This Day in Tech: CompuServe Debuts

Sept. 24, 1979: First Online Service for Consumers Debuts

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s unsurprising affirmation of support for network neutrality is a victory for the high-minded principle of open, unfettered internet access. Too bad it means the days of all-you-can-eat, flat-rate internet access are probably over.
Net neutrality sounds like a good idea. After all, it’s the internet’s openness to any and all users, applications [...]

I’ll admit it: I got into journalism for the money.
Columbia Journalism School dean Nicholas Lemann has said: “I’ve never met a single person in 35 years who went into journalism out of pure economic reason.”
He never met me. While my motivation wasn’t purely financial, I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the primary reason [...]

Jul 172009
Blind photographers

Brian X. Chen wrote a moving story about how three professional photographers are continuing to pursue their art even though they’re almost totally blind. One of them went blind after he’d become a photographer, but has found a way to continue working using a Nokia N82 and an iPhone 3GS. This piece shows the potential [...]

News lessons from TMZ and Michael Jackson

Los Angeles gossip site TMZ got the scoop that Michael Jackson died. They had it about half an hour after paramedics arrived, and about 15 minutes ahead of the LA Times. When the LA Times blog was just reporting that MJ was in the hospital, and then in a coma, TMZ already had a headline [...]

The notificator.

Twitter, circa 1935

Thanks for your careful attention to our blogs.
It may come as a surprise to you to find out that Wired publishes about 10 different blogs, accounting for a total of 50-100 articles per day, with a staff of about 25.
By contrast, Wired magazine publishes about 85-100 pages of stories per month with an editorial staff of 40 — [...]

Sultans of Stride
May 122009
Remember to look left

This is a hell of an obit about a man who must have been a hell of a writer. Not being a sports fan, I hadn’t heard about Bud Shrake until I read this, and now I’m sorry I missed him.
I’m pretty sure they aren’t making journalists like this any more.
Sally Jenkins – Shrake ‘Did [...]