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New Media News Every Morning

Digging Into Digg and API Contest

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DiggHarry Maugans has been looking into Digg users and dugg sites, and analyzing a mass of collected datasets. The results are discussed in four recently articles: Top 300 hundred Digg users, The most powerful members on Digg, Most powerful sites on Digg – by topics, and Most powerful sites on Digg.

Data junkies and anyone interested in analyses of social bookmarking sites will probably enjoy these articles. They show that certain sites indeed do get on the Digg home page more often than others. What I found ironic but not surprising is that one of the stories got buried even after 100 votes. It just goes to prove that fascinating analyses of human behavior do not necessarily interest the subjects of study, even to Digg users.

In related news, Digg has now publicly released a Digg API along with a Flash application toolkit. The dataset goes back to 2004. There’s now a contest for “the most creative and innovative visualizations and applications” that use the new tools. There are 10 prizes, and entry deadline is 8 pm Wed May 16th, though no time zone is given. Sorry non-Americans, no prizes for you. Seems the Internet may be global, but contests are not, for legal reasons. (That means that the 10+ Digg visualization apps, excluding my Digg mashps, that I have sketched won’t be entered in the contest, but I hope to release them in the future, when they’re complete.)

Originally posted on April 20, 2007 @ 10:59 am

Imus To Blog For Weblogs, Inc.? SplashPress?

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Valleywag, ever ready to create rumor, suggested the other day that Weblogs, Inc., founder Jason Calacanis might be wooing disgraced radio personality Don Imus. Calacanis responded later, in the comments section, that the rumor was 100% false.

The question is, is any blog network owner willing to roll the dice and sign Imus? Could they pay him enough? Would he even make a good blogger? (Aside from his ability to offend people Hey, maybe he could write for Jack of All Blogs, since SplashPress is looking for a blogger.)

But really, why wouldn’t Imus just set up his own site, create a podcast/ vodcast, and carry on as before? Maybe someone would be willing to run their advertising on his site.

On the other hand, I vaguely recall watching an A&E (or similar) special on his life, and seem to remember that he’s quite well off. Maybe it’s just time for him to retire to his ranch and practice saying rude things to his horses.

Originally posted on April 20, 2007 @ 10:34 am

New Media Wire – Mon Apr 23, 2007

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A New Way To Monetize Video Content
It’s not available quite yet but Hiro Media is launching a video site that offers a new way to monetize video content – which of course is great if you produce such. Essentially, clickable ads are embedded in the video content, and content providers earn per click. That way,the video can be viral and still produce revenue. New TeeVee gives more detail.

Eyejot video emailVideo Email With Eyejot
Eyejot offers a nice way for friends and family to stay in touch with each other when live conversation is not possible. Just use a webcam to record a video message and send it off. The recipient gets an email with a link to the video message, which they can view without signing up. To respond, however, they have to register at the site. The interface is pretty simple but logically laid out. If you have multiple messages in your inbox, you can click the “automatically play next message” checkbox to view all of them in succession.

L.A. Times Jobs To Go
The Los Angeles Times will be dropping around 150 jobs this weeks due to decreasing revenues. Nearly half of these positions will be newsroom jobs. The L.A. Times is owned by the Tribune Co., who also own the Chicago Tribune. They have a recent plan to go private. Maybe they should do like the NY Post and double their newsstand price?

Originally posted on April 23, 2007 @ 12:49 pm

New Media Wire – Thur Apr 19, 2007

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Food Critic Grabs Pulitzer Prize
LA Weekly’s Food Critic Jonathon Gold not only grabbed the first Pulitzer for this alt paper, he’s also the first food crtiic to get the prestigious award. The timing is fortunate, as the paper only has a circulation of about 200K, and current owners have applied several layoffs.

Since alt papers are now getting Pulitzer Prizes, maybe bloggers will someday as well. There are some excellent food and travel bloggers out there that deserve some higher recognition.

Feedblitz Twitter Extension
If for some reason you feel compelled to subscribe to blogs using Twitter on your cell phone or via Google Talk, FeedBlitz now offers this. There is of course the 140 character limit of Twitter to contend with. [via  Digital Inspiration]

Graphita Web-Based Photo Editing
Don’t feel like paying big bucks for graphics editors like Photoshop and Fireworks? Too cheap even for PaintShop Pro? Mashable reports on a new web-based image editor named Graphita. It hasn’t even launched into private beta, and public beta takes place in May. You can sign up now though.

Originally posted on April 19, 2007 @ 11:53 am

The End of Pandora and Last.fm?

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Last.fmWhile I’m not a big fan of Last.fm because their bloody software starts up on my computer without my permission, I am a fan of their concept, as well as a regular listener of Pandora. Both are streaming music recommendation sites, and very popular, if you judge by just Google PageRank and Alexa.

Unfortunately, a panel of copyright judges are ordering Internet radio stations like them to increase the royalties they pay to musicians and record labels. And for relatively young startups like them, the ruling means likely extinction. Pandora founder Tim Westergren, of course, thinks the decision sucks.

I’m inclined to agree but primarily because it means less diversity of music online, and an advantage for terrestrial radio stations. Without getting into too much detail, I’ll say that as a former community radio co-host and producer, I know for a fact that terrestrials don’t always pay all of the royalties an act is due. This is because of the way playlist data is analyzed at royalty payment time. At least in Canada, and at least the last time I checked, about 5 years ago. If this holds true for the United States and other countries, then Internet stations have a disadvantage since it’s relatively easy to determine the entire playlist and thus payable royalties.

If you are a fan of Internet Radio and live in the US, you can sign petition. See Save Net Radio for more details. [Note: Also read Duncan’s article on Vale Internet Radio.]

Originally posted on April 20, 2007 @ 10:46 am