NYConvergence - A digest of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut digital media technology news

Collaboration, Cooperation Bring Yahoo! to Buffalo

2009-07-14T17:25:23-04:00

The search company's new $150 million data center, which will be located in the town of Lockport Industrial Park on the outskirts of the city, is expected to open this fall. According to The Buffalo News, keeping Yahoo!'s representatives interested was an arduous, eight-week process that involved cooperation and collaboration between local, state, and federal agencies and officials.

The Buffalo News

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> New Yahoo Data Center to Bring Jobs to Buffalo

First Ever Real Time Twittering of a Bank Robbery?

2009-07-14T17:13:27-04:00

Earlier today, Annemarie Dooling, a New York based Web producer, went to her bank near Penn Station to make a deposit, which soon became a more exciting affair when a bank robber held up her bank. While the police had been alerted to the robbery through conventional means, Dooling, whose twitter handle is @TravelingAnna, tweeted the robbery in real time, mostly the aftermath of the actual event.

Whether or not this is the first time a bank robbery has been tweeted before has yet to be confirmed by Twitter.

Crain's New York Business

NY Times Co. Sells WQXR to WNYC

2009-07-14T16:47:50-04:00

The New York Times Company is selling NYC's only classical-music station to WNYC Radio. Following the sale, WQXR-FM will vacate its place on the FM dial at 96.3 FM for 105.9 FM, currently the home of Spanish-language WCAA-FM which is owned by Univision. As a result of the sale, WQXR-FM will become a listener-supported radio station and after taking over 105.9 on the FM dial, it will also have a signal with lower wattage.

The New York Times

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> WNYC Opens New Studio Space Today

Thrillist Uses Unconventional Web Publishing Model

2009-07-14T16:40:08-04:00

The men's general-interest e-newsletter, founded in 2005 by Ben Lerer and Adam Rich, uses its Web site to drive subscriptions to its e-newsletter. According to Lerer, its e-newsletter's reach is more quantifiable, providing advertisers with a better method of tracking its reach.

Today, Thrillist has 900,000 subscribers and along the way, it has developed a "voice," the publication's own unique take on events, venues, and products that appear in the e-newsletter, that could be applied to other cities and even on a national level. Moreover, the founders now recognize that they are, in fact, a technlogy startup, one that has to take advantage of technology to track readership and monitor readers' engagement with advertisements.

The New York Enterprise Report

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> Thrillist Speaks About Its Progress

Staten Island- Too Dangerous to Text and Walk?

2009-07-13T17:16:55-04:00

A Staten Island teenager was recently injured while texting on her cell phone. Alexia Longueira was walking along a sidewalk near Victory Boulevard while attempting to text message when she stepped into an open manhole cover. She escaped with some cuts and bruises

The Department of Environmental Protection is investigating the incident while the family is considering legal action.

c | net News

MediaCentral Aims to Educate Reporters About Israel

2009-07-13T16:59:57-04:00

The non-profit group's Aryeh Green spoke about the "complexity surrounding reporting and the media's coverage of Israel" with "New York media types" last week at an event in the Samsung Experience at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan's Columbus Circle neighborhood. It was organized by the New York Press Club and New York: Media Information Exchange Group (NY:MIEG).

Green informed attendees that Israel needs to more effectively "embrace" journalists and how his organization works to provide reporters with a more "nuanced" understanding of the conflict in the region between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Jerusalem Post

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> Reminder: Mideast Media Coverage Discussion Thursday

[Editor's Note: NY:MIEG is a current client of Trylon SMR, publisher of NYConvergence.]

Betaworks Invests in Tweetdeck

2009-07-13T13:35:03-04:00

The venture-capital firm and incubator, based in New York City, participated in the London-based company's first funding round in January of this year. That round resulted in $300,000 of funding for the company.

Tweetdeck is a desktop-based application which allows users to not only view the tweets they receive, but they can create separate categories for these tweets.

paidContent

Howcast Offers Users 'How-To' Videos

2009-07-13T13:21:29-04:00

The 17-month old, SoHo-Manhattan based company currently offers about 100,000 videos on a range of "how-to" topics according to The New York Times, from fixing a leaky faucet to having sex in a car. (The Times adds that topics like the aforementioned one about using your vehicle for reasons other than transportation are not "graphic.")

The company, Howcast, produces some of the videos based solely on users' interests, but to generate revenue, it also accepts advertising dollars from brands looking to tap into consumer interest in instructional videos and works with them to develop a video that doesn't focus on the product. Howcast told The Times that brands featured in its videos aren't given a "starring role."

The New York Times

New York Politicians Embrace Social Media...Poorly

2009-07-13T11:56:34-04:00

Local New York politicians, particularly the 11 city candidates for mayor and other offices, are now beginning to embrace social media sites and tools such as Twitter and Facebook as a means of spreading their messages to voters. The only catch is that many of these people have not quite figured out to best use them.

The New York Daily News reviewed with Darrell West, a digital technology and social networking expert with the Brookings Institution, the recent tweets of the candidates for mayor. West found that most of the tweets ran the gamut from excessively personal to the most mundane of details, in which he said, "I don't think New Yorkers really care that much about what the mayor had for breakfast, but they're interested in announcements and news from the campaign."

The New York Daily News

Unemployed New York Media Take It to the Blogs

2009-07-13T11:40:35-04:00

Though once a limited to a couple of people who were laid off in the down economy, it seems that there are now a variety of blogs online that chronicle the views of unemployed New York media folk, according to an article today in the New York Post. The article talks about how these blogs all have different objectives - some are vehicles for self-promotion, others are about helping recession victims with news updates and others are designed for venting purposes.

Some of the blogs mentioned include individual blogs Book Flack at Large and
Job Less and Less and group unemployment blogs, such as The 405 Club, RecessionWire and ASSME.

New York Post