“Most news sites online now … have been charitably described as a giant ball of mud … My own employer’s site at one point was created by 23 different Javascript programs that added bits and pieces of functionality.”
But newsrooms really can “do more with less” if the process of creating less rids them of the right people, processes and technologies and replaces them with more productive alternatives. Not saying that’s happening, but it’s definitely possible.
“Autoweek recently reported that General Motors is on the verge of approving an El Camino-like vehicle to slot into the new Pontiac G8 model lineup.” AstroTurf in the bed included?
“Business news cable network CNBC announced Wednesday that it is expanding its coverage of the housing market with a daily report called ‘The Home Front.’”
“American cars have for years been little more than curiosities abroad. They are too big to park in normal parking spots in Europe or elsewhere abroad, such as in space-challenged Japan. They are too wide for most roads. And they guzzle gas.”
“As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons …”
Now then. We’re gutted about losing Will, but we’re not closing up shop. In fact, we’re down in the laboratory cooking up some truly cracking stuff, none of which I can discuss until you sign some nondisclosure forms, agree to participate in a Klingon blood oath ritual, etc. (Idea rejected in an early project planning session: Citizen journalism powered lolcat thingy. The lol wasn’t LOL-y enough. That’s just how committed we are to quality.)
So, if you think you’re as awesome as Will, you’re not. But if you aspire to be, get in touch. No formal openings or anything at this point, but we’re always open to more awesome. You would get to work with me, which, no joke, literally several people would agree is a considerable incentive in itself. And Matt, who built this entire site in less time than it took to warm up a frozen burrito in the microwave. True story. And Peter, who starts in a few weeks and once wrote a single, perfectly elegant line of code that correctly predicted the winner of the 2005 Kentucky Derby. That also is a 100 percent true and accurate story.
“After poking around a bit, this blogger has learned that this date for first flight date comes from a very senior source close to the 787 program. Of course, this date is all dependent on the late March weather conditions in Everett.”
“… new in this beta release is the ability to directly embed the API from Microsoft and Google into ArcMap. You can drape your own data over the existing globes and then use this as an element on your Page Layout …”
Street View thumbnails now appearing in location search balloons. Personally, I’d rather have orthoimagery more recent than 2004 in my area than Street View coverage. My neighborhood is still an undisturbed scrub forest in Google Maps!
New “Terrain” view in Google Maps shows mountains, valleys, junk like that. Elevation maps of Florida have never been terribly interesting, I’m afraid.
“Learn from science as well as the wisdom of our ancestors, and wash your hands.” I wash my hands upwards of 50 times a day. Good hygiene, or brain disorder?
Howard Owens touched on an issue I’ve thought about quite a bit lately: Outsourcing of key functions in the newspaper industry. The dangers of over-enthusiastically embracing vendors spread far beyond the specific instance that is the topic of Owens’ post, however. By outsourcing so many of our most important functions, we surrender our expertise in those areas, the very expertise that is necessary, that is absolutely crucial, to innovating and surviving.
Think about real estate listings and search. Real estate is a class of revenue of huge importance to newspapers, and therefore a set of capabilities as critical as any of our industry’s core competencies. Yet responsibility for real estate is all too commonly handed off to a vendor. Sometimes the vendor relationship is direct, sometimes it is via a corporate parent, making the separation between the individual newspaper and the skills and abilities integral to a massive portion of its revenue base that much wider.
The vendor relationship need not even be a paid contract to pose a danger to newspapers’ core competencies. Think editorially. Despite the wealth of public record real estate data available at low or no cost, business (more…)
“Although neither is available to the public yet, earlier reports suggest that upcoming service pack releases for XP and Vista have an unintended result – they make XP ‘considerably faster’ than the much touted Vista.”
AP President Tom Curley writes of imprisoned photographer Bilal Hussein: “We believe Bilal’s crime was taking photographs the U.S. government did not want its citizens to see.”
“The fact is that airlines … have realized that they really don’t have to cater to economy passengers – most of whom are booking on price alone, and who increasingly have no real airline loyalty – because the cost of doing so would never be worth it i
