Dec1
Just another night at Professor Thom’s.
Nov30
Mark this date and time as the moment the Internet grew up and decided to take care of itself.
Boom.
Nov18
SPOTTED! Just when the day couldn’t get any weirder at Curbed/HCS/FourSquare HQ…
Nov18
New Curbed design went live this morning. Same basic thought as the recent Eater redesign, but with more real estate. And (for Soup) we surveyed architects, architectural critics, and various experts to compile lists: the Top 10 Buildings of the Decade for New York City and The Hamptons. (Coming later today: LA and SF. Whee.)
Nov11
Music Blogging Haz a Sad: Maura Johnston & Idolator Break Up
fek:
Today’s a sad day for fans of music, fans of music writing, other music writers and bloggers, and even some of the acts themselves: Maura Johnston, who wrote and edited Idolator for three years, has left the building…The goodbye post has 72 comments — quite a bit, for the site — and they’re growing. Most of them are some variation of this guy’s “Booooo!” This is the way a good blog ends, not with a bang, but with an SEO-inspired whimper.
My tribute to Maura’s departure. We’ve got quotes from friends, enemies, the lady herself, as well as former Gawker Editorial Director Lockhart Steele, who provided us with some memorabilia from the site’s launch. The original, sparkling gif logo, dug up from the Wayback Machine, was an especially fun touch.
Oct26
Gawker Gets Scammed
Interesting thing here isn’t the scam, but the bits of Gawker ad sales intel in the exchange with Del. (For bonus points, contrast revenue strategy in email thread with Batty kicker in AdAge story today.)
Oct26
Daulerio vs. ESPN
From this Times story:
In his initial posting on the topic, Mr. Daulerio suggested less-than-scrupulous concern for the accuracy of the rumors he repeated: “Chances are, at this point, there’s some truth to them,” he wrote. “We’ll just throw ’em out there” and wait for the reactions. But in the interview, he said he adhered to the same standard of proof as any traditional news organization, repeating only those things told to him by multiple sources with close knowledge of the subject.
This is the paragraph that’ll get glossed over. Gawker likes to suggest that it shamelessly rumormongers, but it doesn’t in any traditional sense. And “multiple sources with close knowledge of the subject” is pretty traditional sourcing.
There’s another question, re: whether Deadspin should be publishing information about the sex lives of ESPN employees, especially if they aren’t public figures. But the Times seems more interested in the fact that AJ is a blogger taking on a sports news network.
Nonetheless, having been lied to by lying PR people who lie on a number of occasions, I understand AJ’s reaction. I think they should be publicly outed every time they do it. (For the opposite of this principle, see GossipCop, which happily—and either knowingly or stupidly—regurgitates publicist lies, perpetuating the problem.)
This is exactly right.
Oct22
Snapped this today on Main Street in Cody, Wyoming.
Oct14
The fifty (50!!) Momofuku cookbooks signed by Dave Chang and Peter Meehan that Eater’s giving away to readers this week just arrived at Eater HQ. The inscriptions are much more awesome than one could have ever possibly imagined. (I’m keeping these two.)
Oct10
Why yes, now that you mention it, it is on.
Oct8
I’m pretty even money on the new Eater logo. I really like the old one is more the point that not liking the new. But, pls Internets, the signage is not ‘inspired by Florent’ — Florent’s branding and advertising, from the incomparable Tibor Kalman and M&Co is not part of the building signage. Above is an image that is much more about Florent’s visual identity. The new Eater logo, as was clearly indicated by Eater, is inspired by the R&L diner signage that was in place when Florent opened. The gesture of a simple neon sign and using found elements is, yes, part of the Florent design. But there’s a rich tradition that wasn’t as present in the past decade following Tibor’s death. The matches and menus, but ads and postcards tapered, so you might not really know what ‘Florent’ looked like.Nice job, 99.
Oct8
Is it just me, or are good IA’s trying to tell me something? A couple of the more well known blogs on the internet launched redesigns last week, Eater and Boing Boing both within a week or so of one another.
If you’re comparing the design…there isn’t much comparison. Eater just absolutely crushes Boing Boing, who seriously seems like they lost their mind by getting rid of their previous well-known (and loved) logo and typeface to replace it with something that reminds me of the Radisson re-brand. The rest of it color, typefaces, everything… is just baffling and awful. Eater on the other hand, polished up their look nicely, evolved the logo with a perfect inspiration from Florent, made it cleaner and easier to read and built a communication system that eases the information intake. Classic work from Kevin and his team at Hard Candy Shell who I’ve always felt were some of the best online publishing UI peeps out there.
But what I found curious was the similarities between the two from a layout perspective. They both move to the two column format (from the previous 3 column still seen at curbed.com and racked.com), they both widen the blog format to nearly the same pixel length, approximately 450-500 pixels w/o gutter. They both added similar retweet buttons and minimize the social sharing buttons…and they both created subject category highlight zones at the top of the page in square sized buckets with a classic table of contents type interface included for quick browsing as navigation.
These are the leaders, so I would guess that their research and insight has determined these are optimal choices…so I’m paying attention (at when it comes to daily updating, publishing driven “blog” style sites).
As a sidenote, not really getting the ‘new posts’ ticker on Eater. There is a part of me that likes knowing the new activity, but I have no concept of when that refreshes and it seems to be the same for me every time I return to the site so its not providing much value.
Will post an update with more thoughts when I have a chance to speak with Kevin. What are you thoughts?
Oct7
Somehow, this couple coexists, even though one of them has the weirdest Mad Men icon I’ve ever seen.
Oct6
Orlando Cabrera, I’m really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but game 5 of the ‘04 ALCS was the greatest game you’ve played in of all time! OF ALL TIME!
FACT. I deeply believe G5ALCS04 is the greatest baseball game of all time. I lived six lifetimes during that game (at a sports bar on 3rd Ave and 34th, thanks for asking). Per @sportsguy33: Could somebody in Minnesota’s clubhouse please play O.C. this clip? Thank you. http://bit.ly/LYF9k
