Category Archives: Uncategorized

UPDATE: The WIN blog entry in question has now been greatly altered, in a rather disturbing manner. Details here. If you’re blogging professionally, people are going to hold you to higher standards than if you’re just another guy in his … Continue reading →

You heard it here first: Next year, the film studios jostling for recognition at the Academy Awards are going to move a small part of their publicity budgets online. Not to advertising, mind, but to bet on themselves. For the … Continue reading →

The good folks at Curbed linked to my entry on Manhattan valuations yesterday; they also posted that entry to the real estate section of VillageVoice.com, as part of their syndication deal with that website. Syndications should be a win-win deal: … Continue reading →

Tabloids use simpler language than broadsheets, because they aspire to appeal to a broader audience. So why is it that when I run up against a completely unknown word or expression, it always seems to be in the New York … Continue reading →

Frank Bruni reports today that EU is on! The E.U., a restaurant in the East Village, was mentioned in those same previews. It too hasn’t opened. One of its owners, Bob Giraldi, told me yesterday that it would be unveiled … Continue reading →

Two European countries. Country A is the recipient of tens of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment – $90 billion in 2005, to be precise. Country B, well, isn’t. Every time someone wants to throw money at the country, … Continue reading →

This is one of those stories which raise more questions than they answer: an innovative approach to aid in Africa. The World Food Program, a United Nations agency, spent $930,000 on an insurance policy with French insurer AXA Re. If … Continue reading →

I only just noticed that Gawker Media finally has a website. I’m very late to this game: Scott Kidder linked to it back in October, and I have no idea how long it was up before then. It already needs … Continue reading →

I’ve been staring for far too long at the map on the left, which can be seen in much bigger format here. It’s a map of the tax assessment value of the land in Manhattan, with the darker areas being … Continue reading →

Jonathan Rauch wrote the most popular essay The Atlantic has ever run, at least judging by web traffic. Three years later, he revisits its themes in an interview, talking about the problems that introverts have with extroverts. I was particularly … Continue reading →

I almost fell asleep reading DealBook’s extracts from the Greenspan book proposal: The book will ultimately conclude that the longer-term outlook for the global economy and, for that matter the U.S. economy as well, will be significantly affected by the … Continue reading →

One of the key questions in the DealBook vs Dealbreaker debate is whether the New York Times will link to bloggy rumours or not. If Elizabeth Spiers wants link love from the NYT, my general feeling was that she would … Continue reading →

DealBook is linking to blogs, which is a good thing. But someone at the NYT should probably be reading them more critically, I think. The NYT’s headline is now "UPDATE: Is NBC Stealing iVillage at $600 Million?", based on a … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Spiers can’t be happy this morning. The New York Times has just launched DealBook, a business-news blog which seems to do everything one might want a business blog to do, except maybe snark. It’s very good at pointing to … Continue reading →

Remember what I was saying about the economic perks of white-collar city life? Look at all the boozy expense-account lunches, the "free" tickets to the opera, hell, even the packets of post-its brought home from the office. No one’s going … Continue reading →

Yeah yeah, I know Lindsay hates it and all. But I honestly thought that Crash was the only good film of all the nominees, and I’m very happy it won. Especially since I placed a bet on it winning at … Continue reading →

Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™, gets the full-on takedown treatment in the LA Times today. I’ve long been fascinated by this man, his art, and his marketing. I still have vivid memories of walking into the Thomas Kinkade shop at … Continue reading →

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A fired-up principal with a revolutionary educational philosophy takes over a failing inner-city public school, and turns it around so impressively that before long it’s the the school that every parent wants their … Continue reading →

I’m not a businessman, and I doubt I ever will be. But here’s a hypothetical for you: You’re a television executive at Screen Gems International, and you strike a deal to sell fifty feature films into the UK. The price … Continue reading →

I seem to be an object of fascination for the chaps at Eater, who masterfully get all meta on my Chubo entry. "Is he food blogging for the people, or is he in it just to try to save his … Continue reading →

Piggybacking on someone else’s wifi connection must be a major problem. The Sunday New York Times has a big story on it, quoting people from all over the country, and featuring the work of three reporters. The headline? "Hey Neighbor, … Continue reading →

Does the UK need its own, Guardian-branded, version of the Huffington Post? The Guardian, for one, certainly seems to think so. Jemma Kiss reported on Thursday that it will have "more than 200 columnists and expert commentators" when it launches … Continue reading →

Tim Harford has just moved, to one of the grimmest parts of Hackney. Just outside the back door is a "massage parlour", a kebab shop, a jerk chicken joint and a betting shop, not to mention flowers for the young … Continue reading →

Gore Vidal is on form today: I was eager to see the movie about the two sheepherders, actually is what they are, they’re not cowboys.You can see there’s not a cow in the movie, just a lot of sheep. You … Continue reading →

This is not a beautiful webpage. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? And looked at in a certain way, this particular webpage is capable of changing the world. It’s run by Deepesh Agarwal, out of a … Continue reading →