
Boston Herald: Alabama Shooter Played D&D
Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons -- just like Michael "Mucko" McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000. Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald. "They even acted this crap out," the source said. I didn't think the press was still capable of anti-D&D hysteria like this. Back in the '80s, Joe McGinness wrote a ridiculous true-crime book on some murderer who blamed D&D for his crime, Tom Hanks starred in the anti-D&D TV movie Mazes and Monsters and grieving mother Patricia Pulling began the scare group Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, blaming the game caused her teen-age son's suicide. But these days, D&D and role-playing games are about as controversial as Yahtzee. Millions of people played the game as kids and grew up without worshiping the occult or committing murders. The deaths of game creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in recent years were major news covered across the globe, sparking countless remembrances by people who huddled around a table with dice when we could've been experimenting with drugs and alcohol. (I was going to say drugs, sex and alcohol, but who am I kidding?) Today, millions of people play MMORPGS and other videogames that are D&D in everything but name. Like out and proud D&D geek Stephen Colbert, I was a dungeon master in my youth (and not the cool kind who wears assless leather chaps and ties women up on torture wheels in my basement). I've managed to reach middle age without killing anybody at all, not even a single drifter or truck stop prostitute.
A story I missed last month: After University of Alabama-Huntsville professor Amy Bishop was arrested for shooting up her faculty department, Boston Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet blew the lid off a shocking angle of the crime: Bishop was an avid player of role-playing games.
The Heavy: David Letterman Likes Them Now
On Jan. 18, the British band The Heavy impressed David Letterman so much with their song "How You Like Me Now?" that he did something he's never done before in the history of his program -- he asked for an encore. The YouTube video is the televised broadcast -- which edits out most of the encore -- but you can see it in full in high quality on Letterman's web site. Paul Shaffer and Letterman even perform part of the encore. There have been some great live performances on Letterman, including TV on the Radio's Wolf Like Me and Phoenix's 1901, but that one tops them all.
Google Flags MSNBC.Com as Malware Site
I was reading news stories this afternoon on MSNBC when one of its pages triggered a malware warning in Google Chrome: The website at www.msnbc.msn.com contains elements from the site adrotator.mediaplex.feed-mnptr.com, which appears to host malware -- software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent. Just visiting a site that contains malware can infect your computer. According to Google's safe browsing alert for that feed-mnptr.com domain, it has contained three trojan programs and five browser security exploits. The domain has been used as an intermediary to infect users of Digg, CNBC and MSN.Com. I can't check without visiting the MSNBC page, which would be extremely dumb, but based on the domain the malware appears to be coming in from a third-party ad service. There was a report Wednesday that the Drudge Report had hosted malware, probably from an ad network.
AP Keeps Accused Rapist's Name Secret
The Associated Press reported today on a 51-year-old New Jersey man facing trial for raping five of his daughters, three of whom allegedly bore his children from the assaults. He faces 27 charges including sexual assault, child endangerment and criminal sexual contact, but the wire service has decided not to name him in its coverage: The Associated Press generally doesn't identify victims of sexual crimes and is not reporting the names of the husband and wife to protect the identities of their children, now all over 18 years of age. The longstanding media policy to shield some crime victims from being identified has always been a questionable one, since people who suffer rape aren't the only victims who might be harmed by the publicity generated by a trial. Here, though, the policy has been extended to the perpetrator of a crime. I question whether in a free society it is acceptable to put someone on trial and potentially imprison them while never revealing the person's name to the public. What if someone has information pertaining to the accused that ought to be known to police? What if other victims are out there who might never know to come forward unless told of the arrest? In any case, the web has made it considerably more difficult for information of this kind to stay secret. The New Jersey Star-Ledger and New York Daily News identify the accused rapist as Aswad Ayinde.
Deterring Spammers with Fake MX Records
For the past 48 hours, I've been dealing with a Sendmail server that was shutting down frequently with a load average above 13. The server's getting flooded constantly with spam attempts to non-existent users on more than 100 domains. I've set up Sendmail to use a virtusertable that rejects every non-valid email address with a "user unknown" error. This is helpful, but Sendmail still has to take the time to reject each spam attempt. Since all but six domains on the server don't receive any mail at all, I wanted to find a way to stop Sendmail from receiving any requests for those domains. After doing some research, I decided to try setting a fake MX record for the domains that do not send or receive mail. Here's how MX records are set for these domains: There's no mail server associated with that hostname. On servers that do exchange email, fake MX records can be used to deter spammers. Most email servers are equipped to deal with mail servers that are unavailable. They queue the outgoing mail and try an alternate mail server, if one has been defined for the domain. Spam software can't take the time to queue an outgoing mail for delivery later because it is sending millions of messages. If it finds a mail server that's unavailable, it gives up and goes on to the next server. Putting fake servers as the first and last MX record in a domain supposedly discourages spammers without affecting the receipt of legitimate email. Spammers hit the fakes and give up. Legitimate mail servers hit a fake, then try the next option and deliver the mail. Here's how MX records can be set to achieve this: The mail1.example.com and mail3.example.com servers are fakes that don't resolve properly. The functioning mail server is at mail2.example.com. So far, the approach appears to work. Legitimate email is getting through and most domains aren't getting any spam attempts at all.IN MX 10 mail.example.com.IN MX 10 mail1.example.com.
IN MX 20 mail2.example.com.
IN MX 30 mail3.example.com.
Former Sun CEO: Steve Jobs Threatened Patent Suit
Former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz began a new blog three weeks ago called What I Couldn't Say to "put context around some of the decisions I faced at Sun," now that he's free from the corporate obligations to watch his words. Schwartz writes today about tech company patent wars, revealing a 2003 meeting where Apple's Steve Jobs threatened Sun over patents: In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were "stepping all over Apple's IP." (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, "I'll just sue you." My response was simple. "Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence -- do you own that IP?" Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I'd help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where theyâÂÂd found inspiration. "And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too." Steve was silent. As a longtime Java book author I can remember the Project Looking Glass pitch. I can't think of any reason why Jobs would threaten patent litigation to stop it. Sun proposed and abandoned countless big ideas over the years.
Meet Sarah Killen, Conan O'Brien's Favorite Twit
Since joining Twitter on Feb. 24, Conan O'Brien has amassed more than 534,000 followers and posted 10 tweets. Contractually exiled from late night television until September, O'Brien has embraced the new medium, sharing inane personal details of his life, airing petty grievances and even posting a Twitpic of how many people it takes for him to compose each tweet. Friday afternoon, O'Brien announced that he has taken his first follower: I've decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change. Killen, a Fowlerville, Michigan, resident who has the username LovelyButton, has already acquired 10,200 followers and become one of Twitter's trending topics. Furthering the insanity, her recent tweet calling Fowlerville resident Russell Bigos "an idiot" is making him a figure of scorn and sympathy. Killen's fiance John Slowik Jr. posted on Facebook Jan. 12 that he was "about to woop bigos in nba2k10," so this could be a videogame basketball rivalry gone terribly wrong. We'll have to wait for the media to dig for answers. MTV did a video interview with Killen Friday night. She told MTV she was asked in advance by an O'Brien rep if it would be OK to pick her. Since her selection, she's received a free Apple iMac from HornBlasters and offered other freebies for her impending wedding. Killen posted a link on Twitter to her Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure donation page, where she's raised $1,100 towards her $5,000 goal in nine hours. By the way, I've also decided to follow someone at random. He likes nipple clamps and the metric system. Jonathan Bourne, your life is about to change. Update: Sarah Killen is friends on Facebook with Aaron Bleyaert, the former Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien blogger, so it's possible that the selection wasn't entirely random. This scandal could go all the way up to the top! What did Coco know and when did he know it?
Google Isn't Trying to Screw RSS
Dave Winer claims on Scripting News today that Google is playing dirty with RSS in favor of Atom: ... Google is going to start reading feeds, but if I understand correctly, they're going to ignore the billions of RSS feeds out there, and ask everyone to convert to Atom to get more currency in search. You can imagine that I don't like this. I wouldn't like it even if I didn't play a big role in getting those billions of feeds out there. I wouldn't like because I have thousands of RSS feeds on my servers, and believe me -- they are not changing to Atom anytime in the next few decades. I don't think I'm alone in that. Now a little preaching. Big companies always feel they can push the rest of us around, but I gotta say -- I've never seen it work. Usually the lesson they learn is that they would be better off if they would just Go With The Flow, and let the users guide them. Nothing wrong with reading Atom feeds, but to ignore RSS, well guys that's just plain dumb. Give up the fight Google. You don't have to acknowlege me, but RSS -- that's a force of nature. That's why I did rssCloud -- for you -- to give you the impetus to do what you should have done naturally, support the formats that the users have chosen. It's not too late to get our relationship back on track. I'm not your enemy, I'm just one guy in an apartment in the West Village writing on my blog. He understands incorrectly. If he's talking about the news that Google may use PubSubHubbub (PuSH) to allow web publishers to submit new content to the search engine, there's no reason that this development would exclude "billions of RSS feeds." The PuSH protocol does not make feed publishers or software developers choose Atom instead of RSS. The protocol works equally well with feeds in both formats. If a hub is monitoring an RSS feed, it sends RSS data out to interested clients. If it monitors an Atom feed, it sends Atom. This blog is proof of that. I upgraded my blog a few months ago to send out updates using the protocol. Although my feed is in RSS format, PuSH has no trouble transmitting updates. People who are reading my blog in Google Reader or Google Buzz -- two of the first popular clients to support PuSH -- will get this blog entry a few seconds after I publish it. PuSH is the best way to deliver real-time updates to RSS or Atom feeds. Now that WordPress supports the format on all 7.5 million blogs on WordPress.Com, all of the leading blog platforms have adopted the format. The alternative, RSSCloud, still lacks a specification seven months after Winer revived it. There's only some rough implementation notes and no process in place to enable interested parties to decide what features the protocol will contain or how the spec will be written. Google, if you're reading this, I'm concerned about our relationship. Why don't you call me any more? Things can be good again, baby. I'm sorry I got so angry before. I love you so much sometimes it just makes me crazy.
There was some early confusion because the PuSH specification was not clear on this point. To address the issue, I made some spec suggestions in September and Brett Slatkin incorporated them into the current draft of the specification. The spec leaves no doubt that PuSH is designed for both formats.
Parenthood: So Heart-Warming It Hurts
I posted a review on Mister Television of NBC's new drama Parenthood: The Parenthood pilot on NBC was the most exhausting television I've endured this season. The show begins with Peter Krause jogging down a Berkeley, Calif., street. The jog has left him wheezing for air, in spite of the fact that Krause is physically fit and doesn't appear to have an ounce of fat on him. (I make this observation in an entirely heterosexual way.) He's sitting on his taut buttocks (OK, that was a little gay) when he gets a call from his sister Lauren Graham. She's moving to Berkeley with her teen-age daughter, who is acting out sexually with boys out of frustration with the fact that her mom is hotter. Graham needs to know that she's making the right decision by moving, and if she's making the wrong decision she wants to blame Krause. In between his dying breaths, Krause agrees to this deal. I challenge anyone to write a more detailed review while missing the last 50 minutes of the episode. I run the site with television's Jonathan Bourne. We're going to start up a TV death pool there in the fall that's 10 percent better than the competition.
CBS News Whores for Cheap Hits from Google
Yesterday, the CBS News web site ran a five-paragraph story on the fact that Susan Dey was absent from a Partridge Family reunion: The Partridge Family cast was one member short when they reunited on television Tuesday morning. The cast of the popular '70s sitcom appeared on the Today Show as part of their "Great TV Families Reunited" series, but actress Susan Dey, who played eldest daughter Laurie Partridge, was not in attendance. Danny Bonaduce, who in the years after his child stardom faced drug addiction and legal troubles, was present for the reunion. The show, which centered around a widow and her five children who embark on a music career, aired from 1970-1974. A similar absence occurred Monday morning, when the cast of Eight is Enough reunited on the morning program minus actor Adam Rich. The actor endured many personal issues after his time on the show, including arrests and substance abuse. This story, which contains no quotes and looks to have been written in about five minutes, was published solely for one reason: Dey was a volcanic search term on Google Trends yesterday. People wanted to know why Dey was absent, so they looked on Google. CBS is promoting a rival network with the story and even links to video on NBC's web site. There are a lot of online news sites and blogs that use Google Trends as their assignment desk, churning out poorly researched stories quickly to capitalize on a hot news search term. Weak-ass Dey stories were filed by such august journalistic enterprises as Puggal, Associated Content and Thaindian News. So the network of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow is in good company.
Real-Time Twitpic Images Coming from Chile
When news breaks such as today's massive earthquake in Chile, one of the first places where images show up from the scene is on Twitpic, a popular image-posting service for Twitter users. You can find links to these images on Twitter search by including "twitpic" as one of your search terms, but that's not as useful as seeing thumbnails of the actual images. You have to click each link to see what it contains. To make it easier to see the images being posted about Chile, I wrote a Java application this morning that uses the Twitter and Twitpic APIs to download thumbnails and display them in reverse chronological order. Each thumbnail can be clicked to open the photo on Twitpic's site. The application produces a web page and RSS feed, updated every two minutes. The application is a mashup that does the following: I'll be releasing it under the GPL when it's done. This application includes support for PubSubHubbub, so subscribers can see new photos show up in real time with clients such as Google Reader.
SeaWorld Killer Whale Kills Second Trainer
Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando, was killed today by a killer whale at the beginning of a performance. Eyewitness accounts differ, but she was reportedly dragged into the water, shaken violently and kept underwater until she drowned. The whale, Tilikum, is the largest in captivity and has been involved in two fatal incidents prior to this one. In 1999, a park visitor hid at SeaWorld until closing and jumped into the pool with the whale. The man was found dead in the pool the next morning and had suffered hypothermia and scrapes from being dragged along the pool's bottom. Eight years earlier, Tilikum was one of three whales who drowned Keltie Byrne, a 21-year-old trainer, at Sealand of the Pacific, after she slipped and fell into the pool. The PBS series Frontline did an story on the issue of killer whale trainer safety in 1995, A Whale of a Business. The web site for the story includes a chapter from the 1992 book The Performing Orca: Why the Show Must Stop by Erich Hoyt. The chapter makes interesting reading in light of today's events, since it focuses strongly on Byrne's death. Hoyt accuses SeaWorld of covering up training injuries and disregarding evidence that killer whales don't like to be ridden: ... it was all too late for Keltie Byrne. Her parents have decided so far not to sue Sealand, preferring to put the tragedy behind them. The jury at the public inquest was unable to agree on the real cause of Byrne's death, beyond drowning. Why did orcas, which had never killed a trainer in marine parks or in the wild despite thousands of encounters, suddenly kill a human? Was it "an accident waiting to happen," if not at Sealand, then at Sea World or almost any park, especially one where basic safety procedures are overlooked? ... In September 1991, Sealand owner Bob Wright put the three orcas up for sale. But what marine park wants to take three orcas that killed their trainer? Even before Sealand announced the whales were for sale, Sea World was preparing an application to NMFS to import them. Hoyt has a web site and remains active on the issue of using killer whales in performances. I asked him a few questions and here's what he told me in email: I think that this is an awful tragedy for the trainer and her family. But that it is avoidable: orcas do not belong in captivity. What I worry about is that things will be focussed on Tilikum, that he is an older male, and his history of having been involved in the death of two other people. Sea World or others may try to say that it is this one older male whale's fault. There are quite a number of other accidents that could well have been fatal that were caused by other captive orcas, females and males, although they do tend to be animals that have been in the parks for awhile. As I reported in The Performing Orca and also in some detail in Orca: The Whale Called Killer, trainers have noted that orcas start to get bored and go a bit crazy after a few years in captivity. You must imagine a highly intelligent social mammal and a big predator normally travelling 100 kms or more a day, then taken from its family, stripped of its ability to socialize normally, to hunt and to travel. What it has left is its relationship to the trainer, but how long can that really keep them interested? It is not surprising that an animal starved of company and stimulation will pull a trainer into the water, or try to keep them in the pool...even to the point of drowning them. Very sad, but again, we know how to correct this situation. Orcas are too big, too social, too wild to be kept in captivity. The picture of Dawn Brancheau ran Dec. 30, 2005, in the Orlando Sentinel.
Review: Russell Baker's 'Growing Up'
On a recent trip to the local Barnes & Noble, I was surprised to see Russell Baker's Growing Up in the autobiography section. The book came out 26 years ago and Baker has faded from the public spotlight since his retirement in 1998 from the New York Times, where he was a popular columnist. I picked the book up, figuring it must be a pretty good memoir to have outlasted the author's fame, and noticed a week later that the bookstore had already reordered a copy. Although the specifics of Baker's childhood are often grim, he writes with a sense of humor about himself that reminded me of Jean Shepherd's narration in the movie A Christmas Story. This is particularly true when he describes how his lack of aptitude for anything else led him to journalism. "The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer," he writes, "and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." Baker's modesty about his own abilities is misplaced. He writes well, telling the human cost of the Depression through the lives of his relatives. He focuses in particular on his mother and her diminishment of opportunities. A college-educated schoolteacher, she remains jobless for years and can't fulfill her dream of putting the family in their own home until he's almost in college. The Bakers are so poor that at one point she gives up her third child, still an infant, to be raised by childless relatives. Baker's mother ends up living through her children, leaning hard on Russell to make something of himself and putting him to work on the streets selling the Saturday Evening Post when he's just eight years old. She's so miserly about affection and praise that by the end of the book, I needed a hug. Unfortunately, the story ends with Russell as a newlywed who has not yet made anything of himself as a journalist, so there's never the cathartic third-act moment where the mother makes clear that her sacrifices on behalf of her only son were worth it. That bummed me out. Although he's retired from the Times and a second gig hosting PBS' Masterpiece Theatre, Baker still writes occasionally for New York Review of Books.
Baker's book is a great memoir. He tells the story of his childhood growing up in the Depression, which takes him from a rural Virginia shack without electricity or running water to stark poverty in Belleville, New Jersey; and Baltimore, where his widowed mother must rely on the charity of family members to feed the family. Baker, born in 1925, frames the story with his 84-year-old mother's lapse into dementia at a nursing home, which has untethered her from the present and drops her into random points in her life. One day he comes to see her and is met with the question "where's Russell?" In her mind, she'd become a young mother again with a three-year-old boy and a younger sister. Russell's father, who she met when his car broke down leaving the local moonshine distillery, had not yet died in his early thirties from diabetes because insulin wasn't available.
Workbench
Programming, Publishing, Politics, and Popes