Quite simply, the plaintiffs offered a service and the defendants offered exposure in return, and the transaction occurred exactly as advertised. The defendants followed through on their end of the agreed-upon bargain. That the defendants ultimately profited more than the plaintiffs might have expected does not give the plaintiffs a right to change retroactively their clear, up-front agreement.
– U.S. District Judge John Koeltl, in his decision against the unpaid bloggers who sued the Huffington Post for retroactive payment despite the fact that their original agreement was to write for free
Peter Kafka in Media on February 11, 2011 at 5:30 am PT
The good news for angry HuffPo bloggers who want to get paid for their unpaid work: AOL volunteers made the same argument during Bubble 1.0 and ended up winning! The bad news: It took a lawsuit, and more than a decade, to extract the cash. (And the HuffPo writers may not have a case, anyway.)
Voices
Nitrozac and Snaggy in News on January 18, 2011 at 12:54 pm PT
Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at
Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)
Liz Gannes in Social on November 15, 2010 at 1:09 am PT
Facebook on Monday plans to launch an email service for its users at a press event in San Francisco. The young company has really gotten way too into these show-and-tell events.
John Paczkowski in News on October 19, 2010 at 3:41 pm PT
The prospect of Adobe being acquired by Microsoft may get tech bloggers and investors all worked up, but it's not going to happen, says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. The Redmond behemoth is a good buddy, said Narayen, but just one of many, and Adobe has no intention of getting hitched.
Voices
Evan Ramstad and Jaeyeon Woo, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 26, 2010 at 8:15 am PT
South Korea’s culture minister, Yu In-chon, strode into a government briefing room Monday for what seemed to be a routine photo-op as his ministry announced a $50 million program to help develop the country’s budding electronic-books industry.
Voices
Cassandra Vinograd, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 24, 2010 at 11:00 am PT
Boy group Just-a-Band have sparked what many are calling Kenya’s first viral sensation.
Conjuring up references to 1970s cult classics like “Shaft,” Just-a-Band’s latest video, “Ha-He,” introduces the fictional Makmende sporting shades, chains, an Afro pick and what appears to be polyester.
Voices
Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 23, 2010 at 2:33 pm PT
Twitter’s long-awaited advertising platform was the subject of much speculation among bloggers on Tuesday.
The furor was kicked off by comments from Anamitra Banerji, the head of product management and monetization at Twitter, who told MediaPost.com that “We are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.”
Voices
Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 18, 2010 at 1:40 pm PT
Technology and fashion mixed–or tried to, at least–during William Rast’s New York Fashion Week show Wednesday night.
Sony joined forces with the label by streaming his runway show on video site Vevo, projecting it on enormous Bravia screens and providing Vaio notebooks and “Bloggie” video cameras to reporters.
Voices
Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on January 29, 2010 at 1:00 am PT
Steve Jobs said Wednesday that while Amazon has gone a great job with the Kindle, Apple plans to “stand on their shoulders” with the iPad’s e-reader functionality.
Bloggers quickly began speculating as to which device is better, with many pro-Kindle reviewers calling the reader less distracting, while the Apple camp cites the iPad’s multi-purpose nature as a selling point.
