Linked List: February 7, 2011

Monday, 7 February 2011

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue on How Chasing Page Views Has Corrupted Journalism ★

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, back in December:

The problem with journalism on the Web today is that it’s being contaminated by the Web form factor. What I mean is, journalists are being pushed to do things like slide shows — stuff meant to attract page views. Articles themselves are condensed to narrow columns of text across 5, 6, 7 pages, and ads that are really distracting for the reader, so it’s not a pleasant experience to ‘curl up’ with a good website.

Journalism is being pushed into a space where I don’t think it should ever go, where it’s trying to support the monetization model of the Web by driving page views. So what you have is a drop-off of long-form journalism, because long-form pieces are harder to monetize. And it’s also hard to present that longer stuff to the reader because no one wants to wait four seconds for every page to load.

By the way, have you heard that AOL bought the Huffington Post?

Stephen Coles on the Design of The Daily ★

Solid critique.

‘Hi, Lloyd. Little Slow Tonight, Isn’t It?’ ★

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy If We Don’t, Remember Me?

WikiLeaks, Revolution, and the Lost Cojones of American Journalism ★

Naomi Wolf:

Another motive is revealed in the comment that Assange is “not one of us.” U.S. journalism’s business model is collapsing; the people who should be out in front defending Assange are facing cut salaries or unemployment because of the medium that Assange represents. These journalists are not willing to concede that Assange is, of course, a publisher, rather than some sort of hybrid terrorist blogger, because of their self-interested prejudices against a medium in which they are not the gatekeepers.

K-9 ★

This open source fork of the standard Android Email app (not to be confused with the Gmail app) is widely considered the best Android IMAP client. Interesting discussion here about Google’s lack of interest in adopting its features back into the standard Email app.

This Is the New Gizmodo ★

Terrible.

Denton on AOL ★

Nick Denton, to Dan Lyons:

“AOL has gathered so many of our rivals — Huffington Post, Engadget, Techcrunch — in one place. The question: Is this a fearsome Internet conglomerate or simply a roach motel for once lively websites?”

Google I/O Sells Out in 59 Minutes ★

That was fast.

Bush Cancels Europe Trip Amid Calls for His Arrest ★

Salon:

Bush has traveled widely since leaving office, but not to Europe, where there is a strong tradition of international prosecutions.

Just another former president.

Skin Cancer ★

Re: the aforelinked piece by Steven Poole against needless UI chrome, here’s a classic by Greg Knauss for Suck from 11 years ago. (Via Anil Dash.)

Isotope: jQuery Plugin for Animated Dynamic Layouts ★

Nifty work by David DeSandro.

Against Chrome: A Manifesto ★

Steven Poole on Skeuomorphism gone wild. (He’s against UI chrome, in general, not Google’s Chrome browser.)

AOL to Buy the Huffington Post for $315 Million ★

They deserve each other.