5 O’Clock Roundup: Perp walk for Raj, breakthroughs at Microsoft, still no jobs
Intel CEO Paul Otellini says he had no idea one of his employees was being investigated for fraud — At least that’s what he told the Wall Street Journal. “It is not clear whether these people were just bragging or whether they were in it for the money,” Otellini said of Intel treasury department executive Rajiv Goel, now facing conspiracy and securities fraud charges for allegedly providing inside info to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: UK’s new largest telco, Yahoo CEO dumps stock, ethics wonking over David Pogue
Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom will merge their UK operations, forming the Brits’ largest operator — O2 will soon be second to the merged carrier, which will have a combined market share of 38%. The Wall Street Journal reports what you’re already thinking: ”The deal is likely to be looked over by the U.K. Office of Fair Trade, which considers all deals that create an entity with a market share greater than 25%, and, depending… Continue Reading
Inside peek: How The New York Times uses blogs
[Correction: This post originally stated that the Times' copy desk editors don't review and edit blog posts. They do. Their edits to my posts have been minimal, so I did not notice them.]
At Google’s 10th anniversary of Blogger event on Tuesday, I was surprised how many of the blogging experts in the room were unaware of the broad and deep adoption of blogging tools at The New York Times, one of my several freelance employers. So with… Continue Reading
Pogue: Snow Leopard crashes Word, Photoshop, printer
New York Times gadget guru David Pogue wrote in his review of Apple’s brand new operating system, Snow Leopard, that he experienced “frustrating glitches” with several applications and parts of the user interface. We asked him to stretch it out a bit and tell us what exactly the glitches were. The glitches turn out to be Windows-grade failures that could stop you from doing your job.
Hey Paul!
It’s very difficult to say whether my experiences will… Continue Reading
New York Times CEO: Advertising won’t keep us afloat
The New York Times is, for some readers, a bible of news and commentary. So it’s important whether or not the Times survives the gut-churning economic changes in the newspaper business that have knocked out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, threaten to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, and are forcing the Times to sell off the Boston Globe. Even angry bloggers rely on the Times — who else have they got to pick on?
Bloggers may soon… Continue Reading
New York Times makes bloggers’ day with drop in Q2 earnings
The New York Times Company’s cost-cutting efforts and higher newsstand prices have paid off, but the company has a long way to go to get itself out of financial trouble. Second-quarter profit clocked in at $23.3 million after factoring in employee severence and pension packages, plus (or actually, minus) depreciation and amortization of its assets, which include the new office building just outside Times Square in Manhattan. That’s a 42 percent drop from last year’s… Continue Reading
New York Times appoints a “social media editor”
How’s this for a dream job? America’s paper of record has reassigned one of its editors to be the in-house expert on Facebook and Twitter.
You can read up on Jennifer Preston’s background in this morning’s entertainingly cruel Gawker post. More important is that the New York Times as an organization takes social networks seriously as a work tool. A leaked internal email describes Preston’s role:
Jennifer is our first social media editor. What’s that? It’s someone who concentrates… Continue Reading
Roundup: Has Della got its groove back? Hulu, Google, etc.
Here’s the latest action:
Dell revises “Della,” its netbook marketing web site targeting women, after allegations of sexism — As Jezebel covers.
The once and future Valleywag — Owen Thomas (pictured right) is leaving to become editorial director of NBC Bay Area later this month. Ryan Tate will be taking over. Here’s Thomas’ farewell post.
The New York Times will figure out how to charge for some content by the end of June — The New York Observer has learned.
“Does Hulu,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Fox News launches uReport, AT&T doubles 3G capacity, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Fox News gets citizen journalism arm on MySpace — Contributors to uReport can only upload and tag photos and videos, presenting fewer possibilities than CNN’s similarly named iReport.
AT&T doubling 3G capacity — The company, whose 3G network is the source of frequent complaints from iPhone owners, says it will increase downlink capacity from 3.6 to 7.2 megabits per second through base station software upgrades.
Startup icons create seed-stage fund in Europe – European Founders Capital, a… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google’s layoffs, Pick Your Five’s popularity, and more
Here’s the latest (layoff heavy) action:
Google lays off 200 employees — Most of the cuts are happening in the sales and marketing departments, where Google has over-invested.
Pick Your Five application surges on Facebook — The app from LivingSocial, which asks you to list your five favorite movies, books, and so on, has grown to more than 6 million users since launching a week ago.
IBM laying off 5,000 people — Many of those jobs will be transferred to India.
Opera… Continue Reading
New York Times lets anyone search its 2.8 million articles
Updated
[Disclosure: The New York Times syndicates VentureBeat content]
The New York Times has been exposing more data to external websites and applications recently, and now it’s providing the most promising access of all: the ability to search the Times’ entire online article archive going back to 1981.
The Times is doing so through application programming interfaces (APIs), which let third-party company developers access the data easily.
I was already impressed by attempts to share campaign finance data, other… Continue Reading
If the New York Times dies, does the news die?
The death of an institution isn’t far off, writes the Atlantic in an article titled End Times, and with it an entire industry may be preparing to slip underwater. Low on cash, high in debt, the legendary New York Times is reeling from the recession. There’s no guarantee that it, or many others of our best newspapers, will survive the next year.
The immediate effect of the Times ending its storied run (or degrading to a… Continue Reading
Now live: VentureBeat’s syndication deal with the New York Times
VentureBeat’s previously mentioned syndication deal with the New York Times went live today. Take a look at the screenshot. The Gray Lady is featuring our stories in a mini-section in the homepage of its Technology section. Click on one of our story links and you’ll be taken to the full version, hosted on the Times’ site.
We’ll only be syndicating some stories, though. This self-congratulatory post, for example, won’t be showing up. In order for us… Continue Reading
New York Times syndicates VentureBeat
The New York Times announced today that it will syndicate VentureBeat’s content, as part of a redesign of the Times’ online technology section.
This is great for VentureBeat. The Times has long represented excellence in the news profession. The partnership is an endorsement of something we’ve been working hard to achieve, which is to publish content that is credible, edited, engaging and informative. Second, by placing VentureBeat articles on the front of the Times’ tech page,… Continue Reading
Roundup: New York Social Times, a cleaner MySpace, and Wii Fit underwear girl
The New York Times adds social networking: The nation’s biggest daily newspaper is embracing Web 2.0 with the launch of its new online feature: TimesPeople. This beta program allows users to build up a friends list and view a news feed for stories that their friends are recommending. It shows that newspapers aren’t just sitting back and letting the Internet wipe them out. On a personal page, a user can save all of the content… Continue Reading
Roundup: Texas Instruments lowers overall cell phone forecast, but women drive smart phone sales
Texas Instruments says cell phone sales weakening: TI said that sales of chips for wireless handsets were “unseasonably weak,” causing the bellwether company for the cell phone economy to lower its second-quarter earnings outlook. The Dallas-based chip maker said that it expects revenue to be $3.17 billion to $3.28 billion, compared with the previous estimate of $3.08 billion to $3.32 billion. It’s interesting that TI is seeing the slowdown in advance of one of the biggest… Continue Reading
Diller calls New York Times “loony,” Internet companies over-valued
Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive of InterActive Corp., the large Internet conglomerate (owner of Expedia, CitySearch, Evite, Ask) responds to the accusation by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof that his $469 million salary is too high, and that he is lazy.
Diller (pictured here, at right) calls the New York Times’ editorial policy on executive compensation “loony.” The original Kristof column is here (ignore the photo in the link’s article; the Sun-Sentinel has… Continue Reading