wild&wittyWeb

futurejournalismproject:

Banksy on Advertising

Via Upworthy. Select to embiggen.

Advertising pays for so many things we love, and so many things that are important to advertising. But, yes, some of it is awful, and then, non-commercial art is there to save our souls.

"…looking at analytics is tricky. Because we have imperfect information about our audience, it can be difficult to translate aggregate reader behavior into real insights. We may see trends or correlations in the data, but they do not necessarily imply causation, and trying to analyze traffic too closely can coax editors and writers into an unhealthy diet of red herrings."

Chris Dannen | Fast Co. Labs | This is what happens when publishers invest in long stories

"Since the 1940s, terrestrial radio companies have not paid any royalties from revenue to artists (or record companies) for songs played on AM/FM radio. This has carried through to the stations’ online streaming. Digital-only audio services, however, spend as much as 60% of their revenue on sound recording royalties while satellite radio providers pay out 8% of their gross revenue."

Audio: Digital Drives Listener Experience | By Laura Santhanam, Amy Mitchell and Kenny Olmstead of the Pew Research Center

"It’s imperative to be able to show that the things [voters’] tax dollars are being spent on work, and that we’re trying to improve performance and do it in a data-driven way,” Liebman said. “That’s just good stewardship.”…Others are skeptical that spending more on metrics will produce better results — in part because it’s hard to get policymakers to agree on what results they’re after."

Why not measure how well government works? | Jim Tankersley and Dylan Matthews | Washington Post

thetuesdayten:

Why Kickstarter won’t sell or go public. 

$274 million was spent on Kickstarter projects in 2012 alone. What do their shareholders think they should do next? “Even if Union Square ventures had reservations, it wouldn’t have mattered,” Max Chafkin writes for Fast Company. “Kickstarter has been profitable since mid-2010 [when Kickstarter founders led a $10 million VC round in 2009]. Chen and his cofounders own a majority of the equity, and he controls the board.” Says Chen, “This is a founder-controlled company. We want to stay independent forever.” 

+ My dad is working with husband and wife duo, Carolina Story, and they happen to be pretty awesome. Check out their Kickstarter and try to honestly tell me you don’t want them make an album (and maybe even record your voicemail.)

Interesting that Kickstarter pays more to artists than the NEA. Doubly interesting that Dance projects are super rare, have very few investors, and raise the smallest amount of money, but are MOST likely to be successful! We’re asking too little for ourselves, dancers!

"What will it take to build emotive-and-empathic data experiences? Less data science and more data art — which, in other words, means that data wranglers have to develop correlations between data much like the human brain finds context."

Om Malik |  Coffee & Empathy: Why data without a soul is meaningless | GigaOm

Alt-Weeklies Are Dead; Long Live Alt-Weeklies

: A note on stories

theashleyclements:

I get so many wonderful messages telling me what The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has meant to people. They often include telling me that they’ve been going through a hard thing - a big change in their lives, a loved one’s illness, depression - and that The LBD has been a source of comfort and happiness;…

symboliamag:

Symbolia’s first official issue is here! If you haven’t purchased a subscription yet, now is the time. Single issues are $2.99—and only $1.99 per issue for subscribers. Get Symbolia on your iPad or via PDF today.

What you’ll get in this issue: Are you a loner? A rebel? Meet other outsiders from around the world. Our latest issue explores belonging in many forms. In it you will:

• Learn firsthand about the impact of immigration policy with a family torn apart by deportation with Beth Caldwell, Kat Leyh, Joel Medina, and Erin Siegel.
• Discover the weird, rebellious, and conspiratorial world of third party politics in the United States with Lindsay Beyerstein, Danica Novgorodoff, and Joyce Rice.
• Meet Pastor John Yesanathu Das, a Dalit Christian fighting for equality in India with Dan Carino.

Join Symbolia’s community of subscribers today. For just $1.99 per issue, you’ll get 3-5 stories that merge comics, audio, graphics, animation, and long-form journalism in dazzling new ways.

And stay tuned: We’re releasing Kindle, Nook, and Kobo editions shortly. 

"There is a culture in tech companies that simultaneously reveres the “user” (at least as a source of revenue and data) and places low expectations on coders to empathize with users (or colleagues, for that matter) – creating a disconnect that can only be bridged by assigning user (and team) empathy responsibilities to another department."

Lauren Bacon | Women in Tech and Empathy Work

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