This week I’m exploring why topic pages are getting traction on the social Web. But one potential flaw in topic pages is that they are typically closed networks. Wikipedia, The New York Times, Branch, Medium – these are all tightly controlled, essentially closed knowledge networks. Sure you can wrangle an invite to Branch, or eventually…
Why Topic Pages Haven’t Worked For News Websites Yet
Yesterday we outlined why topic pages are becoming increasingly popular on the Web, as a way to organize social or news content. As daily consumers of such content, we’re used to the chronological (and often real-time) ordering of updates from Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more. But the latest wave of Web publishing services, like Pinterest and…
Why Topic Pages Are The Next Big Thing
Chronological and real-time consumption of content just doesn’t work anymore. It’s time for topic pages to add a layer of organization on top.
In last week’s post, 5 Reasons Why Web Publishing is Changing (Again), we explained why online publishing is going through another sea change. One of those reasons was topical organization of content in…
5 Reasons Why Web Publishing is Changing (Again)
We’re witnessing another sea change in Web publishing. From Pinterest at the beginning of this year to the launch this week of a new product from two Twitter founders, Medium, 2012 has been a year where the norms of publishing are being challenged. It wasn’t that long ago that Tumblr and Wordpress were the cutting edge of publishing. But there’s…
How Online Reading Is Changing – And How to Cope!
Yesterday we outlined five reasons why Web publishing is undergoing a sea change, via new services like Medium, Branch, Svtle and App.net. In today’s post, we turn our attention to the readers. We’re all readers, in some capacity. So the changes we’re witnessing in publishing affect us all. Here’s what it will mean to you and how you can adapt.
Read-only Launch For Medium & Branch, But Twitter Founders Promise More
Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have been busy developing two new services, both of which were publicly launched this week by their incubator company The Obvious Corporation. Unfortunately, both products are read-only for most people right now. So first impressions will be muted – perhaps even mystified, since Medium has very little…
Backers & Hackers Start Playing With App.net
Over the weekend, budding Twitter competitor App.net reached its funding goal of $500,000. Already the service has an alpha website and an API, allowing backers and hackers alike to play with it. As to be expected, the early users are geeky – and mostly male. It’s fun watching a nascent service find its legs. In particular how third party…
Understanding App.net: It’s Microblogging As a Service
App.net has so far raised nearly $800,000 in membership fees with the promise that it will be a non-commercial, user and developer-friendly version of Twitter. It’s off to a good start, with early adopters enthusiastically kicking the tires of App.net’s alpha service and (perhaps more importantly) its API. But there is still a lot of confusion…
Social Olympics: Does The Gold Medal Go To Facebook, Twitter or Google+?
Yesterday we looked at how online media is covering the London 2012 Olympics. We gave our virtual gold medal to the New York Times, for its sleek design and muscular content. Today we review the major social media sites: Facebook, Twitter and Google+. To continue the Olympics theme, we award each of the three a different colored medal. Which one…
Olympics Online: Who Wins The Gold Medal For Best Website?
We’re well into the second week of the London 2012 Olympics, so which media website is winning with its online coverage? NBC fell at the first hurdle with its TV scheduling, but did the network get back into the race with its website? What about the New York Times, with its muscular web development? Or hometown favorite the BBC, with the crowd…
5 Things I Love About Podcasting
My post about podcasting earlier this week attracted a lot of insightful comments. There were also a few insulting comments, but overall the feedback showcased what makes podcasts worth consuming: passionate voices. Not coincidentally, passion is also what makes blogs a vital part of the media world. So the point of my article wasn’t to disparage…
Music Innovators: Montag Reimagines the Album
While listening to a Spotify playlist from music discovery service We Are Hunted, I came across an intriguing artist I hadn’t heard of before: Montag. I starred the song, called ‘True Love’, and a bit later went back to explore more of Montag’s music. It turns out he is in the middle of a project, called Phases, that is attempting to reimagine…
Radio Killed The Podcasting Star
Podcasters are to radio what bloggers are to newspapers: independent voices taking attention away from mainstream media. At least that was the theory, when professional podcasts and blogs were getting started in the 2000s. But unlike blogs, podcasts by indie voices have not gone on to seriously challenge the mainstream media incumbents. Where is…
Thinking Big About Big Data: GNS Tackles Personalized Healthcare
One of the top four trends identified in Rock Health’s report on digital health was data / analytics. Arguably, big data is the most important factor in transforming the healthcare system – given the vast amount of genetic and other medical data available today, combined with the increasing prevalence of mobile health apps and EMRs (Electronic…
Digital Health is a Long Distance Race, For Dot-Com Veteran BodyMedia
One of the top trends in digital health is wearable body sensors. The Nike+ sensor shoe is the Usain Bolt of this market, with its flashy image and impressive results. Startup Fitbit has also gained a lot of traction, with its small clip-on device. But still in the race for gold is a dot-com veteran, BodyMedia. It’s been producing “senseware” since…
Electronic Medical Records Finally Become a Reality, Thanks to the iPad
Digital health is a hot market right now, with funding levels having tripled over the past year. Y Combinator graduate drchrono is one of many scrappy young startups aiming to change the stodgy old healthcare system. Indeed, drchrono strikes at one of the core problems of traditional healthcare: paperwork. Drchrono is an EMR (Electronic Medical…
Investment in Digital Health Triples Over Past Year
It’s not just mobile health (mHealth) that is growing fast. The overall digital health sector – which includes mHealth, B2B apps and consumer services such as ZocDoc – is also rapidly expanding. That’s if venture capital funding is anything to go by. A report by financial services company Burrill & Company states that private financings in…
Diagnosis Promising For mHealth
mHealth is an emerging trend in technology. It stands for ‘mobile healthcare’ and means utilizing smartphones and medical mobile devices to help diagnose and monitor health conditions. According to a new research paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit (commissioned by PwC), the adoption of mHealth will be slow in the healthcare industry. That’s…
Top Trends of 2012: Social Video Apps (Warning: Seedy Content!)
Continuing our review of the first half of 2012, we look at an emerging product type that became popular this year: social video apps. The two leading contenders are Socialcam and Viddy, each vying to be the breakout app. But at least one of those apps is using dubious seeding tactics to get ahead…
How Google+ Has Morphed Over The Past Year & What We Can Expect in 2013
One year ago, Google+ launched to the world and was greeted with the collective cry, “Not another social network!” But over the past year Google+ has cemented its position as one of the Big Three social networks, alongside Facebook and Twitter. Or has it? Google+ boasts similar user numbers to Twitter, but if we look more closely we see…