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10 Oct 2009 07:06

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Biz: Retrospect, my name is Bank of America: A not-classic U2 rewrite

  • Did this disappoint you, or leave a bad taste in your mouth? You know, this video seemed out of place a few years ago, when it first became popular, when Bank of America was still riding high. Now, with the company still paying back TARP funds, living down its unpopular purchase of Merrill Lynch and famously charging absurd fees, it’s just sick. Ethan Chandler of Bank of America took U2’s message of comradery and twisted it into a message of greed. Way to miss the point.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Oct 2009 12:30

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Biz: Dear Associated Press: Our boycott of you is still freaking on

  • We content creators have been too slow to react to the free exploitation of news by third parties without input or permission.
  • Associated Press Chief Executive Tom Curley • Discussing the idea of charging search engines money for finding their content. Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. is also on board. May we just say, as the Associated Press looks to screw over the entire Internet with its greed and lack of foresight, we would like to welcome our new Reuters overlords. (In case you’re wondering: We’re going to continue to post stuff from News Corp., because, come on, Glenn Beck!) • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

08 Oct 2009 22:00

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Biz, U.S.: The economy’s starting to (slowly) recover from the recession

  • 521,000 new jobless claims this week, the lowest level since January source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Oct 2009 08:45

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Biz: Rupert Murdoch: An old guy who wants to screw over new media?

  • Murdoch, at 78, doesn’t, practically speaking, have the time to see the online world into maturity—nor the intellectual interest to want to be part of the effort. Rather, his strategic effort may more logically be to slow it down.
  • Vanity Fair columnist and Newser co-founder Michael Wolff • Discussing Rupert Murdoch’s stance on online media and forcing consumers to pay for the news. Wolff suggests that Murdoch is old and probably isn’t thinking long-term about the industry at the moment, but short-term at his bank account. Murdoch owns enough of the media industry that people would notice if he started charging for some of it. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

07 Oct 2009 20:17

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Biz, Tech: Google: We made it through the worst of the ad slump just fine

  • The worst is behind us. We’re clearly seeing aspects of recovery, not just in the U.S. but also Europe.
  • Google CEO Eric Schmidt • Speaking to room full of journalists about the state of his company. He says that his company has started to hire again in anticipation of a major rebound. Big question: Will newspapers recover along with Google? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Oct 2009 09:50

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Biz: We’re using debit cards more and charge cards less

  • +4.1% incresase in the use of debit cards to pay for everything source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Oct 2009 21:21

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Biz: GM: Saturn spun out, but Hummer’s sale still humming along

  • We avoided a dirty joke in the headline. The formerly-bankrupt General Motors says that its sale of Hummer to the menacingly-named Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. is still on track. They didn’t come to an agreement with the Chinese manufacturer last quarter but plan to keep working at it this quarter. We avoided another dirty joke ending this post. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

06 Oct 2009 21:14

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Biz: Fewer employers punishing workers for skipping out on work

  • 15% of employers fired workers for playing hooky this year source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Oct 2009 10:40

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Biz, Tech: Blog or news source? The inconsistent ways of Google News

  • Dividing content along these lines is like classifying brownies based on whether they were baked in aluminum or glass pans. There’s no difference, and it obscures what you really want know: if they contain chocolate chips.
  • Neiman Journalism Lab blogger Zachary M. Seward • Making a strong, interesting point about Google News’ new, and very inconsistent, labeling policies of blogs. Here’s one example: Talking Points Memo recently switched back to being a news source from being a blog. Here’s another (weirder) one: Gizmodo is a news source, and Deadspin is a blog, despite the fact that both are owned by Gawker Media. And the process of getting added to Google News, anyway, seems completely arbitrary. By the way, we love how Seward worded this. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Oct 2009 21:53

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Biz, Tech: Knight Foundation: Everyone (not just EveryBlock) should benefit

  • Oops, this open source code isn’t very useful on its own! The Knight Foundation, which has been funding startups for a few years as part of their Knight News Challenge, was quite excited at the sale of EveryBlock to MSNBC in August. But now it’s having second thoughts. Why? Because it was released to the public as a piece of open-source code – not a plug-and-play package that newspapers can easily use. So they’re getting a new team to finish up the EveryBlock code which so it can be rolled out simply. Other startups will get treated the same way. We imagine some applicants to the Knight News Challenge (deadline coming soon!) might get turned off by this, but the goal was always to help journalism in general. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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