Tag Archives: Technology coverage
ACBJ is rolling out TechFlash name across company
by Chris Roush
TechFlash, a tech news site started by two business reporters at the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2008, is now a brand name rolling out across the American City Business Journals chain.
Cromwell Scubarth, who covers technology for the sister paper Silicon Valley Business Journal, writes, “Our parent company, American City Business Journals, is rolling the TechFlash brand out around the country. Startup Now is a natural fit.
“Look for the same features we have delivered in the first month of Startup Now, along with top stories from affiliated publications in Boston, Austin, New York and elsewhere.
“Same great stories. New name. See for yourself on Monday.”
Read more here.
Charlotte-based ACBJ rolled the TechFlash site back into the Puget Sound Business Journal last year after the two journalists who started it left in 2011.
The best Apple reporter is 19 years old
by Chris Roush
Jay Yarow of Business Insider writes about Mark Gurman, a 19-year-old Michigan freshman who covers Apple for 9to5Mac.com.
Yarow writes, “This wasn’t the first time Gurman beat his better funded, more established colleagues. He also broke the news of Siri getting baked into the iPhone, he was one of the first people with iPhone 5 casings, had an early look at Apple’s Maps, and had the inside story of what Tim Cook told Apple’s employees in a recent all-hands meeting, just to name a few of his big stories.
“A reporter breaking news isn’t particularly newsworthy in and of itself. For a lot of reporters, it’s part of the job description.
“What makes Gurman unique is that he’s a 19-year-old freshman at Michigan, currently studying a little bit of everything — economics, communications, calculus, etc. He tells us that he’s in the process of applying to attend its business school next year.
“Gurman has no formal journalism training. He learned on the job, which he started doing when he was still in high school. Odds are he’s not going to be a journalist when he’s done with school, though he told us, ‘I think no matter what I do, I will always have journalism with me at least as a hobby.”
Read more here.
AllThingsD considers split from News Corp.
by Chris Roush
AllThingsD, the widely read technology blog run by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, has begun discussions with owner News Corp about extending or ending their partnership, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Peter Lauria and Nadia Damouni write, “According to these sources, AllThingsD’s contract with News Corp expires at the end of the year. One of the sources said Swisher and Mossberg have to deliver a business plan by next week to Robert Thomson, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor who will helm News Corp’s publishing unit as CEO after it is spun off.
“The fact that AllThingsD’s contract is up this year is well known, and sources said the website is receiving a lot of ‘inbound interest’ from potential buyers parallel to its talks with News Corp.
“Among the names mentioned as having reached out to AllThingsD were Conde Nast, where Swisher recently signed to work as a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, and Hearst.
“Sources also speculated that former Yahoo and News Corp executive Ross Levinsohn might be looking at the website given his new role as Chief Executive of Guggenheim Digital Media, which comes complete with “significant capital to acquire and invest in new media companies.” The private equity shop already owns Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and Adweek.”
Read more here.
AOL confirms acquisition of tech site gdgt
by Chris Roush
Alexia Tsotsis and Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch report that AOL has acquired tech news site gdgt for an undisclosed amount.
Tsotsis and Lunden write, “Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but we have heard that the deal was in the high seven figures, and that there was another — higher — offer from another company but that gdgt’s co-founders, Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, went with AOL because it was a better fit.
“It seems poetic that future of a company so deeply embedded in the Internet’s past would hinge upon amassing properties that so vehemently chronicle its future. The deal will see Ryan Block take on a bigger role at AOL, where we have heard from sources that he will become head of product for AOL Tech Media, reporting to Jay Kirsch, and taking some of the learnings, technology and sensibility that he and Rojas have brought to gdgt and applying it across AOL’s portfolio of tech sites. In addition to TechCrunch, those sites include Engadget (which Rojas founded and Block used to edit), TUAW and Joystiq. In other words, the acquisition will give gdgt much greater scale for its product.
“With AOL’s tech portfolio heavy on blogs and news, gdgt will be bringing complementary content in the form of a huge database of gadget information, created with the aim of ‘improving the buying experience,’ in the words of Block.
“The move lets the two come full-circle and, for those who ever wondered, provides more color on why they left in the first place. ‘We didn’t leave Engadget (or AOL) because we were unhappy, we left to do gdgt because at the time it was tough to build something that was clearly not editorial,’ Block told me. ‘That’s obviously changed, and we’re excited to be able to continue to invest in and grow gdgt, while also bringing a lot of the stuff we’ve built to the rest of AOL Tech.’”
Read more here.
AOL negotiated to buy tech news site gdgt
by Chris Roush
AOL is negotiating to acquire the tech news and review site gdgt, reports Colleen Taylor of TechCrunch.
Taylor writes, “Sources tell me that a deal appears to be nearing closure in a matter of days.
“I’ve reached out both to gdgt and to executives at AOL for confirmation or comment, but have not yet received a response. The latter is kind of awkward because they are technically my co-workers and/or superiors (disclosure: AOL owns TechCrunch,) but it is par for the course when it comes to M&A rumors. Also, it feels a bit strange to report on deals that are being worked on within my own (really big) company, but this is the word I’m hearing — and in the end, I’m told, news is news.
“Gdgt’s parent company PastFuture has raised some $3.7 million from investors including Spark Capital, True Ventures, betaworks, AOL Ventures, Lerer Ventures, and others. The company has a staff of about 20. This is not the first time the company has been in sale talks — the company has reportedly received interest from CBS, Amazon, and CNET over the years. That of course means that this deal may not pan out, but I’m told that the current talks are indeed very serious.”
Read more here.
A blogger who reviews his company’s products
by Chris Roush
Jordan Crook of TechCrunch writes Monday about how a Nokia blogger, Adam Fraser, has reviewed the new Nokia phone and only had nice things to say about the product.
Crook writes, “He just so happens to be a ‘Writer and Reporter at Nokia Conversations Blog,’ who ‘has owned more Nokia handsets than he can count’ and receives his paycheck from Nokia, but just ignore that bit. I’m sure he’s totally objective about the whole thing.
“Here are some of my favorite, unbiased bits:
From the front, you’ll see a double layer of colours, but from any other angle, all you can see is a vibrant, luscious lime colour.
Comparing the weight with my Nokia Lumia 800, the Lumia 620 feels lighter, but not in a cheap way. It feels solid and heavy enough to fit snugly into the palm of my hand while the smooth back and rounded edges give the whole phone a comfortable feel.
“Read: This phone may feel cheap and light, considering that it’s made of cheap, light materials like polycarbonate thermoplastic. But don’t mind that. Look! Pretty colors!
The 3.8″ TFT WVGA ClearBlack display produces some vivid colours, equally on par with the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820.
“Read: The smallish display looks really pretty with all these live tiles!”
Read more here.
BuzzFeed tech editor leaving for New Yorker
by Chris Roush
Matt Buchanan, the tech editor at BuzzFeed, has resigned to accept a job at The New Yorker.
Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke of The New York Observer writes, “‘Matt Buchanan’s vision for a new kind of tech coverage helped shape BuzzFeed’s great year last year,’ BuzzFeed’s EIC said in an email. ‘We’re sad to see him go, but we’re thrilled he’s embracing a new opportunity that’s a great fit for him.’
“John Herrman, FWD’s deputy tech editor, will take over as editor for the vertical.
“‘John Herrman has emerged as one of the great, original voices on and about the social web, and he has the obsessiveness, speed, intelligence and vision to take FWD to the next level as we expand it aggressively this year,’ Mr. Smith added.
NYTimes deputy tech editor leaving for Kickstarter
by Chris Roush
David Gallagher, the deputy technology editor at The New York Times, has announced that he is leaving the paper for a job at Kickstarter.
On Twitter, Gallagher posted, “I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ll soon be joining the team at @kickstarter as director of communications.”
At the Times, Gallagher manages a team of reporters in New York and San Francisco, generating articles for the front page and business section, with an emphasis on making them accessible and relevant to a broad readership.
Gallagher helped to conceive, launch and edit Bits, a blog aimed at a tech-savvy audience that has become one of the most popular blogs on NYTimes.com.
He has been with the Times since August 2003 and deputy tech editor since April 2006. The paper named Glenn Kramon as the new tech editor earlier this month.
Gallagher was one of the first photobloggers in the world, starting in November 2000. He also once worked at Bloomberg News.
Arrington: Why haven’t more CNET journalists quit?
by Chris Roush
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wants to know why more journalists haven’t quit tech news site CNET in the wake of parent company CBS Corp. decreeing it couldn’t give an award to a company that CBS was litigating.
Arrington writes, “What I don’t get is why CNET staffers have stuck around. They’re the ones who are supposed to be journalists and all that entails. They’re the ones I blame right now.
“I blame them because they’re the only reason CBS is able to get away with this. Every single journalist at CNET should have resigned by now.
“More than once at TechCrunch we made AOL extremely uncomfortable with things that we wrote. But they never ordered us to write or not write about something because they understood that not only would we not comply, we’d write a post about the whole thing.
“Our independence from AOL was so important to me that I negotiated an extremely odd provision in our purchase agreement that allowed me to disclose confidential information about AOL. It was their job never to give me that information. It was not my job to protect it in any way.”
Read more here.
Something needs to change in tech coverage
by Chris Roush
Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch writes about the problems with tech coverage in Silicon Valley.
Tsotsis writes, “It’s dangerous how embedded we are in what we cover. These founders, these VCs, these employees being laid off, are some of our closest friends and sources. Our community is so tight-knit that you could be writing about a CEO getting fired at 2 p.m. and then sitting next to her at a demo day at 4 p.m. Or you have to ask her to speak at your event. Or she is literally your investor.
“These entanglements have made my ilk squeamish about any forms of coverage that might reference the darker side of business, or anything that skirts the ‘personal’ line. Neither ATD nor TechCrunch referred to a documented harassment incident at Stanford when covering Keith Rabois leaving Square for alleged harassment. While it would have totally made sense to do so from a background perspective, neither publication did it.
“We as an ecosystem need a watchdog with enough independence and daring to call it as it is. Right now the closest thing we’ve got to anyone who writes from a relatively outsider perspective is Dan Lyons, and the biggest problem there is that he’s unnecessarily mean-spirited. This watchdog would need to be a savvy, ballsy type of person, and all of their posts would need to transcend mere gossip.”
Read more here.