[image credit:laffy4k]

Today BusinessWeek and GigaOM formed a syndication partnership.  BW will be featuring content from Om Malik’s blog network every Monday.  After hearing about this, I realized that traditional media companies need blogs like us to keep them looking cool & hip.

This hypothesis is apparent when Guardian Media, a British media company acquired paidContent for over $30 million last week.  Another example is that the Washington Post inked deals with paidContent and TechCrunch to syndicate their content.  Video blogger, Loren Feldman produces videos for CNET (now owned by CBS) on a regular basis.  And then The New York Times bought out the Freakonomics blog in August 2007.

Are traditional media companies having a hard time finding talented journalists and bloggers themselves to provide the same unique content as us?  Blogging isn’t rocket science.  I’m just blogging to make money to power my own startup ideas, pay the office rent, and learn more about the industry.  What are your thoughts?  Why does traditional media need us?

The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) has created a plugin that works as an add-on for Firefox just-in-time for the new Firefox launch.  The plugin integrates social media into the popular online version of The New York Times publication.

The first step to get the plugin is to download it from http://timespeople.nytimes.com/packages/addons/timespeople/

The second step is to register a New York Times account if you do not already have one:

The third step is to import contacts using GMail.  What I don’t like is that it gives The New York Times the ability to read who your contacts are and add them to your feed.  But what I do like is that the import process goes through the google.com domain name.  This means that the login information is not stored in any NYT databases.

Below is a sample of what the plugin tracks from your friends’ data and your data when surfing around the NYT site:

[Credit: NYT]

As you notice from the screen shot above, the plugin essentially acts in a similar fashion as the news feed on the Facebook member homepage.  TimesPeople encourages you to build friend lists and share the information based around their website.  The company stresses that this is not for social networking purposes, but only intended for information sharing.

The news feed will have RSS subscription capabilities and has a design tailored for the iPhone.  Below is how the plugin looks on an iPhone:

This is the first time we’ve endeavored to show news updated in real time, and we’re very excited to work with this first-class publication to bring you the latest and greatest news.
-Wei Luo, Tech Lead Manager of Google Earth

Imagine spinning a digital globe and tapping on a country to find out what is happening there in real-time. It’s possible with Google Earth. To see this feature, the newest version of Google Earth needs to be downloaded and the “Geographic Web” folder has to be turned on.

Here is a screen shot of Google Earth’s new feature on Texas:

Other features in new version of Google Earth includes relevant pictures provided by Panoramio and YouTube videos. The news layers are updated every 15 minutes to make sure that old news is not stuck on the digital globe.

Who knows what Google Earth will stick in here next? You know what would be fun though? A built-in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game.

[1] Google LatLong: All the news that’s fit to print on a map: The New York Times in Google Earth by Wei Luo

I’ve got to hand it to Matt Richtel.  Richtel was able to engage a discussion by pointing out that some bloggers have suffered from cardio-related health problems due to stress.  Technology bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant died from a heart attack.  Om Malik had a heart attack and recovered, but made sure to start eliminating bad habits such as smoking and drinking lots of coffee.  Malik personally responded by writing a blog post in Miami while on vacation.

Personally, I loved Malik’s response.  Malik has turned over a new leaf.  He now associates blogging with relaxing rather than being hypercompetitive about everything.  Ever since I started enterprise blogging less than 2 years ago, I made sure that everywhere I write, I’m near a large window with a great view and that I enjoy it. 

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy blogging and make sure its not stressful when I get ready to write to the point where The Bee Gees’ Staying Alive starts playing in the background as I walk up to my computer.

“There’s no time ever — including when you’re sleeping — when you’re not worried about missing a story,” stated Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.  The whole reason why The New York Times is worried that bloggers are stressed is because they are quoting sources from someone whose only focus is to beat CNET, a public company with 2,700 employees.  TechCrunch employs about 5 editors and some interns.

Information Source:
[1] The New York Times: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop by Matt Richtel
[2] Techmeme Discussion

In the summer of 2005, I picked up three books to read within a month. They were The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt, and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. That means I read books written by 4 authors that summer. The catch is now 3 out of 4 of those authors are writers for The New York Times after the widely-known newspaper publication acquired The Freakonomics Blog.
Who woulda thunken?

Stephen J. Dubner wrote about the official migration in a blog post called Moving Day yesterday. “After two and a half years of camping out at Freakonomics.com, after more than 1,300 posts and many thousands of reader comments, this blog is moving,” wrote Dubner. “For the past two years, we have also been writing a regular column for the [Time] Magazine, which is now freely available here. But don’t worry about homer-ism; because we are housed in the Opinion section, we can still poke fun at the Times when warranted, and we can still say nice things about blood rivals like the Wall Street Journal.”

Stephen J. Dubner also did somewhat of a book tour and happened to come to Michigan State University (MSU) on November 2, 2005. In Dubner’s discussion, he pretty much reiterated some of the analysis that he wrote in the chapters of Freakonomics. For example, Dubner discussed why druge dealers still live with their moms and how the Ku Klux Klan are like real estate agents.

At the MSU event, Dubner also referenced an analysis of how monkeys would react if they were introduced to currency. The outcome is very human-like and involves prostitution and theft along with intelligent consumerism. That story can also be seen on The New York Times.

Although I do not like throwing around the word ’synergy’ since I see it as a generic business school term, I really do have to admit that this acquisition is the epitome of synergy. Through the transaction, The New York Times are essentially hiring a couple of really skilled journalists and they’re bringing their sterling franchise with them.

Congrats to Levitt and Dubner. I’ve enjoyed Dubner’s work especially after reading the book and going to his event at MSU.

References:
[1] Freakonomics Blog: Moving Day
[2] Mashable: The New York Times to Acquire Freakanomics Blog, and More

He’s busted.  The blogger that is known as the “Fake Steve Jobs” has been fooling people for 14 months.  This blogger acted and referred himself as the real Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc.  However, a writer at The New York Times discovered the actual identity of the Fake Steve Jobs.

“The mysterious writer has used his blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to lampoon Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies, tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall aura of excess,” wrote Brad Stone in The New York Times^[1].

Interestingly, this blog has gained quite a bit of traction and readers including Bill Gates and the real Steve Jobs.  The Fake Steve Jobs is Daniel Lyons, a senior editor of Forbes Magazine that lives near Boston, MA.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it,” stated Lyons in response to his opinion of chief executives turned bloggers rarely write honestly.  And the readers loved it.  The Fake Steve Jobs would point fun at the open source community, Eric Schmidt, and Bill Gates.  And when Fake Steve was asked about Apple’s future succession by a reader, Fake Steve replied, “My plan at this time is to live forever and to remain in charge here, though perhaps with fewer restrictions on my power. The truth is, I am not human — I am a man-god, son of Zeus, born to mortal woman but fathered by the ruler of the gods, lord of thunder.”

Forbes is planning on moving the Fake Steve Jobs Diary to Forbes.com in September (or possibly earlier).  But it is highly unlikely that the real Steve will continue to read the blog of himself being parodied.  Take a joke, Steve.  After all, the Mac guy is cool in the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials.

[1] New York Times: A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean

The return on investment made on YouTube’s funding through the acquisition definitely has whetted the appetite of investors. YouTube took in two rounds of funding from Sequoia Capital for a total of $11.5 million. So how come Brightcove, a lesser known Internet TV website is receiving such substantial funding? Brightcove started with $5.5 million and then received $16.2 million. Today, it was announced that Brightcove raised $59.5 million. This comes to a total of $81.2 million of total funding. The investors include Maverick Capital, The New York Times Company, Transcosmos Investments, Accel Partners, Allen & Company, America Online, General Catalyst Partners, The Hearst Corporation, IAC (InterActivCorp), and Brookside Capital.

“We think there’s a lot of opportunity outside the United States for Internet TV,” stated Adam Berrey, the VP President of Marketing of Brightcove. “We think this market will consolidate. It’s time for the leaders to emerge. This puts us in a good position.” Berrey didn’t mention what Brightcove is planning on doing for future plans, but according to TechCrunch, Brightcove did acquire metaStories on March 20, 2006. metaStories is a Seattle based company that has the tools that creates Flash content.

“Brightcove’s early success in partnering with media companies that are driving the transition of television and video distribution to the Internet puts the company in the right position as Internet TV takes off on a broader scale,” stated Jamie Kiggen, senior VP President of AllianceBernstein. “We’ve looked at many opportunities in this area and believe that Brightcove is well positioned for success in creating solutions that both media companies and consumers will embrace.”

With this new funding, Brightcove plans on growing the company and to provide Internet TV tools to media creators so that it would help them monetize as well as distribute their own videos. Brightcove is planning on launching ad revenue sharing soon.

Paidcontent announced that Daylife has officially raised their first round of funding. Daylife was founded by Upendra Shardanand as a distributed news platform. The largest investor in Daylife is The New York Times Company who has offered nearly as much as another two dozen investors. As of right now, the dollar amount has not been mentioned.

According to Paidcontent, “Other investors include Doug Chertok and Rich LeFurgy through Archer Martin; Ken Lerer, the Huffington Post; Azeem Azhar; Andy Sack, Judy’s Book; Mike Yavonditte, Quigo; and Scott Heiferman, co-founder, Meetup. Several investors—among them Craig Newmark, Mike Arrington, Dave Winer, John Borthwick — have made their involvement public in recent months. A number of first-round participants also were angel investors including Newmark, Borthwick and Mika Salmi, CEO, AtomShockwave.” These big names in the Web 2.0 community that are acting as investors have truly recognized the value behind Daylife. This is one company to keep your eyes on. Once the company opens up its services, I will provide a lengthier review on it.

Upendra Shardanand is also a co-founder of Firefly, a company acquired by Microsoft in 1998. Firefly is the basis of the Microsoft Passport concept.