Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Going beyond search, the internet giant is promoting a single result over all others, and many are contentious, improbable or laughably incorrect Google handles 90% of the world’s internet searches, and it increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions. Here’s how the algorithms are—and aren’t—working Google became the world’s go-to source of information…
I tweeted what was intended as satire of a festering right-wing panic over Antifa allegedly planning violence on November 4. It got weird from there. What is it like to attend your own funeral? In my mind, it has to be something like waking up on a Monday morning, logging onto Twitter, and finding out…
Many publishers believe consumers would pay more attention to online ads if they were just better. Now Fusion Media Group is acting on that sentiment: It is trying out a new system that rewards advertisers that make the most engaging ads by giving them bonus impressions. The Univision-owned digital media company, whose 12 sites include…
Yesterday, the BBC revealed that actor Jodie Whittaker would be taking over for Peter Capaldi as the lead in the network’s long-running scifi program “Doctor Who.” Whittaker, already a veteran of TV-drama at 35, will become the first woman to play the role of “The Doctor” in the character’s 54 history of onscreen and offscreen appearances….
In Trump’s America, the press is under attack. You know what I’m talking about—in your head, do a montage of Donald Trump saying “fake news,” congressional candidates body-slamming reporters, and so on. But on Tuesday, that war intensified, when a swarm of bees lingered outside Vox Media’s New York City offices. What Are Bees? “Bees…
Advisers who represent what remains of Gawker Media Group in bankruptcy are exploring whether they can bring a viable lawsuit against Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who helped finance Hulk Hogan’s successful legal battle against the publisher. Gawker on Tuesday asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to subpoena Mr. Thiel to obtain information upon…
Terrence Malick is just embarrassing movie stars with weird sex stuff now Are these poor people being punked?Image: Broadgreen pictures Terrence Malick apparently isn’t making movies anymore, he’s making elaborate excuses to put our hottest movie stars into extremely awkward sex-fetish scenarios that are about as titillating as invasive dentistry. Only two reasons I can…
A real-estate startup called Compass Inc. has hired hundreds of sales agents away from older rivals, collected $225 million from marquee investors and amassed a valuation of over $1 billion, all with the pitch that its software can make brokers more efficient. Real-estate veterans say they’re baffled by how the four-year-old firm, active in only…
YouTube canceled its top star’s show on Tuesday over his anti-Semitic jokes, complicating its efforts to court television advertisers while also retaining its edgy video stars. YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, distanced itself from its most popular creator—27-year-old Felix Kjellberg, who goes by PewDiePie—after The Wall Street Journal reported he made anti-Semitic jokes or showed Nazi imagery in…
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” plans on turning its “Weekend Update” into a weekly series, according to a new report. The spinoff would likely air for 30 minutes in prime time late Thursdays, Politico said Tuesday. Variety reported Sunday that total “SNL” viewership is up 22 percent over a comparable period during the 2015–2016 season.The sketch…