Jim Fruchterman Contributor Share on Twitter Jim Fruchterman is the founder and chief executive of Benetech, a non-profit developer of technology for social good. Earlier this year, the business community received a wake-up call issued with all of the might that $6 trillion can muster. The call came from Laurence Fink, the founder and chief […]
View More A $6 trillion wake up call for the tech industryCategory: Publishing
Medium is now paying partners cash bonuses for quality work
A year ago, publishing platform Medium debuted a new business model where readers could pay a monthly fee to access exclusive, curated content, and would reward participating partners by offering a revenue share based on a metrics like time spent reading and the more explicit “claps” – Medium’s form of the “Like.” Now, Medium will […]
View More Medium is now paying partners cash bonuses for quality workAmazon’s top original shows generated an estimated 5M new Prime members
Amazon’s original content efforts are paying off, at least in terms of driving new sign-ups for Prime, which is ostensibly their main value to the commerce giant. Documents obtained by Reuters show that the top Prime video original programming, including 19 shows covered within, were accountable for as many as a quarter of the total […]
View More Amazon’s top original shows generated an estimated 5M new Prime membersApple acquires digital newsstand Texture as it doubles down on content ‘from trusted sources’
As the debate continues over fake news and the role that aggregators like Facebook have played in spreading it, Apple is making an acquisition that could help it lay out a position as a purveyor of trusted information. The iPhone maker is buying Texture, a magazine virtual newsstand that’s known as the “Netflix of magazine publishing” that gives readers access to around… Read More
Where experiential virtual reality is heading
On January 5th, The VOID’s new walk-around VR experience, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, opened to the public at Downtown Disney in California, preceded by a December launch at Disney Springs in Florida, marking the single biggest moment yet for out-of-home virtual reality. Many months in the making, this joint effort from ILMxLAB and The VOID is backed by Disney and features one of… Read More
Facebook co-founder says its rise reveals the fault lines destroying the “American Dream”
In April 2004, a couple of Harvard undergraduate roommates took a walk in the pouring rain around the university campus. They were two of the three co-founders of an internet company that had launched a couple of months earlier — a social network start-up that we now know as Facebook. One of the young men, a history student called Chris Hughes, was making his case to the other, a… Read More
Social publisher LittleThings shuts down, citing Facebook algorithm changes
From humble beginnings as a blog for a pet food venture, in four years LittleThings accrued millions of followers and views on its social platforms through feel-good content.
But the publisher announced that it would be no more on Tuesday, putting th…
Crooks launder money using real (and fake) Amazon ebooks
In a fascinating post, Brian Krebs and a group of security researchers have found a method for laundering money through expensive ebooks. It started when author Patrick Reames received an Amazon tax form saying he’d made $24,000 selling his books through Amazon’s CreateSpace, the company’s book-printing arm. His books didn’t sell nearly that many copies, he thought,… Read More
Essential Phone’s new ‘Halo Gray’ color goes on sale exclusively at Amazon
The Essential Phone is currently in the midst of being rolled out in a range of new colors, including three that will be released excessively on Essential’s own website, with a staged release schedule that began Thursday. On Friday, however, Essential revealed a surprise fourth new color, “Halo Gray,” which will be exclusive to Amazon and which is now available to… Read More
Salon’s Monero mining project might be crazy like a fox
One news site is taking a novel approach to making ends meet. Salon announced today it would give readers a choice between turning off ad-blocking software or “allowing Salon to use your unused computing power” in order to access their content. If you say yes to the latter deal, Salon will then invite you to install Coinhive, a software plugin that mines the cryptocurrency known… Read More
Amazon reportedly paid around $90 million for security camera maker Blink
Amazon acquired Blink late last year, a maker of affordable, easy to use security cameras powered by AA batteries. The acquisition was reportedly worth around $90 million to Amazon, according to a new report from Reuters, though the terms of the deal were not disclosed by Amazon and it hasn’t provided any comment on the specifics. The Blink acquisition is something that could help… Read More
Amazon said to launch delivery service to compete with UPS and FedEx
Amazon is gearing up to compete directly with UPS and FedEx, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The so-called “Shipping with Amazon” program will be an end-to-end shipping solution, with pickups from businesses and shipments made to consumers, per the report. The timeframe for rollout is soon, too: Amazon is said to be readying the service for its first launch in LA in… Read More