At Daylife, a digital media services start-up, founder and chief executive Upendra Shardanand and his team of young engineers have a name for a new breed of journalists: RoboCop editors. These are the folks who have the skills of both a top-notch software developer and a tested newspaper editor. They can create Web pages Read More
On June 22, Craig Newmark flashed Michelle Obama the “geek salute” on a playground in San Francisco. “I told her to pass it on to Obama,” Mr. Newmark told the Observer, calling in today from his California home.
Otherwise known as the Star Trek live-long-and-prosper “vulcan salute,” Mr. Newmark’s high honor was given to the Read More
All that inky meat “shaken loose” from magazine and newspaper layoffs might seem like tasty bait for blog companies, according to Gawker chief Nick Denton. But he doesn’t want ‘em. “It’s very, very tempting right now to say, ‘Ok, let’s go out and let’s hire 50 of the best people from newspapers and Read More
15. Craig Newmark (6 last year)
Founder of Craigslist
As the old residential real estate order withers away (Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy just last month went the way of Alice Mason’s brokerage), the word “Craigslist” may one day be a lot more important than the word “Corcoran”—as long as lurid national scandals Read More
Last night, on April 20, Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair columnist and founder of Newser, was sitting on a chair—arms folded, legs crossed—on the third floor of the Time Warner Center while a downpour rumbled outside. Surrounded by flickering television screens, mobile phones Read More
Talk about revenge of the nerds! If President-elect Barack Obama actually fulfills his promises to bring the White House into the Web world, the techiest among us may have the loudest voices of all when it comes to influencing our government. Because let’s face it: It took a year to get used to Facebook. Read More
Craig Newmark likes to call himself a "community organizer." In 1995, the stout, New Jersey-born, soft-spoken 55-year-old launched online classified listings site Craigslist, which has been slowly suffocating the newspaper business ever since. He’s also been an outspoken supporter and adviser to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America as well as DonorsChoose.org and Read More
In mid-October, about three weeks to go before election night, Barack Obama found himself in the classy old Metropolitan Club on 66th Street with a group of his top New York fund-raisers.
He told them there was “extraordinary expertise” in the room. “Who knows?” he said. “There might be some of you Read More
New York techies and Web aficionados rallied in Washington Square Park today to celebrate … the Internet! Billed as an "Earth Day for the Internet," OneWebDay is being celebrated around the country (from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco), as communities hold events to learn about and advocate for online participation in democracy. In Read More
It’s like 1919 for baseball, or 1929 for the economy. This year is an all-timer for newspapers, so it requires context, revision, and debate. Justin Peters at Columbia Journalism Review is asking a question: is 2008 really the worst year ever for newspapers? (As we argued earlier this week.)
He’s got some other Read More
