This afternoon Digg CEO Jay Adelson was interviewed on Fox Business News, where he spoke about the future of Digg and the ways it could potentially cooperate with strugging news organizations. During the interview Adelson made a few interesting comments, some of which contrast with News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch’s assertions in an interview conducted earlier today that “people understand that it’s perfectly fair that they are going to pay for [news]“. Instead, Adelson said that he doesn’t think your average consumer is going to be coughing up money for news any time soon. Instead, he thinks that payments will come from content hubs and aggregators, including Digg itself.
One way Digg can help, Adelson said, is by helping these news sites with their advertising using techniques similar to the ones Digg has implemented. Adelson said that Digg Ads, the company’s recently launched ad product that lets users vote on the advertising they’re seeing, has been performing very well, generating high click through rates that the company “wasn’t expecting to see”. He later remarked that these ads were getting up to 100 times the click through rates that standard banner and text ads generate.
Adelson also said that the company has shifted gears a bit since the downturn hit last year — it’s now focused on growth rather than monetization. Adelson said that he’s “feeling good” that Digg is going to be profitable, and that reaching that goal is “not the problem any more”.
The interview closed out with a question about Digg’s future as an IPO candidate. Adelson says that he “has to go public at some point” both to please investors and to help out Digg’s employees, but that the time for that hasn’t come yet. However, Adelson did strongly hint that we’ll likely see Digg go international as the site looks to capitalize on the fact that 40% of its users are abroad despite the fact that Digg is only available in English.
Watch the latest business video at <a href="http://video.foxbusiness.com/">FOXBusiness.com</a>
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Evernote, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that makes one of my favorite cross-platform apps, called (what else) Evernote, has raised $10 million in new funding. The new round was led by Morgenthaler Ventures, a respected Sand Hill Road firm with a deep history. Evernote had previously raised $6.5 million in VC funding. Phil Libin, Evernote’s CEO, tells The New York Times that he is going to be using the money to expand to new geographic markets and add new platforms. At present the app works on Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Mac, PC and Palm’s WebOS. As you all know, I am a big fan of the application and its freemium business model. It probably is the single most useful app on my computer and my phones. (Related articles from WebWorkerDaily: Evernote Wants to Be Your Long-term Memory and How to Use Evernote for Collaboration.)
Go to Vampire Weekend's site for am officially sanctioned five finger discount on the Horchata, the first single from their upcoming album Contra, due in January. It's a creeper.
ERIC HAZE ‘NEW ABSTRACTS AND ICONS’ NOVEMBER 19 – DECEMBER 10, 2009
Eric Haze is proud to announce New Abstracts and Icons, a major solo exhibition in New York City of new paintings, drawings, and sculpture. It is the artist’s largest exhibition to date. Deeply rooted in the graphic arts, Haze has established a vocabulary of personal symbolism with a repertoire representing departures of an abstract and minimalist nature. For New Abstracts and Icons Haze recontextualizes the aesthetic congruences of geometry, symmetry, and repetition through his iconographic lens. “This show represents a clear window into the process I have dedicated myself to over the last three years, with a deeper exploration of the minimalist and pop styles that have always informed my work,” says Haze. Recognized worldwide for more than three decades for his design work and artistic productions in a multitude of mediums, the 21st century has seen Haze return to his fine art roots. His work in acrylic, ink and charcoal culminated with a solo exhibition in 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hong Kong. In New Abstracts and Icons, bold iconography and his natural line quality are free of any predictable design or past imagery. Haze is intent to convey his overall message in the purest and most organic terms possible through the combination of stark color contrasts and clean lines. The result is an overtly minimalist composition. The viewer does not have to sift through metaphors and signifiers; instead, Haze bravely reveals his personality and identity in stripped down, simple form. Through these new works chaos is calmed and harmony is nurtured. New Abstracts and Icons will be the first event held at Level 2, a newly built-to-suit 2500-square foot gallery space on 812 Broadway and 11th Street. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served at the opening reception with world class DJs A-Trak and Neil Armstrong providing the audio.
Exhition hours will be 12-6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 1-7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. More background on Eric Haze, plus extensive archives of his past works can also be seen at: www.interhaze.com
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, November 19, 8-10 p.m.
for more info hit the original post at hypebeast
Update on 2009-11-18 07:06 by [Your Name Here]
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Audio, Hardware, Multimedia, Music
Sonos, best known for wireless music systems that link to your iTunes library and internet services like Pandora, Rhapsody and Napster, is offering a one piece, 5 speaker system that can be placed in any room. It's called the Zone Player S5 and it's US $399 direct from Sonos or dealers around the country. Sonos shipped me a review system to try for 30 days, and I thought the sound was great. I already had a mutli-room Sonos system so adding the new portable player was just a matter of plugging it into AC power and pressing two buttons on the S5. If you don't already have a Sonos system, you have to plug your unit into a router to connect to your music library and the internet. If that doesn't work in your home layout, you can buy what Sonos calls a Zone Bridge (US $99) that plugs into your router and lets the S5 make a wireless connection. Once that basic pairing is made, you can add as many other Sonos music systems as you like, all connecting over a wireless mesh network. The system sounds quite good, given the limits of the small desktop-friendly size (8.5 x 14.4 x 4.8 inches). There are 5 speakers, two tweeters, two 3" mid-range drivers, and one 3.5" woofer all driven by individual amplifiers. The woofer is a ducted port design and the rear port serves double duty as a carrying handle.
Continue reading Sonos adds a portable music player with room filling sound
TUAWSonos adds a portable music player with room filling sound originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Toy makers MINDstyle offer a preview into its latest release, a 3′ version of Ron English’s McSupersized Me character, an obvious comical play on Ronald McDonald. The deluxe fiberglass monochrome figure was only produced in a run of 10 pieces, available through De La Barracuda, Toy Tokyo, and MINDstyle ATS direct.
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