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14 Oct 2009 10:38

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Tech: Digg vs. the human hand: Why the world needs an editor

Digg as a newspaper

This image, while funny, nails what (to us) is wrong with Digg. It's not that there isn't a place for funny/bizarre content or the chance to be goofy, but when it's all you've got, it seems a little threadbare. And it's not even their fault. It's how democracy works sometimes.
  • Editors vs thumbs In a lot of ways, sites like Digg can replace rooms full of journalists and editors with a single yes/no thumb system. It works on the idea of visceral impact, much like TV news does. But when visceral impact is all you got, it stops becoming what you need to know and turns into what you want to know.
  • Editors vs thumbs In a lot of ways, sites like Digg can replace rooms full of journalists and editors with a single yes/no thumb system. It works on the idea of visceral impact, much like TV news does. But when visceral impact is all you got, it stops becoming what you need to know and turns into what you want to know.
  • Eating veggies Sometimes, the stories that aren’t very sexy are the most important. Newspapers spend hours debating these stories daily. But those stories can get overlooked in the hunt for a sexy headline. Editors have struggled with this very issue for years. Does it even come up for people clicking on thumbs?
  • Editors vs thumbs In a lot of ways, sites like Digg can replace rooms full of journalists and editors with a single yes/no thumb system. It works on the idea of visceral impact, much like TV news does. But when visceral impact is all you got, it stops becoming what you need to know and turns into what you want to know.
  • Eating veggies Sometimes, the stories that aren’t very sexy are the most important. Newspapers spend hours debating these stories daily. But those stories can get overlooked in the hunt for a sexy headline. Editors have struggled with this very issue for years. Does it even come up for people clicking on thumbs?
  • It’s not all bad We don’t want to disparage link journalism, because it can work. We’re big fans of Y! Combinator’s Hacker News, for example, because it has this strong mix of audience, community and focus. The Windy Citizen does a great job applying it to a local market. We want to see more of this.

14 Oct 2009 10:13

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Biz: JPMorgan Chase has more money sitting around than you do

  • $3.6 billion in third-quarter profits for the financial-services company source

14 Oct 2009 10:07

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U.S., World: Abortions not done in a doctors’ care are often deadly

  • 70,000 killed by unsafe abortions yearly source

14 Oct 2009 10:03

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Tech: World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee: Sorry about the slashes

  • Look at all the paper and trees that could have been saved if people had not had to write or type out those slashes on paper over the years — not to mention the human labour and time spent typing those two keystrokes countless millions of times in browser address boxes.
  • Tim Berners-Lee • Admitting that the double-slashes separating the http: and the web address were really kinda useless and unnecessary for the design of the Web. He goes further to apology: “There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Apology NOT accepted. This fills us with RAGE! • source

14 Oct 2009 09:55

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Music: Bob Dylan’s “Christmas in the Heart”: Everything we imagined

  • Hearing Dylan tackle “Here Comes Santa Claus” with that voice of his is just unbelievable. You think he’s doing it ironically, but no, he’s doing it with the passion of a guy who can pull off that bizarre mustache he’s been rocking the last few years. Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times gave this album no stars. That’s how bad it is.source

14 Oct 2009 09:47

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Tech: The WikiReader: Wikipedia for people without iPhones handy

wikireader1014
  • It’s like a combination between an Amazon Kindle and a Tamagotchi. It looks neat. But so does your cell phone. At $99, where’s the market for this?source

14 Oct 2009 09:36

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Biz: Watch out: The Dow could reach the 10,000 barrier again today

  • 9,871 the Dow’s Tuesday close, buoyed by earnings source
 

14 Oct 2009 09:31

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Culture: Jaycee Dugard on the cover of People: She’s beeeeautiful

Considering the strangeness of the situation, it’s great to know that she looks like a reasonably normal human being when put on the front of a magazine. source