This, the first of our regional blogs, is authored by the technology and financial journalist Dominic Basulto. Dominic is a New York native, has been a senior editor at Corante since day one and has written for a number of online and offline media companies. Send tips or story ideas to: basulto@gmail.com.
About this weblog
Here we'll report daily on the latest tech and business developments in New York City. Impossible we concede: comprehensive coverage of the city's every story. What we hope you'll find: tips, tidbits and perspectives you won't find elsewhere. As well as unique insights, original interviews and more that should be of interest to New York's vibrant community of technologists and those who track, invest in and report on them.
Anyone remember the 1997 thriller with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn called The Game? In the movie, a wealthy investment banker leads a boring, routine life until his kid brother involves him in a real-life game that takes a sudden turn for the unexpected... Just to refresh your memory, here's the plot synopsis from Internet Movie Database:
"Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving up to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him."
Anyway, apparently there's a company that recently launched in Manhattan that sounds at least remotely similar to CRS: area/code. Decide for yourself if this sounds like CRS or not... Here's a blurb from the company's Web site:
"Big Games are large-scale, real-world games. A Big Game might involve transforming an entire city into the world's largest board game, or hundreds of players scouring the streets looking for invisible treasure, or a TV show reaching out to interact with real-time audiences nationwide. These games have been commissioned and sponsored by advertising agencies, media firms, universities, and large consumer brands." Taking an example from Sean Penn, maybe it's time to commission one of these games for your favorite Wall Street investment banker...
Found via a del.icio.us tag: a list of all Google jobs available in New York City. 35 jobs in engineering, 22 in advertising sales and 12 in product development. Interestingly, there's only 1 opening in "legal." If you're a Google fan, that's probably a good thing, eh?
If you're a small business owner looking for help in starting up a new business, according to MSNBC (via Entrepreneur.com), one good place to look is a local university:
"Almost every reputable business school has an entrepreneurship program these days, and one of the most practical ways for a student to get some useful training is to make contact with the real world. That would be you. The reason this partnership works so well is that entrepreneurs, running around like madmen trying to keep everything together, often have something of a brain drain in their company. Universities, of course, are filled to the brim with ideas and innovative thinkers."
"The school has a program called GET: Gateway to Entrepreneurial Tomorrows. It's funded by a grant and is aimed at small, minority businesses in inner cities of New York's Mid-Hudson Valley. GET has helped delis, furniture retailers, small cell phone stores, and mortgage origination businesses get started and get growing. The service--which is bilingual--is free and offers entrepreneurs the resources they need to start or maintain a business."
Verizon Wireless announced plans to slash the price of its high-speed wireless Internet service by 25%, opening up a price war with other companies offering the same EV-DO technology (e.g. Sprint Nextel). According to an analyst interviewed by Reuters, the pricing move is a classic attempt to build the customer base while, at the same time, holding off the advance of competitors. The price cut should put the service, mainly aimed at business people until now, in a more affordable price range for consumers.
For his mash-up of Google Maps and SliceNY.com that resulted in the Slice Pizza Map, New York City's own Adam Kuban was interviewed by NY1 reporter Adam Balkin:
"The all–New York-all-the-time channel will air a segment on Google Maps mash-ups in which I appear blabbing about how neat the tool is. Slice, of course, uses the function in our recently released Slice Pizza Map, which plots all the pizzerias that we or our correspondents have reviewed since this site's inception."
Rumors are leaking out that billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn is weighing a possible tender offer for a 10% equity stake in media giant Time Warner. Representatives for Carl Icahn and Time Warner both refused to comment, so at the moment, it's only speculation. However, where there's smoke, there's fire.
Currently, Icahn's investor bloc controls about 2.6% of Time Warner, so edging that equity stake up to 10% will require about $8 billion. No small feat, even for Icahn. In fact, Wall Street insiders are skeptical in general about Icahn's plans:
"This is a very, very difficult situation for Icahn to win beyond what he's done already. This is a very large float -- 4.6 billion shares outstanding. Even with 10% of the shares, it's hard to see that he would be able to meaningfully change the direction of the company... This is not the typical Icahn deal, where there's a sleepy management and no one realizes the value of the assets. Time Warner is the most overanalyzed collection of assets on Wall Street..."
Well, it's about time that our suburban neighbors to the north take up the blogging baton... The New York Times reports on the growth of the Westchester blogosphere, complete with a full-color pic of bloggers in Croton-on-Hudson. There are a lot of smart folks joining the blogging bandwagon - like a 28-year-old IBM financial analyst - but most of the chatter thus far has been nothing more than "blog-orrhea," says the Times. In other words, lots of annoying talk about Taco Bell, the local Old Navy and less-than-scintillating family reunions:
"This local universe of unaffiliated blogs, or online journals, touches on everything from local politics, to the economics of Star Wars' Galactic Empire to the Boston Red Sox's habit of losing on Ben Affleck's birthday. The bloggers' postings range from the meaningful to the mundane... But consequential or not, these online ruminations provide a glimpse into the lives of everyday Westchesterites. And taken together, bloggers say, they provide a new digital voice for a county that is often overshadowed by the behemoth to the south."
Another gem from Overheard in New York, this time from the Verizon Wireless store on 34th and Broadway:
Cell phone chick: So if you upgrade to this new plan for $10 more a month, we'll give you a totally free phone. $0, free of charge. All you have to do is mail in a $50 rebate form.
Woman: Wait, I thought it was free.
Cell phone chick: It is, you just pay me $50, and then send in the rebate form and they'll mail you a $50 check.
Woman: Wait, but it's not free? My husband will kill me if I spend money on a new phone. What's 50 minus 50?...I went to Syracuse University, I'm a college educated person, and I'm still confused. Is it free?
Habana Outpost: Brooklyn is billing itself as "New York City's first solar-powered restaurant and market." The notion was so intriguing that we checked out the Habana Outpost Web site, where we learned the full story:
"Open from May 21, 2005 until Halloween there will be an outdoor market with local up-and-coming and underground designers, artists and merchants selling their wares, DJ's, carwashes, great food, movies and more."
Dorkbot-NYC is holding another second meeting in Chelsea after the Labor Day weekend to celebrate people doing strange things with electricity. What exactly does that mean? Well, there's Mark Esper, who will be offering a demo of a self-generating tornado. We hope, of course, that there are no plans in the works for a self-generating hurricane...
A case study in how to annoy New York bloggers: a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters (all of them white) are throwing "kill whitey" mock hip-hop parties on a monthly basis. The kids dance around "raunchily" while yelling "kill the whiteness inside" and acting like hip-hop thugs. The party impresario is The Pumpsta, who recently revealed to the Washington Post why he held these parties:
"I'm throwing this party, and it's obvious that I'm white and I'm kind of appropriating this culture but in an ironic way... I'm trying to kill the whiteness inside."
Needless to say, the blogosphere has been buzzing about the hipster DJs. Go to Technorati and type in "kill whitey pumpsta" and there are already about 25 posts this week. I Wish I Was an Urban Hipster weighs in with a post called "Kill anybody at these parties for the good of humanity":
"So a couple of people sent me a link to this story. Deejay's Appeal: "Kill The Whiteness Inside". I had read this article that day and honestly couldn't even get through it. It was just that awful. I mean the concept of this party just pissed me off. Dancing up like black people did in the 80's and dancing to remixes done by a guy called The Pumpsta. Who by the way I want to beat the crap out of just based upon his picture."
Crain's New York has the details on New York's emergency response to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. In addition to sending an urban search and rescue team (New York Task Force 1) to Mississippi, New York government officials are also urging New Yorkers who want to help to make donations to charities such as the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army or the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City (which gives the donations to disaster relief agencies).
"We have all seen the devastating images of the damage that Hurricane Katrina has caused in the southeast United States. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the people in the area who have been impacted by this disaster, and we are eager to do everything possible to help. New Yorkers will never forget the extraordinary support we received following the dark days after 9/11 and how much it meant to our City."
The race for Public Advocate is heating up, with challenger Andrew Rasiej inviting his rivals - including Norman Siegel, Jay Golub and Betsy Gotbaum - to participate in a series of "People's Debates" in all five boroughs. (Thus far, only Gotbaum has not committed to participating in the debate, claiming that she has already fulfilled the two-debate quota mandated by the city's campaign finance law.) As one might expect, given the Rasiej campaign's focus on technology, the debates will be streamed via the Internet for any interested voters, says the New York Daily News.
The New York Times takes a closer look at the makeover of New York Magazine, which will kick off with the magazine's first advertising campaign in almost eight years. The new million-dollar campaign is noteworthy, if for no other reason than it will "change contents almost every day":
"The centerpiece of the campaign, which carries the theme "This is New York," will be posters at five subway stations in Manhattan that are to be replaced each weekday. (The poster pasters will get a break on weekends.) ... Many of the posters, scheduled to appear from Friday through Sept. 30, will be related to events of the day or week they are to run. For instance, as the Red Sox arrive in the Bronx on Sept. 9 to play the Yankees, the posters that day are to present the results of the teams' previous meetings this season - with space to write in the score of the game that night."
In addition to ramping up the subscriber lists, the ad campaign hopes to woo back magazine advertisers, many of whom have embraced the Internet. The changing daily nature of the New York Magazine ads, one supposes, is a way to mimic the ease of changing ads on the Internet. The ads will also highlight a rebranding of the magazine's Web site to newyorkmagazine.com, from newyorkmetro.com. That old URL for New York Magazine was kinda annoying, come to think of it.
New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, though, begs to differ. According to Krugman, "Greenspan's words of wisdom come too late. He's like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up."
There's understandably a lot of bad blood about the New York Stock Exchange's decision to merge with electronic rival Archipelago, but this is out of control... Crain's New York reports that a member of the Big Board has been arrested for allegedly threatening another member who was suing to oppose the pending deal. The incident happened in July, when there was a call made threatening to blow up the victim's car in retaliation for opposing the NYSE-Archipelago merger. The caller - who has a history of being a hothead - has been charged with one count of aggravated harassment.
The New York Daily News asks: With Howard Stern moving to Sirius Satellite Radio next year and more radio listeners making the jump to satellite, what will become of the broadcast radio airwaves in New York City? In fact, says the Daily News, New York radio "faces its last great wakeup call" as it responds to changing technologies, changing consumer tastes, and changing radio formats.
On a related topic, MSNBC (via Hollywood Reporter) has more details on the new channel lineup at Sirius Satellite Radio, which will include two (count 'em, two!) Howard Stern channels. If you don't like the notorious shock jock, don't worry... Sirius also plans to offer five "family and kids" channels - as well as three Christian music channels - for listeners with decidedly different tastes.
Ubiquitous laptop computing is coming to the Upper West Side -- at least for a select group of approximately 420 Manhattan school kids who will be receiving free Apple and Dell laptop computers as part of an innovative new program being rolled out by NYC Council Member Gale Brewer. The program is called "One-to-One in Ten," referring to one laptop for every schoolchild in the New York City Department of Education's Region 10. It's the first 1:1 program of its kind ever attempted in New York City, and is scheduled to be rolled out in seven middle schools on the Upper West Side just in time for the start of the new school year. (Apparently, there have been other attempts at 1:1 laptop programs in New York City, but none that have had both grassroots and administrative support and that cut across grade levels.) The price of the program isn't cheap - $787,000 (including close to $400,000 that will be raised from corporate donors) - but is indicative of what can happen when educators and government officials get together on the same page of the educational playbook.
The 1:1 laptop program is all part of what educators refer to as "total technological immersion," as students reap the benefits of toting around a laptop, both in school and out of school. With the aim of offering ubiquitous laptop computing, the program will also attempt to offer students free or low-cost broadband Internet connectivity at school and at home, so there won't be any excuses for not focusing on schoolwork 24/7. In other words, no more "the dog ate my broadband Internet connection" excuses. Kids from lower-income homes will now be on an even footing with their classmates from wealthier neighborhoods. As Councilwoman Brewer explains, "It is a model project to address the digital divide in the city."
In addition to improving school performance, the program also hopes to lower rates of absenteeism and decrease the incidence of disciplinary problems. In addition, who knows? Maybe parents will take more of an interest in their child's education if there's a laptop laying around the kitchen...
WNBC carried the second Public Advocate debate Sunday morning, in which three challengers for the Public Advocate position (Andrew Rasiej, Jay Golub and Norman Siegel) took on incumbent Betsy Gotbaum for an hour of informal debate. What was surprising, perhaps, was that Andrew Rasiej was the only candidate who even mentioned what role technology could play in making the office of the Public Advocate more efficient, more productive and more powerful. After a laudatory op-ed piece in the New York Times praised Rasiej for his visionary Wi-Fi plans for the city, you would think that at least one of the other challengers would attempt to co-opt this theme.
As many readers of this site know, the Andrew Rasiej campaign has been front-and-center in promoting technology as a way of empowering everyday New Yorkers to solve their problems and deal with New York's massive bureaucracy. The public advocate, by promoting ideas like a citywide wireless Internet network, could act as a more powerful watchdog over the Mayor and the city agencies, enabling everyday citizens to have an active stake in what happens at City Hall.
Overall, the debate raised a number of significant issues about the scope and scale of the Public Advocate's office. One thing became clear within the first 25 minutes -- Andrew Rasiej is the only candidate who has done any serious thinking about the role of technology (namely, wireless Internet access for the entire population of the city) in overcoming the shortfalls of the Public Advocate position. Most New Yorkers don't even know what the position is, or that the Public Advocate would become acting mayor if (god forbid) something ever happened to the Mayor.
The New York Times has another story about "cool things to do with an iPod" -- this time, it's downloading sermons to an iPod for future listening in the car, at the gym or anywhere else. It's all part of what some men of the cloth are calling "Godcasting." According to the Times, the trend is catching on nationwide:
"Just as Christian organizations embraced radio and television, podcasting has quickly caught on with religious groups. Since the beginning of July, the number of people or groups offering spiritual and religious podcasts listed on Podcast Alley has grown to 474 from 177."
The New York Post reports that Microsoft is sniffing around Times Square for a new retail store location:
"Microsoft is on the prowl for a store in Times Square. The move would be the software giant's first big stab at retail and may be an attempt to play catch-up with archrival Apple, which has hit a home run with its own branded stores, including its New York City flagship in SoHo. Microsoft is looking for a large space to create a "branding experience" a la Apple's showroom and information center."
The most likely venue for a new Microsoft store, say analysts, is One Times Square -- the building where the New Year's Eve ball drops each year.
Fortune looks into the myth and reality of the skyscraper curse. If you believe in the curse, then it's time to start packing your bags. After all, four media giants (the New York Times, Hearst, Bertelsmann and Bloomberg) are busy erecting huge new midtown skyscrapers in an orgy of vertical capitalism. If the past is any indication, it will all end badly:
"It's an architectural extravaganza - a spectacular display of money, power, and hubris. But if history is any guide, companies that build such monuments tend to do so at the peak of their power, when they are convinced they'll always cast as long a shadow over the business landscape as they do at that moment. All too often, though, they build these shrines to themselves on fundamentally shaky ground."
Don't believe it? Well, check out the "Skyscraper Index" created by Deutsche Bank research guru Andrew Lawrence. According to this index, the world's tallest buildings have been constructed before the onslaught of major economic downturns.
Keep in mind, too, that ground was broken on the $1.8 billion HQ of Time Warner in November 2000 -- two months later, the company announced its infamous merger with AOL, and the rest, as they say, is history. Another company building an imperial headquarters that crumbled faster than you can say "AOL Time Warner."
This made the front cover of the New York Daily News on Saturday: a cellphone snapshot of the subway pervert. It all started when a "smirking sicko" exposed himself to a 22-year-old girl on an uptown R train. The girl responded by "reaching for her secret weapon - her camera phone." After that, she took her story to cyberspace:
"She posted the degenerate's photo on the Web sites Flickr and Craigslist, and bloggers began linking to her site. Her photo and story drew a few juvenile snickers, but most of the comments have been positive... The NYPD, which confirmed [the girl] had filed a complaint, also was impressed."
Terence Bradford is a Citigroup banker by day, hip-hop performer by night. He goes by the stage name of Billy Shakes and is out to inform lower-income youth about the importance of understanding personal finance and planning for the financial future. Divine Cipher picks up on the story from Fortune magazine: "This is a cat who came out of Castle Hill Houses projects up in the Bronx to become first a stock broker and now a sales manager for Citi Mortgage... The idea of using Rap to spread the gospel of financial and economic self-determination or to flip the idea of what wealth really is, is a dope idea."
"You can listen to news from The Wall Street Journal on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Get hourly updates during the business day with The Wall Street Journal Report and Dow Jones Money Report. You can also tune in to The Wall Street Journal This Morning every business morning..."
Yo, Osama, take a look at this: the NYPD has just added two high-powered sniper rifles to its arsenal. It's all part of an effort to beef up protection of the area's ports and waterways. Make no mistake about it, these weapons are ready to rumble -- each rifle is five feet long, weighs 37 pounds and can probably pierce an armor-plated tank at long distance. CBS News calls the rifle "without a doubt, the most powerful weapon you can buy." The New York Post has the details:
"The .50-caliber rifles — each selling for $10,000 and using 6-inch bullets that cost $4 a pop — were bought several weeks ago after months of tactical wrangling by Commissioner Ray Kelly and his top brass over whether the controversial weapon was needed in the Big Apple. The rifles can be fired from a police helicopter and pierce the hull of a boat to stop it from a distance of 1,000 yards..."
Today's New York Post has the story of a recent MBA grad who's trolling for new jobs by wearing a full-length sandwich board and walking up and down 42nd Street. Hey, if this tactic works for midtown strip club promoters and "Going Out of Business" stores, maybe it'll work for an MBA. In an act of mercy, the Post provides readers a URL for contacting the well-intentioned (and apparently, well-qualified) MBA grad.
As reported last week, the Republican party is trotting out William Weld as a potential challenger to Eliot Spitzer in New York's 2006 gubernatorial election. Weld is the former governor of Massachusetts, but has little or no name (or face) recognition in the Empire State. Sure, he's buddies with Rudy Giuliani and other members of the Republican administration, but in New York, at least, he's terra incognito for many voters. What marketing campaign will Republican strategists dream up to promote William Weld for 2006? Word on the street is that Weld plans to raise between $40 million and $75 million for the gubernatorial bid, and that will buy a lot of airtime.
Maybe Mr. Weld should consider a a Snoop Dogg promotion, similar to the one that the famed rapper has with Chrysler's Lee ("Mocha Cocca") Iacocca:
"The 80-year-old Iacocca and Snoop Dogg, who made his name rapping about sex and marijuana, appear as golf buddies in the ad, scheduled to begin airing Saturday. Snoop Dogg wears an argyle sweater vest, while Iacocca dons a pastel plaid hat. At the end of the TV spot, Snoop Dogg says: "If the ride is more fly, then you must buy." Iacocca responds: "That's what I hear."
Ad Rants explains why the pairing of Iacocca and Snoop Dogg is so successful:
"With the usual old guy/young rapper dude culture clash, the post hopes to appeal to those under 40, many of whom have no idea who Iacocca is."
We're big Netflix fans around here, and so it was interesting to find out that Netflix subscribers from around the country have been attaching yellow Post-It notes to the Netflix DVD return envelope. According to these images from Hacking Netflix, the messages range from the whimsical ("Free Winona") to the inane ("They sure do drive fast in Sin City"). Many may view these "notes to Netflix" as a waste of time and energy, but it's always interesting to see how people attempt to personalize a service or product offering that they love. Somehow, I don't think people are attaching yellow Post-It notes to Blockbuster DVDs...
Podcasting is really going mainstream, if this story from Joe Mandese of Media Post is any indication:
"In a development that may say as much about the future of radio broadcasting as it does about the future of media audience measurement, Arbitron announced that its new portable people meter (PPM) system could successfully track podcasts. While the ultimate potential of podcasts--listener-generated radio programs distributed over the Internet--may be debatable, the technology is one of a progression of digital media applications that are transforming how, when, and why people listen to the medium, and are requiring both radio broadcasters, and the company that measures their audiences, to become more resourceful."
Apparently, it's now possible to track how often podcasts are played using an MP3 player such as the iPod simply by hooking up a "portable people meter" to the headset. Big broadcast radio companies like Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting have already started podcasting, and quite obviously, want a way to track these podcasts once they've been downloaded to an iPod.
As almost everyone knows by now, The New Yorker turned into a giant Target ad in its August 22nd issue. Shocked by Target's audacity, The Chicago Sun-Times could only sputter out a scathing review of the unique advertising/editorial collaboration:
"It can only be described as the most jaw-dropping collapse of the so-called sacred wall between editorial and advertising in modern magazine history. And it happened this week -- of all places -- at arguably the country's most prestigious magazine, the New Yorker. In the wake of a puff piece by New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott last week announcing Target had cut a deal with the New Yorker to become its sole advertiser for the magazine's Aug. 22 edition, copies of that issue began arriving in mailboxes and hitting newsstands this week. Now we can see exactly what the results of that deal are: A 90-page publication where it is almost impossible to discern any line of demarcation between Target's advertising and the New Yorker editorial product."
Since the Target ads are not on The New Yorker Web site, we turn to Fimoculous for the visuals: the site has a whole collection of full-color pictures from the issue. In addition, Fimoculous tallied up the damage from Target's "advertising chutzpah":
"The NY Times says Target paid around $1.1 million, for which I count 14 full-page spots and 8 one-third pagers. True to the discount retailers motto "Pay Less, Expect More," one observer found 200 Target logos in the first 19 pages of the mag."
The New York Times has more on the city's decision to build a wireless voice and data network for the underground subway system. If all goes according to plan, that means your cellphone will work underground sometime within the next decade, just like it already works in Hong Kong and Seoul. The MTA is already starting to solicit bids for a 10-year contract that will be worth anywhere from $50 million to $100 million. All the usual suspects -- Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile - are lining up at the public trough, hoping to win the mandate from the MTA. Final bids are due October 12, so that gives these companies about 6 weeks to come up with the winning bid.
Gothamist weighs in on the announcement with a bit of amusement:
"The possibility of using cell phones underground leads to many questions: Will cell phone kiosks start popping up underground? Will illegal vendors peddling their wares now include ones selling cell phone tchotchkes? Will the kids "selling" M&Ms for their school basketball teams be unwitting victims of straphangers yapping on the cell phones? Will there be even more cell phone thefts? And yes, our ears, our ears! We'll be subjected to those travelogues we hear on surface trains and as soon planes land, "Yeah, I just landed...wanted to see what was up... yeah, the flight was okay..."
It's almost time for the start of the U.S. Open in Queens, so it's time to start thinking about tennis... In today's print edition (link from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) , The Wall Street Journal looks at the latest advances in materials and design in the U.S. tennis racket market:
"Head, Prince, Babolat, Wilson and Fischer are among those featuring nanotechnology, magnetic forces, aerodynamics and advanced physics principles in their new rackets, which claim to help players add power and precision to their strokes."
Apparently, most of the high-tech advances are driven as much by marketing needs as by the real need to produce more power or control in the racket. The number of tennis players has not changed much in the past five years, and sales of tennis gear are down from levels ten years ago. So what do you do when the size of the market is not increasing? Gotta promote things like "piezoelectric crystals" and "carbon nanotubes" to make people buy more rackets.
ZDNet has details on the $600 million Vonage IPO -- the surest sign yet that the area of voice-over-Internet communication is hot. Make that sizzling hot, considering that Google is jumping into the market. The Edison, NJ-based company did not provide any juicy details on the offering, but that hasn't kept bloggers from speculating about the ramifications the deal. Suffice it to say that the company has already raised $400 million in VC funding and now provides close to 800,000 U.S. households with Internet-based phone connections. With another $600 million, the company will be able to blanket the airwaves with its "People Do Stupid Things" commercials.
Over at Gigaom, Om Malik has assembled blogosphere reaction to the deal, with Mark Evans noting that the company probably made a "strategic mistake" by waiting too long to do the IPO, while TechDirt questions why the company needs to raise so much capital. Om Malik also weighs in:
"I find the timing of this news pretty interesting! There is clearly lots of competition, including cable companies which are just cranking their sales machine and pushing VoIP like crazy. Skype, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google’s Voice-over-IM offerings are going to put some if not a lot of deflationary pressure on the prices. Price pressure is going to be rampant. Good time, to re-read my Telecom Death Spiral essay. And that’s not even taking into account some of the problems incumbents can create for all indy-VoIP people (without risking the ire of FCC, of course!)"
While we stopped reading the New York Press after the paper's "Death of the Pope" fiasco, we still happened to stumble across the paper's list of its "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" via a del.icio.us tag. The New York Press list, composed about five months ago, includes a handful of writers and bloggers who were singled out for their, well, loathsomeness.
There's Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker, who came in at #38:
"Though far from a pioneer, Franken-headed Gawker Media emperor Nick Denton takes partial blame for the dubious distinction of introducing the word "blog" to grandmothers in Dubuque. Denton single-handedly sandbagged and snarked his way to a post-crash brand of media-mogul-dom through his ubiquitous cultural blogs—Gawker.com, Fleshbot.com, Wonkette.com—while letting his lowly writer drones peck away all day for Birkenau pay rates... Denton has been secretive about the income he made off of his blogger slaves; writers and editors looking for stories about his alleged riches are, he says, "obsessed, and disoriented: nostalgic, cynical and now, with the revival of independent web media, daring to dream again."
And, there's Weblogs Inc. impresario Jason Calacanis, who came in at #23:
"During the dotcom boom, Jason Calacanis was one of those floppy-haired internet hucksters who beat the drum so loudly for tech companies that he became one of the era's major figures. The New Yorker even commissioned a fawning profile when he was editor of the now-defunct Silicon Alley Reporter. Now Calacanis is back and shamelessly beating the drum for (guess what?) blogs. Calacanis is chairman of Weblogs Inc., which now hosts more than 70 blogs about, well, who the fuck knows? His is a blog company that will make money from advertising while allegedly paying his army of typers a pittance in a "partnership" that promises a payday from future earnings."
We just hope that The New York Press, under the tutelage of new editor Harry Siegel, is more readable and less mean-spirited than it has been for the past two years.
If you saw Scorsese's "The Aviator" last year, then you know that billionaire inventor Howard Hughes developed an obsessive-compulsive order when it came to germs. Surely, he never would have taken a ride on the New York City subway, which isn't exactly known for its cleanliness. Well, there's a company in Boston that has created the perfect subway "transit strap" for anyone who's ever had a bout of Howard Hughes-style obsessive-compulsiveness:
"Our premium quality products dramatically enhance a public transit experience. The patent-pending TranStrap™ provides a comfortable, hygienic, personal
handhold that securely grips the overhead bar yet goes on and off easily and
stows in a purse or pocket."
There's a manhunt on Wall Street tonight. No, it's not a promotion for some reality TV snuff film -- it's a game of urban hide-and-seek taking place at 9pm tonight on Wall Street after all the bankers and traders have gone home. Newmindspace has more on the Wall Street manhunt:
"Manhunt! The totally regressive game of hide and seek with a run-like-mad urban flair. We invite you to join us on Wall Street, to run among cobblestones, winding paths and echoes of the original Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Hide behind pillars and sprint down brick alleyways, evading capitalists among skyscrapers for a night of summer joy."
Voice communication over the Internet -- in all of its various forms -- is hotter than ever, says The Wall Street Journal:
"Just when the rise of email and text-messaging began eroding traditional phoning, voice communication is staging an online comeback -- in a variety of unlikely ways. Facilitated by broadband Internet connections, computer users are talking to each other as they play games, arrange dates and conduct business. All of these activities are available now because advancements in digital technology have made it possible to transfer voice in information packets, just like an email."
Of course, if Google is doing it, it must be hot, right? On Tuesday, Google announced a plan to enable Internet users to make phone calls over personal computers, using only a headset. And, of course, there's Skype and Vonage.
Anyway, one of the companies mentioned in the article is Vonex LLC, a Brooklyn-based company working on a platform to make it easier for online gamers to use voice ("voice over internet gaming"). Yo, a big shout out to Brooklyn.
According to the New York Times, Conde Nast Publications plans to start a new business magazine and Web site -- despite the fact that the advertising market has been in the doldrums for rivals like BusinessWeek and Forbes. Leading the charge at Conde Nast will be Joanne Lipman, formerly the deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, and David Carey, publisher of The New Yorker magazine (a Conde Nast publication).
While Conde Nast has plenty of firepower to make the new magazine a success (Carey was one of the creative forces behind SmartMoney magazine and Lipman has 22 years of experience at the WSJ), many analysts are skeptical:
"A lot of the traditional business books are still struggling. It is a crowded cluster of magazines of which there are some underperformers. So it is a curiosity."
Conde Nast's move into the world of business was so stunning that even Fishbowl NY - usually never at a loss for words - was left speechless. Conde Nast, after all, is better known for chick mags like Glamour and Lucky, and not at all for hard-hitting business coverage.
IBM has created a new seven-person venture capital advisory council to "help accelerate innovation in deploying open standards-based solutions, especially for emerging markets around the world." According to IBM, it's important to back open standards in key emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. In addition to supporting open standards-based solutions, the new VC advisory council at IBM will also "continue to identify and develop new partnership opportunities to best help the hundreds of new and innovative start-ups that arise in these countries every day." For example, IBM would be ready to back a start-up company in Moscow or St. Petersburg developing a Linux-based software solution.
When we heard that the MTA was spending $212 million to install surveillance cams in the New York subway, we immediately wondered if there was some kind of geeky joke in there somewhere. 212, after all, is the area code for Manhattan.
Keep in mind that when Google decided to raise money in its IPO last year, the company's founders settled on the magic number of $2.718 billion for a reason:
Then, when Google announced that it planned to offer more shares to the public, it settled on the magic number of 14,159,265 shares for obvious reasons:
"And why, oh why, the strange numerology -- selling exactly 14,159,265 shares, which every educated 13-year-old recognizes as the digits to the right of the decimal point in the mathematical term pi."
Adam Balkin of NY1 reports on a new computer center on Manhattan's LES that will bring computers and Internet access to lower-income and homeless New Yorkers. According to the head of the new computer center, there will be 13 Internet-ready computers and a number of printers that will be available free of charge to any member of the local community. A big hat tip to Computer Associates for coming up with a $30,000 grant for Nazareth Housing to get the center up-and-running.
NOTE: The article says that the computer center is on the Lower East Side, but a little fact-checking only turned up an address in the East Village. Anyone know for sure which is correct?
Apparently, a Russian neuropsychiatrist at Columbia University has pioneered a groundbreaking insomnia remedy known as brain music therapy. And, no, it doesn't involve a bottle of Stolichnaya or a trip to a Russian banya. Barbara Hoffman in the New York Post describes how the sleep technique developed by Dr. Galina Mindlin at Columbia University works:
"Developed a decade ago in Russia, it involves recording the brain's electrical activity, or brain waves, via an EEG, during a time when you're most relaxed — and transforming those same waves into synthesized musical sounds, which are recorded on a CD and played back at bedtime... The theory is that listening to your brain at rest helps your mind to relax into sleep."
On page 10 of today's Metro newspaper, I've written an op-ed piece on New York's biotech sector: "Can we really become a biotech powerhouse?" About two weeks ago, the city announced plans to create a sprawling, $700 million biotech center, accompanied by much fanfare about New York's innovative vision for the future. However, can New York really become a leading biotech hub without a major commitment to stem cell research?
"The announcement on August 10th that New York City would create a biotech cluster known as the East River Science Park was surely good news for those hoping that New York can further diversify its economy by tapping into the nearly limitless growth potential of the biotech sector. After all, New York already boasts a number of top-ranked hospitals, medical schools and research institutions that provide the fundamental basis for developing a world-class biotech sector. In addition, the city boasts a deep pipeline of medical and biotech talent that includes a number of Nobel Prize winners. However, there’s still one missing ingredient if New York ever hopes to realize its potential of becoming a major world-class biotech hub: a major stem cell research initiative, similar to the one passed by California last November."
According to the New York Times, Verizon is making a pre-emptive strike in the city's broadband Internet market, offering a watered-down version of its DSL service at half-price ($14.95). The new DSL service will be 10 times faster than dial-up, but only about one-fourth that of Verizon's main DSL service, which costs $29.99. The half-price offering is intended as a way to entice dial-up Internet users to make the move to broadband -- and to win over these customers before cable providers snare them:
"Every dial-up customer we convert to D.S.L. takes one customer off the table for cable modem. We have a price for every budget."
In a related announcement, the company unveiled plans to form a marketing alliance with Yahoo, which has created a Web portal for Verizon customers.
The New York Times is reporting that the MTA is close to signing a $200 million deal with Lockheed Martin to create a comprehensive security system for the city's bridges, tunnels and subway stations:
"According to people with knowledge of the talks... Lockheed Martin will lead a team of contractors in creating an "integrated electronic security system" that will include closed-circuit television cameras, motion detectors and "intelligent video" software that can automatically determine if a package has been left on a train or if a person is in a restricted area."
Joining Lockheed Martin in the deal will be a number of other contractors, including Rochester-based Lenel Systems International and Sweden's Slattery Skanska.
According to the article, the same Lockheed Martin unit has been hired by the governments of Albania and Uzbekistan to work on large-scale security projects. Hey, if it's good enough for Albania, it's good enough for New York City.
With gas prices expected to continue on their upward trajectory through the Labor Day weekend, now's the time to turn to Web Sites like GasBuddy.com and GasPriceWatch.com for tips on finding the cheapest gas in the city. While Mayor Bloomberg says that he has our backs when it comes to holding gas under $3 a gallon, New Yorkers still need to do what they can to search out and find the cheapest gas around.
So where on the Upper East Side can Mayor Bloomberg find a cheap gallon of gas? Outside of Gracie Mansion, a gallon of regular sells at about $2.75. If the Mayor is willing to walk up to East Harlem, though, he can get the price down to $2.55/gallon. (Go to GasPriceWatch and type in Gracie Mansion's zipcode: 10128).
"An enterprising software engineer has combined the popular "dating" Web site Hot-or-Not with Google's new map program, creating a new Internet "mash-up" of the two services which allows users to search for hotties by ZIP code."
Users can enter any U.S. zipcode to find people who are rated "hot" by the site HotorNot.com. A Google map then appears with a collection of balloons that link to the person's picture, zipcode and links to more information. Caution! This is definitely a time-waster at the office...
Crain's New York profiles a number of new online banking ventures in New York, including new offerings by New York Community Bank and HSBC Bank USA. The increase in competition for online accounts is good news for consumers, who are already benefiting from higher rates on their savings accounts:
"The Internet surge has created a dogfight over savings rates. Last week, MyBankingDirect.com raised its money market interest rate to 3.75%, eclipsing the 3.5% offered by Emigrant Direct and HSBC. All three also far outpace rates offered on traditional accounts."
Moreover, online accounts are a tremendous enabler for smaller banks that are competing with giant banking institutions. In response, larger banks like Citibank are testing new Internet-only accounts that offer high yields to consumers. In fact, says one research analyst, "Ten years down the road, most of the major banks out there will have something like this..."
Looking for some tips on how to present data for that upcoming PowerPoint presentation? Edward Tufte will be in Manhattan from September 27 - 29 to offer a one-day course on "Presenting Data and Information." The Boston Globe has called one book by Tufte a "visual Strunk and White," while PC Magazine has called the same book "a touchstone of style." Tufte has also written a famous essay on how PowerPoint affects thought. For examples of his work, check out Tufte's Web site.
Disclaimer: We're not getting paid by Tufte to do this -- we like him because he's both a Tiger and a Bulldog. That not enough? The New York Times has called him "the Leonardo da Vinci of data." The guy has a master's from Stanford, a Ph.D from Yale and seven honorary doctorates. Plus, he's a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In other words, he's a heck of a lot smarter than you'll ever be.
Long Island-based OSI Pharmaceuticals will acquire Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, which has offices in Times Square, for approximately $935 million in stock and cash. OSI Pharmaceuticals specializes in cancer treatments while Eyetech makes the age-related macular degeneration treatment Macugen. According to the terms of the deal, OSI will pay $20 per share for Eyetech, a 43% premium to the stock's closing price of $13.99 on Friday.
Washington Technology reports on a high-tech war game at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point that featured an unusual enemy: Internet scammers. The Wall Street Journal called the exercise "good guys masquerading as bad guys pretending to be good guys." (If you think about the Citigroup ads for identity theft, this makes much more sense) It was all part of a larger effort to make West Point cadets more aware of phishing scams that appear to have originated from a well-known source.
There's clearly a lot of training yet to do -- "We got an 80% click rate on the first test e-mail, sent to 400 West Point cadets... Subsequent exercises with as many as 3,000 cadets produced lower response rates, but the rates did not drop sharply." (In all fairness, though, the phony e-mails included the name of a West Point colonel, and everybody knows that you don't disobey a direct order from a higher-ranking officer)
The top-ranking Internet security official of New York state also reported similar findings in tests of 10,000 state employees in five departments. The government employees were especially susceptible to "spear phishing" attacks, in which the scammers targeted a specific organization. Basically, if people working in the cubicle next to you get the same message as you do, and the e-mail appears to be coming from your boss, it's an easy trap to fall into...
In case you missed it, Blogebrity recently posted an interview with Jason Kottke, an A-list New York blogger who pioneered the move to "contributor-supported" blogging. According to Kottke, the contribution flow has "trickled down to almost nothing," but he still has no plans to advertise on the site.
In a recent issue of Metro, Darragh Worland, who writes the "PillowTalk" column for New York singles, featured TraderDater.com -- the place to meet the hedge fund manager of your dreams: "The world's first industry-specific online dating site, Trader Dater was built exclusively for women interested in meeting professional traders."
Memo to Osama: we're watching you. Newsday has the details on how the NYPD is widening its efforts to monitor Islamic extremists on the Internet:
"The New York Police Department officers surfed jihadist Web sites and chat rooms in which suicide bombings and beheadings are celebrated and hatred of the West rages. Their assignment: Pose as Islamic extremists, locate and engage real ones, then extract any shred of information about possible terrorist threats against the city."
A big hat tip to the NYPD for tapping into the linguistic expertise of its workforce. The department has more than 450 officers who speak a number of exotic languages, including Farsi and Arabic, and has been putting them on the international terrorist beat when possible. Across the country, other police departments have not made nearly the same effort to recruit Arabic-speaking officers:
"The focus on language expertise separates the NYPD from many other big-city departments. Spokesmen at several Florida law enforcement agencies, including the Miami-Dade Police Department, said they make no special effort to develop Arabic speakers, and the Los Angeles Police Department calls language-services companies when it needs interpreters."
The MTA is obviously taking the hint that it hasn't done nearly enough to protect the city's vulnerable subway system, especially in light of the terrorist bombings in London.
The MTA apparently has had access to a massive war chest of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, but has spent only a fraction of it. Now there's talk of installing hundreds of subway surveillance cams throughout the subway system, similar to what London already has. This is an election year, so "it's a safe bet that at least some of the cameras will be up before Bloomberg faces re-election in the fall, and certainly by year's end."
Overheard in New York consistently has the funniest snippets of conversation heard around the city. Maybe it's just silly Monday morning humor, but this one had me ROTFL:
College girl: Excuse me, sir. Which way is the river?
Man: There's two. (He walks away)
Last week, the New York Post had a brief profile of New York-based MaxDelivery, the latest reincarnation of Internet delivery service Kozmo.com. Obviously, there is demand across the city for Internet delivery services -- the only problem is finding an appropriate business model.
It's kinda like what happened with Internet groceries. Webvan and others of its ilk flamed out after running through tens of millions of VC funding, but now it looks like FreshDirect has found a business model that works in New York City.
Red Herring follows up on the New York Post's story about MaxDelivery, noting that "MaxDelivery started on a $1-million shoestring, culled from Mr. Siragusa’s savings and money he raised from family and friends."
A $1 million shoestring? Damn, those are expensive shoes.
The New York Daily News reports that the city teachers union, UFT, has created a blog to discuss its ongoing contract squabble with the city: Edwize. By entering the blogosphere, the teachers hope to get their message out to a wider audience. One point of contention is the wide salary gap between teachers in New York City and those in the posh suburbs. (Teachers in the suburbs make 16-24% more) Moreover, the blog has been vocal about suggesting that "Mayor Bloomberg was letting election year politics get in the way of negotiating a new contract for the city's 80,000 teachers."
The New York Times is apparently jumping on Andrew Rasiej's wireless bandwagon... According to the Times, Andrew Rasiej, running for Public Advocate against incumbent Betsy Gotbaum, has decided to rev up the campaign with a series of TV ads on NY1. For the next ten days, Andrew will be educating the city about the virtues of a citywide wireless Internet network and focusing on his campaign's major theme: "the need to integrate technology more fully in New Yorkers' lives."
Time is running short, though: the latest poll figures show Gotbaum garnering 38% of the vote, with Rasiej a disappointing third with less than 10% of the vote.
Gotham Gazette points to a new report on IT jobs growth from the Fiscal Policy Institute: "Prospects for Information Technology Jobs in New York's Finance Sector." The report was prepared for the CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development, so it's perhaps no big surprise that the report concludes that "CUNY is in good position to train New Yorkers to fill such jobs if it focuses itself accordingly..."
Police officers searching for bombs in the New York subway system are now equipped with bomb-residue detection wands. Or, as we like to call them, magic sticks. Officer.com (via the New York Post) has the details:
"Transit officers began training yesterday with bomb-residue detection wands - the kind that have become familiar at airports - as part of a bid to improve the NYPD's program of random searches. The wands have a cloth tip that can be rubbed on bags to tell if a bomb is in a bag, or if bomb components have come in contact with the surface."
If you've noticed that the sales clerks at J.Crew stores around the city have been more exuberant recently, here's why: the preppy retailer just unveiled plans for a $200 million IPO. If you're more interested in the strategic vision at J.Crew, check out the recent New York Magazine feature piece on the company's CEO, Mickey Drexler.
Reports are trickling in now about the much-anticipated meeting between billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn and Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons. The New York Post reported that the two men met for fifteen minutes, but Newsday says that the chat was closer to 50 minutes. Either way, both parties described the talks as "frank and open." The New York Times also uses the term "productive" to describe the meeting. Time Warner, obviously, doesn't want to be seen as being bullied by Icahn and his hedge fund gang, so the company only released a tersely-worded statement full of corporate gobbledygook: "The board and management are committed to moving as aggressively as appropriate on its current course to deliver long-term value for shareholders."
If you're a tourist, trying to get around the New York subway system can be a nightmare. With iPod Subway Maps, though, you can download handy little maps of the NYC subway to your iPod. (Hat tip: New Yorkology)
Debbie Weil recently interviewed Micro Persuasion's Steve Rubel, who divulges some key plays from his "blogging playbook." Rubel is one of the most prolific bloggers in the blogosphere (putting the poor author of this blog to shame), and he provides some inside tips on how he manages to blog up to four hours each day, every day of the week. (Hint: lots of high-tech blog tools and a limited need for sleep)
It's like a player from the Red Sox being signed by the Yankees... Roger Clemens, anyone? Former Massachusetts governor William Weld has decided that he now wants to become governor of New York. The U.S. hasn't had a two-state governor since Sam Houston, but Weld is hoping that his platform of "tax cuts and social liberalism" will play on the New York political stage. The Republican camp - including Rudy Giuliani and Karl Rove - is desperately looking for someone who can take on Eliot Spitzer now that George Pataki has decided to run for president. So, these political strategists are receptive to the idea of Weld, a native New Yorker, running for office. Even if he is a New England carpetbagger.
On the surface, the new ad campaign from the Magazine Publishers of America is just a way to remind consumers about the relevancy of magazines. Dig deeper, though, and it's clear that magazine publishers are concerned that advertising is drying up as more advertisers move to the Internet. So the campaign has a secondary message as well: stop playing around with online advertising and advertise in magazines, gosh darn it!
There are a number of taglines in the ad campaign, each one emphasizing that magazines are still relevant in an era of high-tech, fast-paced growth (e.g. "In the future, we'll demand up to the nanosecond headlines... and we'll still find the time to slow down with magazines.") Then, to prove how 'with it' magazines are, the campaign has a series of sensational cover stories depicting events 100 years into the future -- "California Island," the "Beaches of Antarctica" and, of course, "Desperate Robots," the break-out TV hit of 2105.
Earlier today, we linked to coverage in the New York Times about plans afoot at CBS News to change - perhaps dramatically - the look and feel of the 30-minute evening news broadcast. According to insiders, the changes go far beyond just new outfits for the news anchor(s) -- CBS is leaving no stone unturned, going so far as to consult with the "Dr. Phil Show" and MTV News about ways to make the evening news more, well, interesting.
With that in mind (and with apologies to Fellini), here are a few (admittedly tongue-in-cheek) ways that CBS could revitalize the CBS Evening News:
(1) Bring back Max Headroom. CBS could jump to the front of the retro-cyberpunk movement, revolutionize the world with the use of blipverts (thirty seconds of commercial information compressed into a mere three seconds) and become the Zic-Zac of the 21st century.
(2) Go with a cartoon character like Bart Simpson as the lead anchor. After all, Fox News has skipped the 6:30 newscast altogether, instead running episodes of The Simpsons in that all-important time slot. Why not compromise and have a cartoon character like Bart Simpson reading the news?
(3) Change the name of the show to "CBS Evening Rumors." Instead of news, offer rumors. Isn't that what Dan Rather did anyway? The 18-to-34 demographic already has all of its news by 6:30 anyway via the Internet, so why not just focus on rumors and gossip that people on the Net will be talking about tomorrow?
(4) Remake the show in the style of Naked News. Or, better yet, called it "Nekkid News." Anything with the word "naked" in it has to be a winner, right? What an easy way to appeal to different demographics: each night would be a different naked newscaster.
(5) Combine reality television with the network news. Network interns can compete for the role of lead anchor by completing a series of tasks over the course of the year. The winner gets a job with CBS News and a big fat paycheck from Viacom's Sumner Redstone for saving the company.
(6) Remake the show in the style of CBS's wildly-popular CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Hasn't that show already had a multitude of spin-offs anyway? Viewers like the show, so give 'em more of what they want, right? There's no better lead-in for CSI than a real-life news broadcast dedicated to stories that will later be scripted into future CSI shows.
(7) Copy the best parts of the Late Show With David Letterman. There would be a "Top 10" news countdown, a live-studio band, and really silly stunts like "Stupid Newsmaker Tricks."
(8) Change the name of the show from CBS News to "See B.S. News" The evening "news" would become just a lot of BS. You know, crazy stories lifted from Fark.com or wild conspiracy rumors about Bush and Cheney's plan to takeover the world.
(8 1/2) Remake the look and feel of the CBS Evening News to look exactly like a Web page. Add lots of annoying banners and Google text ads for CBS shows for good measure so that TV viewers forget that they're in front of the TV. Make sure that the video feed starts and stops at random times, just like the "buffering" process on my broadband connection when I download clips. Once interactive TV becomes a reality, viewers will be clamoring to buy the ties and outfits of the lead anchor (whoever it turns out to be).
Yesterday, Public Advocate candidate Andrew Rasiej released a new report ("Can You Gouge Me Now?") showing that New Yorkers are being over-charged for broadband Internet access in their homes and businesses. Instead of paying $15-$20/month, New Yorkers are paying what amounts to a "hidden Information Tax," according to Rasiej, who has been vocal about bringing free Wi-Fi Internet access to the city.
Media Citizen has details on the rally outside Verizon headquarters in Manhattan, where Free Press campaign director Timothy Karr voiced his disapproval about the high rates charged by Verizon and other broadband providers and talked up efforts by Andrew Rasiej to make community Internet access a reality. According to Karr, Verizon's attempts to monopolize the broadband Internet power through "political influence-peddling" has resulted in "fewer choices, higher costs and slower speeds" for New Yorkers.
For those of you following the Rasiej campaign, the first wave of TV ads are now running.
Getting a high-performance team comprised of superstars to produce outstanding results can be harder than it sounds. How do you get a bunch of opinionated, high-volume, ego-centric individuals to contribute to a common cause without hijacking the venture for their own personal gain? How do you recognize superstar contributions and massage the egos of each individual without sacrificing group consensus and the long-term health of the organization? That's the premise of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review: "Can Superstars Play the Team Game?" It's required reading for anyone working with so-called "virtuoso teams." (Or, at least, for Eagles coach Andy Reid).
Think of a blogging network, for example -- a virtuoso team comprised of superstar contributors in cyberspace. Some blogging networks - like Nick Denton's Gawker Media - seem to click. Others, like Always On, seem to be more disconnected and distant. What's the difference between blogging networks that "get it" and those don't?
"Ben Curtis, that slacker computer spokesman, will appear as a good-time party boy in "Joy," a comedy by John Fisher about seven friends and their romantic entanglements. The play, which is set over the course of a year in San Francisco, opens Aug. 14..."
CBS News is experimenting with a number of different formats for the post-Dan Rather 30-minute evening news broadcast. Details are speculative at best, mostly because CBS News staffers said the process of developing an evening news format was "too sensitive" to give anything more than anonymous tips. Maybe it's a sign of "out-of-the-box" thinking at the media titan -- or maybe it's a sign of panic at a dying media brontosaurus -- but it sounds like CBS News is pulling out all the stops to create something fresh and new:
"In trying to elicit fresh ideas, [the chairman of CBS] has cast a wide net. Earlier this year he sought advice from executives far afield of the news division, including those who conceived the "Dr. Phil" talk show and others from MTV News. A report yesterday in The New York Observer said the network had asked dozens of college-age summer interns to give Olympic-style ratings - on a scale of 1 to 10 - to ideas for revamping the news."
Mostly as a favor to Rupert Murdoch (he doesn't know it, though), we've been browsing the New York Post each day for little snippets of business and tech wisdom. In today's paper, there's a pull-out section called "NYP Biz" that covers topics of interest for small entrepreneurs - like how to raise VC money and what to do when you outgrow your home office.
Medical device maker Electro-Optical has postponed its $22 million IPO indefinitely. One factor probably looming large in the decision: the company has yet to receive FDA approval for its MelaFind system, which uses computer optics to capture images of the skin. Moreover, a similar system used to detect tooth decay was discontinued by the company in April, so there are apparently a few kinks to work out before the product is ready for primetime. Crain's New York notes that the company has cut the price range for its IPO twice this month. That's not a good sign, especially when Wall Street analysts have already "raised concerns" about the firm's profitability.
As might be expected, officials at Electro-Optical (based in Irvington, NY) weren't in a good mood after the IPO delay. Spokespersons for the company did not provide any reason for postponing the IPO and offered no guidance as to a future date for the IPO.
The Trump blog is providing biweekly updates on offerings at Trump University as well as business tidbits from everybody's favorite billionaire. The hope is that readers will be so impressed with the wit, wisdom and business acumen of The Donald and his Apprentices that they will sign up en masse for e-learning modules at Trump University.
If you've ever watched "The Apprentice," then you know that Mr. Trump has a certain weakness for the ladies. Perhaps no surprise, then, that Trump University is unveiling a new "women-centric" curriculum:
"Trump University is developing a new "women-centric" curriculum, starting with Prof. Karen Kahn Wilson's live course, Success Strategies for Women. This four-session course, scheduled for September and October, will be delivered over the Web. It will focus on the distinct strengths that women bring to the workplace and how they're related to findings in the latest research on female neurology."
On the back pages of The Wall Street Journal yesterday, there was a half-page, full-color ad announcing a new collaboration between T-Mobile and the WSJ: "T-Mobile HotSpot Service Now Includes Complimentary Access To The Wall Street Journal Online."
Here's the pitch:
"T-Mobile HotSpot customers have always been an intelligent bunch. And now they’re even smarter — with complimentary access to The Wall Street Journal Online from the comfort and convenience of any T-Mobile HotSpot location nationwide... Login to the T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi network from any of our 5,700 nationwide locations and enjoy complimentary, full access to The Wall Street Journal Online for a limited time."
The fine print indicates that the offer is good through January 31, 2006.
It's an interesting concession to Internet users, the majority of whom believe that Wi-Fi should be free and that online content should be free. The deal between T-Mobile and the WSJ basically says that you can have one free, but not both.
Earlier in the week, we mentioned that Gap and iTunes were collaborating on a unique marketing campaign: try on a pair of Gap jeans, and win a free iTunes download. Well, it turns out that the campaign was not so unique after all: "The Gap's move comes as phone giants, car makers and even drug companies are leveraging the ability to offer free music in marketing campaigns designed to reach young consumers."
According to the New York Post, a host of other companies - including Differin skin cream, Toyota, Wal-Mart and Gillette - have attempted to win over potential customers with free music downloads. The best marketing campaigns, of course, are those that offer iPod shuffles and not just a free song or two...
According to a recent Reuters report, a best-selling item over at T-shirtHumor.com is the "Mr. Housing Bubble" t-shirt. The design has "the right mix of market timing and dark humor" to strike a chord with nervous real estate investors:
"The parody of the decades-old Mr. Bubble bath foam package offers a "Free Balloon Mortgage Inside." But the smiling pink house-shaped bubble also warns: "If I pop, you're screwed." A disclaimer at the bottom reads, "Not affiliated with Mr. Internet Bubble."
A big hat tip to Curbed, which unveiled the original "Mr. Housing Bubble" design back in March.
Famed corporate raider Carl Icahn - the leader of the barbarian investor hordes clamoring for the break-up of Time Warner - has secured a meeting this week with CEO Dick Parsons. No word yet on whether the meeting will occur at a neutral site, or whether it will occur high up in Time Warner's Columbus Circle stronghold. According to the Post, Icahn is out to "rattle the cages at Time Warner" -- but Wall Street thus far is not yet convinced that Icahn has the secret to unlocking value at Time Warner. After all, shares of the company are only up 6% in the past 10 days or so.
Over at ClickZ, Mark Kingdon writes about the far-reaching effects of the CGM (consumer-generated media) Revolution. Traditional content businesses are under pressure like never before, while new forms of consumer-generated media (i.e. blogs, podcasts) seemingly appear every month. With users now in control, new business models are emerging for aggregating and distributing content. So what does it all mean?
"Traditional news isn't going away anytime soon. But CGM is no longer marginalized to the Web's outer reaches. No matter what consumer-facing industry you're in, this trend will affect you -- if it hasn't already. For Internet marketers, it means if you have a brand with a powerful connection to users, it might be time to think about a sponsored community..."
New York City is slowly but surely moving to a system of pre-paid parking cards for its single-space parking meters, says Newsday. Instead of packing quarters, it's now possible to pick up cards in $20 and $50 denominations. Currently, cards are available online at the NYC Department of Transportation Website, by calling 311 or by visiting a City Store.
In Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, Katy Marquardt has penned an interesting column on niche businesses with unrecognized profit potential. One of the companies profiled is Pall Corporation of East Hills, NY, which is apparently making a bundle in filters and filtration:
"From purifying water to preparing donated blood for transfusions, Pall's filtration devices apply similar technology across a variety of seemingly unrelated industries."
It's a non-glamorous company in a non-glamorous industry - kinda like a razor blade company that keeps selling high-tech blades and razors to customers, says Kiplinger. In this case, it's filters and filtering devices.
At the New York International Fringe Festival, "The Rude Pundit in the Year of Living Rudely" is noteworthy for at least one reason: the stage actor in the one-man show is also a 30-something blogger who started to make waves with his Rude Pundit blog over two years ago. The line between political theater and Internet discourse about politics, it appears, is blurring. As the New York Times asks:
"Who knew that the Internet would turn out to be a new frontier for theater; a stage that lets us choose our exits and entrances while playing any part we please? Everyone with a blog is a solo performer. And all theatrical forms are blogworthy, from diarylike realism to explosive satire."
Stern, Stewart, and now Simmons. Sirius is still serious (ouch!) about adding top talent and brand-name programming as a way of pulling in subscribers. According to the New York Post, fitness guru Richard Simmons, following in the footsteps of mega-stars like Howard Stern and Martha Stewart, has inked a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to host a weekly program starting in October.
Andrew Rasiej, candidate for New York City Public Advocate, is the guest blogger this week on Joshua Marshall's "Talking Points Memo," considered one of the top political blog destinations on the Web. Josh explains why he chose Andrew to guest blog:
"I had him on because he's talking about a bundle of issues and ideas about technology and reinventing civic life in the United States, ones which are just as relevant in Houston or Cincinnait or San Francisco, and ones which should be of particular interest to many readers of this site..."
If you have a chance, try to drop by the Talking Points Memo Cafe: Andrew started blogging in the morning about why "politicians just don't get it" and has already racked up 25 user comments by mid-afternoon.
Over at Search Engine Journal, Greg Sterling of The Kelsey Group wonders whether Rupert Murdoch is the new Barry Diller. After all, Murdoch has announced his intentions to get more involved in the interactive local media market and has hinted at a possible bid to buy a controlling stake in an Internet search company (think Diller and Ask Jeeves). Not only that, but Murdoch has already assembled the makings of a Diller-esque online conglomerate. Murdoch could face a bit of tough sledding, though, as he tries to make inroads into the online market:
"It only gets more competitive from here as search, portals, directories, newspapers, verticals, cable and local TV affiliates (and let’s not forget consolidated media empires) all compete for eyeballs and advertisers in the Interactive Local Media market."
UPDATE: Forbes says that News Corp. is in talks to buy Blinkx, a privately held Internet search firm.
Happened to see this while passing by a Gap store near Union Square: try on a pair of Gap blue jeans, get a free iTunes download. CNN has more details on this unique offer: "From August 8 to 31, each customer who tries on any pair of Gap's new jean fits -- three new fits for women and one for men -- will get a complimentary song from Apple's iTunes music store."
Agnes Crane of The Wall Street Journal takes a closer look at the growing number of economists and Wall Street pundits who have joined the blogosphere (link via the New York Sun):
"The economists - including prominent names from universities and even the Federal Reserve - have started blogging, posting their thoughts on the Web on a variety of things, including the rise in oil prices and the future of interest rates."
For blog readers-slash-investors, it's an easy way to get a new trading idea or pick up on an evolving trend, all before the rest of the market can catch up. Says one trader: "It's all about the memes... Those guys say it and about a week or two later, the guys on Wall Street pick it up."
With the price of oil edging up past the $66-a-barrel mark, it's no surprise that customers are facing sticker shock at the gas pump. Welcome to gas at $3/gallon in some parts of New York City. In fact, gas already sells at $3.20/gallon at one pump in Brooklyn. That price will likely move northward during the remaining days of summer, say oil traders, who are now predicting $80-a-barrel oil by Labor Day.
Gas gouging at pumps throughout the city will not go unpunished, though, responded Mayor Bloomberg. As Bloomberg pointed out, "High gasoline prices hurt everybody in this city." (even billionaires, we presume)
Housing bubble? What housing bubble? Even analysts once bearish about the housing market are no longer predicting a "sudden, painful drop" in housing prices, according to the New York Post. Despite all the talk in the media about a potential housing bubble (in June, there were 774 articles alone referring to "housing bubble"), bears are morphing into bulls mostly because U.S. property values simply show no signs of weakness and mortgage rates remain reasonable. In fact, as prices continue to edge up to "nosebleed" levels, bears are simply throwing in the towel. In Manhattan alone, unit sales of apartments increased by 7.5% in 2Q 2005, while the average price of an apartment unit ($1.32 million) increased by 30% compared to the year-earlier period.
A New York real estate speculator summarizes why so many people are willing to suspend reality when it comes to playing the real estate market:
"I'm concerned about all this bubble talk I see on CNBC and in newspapers because they are all correct about the dangers built into this housing market... But you can listen to a guy with a long list of degrees telling me that the bubble is going to definitely burst, while an equally accomplished fellow can say just the opposite on another channel. I don't know what to believe."
Meet The Cable Guy, who doled out $150,000 in free services to Cablevision customers. Apparently this New York-based Cable Guy regularly made adjustments to nearly 300 customer accounts to reflect that cable charges had been credited either in full or for premium channels like HBO, Showtime and Cinemax. According to cybercrime authorities investigating the case, these were not "random acts of kindness" (i.e. kickbacks were involved).
Somewhere, Walt Mossberg, the personal tech guru at The Wall Street Journal, must be smiling... Tech advertising at The Wall Street Journal jumped by 22% last month, mainly due to increases in ads for consumer electronics, networking, personal computers, office products and software. For the year, however, technology ads in the Journal are down 14.7%.
Going forward, it will be interesting to see how the Journal's upcoming weekend edition (slated for sometime in September) impacts tech advertising.
UPDATE: Just heard from Walt Mossberg (check the comments below) - he makes clear that there is a Chinese Wall between the editorial and advertising sides of the house at The Wall Street Journal. Two separate teams walled off from each other. Wanted to clarify that -- guess it was a bit of reckless name-dropping there by myself... That's the way we do things here in blog-land.
In the world of online dating, it always pays to do a bit of due diligence... Gothamist points to a story from the New York Post about an online dating scam on JDate, the matchmaking site for Jewish singles:
"A 60-something widow was taken for $100,000 by a match from JDate... The scammer, Alan Sarner of Sheepshead Bay, told the widow he was a banker about invest in a company that was close to finding a cure for leukemia, which just happened to be what the widow's husband died of."
Sarner may be a villain -- but anyone who falls for the "sensitive artist/investment banker" rap must be pretty naive. Sensitive investment banker? C'mon, that's the oldest line in the book. According to the Post, Sarner also told the victim that he was really "into romantic movies" and was in the process of building a luxury hotel on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca that would have a gambling casino, heliport, marina and restaurant.
Motley Fool has some good news: despite selling off its PC unit to Chinese computer firm Lenovo, IBM still hasn't lost its soul. Apparently, IBM researchers have cooked up something called the SoulPad - "a way to carry a powerful, personalized virtual computer (in the form of a USB key or some other portable device) from one PC to the next. The virtual computer's "soul" ... needs no new software and can simply be popped in and uploaded to a new PC via a USB, iPod, MP3 player, or cell phone."
So what's the takeaway lesson? Jack Uldrich of Motley Fool explains:
"This suggests that the era of being able to walk up to any computer and personalize it is now very near. And, if this is true, then the future value of PCs will continue to drop as it becomes less important that you have a computer and more important that you can access one."
"Can you see my customer information now?" According to Crain's New York, Verizon Wireless customers who signed up for online billing services were able to peek at some details of others' accounts due to a Web site programming error:
"The flaw allowed customers who punched in another user's phone number to see how many airtime minutes that person had used, as well as the number of free minutes they had remaining for the month. Snoopers could also learn what cell phone model a customer used."
The good news, says Verizon Wireless, is that the glitch is now fixed. The bad news? Well, the glitch apparently existed for five years.
What do you do when you feel especially loyal to an institution that has nurtured you for over 40 years? One answer: give a gift of $105 million. The New York Times has the fascinating back story on how Jan Vileck, a Czech immigrant who came to the U.S. with only two suitcases "full of useless stuff," became an eminent researcher in New York and wound up making one of the largest gifts ever to a school or health care institution in New York City:
"A scientist who hid from the Nazis as a child, escaped a Communist regime, did pioneering medical research and made a fortune on a blockbuster drug will give $105 million to the New York University School of Medicine, his professional home for four decades... The donation by the scientist, Jan T. Vilcek, 72, is one of the four or five largest ever given to a school or health care institution in New York City, and among the biggest in the nation."
Curbed points out that Donald Trump (or is it one of his Apprentices?) is now blogging over at the Trump University site. Deep thoughts from The Donald on all the usual topics: fame, fortune, glamour and the Trump lifestyle.
In a deal announced yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg, a California real estate company will pump $700 million into the creation of the East River Science Park on the campus of Bellevue Hospital Center. It's all part of an effort to build a world-class biotech industry in Manhattan, according to the New York Times. In a best case scenario, hope New York civic leaders, the ERSP will create the type of buzz and hype needed to encourage promising biotech start-ups and world-class researchers to stay in NYC. In fact, according to Mayor Bloomberg, New York City could now be on the cusp of creating "one of the nation's primary bioscience clusters."
On news that legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn will attempt to push Time Warner to sell or spin off assets (e.g. its publishing or cable TV units), James Altucher of TheStreet.com weighs in on what it all means for Time Warner shareholders:
"I give Icahn credit for kick-starting the conversation. Time Warner stock has not moved in more than two years, while the rest of the market has gone up significantly, and earnings and revenue have improved in every division. Perhaps a breakup is best or perhaps Parsons is correct to not spend too much energy in financial engineering and to instead focus on bottom-line results. Either way, Icahn wins."
An interesting side question, of course, is: What will happen to AOL if Icahn manages to break up the entire Time Warner juggernaut?
Anyway, Newsday has a great breakdown of all the companies that Carl Icahn raided and greenmailed during the 1980s, while the Financial Times has commentary on whether Carl Icahn will be able to "dislodge value" from Time Warner. (Hint: "Shake a tree hard enough and something might fall out")
Information Week has more on IBM's overtures to the open source community:
"IBM is at it again. The IT giant is offering yet another batch of technology to the open-source world in hope of propagating widespread text search and analytics. IBM said it will make its Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) framework freely available to help make unstructured data more easily searchable--and findable."
According to one IBM engineer, the company's contribution of UIMA to the open source community will "open up tremendous opportunities for companies in the business intelligence arena as well as in the search space."
"I suspect the main reason people shop at Whole Foods, and are willing to pay more for the experience, is that it's fun. When you think about it, the Whole Foods concept is pretty revolutionary. It's reinventing food retailing, and might change agriculture. I think of it as a stealth Google, a company with huge potential but a small fraction of Google's hype. Like Google's founders, Whole Foods' top executives eschew the usual quarterly guidance and earnings predictions.
Wall Street analysts tend to think of it as a supermarket chain, which is myopic. Whole Foods is competing not just with the old-line supermarkets, but also with restaurants, catering businesses, coffee bars and chains like Starbucks, wine and beverage retailers, and even cosmetics sellers. Whole Foods is becoming what the department store was in its heyday — a destination, a meeting place, a community center, a town square."
Whew, that's a mouthful. The only problem, says Stewart, is that the company's stock recently traded at $140, a 52-week high, and trades at a very rich forward P/E of 54. If you think Google is a buy at $300, though, Whole Foods is surely a buy at $132.
Booz Allen Hamilton's Strategy + Business magazine - must reading for anyone in the consulting industry - has an interesting feature on how management gurus like Jack Welch are working with principals of New York City’s public school system to create a future generation of leaders in the city. Andrea Gabor, who is part of the business journalism program at Baruch College at CUNY, shows how a little 'straight from the gut' thinking from Jack Welch can transform your average NYC principal into a lean, mean business machine. It's all made possible through the New York City Leadership Academy, a "selective leadership training program for high-potential principals."
It's a provocative thesis -- that NYC public schools can be reformed internally with talent already on hand. All it takes is a little know-how from some of the sharpest management minds around:
"At a time of roiling debate about education’s role in the competitiveness of the United States economy — and about the efficacy of such reform strategies as school vouchers, education tax credits, and the privatization of public school systems — the leaders of one of the nation’s largest and most troubled school systems have declared that schools can be reformed from within, with the help of business. New York is declaring that principals, though rarely thought of as managers at all, at least not in a conventional sense, have the same need for managerial and leadership development skills as rising corporate executives."
This is MBA-type stuff adapted for New York City public schools -- "process mapping," "best practices," the notion of "leader as teacher," "peer-to-peer" learning, reality-based problem scenarios and distributive leadership.
For those following the NYC Public Advocate race between incumbent Betsy Gotbaum and a host of challengers including Andrew Rasiej, a videoblog ("The Private Advocate in Her Private Office") from the Rasiej campaign team might be interesting -- it shows young voters being kicked out of Gotbaum’s office simply for asking for her public schedule:
"What is in Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s public schedule that would drive her to kick young people our of her office who were interested in asking her questions? That’s the question begging to be answered after the Public Advocate refused yet again to disclose her public schedule – this time to a pair of young New York voters—Rasiej interns going “double top-secret undercover”– who paid a visit to her office in downtown Manhattan to find out where Gotbaum would be in public next."
While we agree that the Public Advocate should be a highly visible position, and while we generally endorse the Andrew Rasiej campaign in its "Where is Betsy?" activities, me thinks that if a bunch of kids holding digital video cameras showed up at your office in the middle of the day asking for your whereabouts, the results would have been much the same.
City Journal seems to think that economic growth in New York City is at a standstill. While mayor Michael Bloomberg maintains that the local economy is "strong and growing stronger," the reality may be otherwise:
"Hold on a second. The picture is nowhere near as rosy as the mayor paints it. The city’s economy is stuck in neutral, and the budget could be deeply in deficit by next year... Under Bloomberg, New York is slipping back into an all-too-familiar pattern of lagging behind national job growth, after having outperformed the rest of the nation in the late 1990s under Mayor Rudy Giuliani."
What's all the more disturbing, Wall Street and the rest of the financial services industry is no longer acting as an engine of growth for the city:
"Equally troubling, the city slowly seems to be trading its reputation as a financial and mercantile capital for a place as America’s urban theme park and tycoon playground. Although New York is still probably the world’s financial capital, lately the city has mostly been producing employment in low-wage industries that serve tourists and the Bloomberg-style megarich..."
Computerworld has more on IBM's decision to podcast a number of thought leader interviews on a regular basis:
"Big Blue is getting hip. Just a few months after adopting a corporate blogging policy, IBM is latching onto another hot tech trend, podcasting. On Friday the company posted the first podcast in a new series aimed at sharing its researchers' views about the evolution of technology in various fields."
According to IBM, podcasting is a natural way for investors and researchers to stay informed about key developments: "Podcasting is extremely portable and accessible, and can convey information in a way that's easier to absorb than in a lengthy document." For anyone interested, the debut public podcast from IBM is called "IBM and the Future of Driving."
With the Dolan family squabble at Cablevision almost resolved (we hope), The New York Observer dives into the mess at yet another troubled family dynasty: the Murdochs. With the announcement two weeks ago that Lachlan Murdoch would resign as deputy chief operating officer of News Corp., The Observer speculates about what it all means for the New York Post, as the 33-year-old Lachlan Murdoch is replaced as publisher of the New York Post by its former publisher, the 74-year-old Rupert Murdoch. Behind the scenes, the struggle for power was messy, says the Observer, with Lachlan chafing under the "absolute authority" and "tyranny" of Rupert.
It's perhaps fitting that the Post - the "beloved tabloid" of Rupert known for ruffling the feathers of not a few New Yorkers - is at the center of the Murdoch family intrigue:
"The restoration of the 74-year-old Mr. Murdoch to the vehicle into which he has thrown so much capital and passion comes after a week of the kind that the Post itself would revel in, of public family turmoil and power Parcheesi that exacted an emotional cost from his son."
Interesting piece by Serena Ng in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about "channel checkers" -- individuals paid $20 to $75 per hour who actually go into retail stores and other businesses and "kick the tires" in order to check out sales, customer attitudes and a whole host of intangibles that are impossible to quantify in a spreadsheet. These channel checkers then report back to their clients -- usually a small Wall Street research firm or a money manager -- who are then able to sell this information to hedge funds or other big institutional clients looking for an inside edge. Have a hunch that a company may report numbers below consensus estimates? Go out and hire a channel checker...
It's all part of a changing of the guard of Wall Street equity research, as smaller, more nimble firms (like New York-based Majestic Research) take a bigger chunk of the market:
"Channel checks -- collecting data from a company's customers, suppliers, employees and even rivals to find out how a business is really doing -- have always been part of a stock analyst's duties. But with most Wall Street firms unable or unwilling to devote significant resources to this qualitative and often time-consuming process, a growing number of independent research outfits are making a living out of this niche. The work involves more networking and investigative reporting than analyzing balance sheets and income statements. The channel checkers go out and kick the tires, in the parlance, rather than staying in the office to scan securities filings or call investor relations departments. The idea is to spot a trend before it is widely known."
Anyone thinking what I'm thinking? What about hiring armies of bloggers to go out and channel check?
Get ready for New York Mega Tech Day on September 29 at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan. The one-day event will attempt to answer a number of questions related to the converging worlds of PR and technology, including the one question on the mind of any self-respecting blogger or other media do-it-yourselfer: "Whither blogs, logs, podcasts, RSS and other web-based technologies for media, marketing and public relations purposes in the U.S. and around the world?" Among the participants on the panel: BL Ochman and Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion fame.
All those Mitchum Man ads plastered on the walls of the subway were surely intended as a way of fostering a bit of existential angst in New York's intellectual class... Am I a Mitchum Man or not? Maybe I really should have given up my seat to that sweet little grandmother on the long ride home?
However, as Gothamist points out, a better question might be: Do I really want to be a Mitchum Man, especially if it means that I have to disobey the MTA's subway rules in the process? As the New York Times also noted, many of the Mitchum Man ads ("If you've ever hurdled anything to get the subway...") are problematic since they encourage behavior that directly contradict many of the MTA's policies. Gothamist calls the ad campaign "unbearably lame." We won't go that far, if only because the Mitchum Man ads remind us of our Maxim-FHM days.
Last week, Media Post reported that The New York Times Co. inked a deal with XM Satellite Radio that will result in more content from the newspaper company distributed to XM's talk radio and classical stations. The branded audio content will include news, commentary, reviews and features from the newsprint and radio divisions of the New York Times. In addition, the two companies will collaborate on hourly newscasts.
As Media Post points out, "XM's deal with the Times Co. is one of several recent moves by print publications to branch out into the audio realm." For newspaper companies eager to expand revenues, branded audio content is one potential area of growth.
Eliot Spitzer doesn't like it when people smack each other around, according to Newsday. His staff, bored with hunting down white collar Wall Street evildoers, must have cooked this one up. Apparently, Eliot Spitzer went after radio station Hot 97 for its "Smackfest" promotion, in which women engaged in "violent slapping" for concert tickets and cash. Making matters worse, said the Spitzer camp, the images of these violent slaps were then posted on the Hot 97 Website. After much posturing and negotiating, Spitzer managed to wring out a $240,000 settlement from Hot 97's parent company, Emmis Communications.
In what the New York Post is calling the War of the Roses, Jeanine Pirro, a high-profile prosecutor from Westchester County, announced plans to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton next year as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator. It'll be the catfight to end all catfights, with Pirro pounding away on one issue: that Hillary is more interested in the U.S. presidency than in serving New Yorkers. On the tech front, Pirro will likely play up her role in Westchester's Internet stings of would-be child molesters.
A Pirro-Clinton matchup is not guaranteed, though. Pirro still needs to outpoll Edward Cox -- a son-in-law of former President Nixon -- in the GOP primary before taking on Clinton. Moreover, Pirro's husband could be a real liability, given that he's served time in federal prison for tax fraud and has been linked to Mafia informants.
NYU has installed a new IBM supercomputer, giving it the fastest supercomputer in New York City. All the more remarkable, since the supercomputer (using IBM's blade technology) only occupies a total space of 30 square feet. While the supercomputer is the baddest boy on the block in NYC, it ranks as the 117th fastest supercomputer in the world.
The computing power will help out the university's Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science, which is developing sophisticated models to study the behavior of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. As well, the new supercomputer will be part of a collaborative effort between the Center for Comparative Functional Genomics and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences on genomics and bioinformatics.
Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gave a glowing endorsement to the campaign of Andrew Rasiej, one of the candidates for New York City Public Advocate. As has been noted here on the Corante New York site, Andrew has been at the forefront of a number of important issues facing New Yorkers in the coming election -- like citywide Wi-Fi networks and 911 calls from the subway. The idea of using technology to solve societal problems, says Friedman, is exactly what makes Rasiej special. Like Howard Dean before him, Rasiej has recognized the power of technology to reach into any sphere of life and make it more efficient and more powerful:
"The technological model coming next - which Howard Dean accidentally uncovered but never fully developed - will revolve around the power of networks and blogging. The public official or candidate will no longer just be the one who talks to the many or tries to listen to the many. Rather, he or she will be a hub of connectivity for the many to work with the many - creating networks of public advocates to identify and solve problems and get behind politicians who get it."
As might be expected, the article by Friedman generated quite a bit of commentary throughout the blogosphere. For awhile, in fact, the article was the #1 most-emailed article on the New York Times website. A big hat tip to the Rasiej campaign team!
Expedia is spinning off from its parent company, IAC/InterActiveCorp, today as Barry Diller attempts to restore order to his Internet empire. Instead of running an Internet conglomerate, Diller is trying to combine all of his Internet travel-related assets into one company. Sensing a story in there somewhere, the New York Times tracks down the 34-year-old CEO of Expedia (Dara Khosrowshahi), Barry Diller's right-hand man for the past seven years or so, to find out what changes are afoot in the online travel business.
For starters, the company is consolidating its operations in Seattle, bringing in new management, and hoping to regain market share from the likes of Travelocity and Priceline. There's also a push to go global and to build customer loyalty through new features and options. Don't expect Barry Diller to cede too much control of Expedia, though -- he still owns 6% of the company's shares (but 61% of the voting shares) and talks with Khosrowshahi daily.
The Bronx will be the launch venue for a nationwide $1 billion Internet initiative (access@home) from Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC), the National Equity Fund (NEF) and One Economy. On hand will be Senator Hillary Clinton and former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, both of whom are working to bridge the digital divide across the state.
Hillary explains what the new $1 billion Internet initiative means for New Yorkers:
"Today, one of the greatest catalysts for fostering economic opportunity and opening up new markets is the Internet, but for too many people, the digital divide is still too wide. All New Yorkers -- from the Bronx to Buffalo and beyond -- need to be wired with next-generation broadband technology in order to succeed in the global marketplace. With access@home, LISC/NEF and One Economy will help bring the power of technology into thousands of households so that every family can have the tools for success in today's technology-rich economy."
The New York Times finally has a feature-length profile of Mimi Feo, the 26-year-old stripper-blogger-Cambridge grad behind the ever-popular Mimi in New York blog. If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes look at the world of midtown strip clubs, or are just interested in what happens in the Champagne Room, it's worth a read.
Last week, Craig Newmark - the founder of Craigslist - warned Internet users everywhere about the appearance of a fake Craigslist site: "Just to let people know in a hurry, the site www.pay-craigslist.org has no relation to us, and we're escalating dramatically now. Please get the word out." On a tip from Curbed, we checked out the fake site, but apparently the site had already been taken down. Given Craig's crackdown on unethical New York real estate brokers, we suspect that the site will remain down for a very long time...
The New York Post, citing a report from Newsweek.com, says that NBC is in the hunt for a "news czar" to oversee the three jewels in its media crown: NBC, CNBC and MSNBC. Already, the company has made overtures to senior executives at Martha Stewart Living, Time Warner and ESPN. The rumor on the street is that the new hire at NBC will be tasked with "a sweeping restructuring of NBC's entire approach to the news business."
