11.13.06: The new frugality | main
Monday November 13, 2006
ValleyWag's Nick Douglas leaves
Nick Denton, former FT reporter and head of Gawker Media, the publisher of ValleyWag has had to step in to fill in for Nick Douglas. Nick Douglas did a fine job with ValleyWag although by the time he left he had burnt quite a few bridges/contacts.
Nick Douglas will do well, he has a great nose for a story. But surviving in SF on the kind of wages Nick Denton pays is very difficult even if you a young student. That's a key weakness for the Gawker business model, find good writers, train them up a little bit, and then watch them go places where they can make more money-- and then have to do it again, and again.
I'm sure Nick Denton would rather be doing something else, such as running his business than having to do a job that pays peanuts. Which goes to show that Nick Douglas's departure was rather sudden.
BTW, Nick Douglas did tell me, just a few days ago that Nick Denton had to share Nick Douglas's conference pass to the Web 2.0 summit because nobody knew who he was. Well at least Nick Denton can now spend some time updating the locals on his new position at ValleyWag.
Nick Denton on Nick Douglas: Valleywag Release Candidate 2
Some clues on Nick Douglas's next project over at 10 Zen Monkeys:
Interview With Valleywag Nick Douglas - 10 Zen Monkeys (a webzine)November 13, 2006 | permanent link
| 0 comments
| tag:
Who links to SVW? | my ZDNet blog | Fridays with Foremski at SF Chronicle
trackbacks
trackback url:
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1348
Comments
Richard Bartlett on Grant Thornton Study: Scary Numbers On The Decline Of US IPOs
Tom - Think you have called this one wrong. The SEC under Cox tried to reform SOX. It was likened to "catching javelins from Senators." The recommendations are actually quite clever - they seem to be advocating choice which is what we used to have before Regulation NMS homogenized the market (the NYSE was an auction market back then and NASDAQ was a dealer market). We need more choices to s
artis bugil on Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
very interesting article, keep posting sir..
artis bugil on Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
very interesting article, keep posting sir..
Tom Foremski on Schmidt: Don't Bet Against Silicon Valley - Or Its Weather
Albert, you make a good point but is the point of SIlicon Valley really about the weather? I live in San Francisco and my district has unremarkable weather. I've never heard anyone tell me they come out here for the weather. Surely people come here for the opportunities, the chance to do something on a global scale.
Lars on NYTimes Quarterly Results Show Plunging Print And Online Revenues
About the Quarterly Results Show Plunging Print :
is it god or bad when fell 29.6 percent compared to the period a year earlier ?
I cant believe that they mean it very seriously
"sign of an improving economy and that fourth quarter losses should be lower than in the most recent quarter."
I would it call self-caused
:)
La
Albert on Schmidt: Don't Bet Against Silicon Valley - Or Its Weather
On that point of the weather, you wouldn't have to worry about Hawaii because it is inconvenient to live so far away from everything else, so the weather is overshadowed by that negative. And if you've ever lived in florida, you'd know that the weather there is utter crap -- always humid with no seasons. Silicon Valley weather is so much better.
Tom Foremski on Are There New Rules For Embargoes?
Laura, often the embargo is determined by the print side. For example, the New York Times newspaper first run is published at midnight or 9pm Pacific time. That's a common embargo time.
Laura Newman on Are There New Rules For Embargoes?
I ditto Diane's comment. I think the issue is really surrounding the emergence of real-time and even uber-short lead times of bloggers and websites that can break the story much quicker than a print outlet can. What's the protocol there?
Jason lopez on Retreevo Study Discovers Vacuous iPhone Users
I've never been able to understand the contradiction of being smart and independent, and yet somehow completely (not just partially) smitten by the dreams and fantasies conjured up in branding. The latter appears to cancel the former. But I may be wrong.
Tom Foremski on GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights
Ktyson: Yes, exactly. Between the two of us we could come up with way more interesting trends and issues than the man helming the world's largest and most interesting Internet company. What the heck is going on?
Tom Foremski on MediaWatch: More About Embargoes...
Thanks Meredith, some excellent points...
Meredith Obendorfer on MediaWatch: More About Embargoes...
"There is more to be gained from developing an unique editorial stance than there is from pressing the publish button a few minutes earlier than anyone else."
I agree. Sam Whitmore talks a lot about this as well, and the point really speaks to a media organization as a business. In PR, we push our clients to differentiate themselves from their competitors... and media companies really a
ktyson on GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights
What about the spread of 3d environments in more normal work and play spaces online?
What about the growing irrelevance (except as annoyance) of operating systems?
What about the replacement of the os with a universally standardized browser functionality?
What about real AI?
What's Google really thinking? Is this presentation of Schmidt's some sort of disinforma
pcurve on GOOG CEO Predicts A Predictable Future Web - Stunning Absence Of Any Real Insights
What a joke. His predictions makes Bill Gate's "The Road Ahead" look like the book of Nostradamus.
I will bet that in 5 years, nobody is going to be talking about twitter. (for many different reasons. I have a feeling it's going to be a lot sooner than 5 years) Facebook will be around, but far far fewer people will be using it to the extent they use it today.
A Chinese equival
Jimmy N on Are There New Rules For Embargoes?
Mike Arrington is so arrogant. Everyone I talk to doesn't like that guy. Still Arrington walks around like he's a kingmaker. Someone at the web 2.0 conference told me that he treats people like shit and has burned all his bridges.
I recently heard that his partner Jason Calacanis won't even work with him anymore after being his partner for one year. It was also overheard from one
Tom Foremski on CultureWatch: Should Cafes Become Cheap Office Spaces Or Places For Community Interaction?
Kirsten, thanks for the update on the German scene. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see our digital bohos in McDonalds no matter how good the coffee :)
Tom Foremski on MediaWatch: Mashable Is On A Tear - Continues To Widen Its Lead Over TechCrunch And Others
Yes, compete.com is not an accurate count. I know it is very low when I compare it to my server logs. But I'm assuming the *relative spread* between Mashable and TechCrunch is accurate.
Mike McGrath on MediaWatch: Mashable Is On A Tear - Continues To Widen Its Lead Over TechCrunch And Others
I'm suspect of Compete.com having recently compared their traffic data with what was really going on with a client's server logs. So, I went to Quantcast to double check. When I typed in techcrunch.com it got the curious message that the site owner has hidden the data from Quantcast. Interesting...
Tom Foremski on CultureWatch: Should Cafes Become Cheap Office Spaces Or Places For Community Interaction?
Kirsten, thanks for the update on the German scene. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see our digital bohos in McDonalds no matter how good the coffee :)
Tom Foremski on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
Controlling immigration to save domestic jobs hasn't been working for a long while. You can just export the factories. And now the Internet does a great job in tunneling through any border barriers.
Yes, increasing our job skills is essential. Learning how to learn is the best skill to have. But you have to keep running ahead of technologies that seek to replace human skills and labor
Tom Foremski on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
Harry, yes, the Internet is a great if not the greatest competitive lubricant :) But it also means that few businesses are safe from its effects. Yes, you can continue to scramble up the value-add ladder but surely at some point, there are no more rungs. At some point we will reach a stage that not everyone has to be in a productive job for society to do what needs to be done. Do we create jobs
Kirsten Winkler on CultureWatch: Should Cafes Become Cheap Office Spaces Or Places For Community Interaction?
Good points you are making here. In fact I used to do the same when I was still living in Berlin. We call this phenomenon the digital bohemia ;).
Here in the french countryside I have been cut off this for two years. But now Mc Donalds started to sell decent cappuccino in their restaurants. No Mc Café yet but I saw an amazing shift in those couple of weeks. Before the music they played
Harry DeMott on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
Love the post. I've long believed that the Internet devalues everything it can touch. The truth is that as you take the friction out of the economic system pricing goes down - and the Internet is the ultimate economic lubricant. Jeff Bezos becomes a billionaire selling books and Borders teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. Music retailers are toast and iTunes becomes the #1 retailer of music in
Rupert Pumpkin on The Coming "Big Crunch" - The Aging And Failing IT Infrastructure
for some parts of your article i share your opinion but i think the infrastructure needs an optimization since... ever? or not? but realy cool that someone is starting to revive this stuff
dont click here!
Sean Ness on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
I would hope that instead of trying to stop jobs from being exported, which would be the wrong thing to focus on as that drives competition and efficiency, that we instead focus on retraining people to do more difficult/higher value jobs.: things that make society more productive. We also must be reminded that a job isn't a right...you have to earn it. Keep upgrading your skills, take classe
Tom Foremski on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
Yes, the Internet enables huge amounts of value, I don't dispute that. But it also disrupts large numbers of businesses and jobs also. I'm interested in how our society will deal with that aspect of the Internet. And as for immigration laws, they exist because they protect jobs. What other reason is there? Since that's the case, won't there be some attempt to control the loss of jobs due to the
Sean Ness on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
We are well into that golden age. The list of companies not devalued by the Internet is huge: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, EMC, Cisco, NetApp, Dell, IBM, Oracle, HP, Apple, Salesforce, Facebook, Samsung, eBay and on and on. The list is almost endless. Yeah...the content world is being disrupted, but business models are not guaranteed. They evolve over time, are destoryed, or they thrive. But to sa
Diane Bisgeier on Are There New Rules For Embargoes?
The question this surfaces for me is how the onslaught of real-time, narrowcasting (read: one-to-one tweeting) changes the entire embargo paradigm, which is based on the established framework of sequenced broadcasting.
Dana DeArmond on GOOG Rejects Direct Investment In Failing Newspaper Industry
I am quite sure that Google can save newspapers, if they themselves are prepared to save themselves!
Google has created perhaps the largest metaphorical ocean and Facebook et al have created 'Countries' amidst those seas and as sure as Apple and Microsoft dominate operating systems, this landscape is almost certainly irreversible.
The Newspapers have resisted this by trying to c
Tom Foremski on Happy Birthday Dear Internet . . . The Internet Devalues Everything It Touches
Yes, there is tremendous value in talented journalists but look at the New York Times and its struggles to monetize the value its journalists create. Also, many of the "new" media sites are just barely making it and their costs of doing business are so much less than the NYTimes. Clearly, there will have to be other ways to pay for the things our society needs, which in this case is a vibrant m