Friday, February 04, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
How many are really journalists?
Following up on saving newspapers vs saving journalism, this article tells about how small a percentage of the typical newspaper business is really actual journalism. It is very small.
The paper investigated, apparently a pretty good one too, has almost twice as many people just covering sports as it has journalists, for example.
This one is worthwhile too. It outlines some reasons why micropayments doesn't work. For example, it prohibits sharing in this brave new social-networking world.
I was a big fan of micropayments back in the day, and I was one of their biggest sellers when BitPass was working, before it went bust. But it was clear that people preferred to buy a big bundle of content rather than many small bits, even when there was no price advantage to doing so. So I guess it just won't work. I think people don't want to use attention on deciding many times a day whether to spend twenty cents or not.
The paper investigated, apparently a pretty good one too, has almost twice as many people just covering sports as it has journalists, for example.
This one is worthwhile too. It outlines some reasons why micropayments doesn't work. For example, it prohibits sharing in this brave new social-networking world.
I was a big fan of micropayments back in the day, and I was one of their biggest sellers when BitPass was working, before it went bust. But it was clear that people preferred to buy a big bundle of content rather than many small bits, even when there was no price advantage to doing so. So I guess it just won't work. I think people don't want to use attention on deciding many times a day whether to spend twenty cents or not.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The Daily, iPad newspaper (updated)
Third update 6 Feb:
I think the format works, but as one might have predicted, the content does not interest me. Last year I tried newspapers for a while, and they simply do not hold my interest, they don't write about anything of consequence.
But a similar format might be used for interesting magazines.
Second update: outstanding article.
“If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work.
... It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
OK, so today The Daily launched, Rupert Murdock's e-paper made for the iPad. (I can't download it now, surely the server is over-loaded.)
Let's see if it works well. I'm not optimistic, because it's rare that successes in new media are done by companies which were successful in old media. It tends to be more organic than responding to brute force. Otherwise Microsoft would be king of the internet, search engines, music, etc.
Not to be cynical, but it's a bit amusing to watch an 80-year-old ultra-establishment newspaper baron stand up and speak about creating a Fresh New Voice in media! :-)
But the price, 99c per week, is right, and from the video, at least the interface seems simple and well thought out. Most reading app interfaces on the iPad suck toxic muck through a rubber hose. Confusing. And on many you can't even change the text size! Talk about missing the basics.
Here is an interesting article about the new-fangled e-reading formats.
As for the “newspaper industry,” those people and organizations that are able to adapt to new technologies and markets will do just fine. But “newspaper” is not the same as “journalism.” Let’s not confuse the wine with the bottle [my emphasis]. The economics of newspapers as we’ve known them for 50 years have changed. Yet for many of the jobs that people long hired newspapers to do — weather, sports, classifieds, movie times, local news — better and cheaper alternatives have emerged that show demand is still strong for that kind of information. That demand may no longer support the overhead and margins expected by a newspaper company, but that’s OK with me.
It is not OK with people in the newspaper business, but heck, if they had been in the typewriter business, it would have happened sooner.
Now I think about it: newspapers are not for "journalism". Who reads papers to read well-researched and well-written articles? They read them to get gossip and to get weather info and classifieds etc. And this is being taken over by the Internet in various forms. The percentage of newspaper readers who would pay to read "well-written articles" is minuscule.
Update:
I'm test-driving The Daily now, and it's not bad. Doesn't have much in the way of content for me of course, I don't care much about politics or sports or fashion for example, and I'd like it to have a technology section, but the interface is indeed good. Except, haha: you can't change the text size! The one they have chosen is not bad, but for older readers text size is an issue, and it's one of the great advantages of a tablet that you can change it. If they just design the pages for it, that is. In fact, an electronic publication shouldn't even have "pages", that's an outdated concept based on paper.
I think the format works, but as one might have predicted, the content does not interest me. Last year I tried newspapers for a while, and they simply do not hold my interest, they don't write about anything of consequence.
But a similar format might be used for interesting magazines.
Second update: outstanding article.
“If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work.
... It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
OK, so today The Daily launched, Rupert Murdock's e-paper made for the iPad. (I can't download it now, surely the server is over-loaded.)
Let's see if it works well. I'm not optimistic, because it's rare that successes in new media are done by companies which were successful in old media. It tends to be more organic than responding to brute force. Otherwise Microsoft would be king of the internet, search engines, music, etc.
Not to be cynical, but it's a bit amusing to watch an 80-year-old ultra-establishment newspaper baron stand up and speak about creating a Fresh New Voice in media! :-)
But the price, 99c per week, is right, and from the video, at least the interface seems simple and well thought out. Most reading app interfaces on the iPad suck toxic muck through a rubber hose. Confusing. And on many you can't even change the text size! Talk about missing the basics.
Here is an interesting article about the new-fangled e-reading formats.
As for the “newspaper industry,” those people and organizations that are able to adapt to new technologies and markets will do just fine. But “newspaper” is not the same as “journalism.” Let’s not confuse the wine with the bottle [my emphasis]. The economics of newspapers as we’ve known them for 50 years have changed. Yet for many of the jobs that people long hired newspapers to do — weather, sports, classifieds, movie times, local news — better and cheaper alternatives have emerged that show demand is still strong for that kind of information. That demand may no longer support the overhead and margins expected by a newspaper company, but that’s OK with me.
It is not OK with people in the newspaper business, but heck, if they had been in the typewriter business, it would have happened sooner.
Now I think about it: newspapers are not for "journalism". Who reads papers to read well-researched and well-written articles? They read them to get gossip and to get weather info and classifieds etc. And this is being taken over by the Internet in various forms. The percentage of newspaper readers who would pay to read "well-written articles" is minuscule.
Update:
I'm test-driving The Daily now, and it's not bad. Doesn't have much in the way of content for me of course, I don't care much about politics or sports or fashion for example, and I'd like it to have a technology section, but the interface is indeed good. Except, haha: you can't change the text size! The one they have chosen is not bad, but for older readers text size is an issue, and it's one of the great advantages of a tablet that you can change it. If they just design the pages for it, that is. In fact, an electronic publication shouldn't even have "pages", that's an outdated concept based on paper.
Wallpaper patterns
These are two wallpaper patterns in OS X. I like them, but the OS provides only those two. Does anybody know a good resource for large pattern type wallpapers?
Update:
Ray found this page. Many are a bit loud, but some are nice. (Many of those I like best, though, have way overdone vignetting, I wonder why.)
(This one is louder than I was looking for, but it's kept in two colors, and the detail in it is really wonderful. Find it in many sizes here.)
Glif: An atom-based product, developed in bits
Glif: An atom-based product, developed in bits, article in the Economist.
The $70,000 raised so far is a small sum in the consumer product world, but two or three years ago, few of the steps that the Glif took between conception and production even existed. Atom-based production is still messy, but thanks to the efficiencies of electrons, the threshold for even considering it is a good deal lower.
I really like the Glif. I have it sitting permanently on my iPhone 4, it gives a good grip and it's made of high-end dense plastic which feels really good. Just today I used it for viewing video postcast while being out for lunch.
The article was made before the Glif was done, but it has some interesting data about modern prototyping and funding.
I paid the premium to also get the 3D-printed prototype. I have that one sitting on the tiny, light-weight GorillaMobile tripod, for more flexibility in positioning the iPhone both for viewing and for photographing. (The GorillaMobile comes with it's own adapter, but it's far more fiddly.)
It would be handy if the iPhone 4 camera app had a ten- and two-second self-timer to avoid camera shake, but it doesn't. Fortunately there's a cheap app for it. (Apple outta put it into the standard app though, so you can get all the features together with it.)
Update: Geoff B said:
I use the app Gorillacam by Joby.inc on my iphone4 - adds self timer, time laps, bubble leveler, 2/3rds grid lines and more. Works really well and its free.
Thank you. It also adds a time-lapse function, and an anti-shake function (Seems it shoots when the camera is most stable). There doesn't seem to be any way to control the focus though.
The $70,000 raised so far is a small sum in the consumer product world, but two or three years ago, few of the steps that the Glif took between conception and production even existed. Atom-based production is still messy, but thanks to the efficiencies of electrons, the threshold for even considering it is a good deal lower.
I really like the Glif. I have it sitting permanently on my iPhone 4, it gives a good grip and it's made of high-end dense plastic which feels really good. Just today I used it for viewing video postcast while being out for lunch.
The article was made before the Glif was done, but it has some interesting data about modern prototyping and funding.
I paid the premium to also get the 3D-printed prototype. I have that one sitting on the tiny, light-weight GorillaMobile tripod, for more flexibility in positioning the iPhone both for viewing and for photographing. (The GorillaMobile comes with it's own adapter, but it's far more fiddly.)
It would be handy if the iPhone 4 camera app had a ten- and two-second self-timer to avoid camera shake, but it doesn't. Fortunately there's a cheap app for it. (Apple outta put it into the standard app though, so you can get all the features together with it.)
Update: Geoff B said:
I use the app Gorillacam by Joby.inc on my iphone4 - adds self timer, time laps, bubble leveler, 2/3rds grid lines and more. Works really well and its free.
Thank you. It also adds a time-lapse function, and an anti-shake function (Seems it shoots when the camera is most stable). There doesn't seem to be any way to control the focus though.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
How to fit two girls in a small box
How to fit two girls in a small box, video. This is totally insane.
Boom Boom - John Lee Hooker
Very early version.
Related repost: John Lee Hooker with ZZ Top playing Boom Boom (MP3 file). For lovers of either blues or rock guitars.
Metal wall, fence, tree
From this page. (It's not a new page, but I just stumbled over this pic and I like the tones and textures for a desktop pic).
Gabriel & Dresden: Tracking Treasure Down
The version I have (8mins, 41sec) has a great outro with a little child singing the song alone, this I didn't find on youboobs. She only has an approximation of the melody and the words, and she's singing it like she's sitting in her own thoughts or drawing in a coloring book or something, and when she finishes, she says "I'm done".
(Technically a re-post, but it's been over four years, so.)
iPhone shutter effect
The photo is found here.
Here are some weird shots from a scanning camera.
Though not really related to the moire effect mentioned in last post, I just remembered the amazing visual effect of this photo. The effect is said to be from the shutter scanning across the frame. I guess the iPhone has an electronic shutter instead of mechanical one with a moving slit going across the frame, though I'm not sure how it's relevant to the effect.
I'm wondering though if this photo is not composed from several exposures, each one having one strip of that propeller?
Update:
Alex found this video which shows just how this happens, very kewl.
Here are some weird shots from a scanning camera.
Though not really related to the moire effect mentioned in last post, I just remembered the amazing visual effect of this photo. The effect is said to be from the shutter scanning across the frame. I guess the iPhone has an electronic shutter instead of mechanical one with a moving slit going across the frame, though I'm not sure how it's relevant to the effect.
I'm wondering though if this photo is not composed from several exposures, each one having one strip of that propeller?
Update:
Alex found this video which shows just how this happens, very kewl.
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