By Drew Grant 3/06 4:01pm

Trending hoaxes

Nimrod Kamer displays a "finger hashtag." (Photo credit: Nimrod Kamer for Wired UK)

Don’t Start Finger Hashtagging Quite Yet

Today’s big “So dumb I can’t believe it’s a real trend” trend comes courtesy of Wired’s U.K. website, in an article called “Brace yourselves for the proliferation of the ‘finger hashtag.’”

According to the piece’s author, who also provided seven pieces of photographic evidence, this new “trend” involves people “actually making the hashtag sign with their hands (using the index and middle fingers from both laid over each other) rather than saying ‘hashtag.’”

Which would be semi-outrageous (no more so than planking, surely) and sort of makes you hope that the people currently using this gesture are “killed in a fire,” as the story goes, except for one thing. This trend story is most likely a fake. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/28/12 10:24am

Greensward

Little help? (agent j loves nyc/Flickr)

Douglas Durst Wants to Put Lofts for Techies and Galleries in Pier 40 to Keep It Afloat

The problems of Pier 40 are well documented by now. Once the golden goose of Hudson River Park, the pier is now so deteriorated, it costs more to maintain than it earns for the libertarian park. In two years, the pier might have to be shut down all together. With hopes of MLS soccer headed to Queens instead and a housing proposal on the rocks, what’s a park to do?

Well, it looks like Douglas Durst to the rescue. Read More

By Foster Kamer 2/02/12 3:59pm

Q & A

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10 Questions with Chris Mohney, Editor-in-Chief of Tumblr’s New Editorial Project

Yesterday, the New York Times broke news of blogging platform and social media network Tumblr’s new editorial project. The project was characterized as something that will be “documenting the Tumblr service and marketing it to users.”

In the same article, the project’s editor-in-chief—(2011 NYO Media Poachable) Chris Mohney, who will be leaving his post as the Vice President of Content at BlackBook—explained that it will avoid “forced attempts at corporate boosterism.” This is odd, because a forced attempt at corporate boosterism is exactly what this nebulous project sounds like. Then again, Mohney (who, before BlackBook, was an editor at regular Tumblr-antagonist Gawker) will be manning the project with Jessica Bennett, a journalist leaving her post at Newsweek/The Daily Beast to jump on board. Read More

By Drew Grant 10/17/11 12:35pm

Occupy Wall Street

Occupy the Boardroom!

Talking to ‘Occupy the Board Room’: New Site Encourages Getting in Touch with the 1%, Legally

Even if you’re not quite sure where you land on the Occupy Wall Street debate (perhaps you are Warren Buffett-type, who believes in capitalism and the markets and even personally bailed out banks, but also believe in the people’s right to assemble; or perhaps you just couldn’t be bothered to pay attention yet), you still might be interested in OccupytheBoardroom.org, which provides the straightest line from your laptop to the desk of a Citigroup executive. Read More