Mailchimp and Shopify break up

Shopify today announced that the Mailchimp app, which let its users use their Shopify data to create targeted email campaigns, for example, is no longer available in its marketplace. The reason for this, Shopify says, is that it “had growing concerns about Mailchimp’s app because of the poor merchant experience and their refusal to respect our Partner Program Agreement.” Clearly, this isn’t the most amicable divorce. “It’s critical for our merchants to have accurate, complete insight into th...
Tags: eCommerce, TC, Cloud Applications, Mailchimp, Publishing, Shopify, Web applications, World Wide Web

CesiumAstro, MAP Health, StoryFit, Hatch Pitch & More Texas Tech

[ Updated 3/14/19, 1:53 pm CT. See below. ]  Another South By Southwest festival comes to a close in Austin. Let’s catch up with the highlights from the tech portion this year and other innovation news in Texas.—CesiumAstro, an Austin-based maker of antennas and communications systems for satellites, said it has raised $12.4 million in a Series A funding round. Airbus Ventures, the venture arm of plane-maker Airbus, led the round, according to a press release. Other investors were Kleiner Pe...
Tags: Apps, Publishing, Texas, Entertainment, China, Cancer, Funding, Los Angeles, Trends, Startup, Insurance, Tech, Investment, People, Vc, Artificial Intelligence

Sony Corp may buy a 20-25% stake in ZEEL for Rs 13,000 crore: report

Sony Corp may buy a 20-25% stake in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) worth Rs 13,000 crore, reports Mint. Sony would want at least 25%, which would give it promoter rights, it added. Zee and Sony declined to comment on the matter to the publication. Group chairman Subhash Chandra is looking... ...
Tags: Travel, Publishing, News, Entertainment, Internet, Sony, Streaming, Group, Broadcasting, Zee, Sony Corp, Subhash Chandra, Zeel, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd

Wattpad gains strategic investment from Times Bridge to further expand in India

Wattpad is further expanding into Asia with a new partnership and undisclosed strategic investment from Times Bridge, the global investment arm of the Times Group in India. The deal aims to help the storytelling community establish a larger presence in the country where it already counts over 2.6 million monthly users who have shared more than 4 million stories to date, it says. Similar to its recent partnership with the deal with Times Bridge is also focused on turning more Wattpad stories int...
Tags: Social, Fundings & Exits, Asia, Publishing, India, Tech, Storytelling, Sony, Stories, Hulu, Authors, Wattpad, Sharma, Times Group, Allen Lau, Times Bridge

WWW at 30 : Democratization of Legal Publishing Made Possible

The World Wide Web is thirty years old today. The Internet may have existed for twenty years before the WWW, but it was not until English scientist Tim Berners-Lee brought us the Web So that documents and resources could be shared and linked to via Uniform Reosource Locators (URL’s). A year later, Berners-Lee brought us the first software to display web pages on terminals called the Line Mode Browser. It was not until 1993 when a Marc Andreessen led team at the University of Illinois...
Tags: Publishing, Law, Wordpress, Lexblog, Bell, Marc Andreessen, Matt Mullenweg, University Of Illinois, Berners Lee, Tim Berners Lee, Matt, Netscape, Cerf, Ed Walters, Vinton Cerf, Uniform Reosource Locators URL

The Future of Legal Journalism is Here

The future of legal journalism is here and that future has arrived in the form of LexBlog.com, according to Bob Ambrogi, its Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, addressing a standing room only audience of about hundred and fifty in Chicago last Thursday evening. Speaking at the Chicago Legal Innovation and Tech meetup at Skadden, Ambrogi’s passion and vision were keenly on display. If there were any doubters of his message, Ambrogi pushed them over the top with his down to earth conviction in wh...
Tags: Publishing, Law, Washington Post, Chicago, New York Times, Wisconsin, Lexblog, LexisNexis, Bernstein, Watergate, Supra, Woodward, Ambrogi, Bob Ambrogi, Ed Walters, Chicago Legal Innovation

Atwood to launch The Handmaid’s Tale sequel with live broadcast

Exclusive: Author’s interview about The Testaments will be filmed at National Theatre in LondonMargaret Atwood is to mark the publication of her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale with a midnight launch in London on 9 September followed by a live interview at the National Theatre broadcast around the world.There will also be a six-date tour of the UK and Ireland. Continue reading...
Tags: Books, Publishing, UK, London, Film, Fiction, UK News, Culture, Ireland, Margaret Atwood, National Theatre, Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, LondonMargaret Atwood

Mueller report to be printed 'instantly', say publishers

Publishers prepare to race ‘the most anticipated investigative document of this century’ into printPublishers are lining up to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report as a book – if and when it is made public.The investigation into alleged collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidency will be delivered by Robert Mueller to the new attorney general, William Barr, who will decide how much is made public. Last week, independent press Skyhorse Publishing s...
Tags: Books, Publishing, Russia, US, US news, Culture, Moscow, Donald Trump, Publishers Weekly, Mueller, Robert Mueller, Skyhorse Publishing, William Barr, Politics books

Media Education and Change

Lately I’ve been scolding myself that I have not been radical enough — yes, me, not nearly radical enough — about rethinking journalism in our still-emerging new reality of a connected world. And if journalism requires rebuilding, then so does journalism education and all of media education. Every fall, when I am lucky enough to talk with our entire incoming class at the Newmark J-school, I tell them that they are the ones who must reinvent journalism and media; they should learn what we teac...
Tags: Publishing, UK, Media, Education, Wikipedia, Uncategorized, Journalism, Journalism education, Social Journalism, Carrie Brown, David Weinberger, Newmark, Rishad, Vidcon, Jenny Choi, Rishad Tobaccowala

University of California system libraries break off negotiations with Elsevier, will no longer order their journals

Elsevier (previously) is one of the titans of academic and scientific publishing, a wildly profitable and politically potent corporation whose market dominance has allowed it to extract ever-larger sums from the universities whose researchers provide the vast majority of the material it publishes -- material it does not have to pay for, and in some cases, material it charges money to publish. The University of California system is one of Elsevier's biggest customers, and after eight months ...
Tags: Europe, Post, Publishing, News, Sweden, Washington, Germany, United States, Open Access, Elsevier, University Of California, The University of California, Heather Joseph, Alex Fox, Jeffrey Brainard, Plan S

Why mice get to eat dinosaurs

Photo by rawpixel  on  Unsplash Many of us work for a reason. We have something we want to achieve. We want to make change, fix a problem, get stuff done. In the ideal scenario 100% of our efforts are focused on exactly that.Funnily enough, that's also the reason for every business ever to start. Every start-up is a solution to a problem that someone stumbled on, woke up screaming about or otherwise identified a 'gap on the market'.So why does it often feel like your ambition to get t...
Tags: Publishing, Disruption, Innovation, Devops, Digital Strategy, Start-ups, Agile, Organisational change, David Cushman, Inertia, Flattened Hierarchies, Constraints On Change, DesOps, Organisational Design

‘White privilege is used by women against black men as a tool of oppression’

Young black men have long been expected to submit to being exoticised by white women – and when they don’t, they are often punished. One writer calls for an honest discussionI’m going to talk about something that, until now, I have largely kept to myself. It’s odd, as I consider myself a writer of extreme honesty, and I try to carry that over into real life. And yet, even now, I’m hesitating, and I realise to some degree I have procrastinated even more than usual about the thinking, and writing,...
Tags: Books, Publishing, Race, MeToo Movement

Europe Against the Net

I’ve spent a worrisome weekend reading three documents from Europe about regulating the net: The revived, revised, and worsened Articles   and   of the European Copyright Directive and Julia Reda’s devastating review of the impact.The   of the state of journalism and the net in the UK.The House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee Disinformation and ‘Fake News’ report. In all this, I see danger for the net and its freedoms posed by corporate protectionism and a risi...
Tags: Google, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Europe, Publishing, UK, Internet, Australia, China, Uncategorized, Journalism, Eu, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Bbc

Prime Minister Modi dilutes India’s resolve to fight terror

Notwithstanding the cliché phraseology – “deep commitment to strengthen the strategic partnership envisaged in the Riyadh Declaration of February 2010” – the joint statement issued at the end of MBS’s state visit failed to nail down Pakistan’s role as a State Sponsor of terrorism. Canary Trap is a platform for exclusive, well-researched, and objective information relating to intelligence, terrorism, corruption and politico-security matters.
Tags: Publishing, Saudi Arabia, India, Narendra Modi, Pakistan, Modi, Mohammed bin Salman, Security & Intel, VK Shashikumar, Canary Trap, MBS, Pakistan Terrorism, Jamal Khashoggi, Global Terrorism, India-Saudi Arabia, Pulwama Attack

Kickstarter Challenge: make an RPG-themed zine!

Inspired by the success of Judges' Guild, Kickstarter has launched Zine Quest, a challenge to crowdfund an RPG-themed zine ("must either contain an RPG or feature RPG-related content like maps, adventures, monsters, comics, articles, interviews, etc."); there's an impressive array of entrants already.
Tags: Post, Happy Mutants, Publishing, Games, News, Crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Rpgs, Zines, Zinequest, Judges Guild Kickstarter

Elections 2019: Google to train journos on fact checking, verification, data visualisation

Google News Initiative has partnered with DataLeads and Internews to host a series of training sessions titled “PollCheck: Covering India’s Election” for Indian journalists and journalism students for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The sessions will be held in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Bangla,... ...
Tags: Travel, Google, Publishing, Elections, News, Media, Internet, Internews, Fake News, Election Integrity, Google News Initiative, Lok Sabha Elections 2019

Plus Ça Change: Florence B. Price in the #BlackLivesMatter Era

“While more and more blacks are being driven into homelessness,” a classical music fan fumed, “Mostly Mozart is rewarded with government, corporate, and media support.” The problem? No black composers on the program—not even Mozart’s great contemporary, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. We can easily imagine this critique as a sick Twitter burn from last summer, or last week. Calls to diversify classical music programs intensify regularly. But the sad truth is that many organizations a...
Tags: Publishing, New York, Justice, Mexico, New York City, Religion, Articles, Indianapolis, Analysis, Green, Chicago, Racism, United States, Trayvon Martin, Arkansas, Yale

Who can forget those scenes in Count Zero where they all stand around eating soup?

Back in the 1980s, the giant German sf publisher Heyne tried out an experimental partnership with a soup company Maggi (they're still around), and it was bonkers. Under the terms of the deal, science fiction novels would be periodically interrupted by scenes in which the characters would drop everything and start eating Maggi soups, smacking their lips and exclaiming over just how delicious they were. But to keep readers from confusing the soup ads with the novels, these scenes would be se...
Tags: Post, Books, Publishing, Science Fiction, Old school, News, Germany, Cyberpunk, William Gibson, Tim Powers, Maggi, Heyne, Is It Soup Yet, Count Zero

Did New York lose anything with Amazon’s rejection? It’s complicated.

Now that Amazon has said that it’s taking its ball and going home rather than deal with mean, pushy New Yorkers, outside observers are giving off the sense that the city (and its local politicians) are losing out for their recalcitrance. They’re wrong. New York City is running at about a 4.3% unemployment rate — higher than the national average of 3.9%, but a respectable number for jobs. Amazon’s promise of 25,000 jobs (high-paying jobs) may have reduced that number, but there’s no guarant...
Tags: Google, Amazon, Startups, TC, Publishing, Real Estate, New York, Technology, Boston, New York City, America, San Francisco, Bloomberg, Software, Queens, Computing

Wattpad’s latest deal will turn its stories into TV shows and movies in Korea

Wattpad’s ambitions to grow beyond a storytelling community for young adults took another leap forward today with the announcement of a new partnership that will help expand its reach in Asia. The company has teamed up with Huayi Brothers in Korea, who will now be Wattpad’s exclusive entertainment partner in the region. The two companies will co-produce content sourced from Wattpad’s community, as it’s adapted for film, TV and other digital media projects in the country. Development deals lik...
Tags: Mobile, Apps, Asia, Publishing, TV, Hollywood, Movies, Kids, Media, Teens, Indonesia, Germany, Films, Tech, Netflix, Korea

Standardising innovation will deliver disruption at scale

I joined in a conversation on Linkedin triggered by one innovator positing a view on what disruption really is - and a dozen more piling in to place their version of the truth on record. My point of view was/is this: A technology trend has the potential to be disruptive.  The response to it is a business model built on the co-evolution of practice which that trend prompts. If that response is a new model creating value in a new way, it will disrupt the existing landscape. I felt the lack o...
Tags: Publishing, Digital Transformation, Disruption, Linkedin, Innovation, Technology Trends, David Cushman

Amazon’s ‘Alexa Blueprints’ can now be published publicly on the US Alexa Skills Store

Last year, Amazon introduced Alexa Blueprints, a way for an Alexa device owner to create their own customized voice skills and Alexa responses without needing to know how to code. These skills — like family trivia or tips for your babysitter — could then be published for personal use. Later, with others by way of a link. Today, Amazon is taking things a step further — you’ll now be able to publish these skills publicly to the U.S. Alexa Skills Store. Alongside the launch, Amazon is also add...
Tags: Amazon, Apps, Publishing, Media, Tech, Bbc, University, Npr, Alexa, Amazon Alexa, Today Amazon, Voice Computing, Voice Apps, Alexa Skills Store, Amazon Polly WordPress, Alexa Blueprints

Report: Apple Is Trying to Get Newspapers to Fork Over Half of Revenue From Planned Subscription Service

Tech giant Apple, which is trying to pivot to services as sales of some of its electronics slow, is reportedly working to launch a subscription-based news service that would get readers past paywalls at a discounted rate and share the revenue with publishers. But according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street JournalRead more...
Tags: Apple, Publishing, Science, Technology, News, Media, Journalism, Newspapers, Apple News, I Want Half

BuzzFeed News employees vote to unionize

Shortly after BuzzFeed News employees revealed that they had voted to unionize, its editor-in-chief said the company wants to meet with them to discuss voluntarily recognition. Employees announced today that they are organizing as BuzzFeed News Union under the NewsGuild of New York. “Our staff has been organizing for several months, and we have legitimate grievances about unfair pay disparities, mismanaged pivots and layoffs, weak benefits, skyrocketing health insurance costs, diversity, and ...
Tags: Travel, TC, Publishing, New York, Media, Buzzfeed, Ben Smith, Workers Rights, Jonah Peretti, Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News, Wells, Davey Alba, Jason Wells, BuzzFeed News Union

AMI defends ‘good faith negotiations’ with Jeff Bezos but will investigate blackmail allegation

It’s the morning after the night before for AMI. And what a night it was. The company is officially in damage control mode after it released a short statement defending its communication and behavior with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who published evidence of blackmail that used leaked messages and nude photos of the billionaire that AMI had acquired. AMI today defended its efforts. It claimed it had “acted lawfully” with its reporting of Bezos and that it engaged in “good faith negotiations” with him...
Tags: Amazon, Publishing, Media, Washington Post, Saudi Arabia, Tech, Ceo, President, Jeff Bezos, National Enquirer, The Washington Post, Trump, Board, Bezos, AMI, American Media

Jagran Prakashan reports Rs 614 Cr in revenues in Q3FY19; launches IFCN certified “Vishvas.news”

Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL), which owns the Hindi daily newspaper Dainik Jagran, English paper Mid Day, Radio City FM and other media properties, has reported consolidated operating revenues of Rs 613.83 crores for the quarter ended 31 December 2018 (Q3FY19), up 9.9% from Rs 553 crore in the... ...
Tags: Travel, Publishing, News, Media, Internet, Newspapers, Earnings, Dainik Jagran, IFCN, Jagran Prakashan, Jagran Prakashan Limited JPL, Earnings Dec-18, Jagran, Mid Day Radio City FM

US, Russia and Blackwater mercenaries plot different futures for Afghanistan

It does not take long for great powers to develop more than one point of interest once they have entered an area of strategic significance. It would therefore be fanciful to imagine an America-free Afghanistan in the foreseeable future. “All this blood and treasure was spent for what?” some... Canary Trap is a platform for exclusive, well-researched, and objective information relating to intelligence, terrorism, corruption and politico-security matters.
Tags: Publishing, Russia, America, World news, Afghanistan, Taliban, US Russia, Blackwater, Afghan Taliban, Erik Prince, Canary Trap, Saeed Naqvi, US in Afghanistan

Minimum Learning Vehicles

Image via https://medium.com/@NeotericEU/lean-start-ups-by-example-5aea8091c07b One of the many problems with making stuff fast in organisations is the varying forms of language used to describe the same thing.Park for a moment the regular confusion between efficiency and effectiveness, the one that can create mindblocks in rapid iteration is the Minimum Viable Product.I have heard this used interchangeably for paper sketches in Design Thinking creative sessions, all the way through to th...
Tags: Publishing, Park, Innovation, Mvp, Design Thinking, David Cushman, MLV, Minimum Learning Vehicle, Rapid Iteration

Kickstarting a gorgeous slipcased edition of Crime & Punishment, illustrated by Dave McKean

The next tranche of Beehive Books' Illuminated Editions are being crowdfunded now: three gorgeous, slipcased, deluxe illustrated hardcovers, including a new edition of Crime & Punishment, illustrated by Dave McKean, well-known for his work on Sandman (he also did the original cover for my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town); the books are $100 each, and are superb. The other two titles are The Blazing World, illustrated by Margaret Cavendish; and Peter Pan, illustrated by Brecht E...
Tags: Books, Happy Mutants, Publishing, Gift Guide, Video, News, Crowdfunding, Illustration, Kickstarter, Peter Pan, Margaret Cavendish, Dave McKean, Crime & Punishment & sandman

Journalism is the conversation. The conversation is journalism.

An illustration of Edward Lloyd’s coffee house, which served as a headquarters for marine underwriters. The business eventually evolved into Lloyd’s of London insurance company. I am sorely disappointed in The New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo, CNN’s Brian Stelter, and other journalists who these days are announcing to the world, using the powerful platforms they have, that they think journalists should “disengage” from the platform for everyone else, Twitter. No. It is the sacred duty of j...
Tags: Facebook, Twitter, Publishing, London, Uncategorized, Cnn, New York Times, Paris, Reddit, Columbia, Eastern Europe, Brian Stelter, Lloyd, Carey, James Carey, STELTER