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The Scarborough Sharks

Mathew — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:06:29 +0000

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Getting to know the GigaOm team

Mathew — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:34:28 +0000

Just got back from a great visit to San Francisco (that’s it in the embedded photo), where I spent a few days with the rest of the GigaOm family in their funky loft-type office near Mission and Howard in downtown SF (just across the alley from CNET’s offices). I wish I had had more time, since it was nice to walk around without a winter coat — although all the native San Franciscoans were wearing big furry jackets and wool hats.

Pretty much everyone from the various GigaOm network blogs was there for the meeting, as well as the business side of the network. It was great to meet everyone and to get to know the different teams, including Stacey Higginbotham and Liz Gannes (GigaOm), Ryan Lawler, Janko Roettgers and Liz Shannon Miller (NewTeeVee), James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel (JKontheRun), Katie Fehrenbacher and Josie Garthwaite (Earth2Tech), Simon Mackie (Web Worker Daily) and Josh Pigford (The Apple Blog).

We had some presentations about the events of the past year, and some looking forward and goal setting, along with some great meals and a few drinks to boot. And people only made fun of my Canadian accent a few times, which was nice :-) Thanks to editor-in-chief Sebastian Rupley and managing editor Carolyn Pritchard (also Canadian) for all their help in getting used to how things work, as well as CEO Paul Walborsky — and of course my thanks to Om for bringing me on to the team.

Has Amazon won or lost the e-book war? Both.

Mathew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:26:40 +0000

Amazon’s battle with book publisher Macmillan was a valiant attempt to retain control over pricing in the rapidly changing world of e-books, but its weekend display of brinksmanship was short-lived. The online retailer yanked Macmillan books from its virtual shelves — both e-books and regular books — on Friday, triggering an online flame war with Macmillan authors and many of their supporters, but by Sunday night Amazon had capitulated and agreed to accept Macmillan’s new pricing model.

The unseen actor in this little mini-drama, of course, was Apple. With the launch of the iPad, the consumer electronics giant tilted the balance of power in the e-book market decisively away from former leader Amazon, even though Apple’s device isn’t shipping yet. The company also negotiated a new payment structure with publishers like Macmillan, which is being referred to as the “agency model.”

Please read the rest of this post at GigaOm

Will the iTablet help the media? Possibly. Save the media? No.

Mathew — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:30:19 +0000

Is the newly launched Apple tablet, the iPad, beautiful? Yes. Drool-worthy, in fact. Will Apple sell a lot of them? If the iPod and the iPhone are anything to go by, then yes — and at $499 for the basic version, they are priced to move. But does the iPad contain anything that could be seen as throwing a lifeline to the foundering ship of traditional media? Well, no.

Once you get past the hype (of which there has been a boatload), the iPad is really just a larger version of the iPod touch, with some interface and usability tweaks thrown in around things like email, games and e-books. Has the iPhone changed the traditional print media business? Not at all — unless you think selling an app for your publication (as Conde Nast has for GQ) is a game-changer.

Yes, the New York Times app looks impressive, with video that plays right inside the newspaper display (although you can do that on the NYT web site, too). But will a fancier app change the nature of the newspaper business or the magazine business? No.

Please read the rest of this post at GigaOm

Yes, HR execs check your Facebook page

Mathew — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:49:09 +0000

Have you ever applied for a job and wondered why you didn’t get it, even though you were qualified? According to a new survey, there’s a good chance that the person doing the hiring found something about you online that they didn’t like. The survey done by Microsoft found that 70 percent of HR professionals in the U.S. have rejected a job applicant based on what they found out about that individual by searching online (that number is lower in other countries).

As part of Data Privacy Day on Thursday, Microsoft says it conducted a survey of 2,500 people that included, consumers, HR managers and recruitment professionals in the US, the UK, Germany and France, with the goal of learning more about attitudes toward online reputation and how this information can have real life consequences. The survey found that the top online factors for rejecting a job applicant are unsuitable photos/videos, concerns about a candidate’s lifestyle and inappropriate comments written by the candidate.

Please read the rest of this post at GigaOm