Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Shane Smith built Vice into a cultural behemoth by bluffing his way into round after round of funding — until he reached a dizzying $5.7 billion valuation from which only a precipitous fall was possible. That fall has been happening in slow motion for years, but things finally crashed to the ground in February of…
Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline. At HouseFresh, we keep an eye on Google’s news and documentation because these updates can literally make or break…
The Messenger, a news website that pledged to shake up the media industry with a playbook borrowed from the doomed publishing start-ups of yesteryear, will be closing down. In an email to staff, the site’s founder, Jimmy Finkelstein, said that The Messenger’s shutdown was “effective immediately.” “This is truly the last thing I wanted, and…
When you listen to The Arlington Amp, you’re drawn in by all kinds of compelling sounds: the traffic on Langston Boulevard, the insect peeps and rustlings of a Virginia evening, a local artist musing about her art. But what’s maybe most compelling about this new local podcast are the voices that guide you through each…
“What Cheese Are You?” was a quiz that appeared online in February 2014. BuzzFeed, the digital media company that published the quiz, returned to the same theme in December 2016 (“What Delicious Cheese Are You Based on Your Zodiac Sign?”), February 2018 (“Everyone Has a Cheese That Matches Their Personality—Here’s Yours”), August 2019 (“This…
Increasingly, I’ve found myself enraged by the White Man With A Newsletter pundit set using to tell the world that because I am doing everything in my power to protect my 17-month-old from being that could kill him, I am a paranoid ideologue who rejects science and reason. These Davids, Jonathans, and Alecs fundamentally predicate…
On journalism, ideas, “ideas”, free speech, and tech. A while ago, I did a Q&A with a venture capitalist who had formerly worked in media. The conversation took place on Clubhouse, the explosively growing audio-driven social network. The topic was the tech industry and journalism, and the discussion had been precipitated by a few weeks…
This weekend, the New York Times published a piece by Cade Metz about Scott Siskind, the brilliant blogging psychiatrist formerly known as Scott Alexander, and the so-called “rationalist” community that grew up around his former blog, Slate Star Codex (SSC), which Siskind sunk to the bottom of the sea this summer because Metz was working…
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. Illustration by Ben Wiseman On June 22nd, visitors to Slate Star Codex, a long-standing blog of considerable influence, discovered that the site’s cerulean banner and graying WordPress design scheme had been superseded by a barren white…
The media companies of tomorrow should look something like the record labels of today. In the record industry, talent is the driving force behind the business. Talent is the source of the reputation and the end of the line when it comes to driving financial returns. Without great, world-class talent, it doesn’t matter how well…