"Blogging is largely dead."
"There are a lot of stupid people out there ... and stupid people shouldn't write."
"There needs to be a better system for tuning down the stupid people and tuning up the smart people."
Serial entrepreneur and publisher Jason Calacanis has never been opposed to saying what is on his mind. In fact, it is the characteristic that has helped him rise to the top of the Internet publishing world. He sat down with our managing editor Abraham Hyatt onstage at the ReadWriteWeb 2WAY Summit on Monday and dished on his thoughts about the state of publishing, what Google's Panda initiative is doing to websites and what Web 3.0 will be about.
As media consumption devices evolve, so too does the form content takes on those devices. A great example is a new iPad and iPhone app called The Atavist, which is changing the way nonfiction stories are created and sold. Co-founder Evan Ratliff told the audience at the AdAge Creativity and Technology conference yesterday that The Atavist was created to fill a hole in the publishing market.
The Atavist sells multimedia enhanced nonfiction stories. In length they're about halfway between an extended magazine article and a book. It's similar to the content in Kindle Singles, where simplified versions of stories from The Atavist are also made available. In The Atavist iPad app, which I tested out, each story (there are 5 available currently) is packaged into a rich, immersive experience. As well as text, there are photos, videos, audio, links which pop up contextual information, sharing options, and more.
Comcast is looking to try to beat the online video sites at their own game. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cable provider is testing how to deliver live television over Internet protocol to better enable itself to do battle with the likes of iTunes, Hulu, Amazon and Netflix in a trial run at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall.
When giants walk, all others be wary. Comcast's goal is to bring live television to any device that can access the Internet. Its test will be available to MIT students who will be able to watch video on any device this fall. Is this what consumers have been waiting for? Who better to do it than a cable company with a giant infrastructure and content distribution broadcast rights?
The latest report from web usability guru Jakob Nielsen is about iPad usability. It's the second such report from Nielsen Norman Group and it features in-depth analysis about how people are using iPads. As is usual with Nielsen reports, it also lustily lists all the design flaws that his users found - such as touchable areas that are too small, low discoverability and "swipe ambiguity."
I've found some of Jakob Nielsen's past reports too easy to dismiss, due to generalizations about current trends and a lack of specifics when critiquing websites. But this report about iPad usability is a fine return to form for the Web veteran.
French Internet research company Miratech has published research on how users interact with media presented in a physical newspaper versus an iPad. Miratech used eye-tracking technology to determine how users approached each medium and tested their memories to see if there was a difference in information retention.
Newspaper readers finished articles slightly quicker than iPad readers, who were more likely to skim content than to read it fully. Newspaper readers also had better retention, with 90% remembering what they read on paper compared to 70% of users of the iPad. See some of their videos after the jump.
Paulo Coelho is one of the most successful fiction writers today and he actively uses social media to engage with his readers. For the past 25 years the Brazilian author has written many inspirational books, which have garnered him a huge fan base all around the world.
I recently discovered Coelho's writing and have been busy devouring his books ever since. I've also been checking out his online presence, which is based around 3 main platforms: blogging, Facebook and Twitter. Writers and publishers can learn a few tricks from how Paulo Coelho uses social media.
Hyperlocal and mobile news are the big news industry buzzwords these days. AOL is going all out with its Patch initiative and every few months a new hyperlocal news effort is announced, sparking the morbid curiosity of the news industry to see how it will eventually work or fail.
Google may be coming to kill them all.
Google announced today that its "News Near You" product, tied into Google News, will be available from Android and iPhones browsers. The beauty of this for Google is that it costs them essentially nothing to roll out this service whereas Patch and other local initiatives like Washington, D.C.-centric TBD.com spent considerable sums to break into the hyperlocal market. Can Google come in and wipe them aside in one fell swoop?
As television continues to adapt to the Web, expect to see new forms of content emerge that are a hybrid of traditional TV and the latest Web technologies. Last week, television news network Al Jazeera launched a new TV show and website. Called The Stream, it's an indication of where mainstream TV news is heading.
If you like tea with your crumpets and understand that Yorkshire Pudding is neither a pudding, nor dessert, then you might find your knickers in a bunch from excitement with the latest announcement from Flipboard.
The company announced today that three pillars of British life - The Telegraph, The Guardian and one Royal Wedding - are coming to the iPad app's digital pages.
Yesterday, the Associated Press announced that it would augment its syndicated news offerings with content taken from non-profit organizations. According to the announcement:
"Newspapers, for the first time, will be able to request that feeds of nonprofit materials be delivered directly into their content management systems through AP's Webfeeds software. The project will begin testing with nonprofit organizations in California and will use Internet delivery feeds that have been put in place at newspapers over the past year."
