Posts by Ryan Tate
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Four Ways Lists Make Us Immortal, According To Umberto Eco
5:48AM Ryan Tate | Italian novelist Umberto Eco, the go-to intellectual for journalists worldwide, has deconstructed the human obsession with all things list-y. The bottom line for editors: Your listicles help readers brush off a terrifying universe of infinite chaos. More »
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Twitter’s New Prompt: A Linguist Weighs In
8:50AM Ryan Tate | Twitter today announced it will prompt users to post by asking “What’s happening?” rather than the old “What are you doing?” We asked a prominent linguist if this means anything. Turns out it does: Twitterers are no longer such loners. More »
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Facebook Named In Federal Class-Action Suit Over Scammy Ads
4:50AM Ryan Tate | Facebook and Zynga are the defendants in a federal class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday, which seeks upwards of $US5 million for social network users scammed in online game ads. Neither company’s top-drawer investors can be happy. More »
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Condé Nast Is The Latest To Convert In Apple’s Secret Tablet Faith
9:00AM Ryan Tate | Condé Nast says it is already racing to repackage its magazines for Apple’s forthcoming tablet, starting with Wired, even while towing Apple’s line that the Tablet doesn’t exist. Publishers are clearly betting Steve Jobs can save their business model. More »
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80% Won’t Pay For Online Content, The Other 20% Are Lying
8:40AM Ryan Tate | Forrester Research has a new study out that Rupert Murdoch should probably download: Of 4000 people polled, 80 per cent will not pay for online newspapers or magazines, and the rest are divided on how they want to pay. More »
Flotsam & Jetsam
Google’s New York Office A Glorious Catalogue Of Dot-Com Clichés
3:44AM Ryan Tate | Techie office accoutrements like razor scooters and free food faced mass extinction at the end of the last dot-com boom nine years ago. Google brought them back in full force, judging from pictures of its New York office. More »
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Indian Kids Work Cheap For Google
2:49AM Ryan Tate | It’s great that Google has contests awarding money and computers to school children. Less great: It gives the victor in India one-twentieth of what an American kid gets for winning the same contest. More »
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Google’s Search Box Suggestions Hide Nothing
7:38AM Ryan Tate | There are things you don’t tell your husband. There are things you don’t tell your therapist. But virtually everything can go into Google’s search box — for Google to re-broadcast to the world, via its “suggestion” feature. More »
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Why News Corp. Keeps Threatening To Leave Google
4:15AM Ryan Tate | For the second time this week, News Corp. has promised to yank its content from Google, this time within “months”. The conglomerate said loudly that search is profitless. But maybe that’s just its way of making search hugely profitable. More »
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