“The best explainers are direct, concise and easy to understand. But investigative journalism is rarely any of those things, instead reflecting the messiness of real life… explanation is just the beginning, a gateway into the deep-dive…”

Damn, some of these ideas I implemented 12 years ago for the EC's thematic architecture. Nice to see them in a different context: First, the problem with current news journalism: "The column inches devoted to the new are column inches not given to the important... this stress on novelty is a holdover from when the cost of making and moving paper …

A Storify on 8 possible business models for journalism from Marc Andreessen (Cofounder of Netscape, now VC at a16z). Highlights: (6): "We already see the rise of new kinds of aggregators in the wake of the great unbundling of newspapers & magazines. Signal-to-Noise: "quality can easily coexist with crap. All can thrive in respective markets.... …

Sobering reality check on new journalism ventures which: "...from a business perspective, hardly be worth commenting on, except for the fact that the people doing the commenting — other journalists — believe that perhaps, in a declining profession, this could be a new life. It's journalism-centricity to a particular myopic degree.. an extreme exa…

Beautiful visual online communication example from NYTimes.com - Extra Virgin Suicide

Great idea for explaining EU affairs or just wishful thinking? "A new game called Fantasy Geopolitics (think Fantasy Football meets Model United Nations) is radically changing the way high school students in Minnesota are interacting with the news." - How a High School Teacher Is 'Gamifying' World News

US authorities seem particularly vulnerable to confirmation bias. Anyone remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B ? "FBI was already convinced they had their man, so they rationalized away the non-matching elements ... Mayfield being jailed without charge; his home and office burgled by the FBI; his client-attorney privilege violated; his lif…

My brother-in-law’s new Show, “D'Office”, is a work of genius. See it if it comes to a town near you.

"On SlideShare you can upload your presentation and if it gets popular, it can be viewed by millions of people. If you know how to make the presentation, you can not only get traffic to your site, but you can also improve your rankings with Google, expand your followship on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., attract more s…

Good intro to the maths of virality, and why Upworthy's best friend will kill them eventually: " As a result, there’s a direct feedback loop between C and FBT [Facebook Throttle - the % of friends who will see a user's FB share]: the higher your clickbaitiness (C), the less that Facebook will throttle you, and the more likely that your articles w…

"Ektron does this as well, but with version 9, it has also baked in more native marketing functions like allowing for personas to be created based on attributes in a CRM or marketing automation system. What will a site look like to a current customer versus a partner, or a first time visitor versus someone who's closer to being ready to buy? Build…

"All of these things are using human powered context to organize and curate content in a better way. This is the rise of editors. It used to be bloggers and now it's organizing all of the activity with proper editors and direction... "

"how can you minimize the guilt and stress and maximize the relaxation of your holiday? Here is a roundup of the best tips from around the Internet:"

" encourage everyone in your organization to use their vacation time to step away from the challenges currently on their plate. They will gain a fresh perspective and with it, new ideas about how to most effectively attain these shared goals.”"

"Research has found that multi-cultural experiences and exotic surroundings generate more inspired and creative work. Workations decrease stress, which increases productivity and leads to fewer sick days. Studies show that people with high levels of stress spend nearly 50% more on health expenses. A study published in the Harvard Business Review…

"53 per cent of the Canadian professionals who responded would work one to three hours a day while on holiday... more Canadian nine-to-fivers are using the increased flexibility that technology offers to travel while continuing to work at their full-time jobs from the road" limited Wi-Fi and spotty cellphone coverage. He simply makes do by settin…

"Private space... ...in a public place A stylish new thinking and working space with room for a laptop and a comfortable, adjustable chair, Thinkpods are dedicated to productivity and unique to Regus."

"The best way to blend your vacation and work time is to set a few rules, and stick with them: If colleagues need to update or consult you, ask them to send a single daily report, by e-mail, at a set time each day. That way, they won't overwhelm you with hour-by-hour questions and progress updates. Change your smartphone settings so you h…

"Turtle Bay Resort, the only destination resort on Oahu’s fabled North Shore, is embracing a balance of work and play in a new meetings program, where cutting-edge companies in search of a fresh approach to incentive programs are packing up their offices and bringing them to the beach. It’s a concept called “Workation,” giving businesses the fre…

"The plan was to work in the morning, enjoy the boat in the afternoon, and finish up anything at night. To my surprise it actually worked quite well.... - To have a productive workation you need to find a place that not only has amazing sights and weather, but great internet and a place for you to work.... great internet and desks - The plan i…

"If you are forced to take work with you, try to work on a set schedule. Particularly if you are traveling with friends or family who want to spend time with you, try to get your work done early in the day. Set an absolute stopping time, perhaps in the early afternoon, and direct the rest of your day to fun and relaxation. Alternatively, work soli…

One for for the Bloggingportal reboot toolbox: "Newspaper is an amazing python library for extracting & curating articles ... delivers Instapaper style article extraction.” - Newspaper: Article scraping & curation — newspaper 0.0.2 documentation

Seems Zuck's taken Filter Bubble criticisms to heart, combining human & machine curation (now where have I heard that before?) to create what Techcrunch calls “content serendipity” (wish I'd coined that one): "Each Section combines stories chosen by Facebook’s human editors and surfaced by the Paper algorithm [from] a publication, blogger, publi…

FalseFacebook Paper: the video. Click the #fbpaper tag for some thoughts.

"You also can't add any site you want, as with a traditional RSS reader. Instead, Facebook has hired a team of content curators to pick stories for you in one of a dozen or so categories ranging from basic news to cute animals." - With Paper, Facebook just blew its own iPhone app out of the water | The Verge

For Shamepoint fans: spend more to salvage something from the money you've already poured down the sink! "ElevatePoint Products and Services take Microsoft® SharePoint® to a new level of flexibility and effectiveness. A full range of productivity-enhancing business enablement solutions extend the SharePoint platform to solve real world communicat…

Nice NYTimes tour of the current news startup wave: Key point: "quality, customized advertising on sites with good editorial content was actually a solid business with growing margins... Business Insider has had nine consecutive quarters where the revenue per page was rising.... “There are fundamental secular trends — ad growth, mobile growth, pa…

Yet another list. My fave: "Geniuses produce a lot of crap before they get to the good stuff. " - 4 Things We Have Wrong About Creativity | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Points 4 & 8 my favourites: "4. LinkedIn will become the most important publisher. LinkedIn will become a premium destination for industry news, and you need to take part in that ecosystem early and often. Publish original content, network among peers in groups and raise your profile now." 8. Interactive content will trump static content. Expect…