New Media | The New York Observer

Esquire's Augmented Reality Issue

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:18:34 -0500

A few weeks ago, Hearst Corp's Esquire announced that they'd debut a snazzy new "augmented reality" issue and be the first publication to take the relatively new technology into its pages. AR, the hot new trend in iPhone apps, layers data, images and video that users can interact with in real-time. The issue is now on stands and after users download some software (and, oh, P.S., buy a Web cam) they can take a...

Google Books' Wacky Magazine Archives

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:07:17 -0500

Google Books has just launched a digitized magazine stand. In their never-ending quest to archive all media, from Web sites to books, Google is taking on the publishing world and scanning entire issues of magazines, ads and all. Most issues are usually two or three years old--or even a few decades old. It's kind of like heading into your parents' attic and checking out all the yellowing LIFE issues--only online.

Jeffrey Pang, a software engineer...

State Senate Records Get More Transparent

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:28:34 -0500

The New York State Senate's chief information officer team just launched an early version of their Open Legislation Portal today.

The site allows users to search for bills by sponsor, committee, recent actions, and recent votes. You can also search by keyword, like, say, "bicycle" and find relevant bills and data available in four different formats.

Most of this information was already available online, chief information officer Andrew Hoppin told the...

The Cubicle Queue: It's a Smackdown Between Details and GQ! Plus, Bloomberg on the Web, Alice in Wonderland, and More.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:30:24 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

GQ's how-tos - With GQ's individual Web site finally breaking free of men.style.com, deputy editor Michael Hainey told the Observer that video will be a major focus. A few examples? There's the popular video of cover girl January Jones looking icey hott during her...

Condé Nast Releases Another iPhone App: 'Postcard by Concierge.com'

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:16:32 -0400

Just a week after announcing their new GQ iPhone app, which will cost $2.99 per issue and is expected to be in the iTunes store by Nov. 18, Condé Nast announced another new application for readers on the go. But this one is free and available now! It comes from Concierge.com, the online home for Condé Nast Traveler. Users can download "Postcard by Concierge.com" for free, then use it to turn iPhone pics into personalized...

New Digital Ad Manager Sails Into The Atlantic

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:13:29 -0400

Looks like Condé Nast isn't the only magazine company looking to bolster its digital ad sales department. The Atlantic has recruited a former IAC saleswoman and Microsoft ad executive to lead sales for TheAtlantic.com. Breda O'Reilly, who lives in Manhattan, will be their new digital ad manager, according to an announcement released today by The Atlantic.

"The Atlantic's incredible digital success is providing unprecedented opportunities for advertisers to connect with our influential readership," added Jay Lauf, vice president...

Did You Digg It?: Hulu, Marijuana and Dick Cheney Make the List This Week

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:31:20 -0400

If the NYTimes.com most-emailed list was curated by Aunt Mabel, Digg.com's 'top news in all content' list is probably generated by her 20- (or 30-) something nephew: a Twittering, iPhone wielding, card-carrying member of Generation Wii. Here's what this dude (we'll call him Kevin) and the rest of Diggnation have been Diggin' in the past week:

Kill a Kid? Take the Day Off — A Michigan journalist highlights a Dallas, Texas story on...

Conde Nast Digital Names New Publisher [UPDATED]

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:36:30 -0400

Seems like Condé Nast may finally be focused on making money from its digital properties. Just days after the company announced that it will start offering GQ issues for $2.99 a piece on the iPhone, Conde is unleashing a new "sales structure." Digital now has a new publisher in charge of all revenue for their 26 Web properties. He's Josh Stinchcomb, who was in charge of ad sales as the former executive director of...

The Cubicle Queue: Balloon Boy's Dad's Web Show, Candace's Broadroom, Bittman, Gay Marriage & More!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:45:44 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

Balloon Boy's dad's Web show — Richard Heene, the father of the now infamous Balloon Boy, has a history of trying to make it big in strange ways. According to this Fox News article, he was an aspiring actor and filmmaker and created a show called Psyience...

Times Developer To Build Dictionary of the Future

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:00:27 -0400

Six weeks ago, John McGrath had a dream job. Since March 2008, the 39-year-old software engineer had been working at The New York Times on the interactive news technologies team, what he called a "special forces unit," under editor Aron Pilhofer. He was coding Web projects like document viewing programs and features for election season on NYTimes.com.

"I think I had a rock steady job there," he told The Observer over...

Paywall or Not, a Renewed Focus on Digital at the Times

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:51:10 -0400

Last Thursday, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller delivered a speech to the paper's digital team at TheTimesCenter on West 41st Street, outlining several tasks and areas of focus for the next couple of months. Since Jon Landman became culture editor, and left behind his position as the liaison between the newsroom and the digital side, Mr. Keller and manging editor Jill Abramson have been getting a "graduate education" on the digital side,...

.GAY On the Way, Thanks to Joe Dolce

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:28:30 -0400

Early next year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will begin accepting applications for new, and maybe even unconventional, top-level doman addresses besides .com, .org and .net. Not only will they be recieving one from the city of New York for a ".NYC" address, but also from the Dot Gay Alliance, for .GAY.

The group was founded by former Star and Details editor Joe Dolce, who started the media strategy firm, DolceGoldin with...

In the Comments, Some NYT Readers Beg to Pay Online

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:36:18 -0400

After Bill Keller sent out an announcement that New York Times would cut 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year, Richard Perez-Pena wrote up a post on the Media Decoder blog about the cuts. Several New York Times reporters noted on their Twitter accounts that commentors under the post were asking if they could pay money to read the Times online.

Here's a sample:

"Well, there is a solution to layoffs - start charging...

HuffPost's Books Editor Gets Gruff on Plotzing Publicists

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:36:34 -0400

Amy Hertz, the Huffington Post's new books section editor, who is also holding down her editing job at a Penguin division, has a little clarification for all the publicists who have been spamming her inbox with pitches:

"This is NOT a book review section."

Oh, really?

"Let me say that again, because I know about 72,000 publicists just plotzed because they have no idea what to do other than ask for a review," she continued in a...

Foursquare Gets the Times Treatment

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:13:26 -0400

Foursquare, the location-based mobile application that the Observer has featured several times, has (finally!) earned a profile in the New York Times.

As co-creator Dennis Crowley told us in July, Foursquare's next step was to "aim past the nerds." Mr. Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai might get what they want with a Times article, which will reach a widespread, mainstream readership. But is that what its users want? According to Jenna Wortham's piece, "underground status is...

Did You Digg It?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:18:39 -0400

If the NYTimes.com most-emailed list was curated by Aunt Mabel, Digg.com's 'top news in all content' list is probably generated by her 20- (or 30-) something nephew: a Twittering, iPhone wielding, card-carrying member of Generation Wii. Here's what this dude (we'll call him Kevin) and the rest of Diggnation have been Diggin' in the past week:

Fox News isn't even pretending anymore — Over at Salon, Gene Lyons is calling out the network...

Tina's Giving vs. Arianna's Impact: A Philanthropy Vertical Smackdown!

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:54:44 -0400

Looks like Tina Brown's Daily Beast may be riding on Arianna Huffington's charitable coat tails with the launch of Giving Beast, a new vertical that encourages users to read blog posts and stories about cause-related news and opinion, then click on links and widgets to find out how to get involved. Global Philanthropy Group, a consulting service that has worked with Bono, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Sir Richard Branson, among others,...

A New Way To Customize Your Times

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:45:40 -0400

The New York Times digital team recently launched Custom Times Feeds, an online tool that allows users to create their own news feeds of Times articles based on the people, places and topics they care about.

For instance: If a Times reader wants to read every article on, say, CBS and David Letterman, they could scroll through a bunch of irrelevant search results, or click around on the NYTimes.com's business...

Behind The Atlantic's Brave Thinkers

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:38:23 -0400

The Atlantic has a new special issue coming in November featuring Brave Thinkers--27 people who have "risked their careers, reputations, fortunes and in some cases their lives to advance ideas that upend an established order," according to the magazine. NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker, the New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger, Barack Obama and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are on the first annual list.

So what makes Mr. Sulzberger so brave? The fact that...

New 'Impact' on Huffington Post

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:40:01 -0400

Arianna Huffington is launching a new section called 'Impact' on the Huffington Post tomorrow morning. In the new vertical, articles on hot-button issues (gay rights, homelessness, flooding in the Philippines) will include a widget to help readers "plot a course of action," if they want to donate to a cause, for example, according to the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Huffington has partnered with Causecast, a Santa Monica venture with both nonprofit and for-profit divisions,...

The Cubicle Queue: Vintage Gaga, backstage at Gourmet, and more!

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:46:06 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

David Letterman's scandal on YouTube — Letterman's love triangle has been playing out online this past week, with old footage of Stephanie Birkett, a former assistant (and alleged lover) to Mr. Letterman and girlfriend of blackmailer Robert Halderman, appearing in an old sketch (doing a little shimmy,...

New York Mag's MenuPages Go International

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:19:13 -0400

New York magazine's general manager of digital media Michael Silberman told the Observer last month that New York Media's online restaurant and menu listings site, MenuPages.com, was likely expand to more cities soon. Today, MenuPages.com announced site launches for London and Paris--their first overseas projects.

MenuPages already has menus listings for restaurants in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, South Florida and Washington D.C., with 3,000 to 5,000...

HuffPost Opens Books Section

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:46:13 -0400

As the Observer reported last month, The Huffington Post has been working on a books vertical. Today, on Oct. 5th, HuffPost Books went live. The new section has the site's usual amalgam of news, profiles, Q&As, and video--along with users' reviews and essays from the New York Review of Books, which is officially partnering with the site, as the Observer reported.

One NYRB piece on HuffPost's site is a 4,000-word...

The Cubicle Queue: Obama's Health Care Plan, Will Ferrell on Insurance Companies, Australia's Freaky Dust Storm

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:33:17 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

The Obama Health Care plan in 4 minutes on WhiteHouse.gov - With this video, posted on WhiteHouse.gov on Monday morning, learn the basic principles of President Obama's health insurance reform plan as presented to Congress on September 9, 2009.

Funny...

The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Mother Jones, WNYC, More Join Data Archive Experiment DocumentCloud

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:14:52 -0400

Twenty newspapers, magazines and nonprofit organizations have become new partners with DocumentCloud, a data archiving project created by journalists and developers at ProPublica and The New York Times. The Atlantic, New Yorker, Mother Jones, MSNBC, WNYC and The Washington Post are among the publications that will submit documents, files and other data into the DocumentCloud system, and soon make them available for public search.

"We all had both personal and professional relationships...

Boxee Nabs IAC Star Zach Klein

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:00:55 -0400

Boxee, the free, open-source software that's set to reinvent the living room by bringing online content to your TV, has just hired Zach Klein, who was part of the founding team that built CollegeHumor, Busted Tees and Vimeo (all of which are owned by Connected Ventures under Barry Diller's IAC), as head of product. He'll be working on bringing Boxee out of their underground, early adopter status and into mainstream folks' TV boxes.

"We're not...

Getty Invests $4 Million in Daylife, Creates Photo Galleries of the Future

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:57:41 -0400

In July, Upendra Shardanand, chief executive and founder of Daylife, the aggregator that newspapers like, told the Observer that the digital services start-up would soon have new publishing products that would make it even easier for newspapers and magazines to get new, automatically updated content onto their Web sites. Earlier this year, Getty Images quietly invested $4 million in Daylife, and this week, the companies released a new Web publishing tool that will make...

The Cubicle Queue

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:11:14 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

Vintage Mischa on Hulu — Mischa Barton is all grown up now (you know, for a 23 year old) and returning to The Beautiful Life of prime-time television. But most of us will always remember her as wide-eyed, 17-year-old Marissa Cooper on Josh Schwartz's The...

HuffPo Names Greg Coleman, Former Yahoo-er, as President

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:30:52 -0400

Greg Coleman, the former executive vice president of global sales at Yahoo, has joined the Huffington Post as preisdent and chief revenue officer. Mr. Coleman, an AOL and magazine sales veteran, will be charged with monetizing all those eyeballs that check out the aggregator every day. HuffPo chief executive Eric Hippeau worked with Mr. Coleman as a board member at Yahoo. The search engine's sales revenues grew from $600 million to more than...

The Big Crackup: It's Vertical Vertigo!

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:53 -0400

This past weekend, Arianna Huffington was in San Francisco for a little tech tour. On Friday, she visited Twitter’s home base, where she noshed on tacos and vegan cheese with co-founder Biz Stone. Later, she palled around with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the social network’s Palo Alto headquarters and discussed HuffPo Social News, a new feature on her “Internet newspaper” that allows users to connect with Facebook friends and see which HuffPo articles...

Huffington Post Partners With New York Review of Books, Gets a Penguin Editor; Also, a Book Club

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:28:48 -0400

On Oct. 5, The Huffington Post will launch a new books section with a perhaps unexpected partner: The New York Review of Books, according to Arianna Huffington. The site's newly minted editor, Amy Hertz, a Penguin editor at large under their Dutton division, will have to balance the fortnightly magazine's 5,000-word essays and thoughtful articles based on multiple publications with book reviews written by HuffPo readers, HuffPo co-founder editor in chief Ms. Huffington confirmed...

'Make History' on the 9/11 Memorial & Museum's New Site

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:20:41 -0400

Just in time for the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum launched a new online initiative, titled "Make History." Users can submit photos, digital video and personal stories at a special feature section on 911history.org that will become part of a permanent digital archive and help build an online interactive timeline based on the materials.

Every piece of media uploaded onto the site will be time-stamped and...

How to Experience New York Fashion Week Online

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:00:29 -0400

For those who will be chained to their desks during the fashion shows this week, take heart! You can still see what's on the runway, and get on-the-scene reporting and photos directly from the events.

Along with the Observer's stellar team of reporters, bringing you reports from the top designer shows, here are a few online destinations to get your fix:

- Fashion Week Daily will have video of runway shows and interviews from backstage.

- New...

Are the Days of Drudge Over?

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:26:31 -0400

Just over a month ago, Linda Douglass, a former ABC News correspondent and current communications director for the Obama administration’s Health Reform Office, appeared in a video posted on the White House’s official blog titled “Facts Are Stubborn Things.”

In the video, the Drudge Report was displayed on one of the computer screens at her desk. Peering over her red-framed glasses, Ms. Douglass read one of the headlines posted on the site: “Uncovered...

Did You Digg It?

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:36:52 -0400

If the NYTimes.com most-emailed list was curated by Aunt Mabel, Digg.com's 'top news in all content' list is probably generated by her 20- (or 30-) something nephew: a Twittering, iPhone wielding, card-carrying member of Generation Wii. Here's what this dude (we'll call him Kevin) and the rest of Diggnation have been Diggin' in the past week:

Top 10 Anime movies that surpass Disney by light years — Screenhead.com asserts that Akira, Spirited Away...

Style.com Readers Can Now Shop Runway Looks Online

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:39:29 -0400

For those who want to grab the latest frocks and trends straight from strutting runway models next week, Condé Nast is giving fashion fiends instant gratification. SHOP THE LOOKS, a new e-commerce section of Vogue's online home, will allow users to browse and buy items in more than 30 editor- (and advertiser-) curated trend sections directly from the site—with Fashion Week styles as inspiration.

Runway photos from shows will be "tagged" with...

McKinsey: Video, Blogging, and RSS Work on the Web

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:11:57 -0400

As McKinsey & Company continue their 11-week tour of Condé Nast, the consulting firm just released a new report, based on a survey, on how businesses are benefiting from Web 2.0 technologies. "[R]esponses suggest why Web 2.0 remains of high interest: 69 percent of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher...

Conde Nast On Your Tube, Thanks to Boxee

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:25:15 -0400

Just in time for Fashion Week, Condé Nast Digital is bringing runway fashions into the living room. Content from Style.com, the online home of Vogue, including photo slideshows and behind-the-scenes videos of runway and parties, are now available on Boxee, the free, open-source software that brings online content from the laptop to the living room. Wired loyalists will also be able to watch the tech mag's online videos, and review features like world's greatest...

The Cubicle Queue: The U.S. Open! Plus, Johnny Depp Movies for Your Lunch Break.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:18:00 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

Live U.S. Open tennis matches - Beautiful, crystal-clear high-definition Web video of 150 tennis matches for all those without ESPN2 and the Tennis Channel. The pop-up window also includes picture-in-picture viewing so you can watch more than one match at a time. Get stats...

Dan Bricklin, Co-Inventor of the Spreadsheet, Discusses How Nerds Are Like Sports Stars

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:09:33 -0400

Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of the spreadsheet, was in Chelsea on Tuesday night (he lives in Massachusetts), talking about engineers and how they "build the world." Creating new technology with a diversity in mind is a "social responsibility," he said.

It's not just the geeks who are using computers and the latest technology, after all. It's moms, teachers, politicians, and even kids in third world countries through the One Laptop Per...

Hearst's Real Beauty Queen

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:11:13 -0400

"Hair is really a big motivator for women," said Nicole Stagg, a curly-haired brunette and Hearst Digital Media's director of content strategy. She was on the phone with the Observer after Hearst Corp's Monday announcement that the publisher of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar would launch a new digital venture called RealBeauty.com.

An early version of the site, meant to be a one-stop destination for women looking for hair, makeup and beauty recommendations...

How a YouTube Video Got an Emmy

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:12:03 -0400

In 1969, when he was 14 years old, Jerry Levitan sauntered past a row of reporters lined outside John Lennon's Toronto hotel room, knocked on the door, and convinced his favorite Beatle to give him a short interview. Mr. Lennon was about to swaddle himself in bedsheets and conduct his Montreal Bed-In for Peace with Yoko, and the press was eager for him to settle rumors about a possible Beatles break-up and make a...

Debunking the Times 'Facebook Exodus'

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:26:16 -0400

This weekend, in the New York Times Magazine, Virginia Heffernan wrote a piece titled "Facebook Exodus" for her column, The Medium. "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold," according to Ms. Heffernan, who interviewed a few former loyal users of the top social network to ask them why they're moving on. "One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her," she wrote. "Another thought the scene had turned desperate....

Did You Digg It?

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:00:23 -0400

If the NYTimes.com most-emailed list was curated by Aunt Mabel, Digg.com's 'top news in all content' list is probably generated by her 20- (or 30-) something nephew: a Twittering, iPhone wielding, card-carrying member of Generation Wii. Here's what this dude (we'll call him Kevin) and the rest of Diggnation have been Diggin' in the past week:

More "Evidence" of Intelligent Design Shot Down By Science — Wired reports. Comment from NicoKun: "Intelligent...

What's Worth Downloading on Google Books?

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:15:14 -0400

The e-reader battle rages on as Google has announced the release of more than a million public domain books in the open, ePub format. ePub is a document format that makes it easier for anyone with an iPhone, a BlackBerry or a Sony eReader to access books on mobile devices--no need for a fancy new Kindle! Google's support of ePub comes shortly after Sony's announcement that it was switching to ePub for its own...

A Conversation With Twitter's Jack Dorsey

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:57:55 -0400

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The Blonde Ambition of Blip.tv

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:18:57 -0400

In the early autumn of 2005, Dina Kaplan was freelancing as a spot reporter for WNBC 4 New York, “covering fires and murders and bodies found in dumpsters and things like that,” she told The Observer on a recent humid morning in Soho. But on Wednesday nights, the petite strawberry blonde was routinely having dinner in the cafeteria of the World Financial Center with a group of guys who were coding a new...

Baratunde Thurston Explains the Future of … Lots of Things!

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:59:29 -0400

Last Monday night, Baratunde Thurston, "vigilante" political pundit, stand-up comic and Web editor for The Onion, was at New York Times City Room reporter Jennifer 8. Lee's Chelsea loft, watching the premiere of his new TV show, Popular Science's Future Of, which airs each Monday night at 9 p.m., on the Science Channel.

Mr. Baratunde, who wears thick-rimmed glasses and sports a bushy goatee, is the show's host—a kind of oracle on the...

Did You Digg It?

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:39:43 -0400

If the NYTimes.com most-emailed list was curated by Aunt Mabel, Digg.com's 'top news in all content' list is probably generated by her 20- (or 30-) something nephew: a Twittering, iPhone wielding, card-carrying member of Generation Wii. Here's what this dude (we'll call him Kevin) and the rest of Diggnation have been Diggin' in the past week:

Guitar legend Les Paul dies at age 94 — R.I.P. to the musician and inventor who...

The Cubicle Queue: It's A Mad Mad Mad Men World! Plus, Imaginary Bitches and Julia Child

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:40:54 -0400

Tired of clicking around YouTube and iTunes for online videos of substance? Search no more! The Observer has your weekly handy guide to what's worth watching on the Web.

Behind the Scenes of Mad Men videos on AMCtv.com - If you need to get even more psyched for Sunday night's Season 3 premiere of Mad Men, AMC has some "Inside Season 3" videos for you to watch, including interviews with creator...