2 posts and columns on newswire

Q&A: Aggregation and the Future of Local News

in News on April 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm PT

Hunting through thousands of local blogs for quality tidbits of regional interest is too time-consuming for overtaxed, understaffed news teams. Why not rely on clever algorithms, much the way Facebook manages social news? That logic has inspired news giants to place big bets this past year on aggregation. MSNBC bought automated news site EveryBlock.com, AOL picked up local blog network Patch.com and CNN invested in Outside.in. The next target might be Fwix.com, an automated newswire with a silly name but serious ambition.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? … Obviously.

in News on September 11, 2008 at 8:19 am PT

Is Google making us stupid? The answer to that question, recently posed by Nick Carr in The Atlantic, is a resounding yes. At least in the case of Sun Sentinel publisher Tribune. How else to explain the company’s claim that Google is largely to blame for the six-year-old news story that gutted the United Airlines share price this week?