New York magazine

Tumblr Raises Another $5 Million From Spark and Union Square. Now It Wants Your Money.

Peter Kafka in Media on April 20, 2010 at 3:00 am PT

Tumblr’s David Karp, seen carpet surfing on the cover of New York Magazine this week, says his hipster blog service is ready to become a real business. Karp’s VC backers seem to believe him.

Can You Make a Living From Viral Videos? The OK Go Gives It a Shot.

Peter Kafka in Media on March 10, 2010 at 1:30 pm PT

A band that’s well-known for making great videos–but not for selling much music–splits from EMI, which doesn’t seem that upset about it.

The New York Times Officially Starts Construction on Its Pay Wall: “Metered Model” Coming 2011

Peter Kafka in Media on January 20, 2010 at 6:39 am PT

After much consideration, the New York Times has finally decided to start charging readers for access to its Web site. But not for a while: The Times says it will introduce a “metered model” for NYT.com in 2011.

Who’s Joining Steve Jobs for the Tablet Launch Next Week?

Peter Kafka in Media on January 19, 2010 at 3:00 am PT

Apple is set to show off a shiny new device, which means the company needs shiny new media products to show off, too. Like what? Some educated guesses: Expect stuff from Disney and the New York Times, but not from the music labels.

BusinessWeek’s Pitch to Investors: Buy Us, Then Fire Us

Peter Kafka in Media on September 15, 2009 at 9:10 am PT

How do you sell a business magazine that lost $43 million last year? Convince buyers that they could fire 20 percent of the staff without missing a beat. That’s part of the pitch Evercore Partners has been making to investors on behalf of McGraw-Hill, which wants to dump BusinessWeek. Look out, copy editors!

BusinessWeek Explains Why BusinessWeek Is for Sale: It’s a Money Pit

Peter Kafka in Media on July 24, 2009 at 5:44 am PT

Earlier this year, a top BusinessWeek editor assured me that McGraw-Hill wouldn’t part with the publication–because even if it was losing money it was still a trophy asset for the publisher. But perhaps my source didn’t comprehend how much money his employer was actually losing.

Business Models Are Overrated! Twitter Raises Another $35 Million

Peter Kafka in Media on February 13, 2009 at 11:35 am PT

See! Twitter did have news to report this week–but not about its elusive business model. The Web 2.0 microblogging-messaging platform everyone (or at least some of us) loves to obsess about has raised another $35 million.