Slipr

Sometimes I wonder how a company as mighty and as technologically progressive as Amazon (who would have ever thought that a bookstore would be offering pay-as-you-go web storage or cloud computing?) could have a recommendation engine that is as obviously flawed as what’s in evidence in the screen shot that opens this post.

So let me get this straight… I’m checking out that video of O’Reilly calling some teenager a pinhead on live television, and feeling indignant, and I decide to look up The O’Reilly Factor for Kids, because that’s the kind of masochist I am.

And now every time I log in to Amazon.com I have to stare down Bill’s insouciant grin?

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Chris Morrison over at Small Change, which is part of the Business 2.0 blog network, has an excellent analysis of the new economics of big, ongoing media stories like the iPhone (note to self: write about the relative merits of the various MSM blog networks that are lately proliferating like cane toads).

yesterday evening Google News returned some 10,000 articles written over a 24 hour period that were about the iPhone. It’s become very apparent to anyone watching that iPhone-related pageviews are a nearly bottomless well. No matter how many articles are written, someone will want to read them.

He also hints at the fact that the New York Times completely flubbed what could have been a major traffic-garnering opportunity by not accompanying David Pogue’s review of the iPhone with dozens of other prelude and postlude articles–in other words, on at least one channel (a purpose-built blog? their tech section?) completely flooding the zone with iPhone coverage. Pogue was one of only 4 reviewers who got an early look at the iPhone–that access alone is potentially worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential ad revenue on whatever coverage the Times could have packed around that one review.

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Jeff Jarvis, new media pundit, took a break from telling us how the same Americans who average four hours of television a day are about to redirect their zest for life into becoming citizen journalists, in order to hate on the new Slate V.

Sure, Slate’s new video offering is a little rough around the edges. For instance, why is Prudie, Slate’s advice columnist, answering reader mail while sitting on a bed? I for one am uncomfortable with this forced intimacy.

That said, WTF is Jarvis talking about?

How can a minute and a half be so boring: a explanation of Rhode Island’s size

After that little koan in need of a copy-edit, he stops only just short of declaring Slate’s sendup of Rudy Giuliani’s infamous verbal duel with angry ferret owners to be a pointless piece of twaddle.

Of course, if he’d ever watched Dr. Katz, he’d get it. See here:

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