Highlights

 

Journalistic Calvinball 🏐

03/07/2022 • #170

Let’s stop pretending that there is one traditional path to becoming a successful journalist. That ship sailed long ago.

Also, a quick shout-out to the GMG Union, which won its contract after a nearly week-long strike.

**There was… Read More

03/03/2022

It’s a Creator’s Market 🪧 : 

The fact that G/O Media let a strike happen on its watch is a massive miscalculation in an era when readers are more likely to follow individual journalists than brands.

#169

03/01/2022

Solving the Brand Safety Problem ⚠️ : 

Advertisers specifically avoid showing up next to big news stories. This is a big problem that threatens the long-term future of news. And we need to build creative solutions—with the help of advertisers.

#168

02/28/2022

The Death of Consistency 🎸 : 

Being great and consistent at what you do is an excellent way to build a track record, but what happens when that’s no longer enough? Consider another buzz strategy.

#167

02/24/2022

Don’t Tune It Out 📻 : 

Thoughts on how to parse what’s happening in Ukraine right now, for external observers who may all-too-easily be tempted to tune it out.

#166

02/22/2022

Redesigning the Nail 🔨 : 

On the ultimate failure of Apple’s Touch Bar as a laptop feature, contrasted with the unqualified success of the Elgato Stream Deck.

#165

02/21/2022

Who Owns Markdown? ✍️ : 

Writers do, not developers. If your argument against Markdown starts with the needs of developers rather than content creators, you’ve already missed the boat.

#164

02/17/2022

Century Club 💯 : 

Why the makers of three major web browsers, nearing a very large version milestone, are suddenly worried about a bunch of sites breaking. (Hint: It’s kinda like Y2K.)

#163

02/15/2022

Vindication At The Source 💻 : 

A journalist falsely accused of being a hacker by a governor for political reasons finally gets the last word.

#162

02/14/2022

Tales From The Crypto 💰 : 

Cryptocurrency understandably took a big leap into the public eye with this year’s Super Bowl, but the way it did really raises questions about the level of risk we’re encouraging regular people to take.

#161

02/10/2022

The Monoculture Lost 📺 : 

Our culture is less collective than it was a few decades ago … and really, is that a bad thing? Some thoughts on embracing the small pockets.

#160

02/08/2022

Semiconductor Second Chance 🇪🇺 : 

The chip manufacturer ARM, with its NVIDIA acquisition cancelled, appears to be going public at a time when the EU really wants a larger share of the semiconductor market. Maybe the homegrown ARM could help?

#159

02/07/2022

Tied Up in Contracts 📲 : 

As phone providers start pushing three-year device contracts, the question becomes when phones hit the price-performance level that a contract isn’t actually necessary.

#158

02/03/2022

Frustration Provider 📂 : 

Apple’s unusually aggressive push to retire widely used kernel extensions has caught a lot of cloud providers on their back feet—and the laptop-maker might be causing a lot of unnecessary headaches for end-users in the process.

#157

02/01/2022

Wordle Wars 🟩 : 

The fact that even a simple, successful word game has at times felt divisive says something deeper about our society. Collectively, we have no chill.

#156

01/31/2022

Free Speech Zones 📣 : 

An exchange between the founder of Twitter and a number of loud critics secretly highlights what the broo-ha-ha about free speech has really been about.

#155

01/27/2022

The Idea Generator 🧠 : 

The great secret of this newsletter is that, often, I have no idea what I’m going to write about before the timer starts. Yet, I somehow finish the piece. If you want to do that, you need practice.

#154

01/25/2022

The Question I Keep Having 🤨 : 

Considering what MidRange is going to become, and how that ties into what Tedium currently is. Real talk: I’m going to be honest about the road I see going forward.

#153

01/24/2022

The Power of Rhythm 🥁 : 

The nice thing that writing a newsletter around a timer is that it really focuses your writing. The challenge is trying to apply it elsewhere.

#152

01/20/2022

The Long Tail Whips Back 🐊 : 

The music industry’s deep legacy might have dampened the prospects for new musicians going forward, a prominent music critic suggests. The problem might reflect deep problems with copyright law.

#151