WebProNews » Jane

Former Jane Editor Joins Yahoo

Doug Caverly — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:20:44 +0000

It seems that, at least once a week, some important person has been leaving some major search company. Unique article intros are getting hard to come by. For both her sake and ours, then, we’re happy to hear that Brandon Holley, the former editor of Jane magazine, has begun work at Yahoo.

There are some reasons to raise an eyebrow; according to Lucia Moses, "a Yahoo spokesperson confirmed that she has oversight for Yahoo’s food, health, astrology, tech and green editorial content and is expected to oversee forthcoming launches in other content areas." Like, say, geography and basket weaving?

Also, as we noted earlier, it’s strange to see someone going into Yahoo instead of coming out of it, and only a Christmas miracle could turn this one development into a genuine recovery.

Still, it’s better to have an odd job than none at all, and Yahoo fans aren’t likely to question anything that might slow the company’s slide.

Furthermore, Holley appears to have a fan base cheering her on – Faran Krentcil writes, "It’s no secret that everyone at Fashionista loved Jane and ELLEgirl – we’ll be watching the Yahoo pages in hopes that some of the same spirit comes through."

Amazon’s E-Book Reader Widely Ridiculed

Doug Caverly — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:41:10 +0000

I wouldn’t mind keeping over 200 books close at hand, and I’d prefer not to need a large suitcase to do it. But Amazon’s new e-book reader is nonetheless looking less and less appealing as the analyses roll in.

Let’s start off with Kindle’s price: $399. For that amount of money, a person could buy four complete (and fancy) sets of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. And after the initial purchase, things don’t get any better – e-books for the Kindle cost $9.99 apiece, which appears to be a little more expensive than the average paperback.

Valleywag’s Jordan Golson compiled a whole list of other areas in which Kindle falls short. Some are realistic, others aren’t, but battery life is a biggie – a real book never needs to be plugged into a wall for two hours.

Admittedly, as writers, perhaps Golson and I aren’t the most objective sources on this issue. Still, Mary Jane Irwin and Rob Beschizza checked out the actual Kindle product page on Amazon, and discovered that it’s not doing too well, earning just 2.5 stars based on 348 reviews. Even “Elvis Presley: Paradise, Hawaiian Style” scored better than that.

New technology is often appealing, yet Kindle has done anything but catch my interest.

Jane Goodall Institute Google Earth Geoblog

Glenn Letham — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:44:43 +0000

How about another buzzword.. this time it comes from the Jane Goodall Institute who are using aweblog that uses Google’s Earth’s spinning globe as its backdrop.

When you click on a blog entry, the globe image spins to eastern Africa and then slowly hones in on the 35-square kilometer Gombe National Park, represented by high resolution satellite images. The Jane Goodall Institute was the first to create a Google geoblog.

From the official PR… “JGI launched the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog in January 2006 with daily updates from field researcher Emily Wroblewski, who is studying paternity among the chimpanzees. Her entries give us a glimpse of the delights and rigors of chimpanzee field research and an ongoing view of the research program begun by Jane Goodall in 1960. Emily is trying to determine if paternal relatives treat each other in special ways, favoring each other, for example, through grooming or sharing of meat.”

Check out the blog: www.janegoodall.org

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Anything Geospatial: Tracking developments affecting GIS, geospatial technologies, location-based services, mapping, google earth and google maps. Published by the creator and editor of GISuser.com & LBSzone.com

College Acceptance Podcasts Through iTunes

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:46:38 +0000

File this one under “maybe a little too soon”: a Massachusetts college plans to email students it accepts for admission a link to an acceptance podcast on iTunes.

Fitchburg State College thinks a “welcome aboard” podcast is just what the 21st century student needs. “A modern student needs a modern acceptance letter,” the school said in a statement.

An email containing a link to iTunes, where the fortunate student can find the podcast, will arrive in the person’s inbox. Members of the faculty, staff, and student body participated in creating the podcast. They even have theme music, courtesy of the recently released CD from Professor of Humanities (Music) Jane Fiske.

The cutting edge liberal arts school has joined others in placing lectures on iTunes. However, we feel they should update Dr. Fiske’s page on the college’s website. Her students deserve to know her current office hours (presently listed as Fall 2003).

Commenters at Metafilter about the acceptance podcast (“What if you get rejected?” Metafilter asked) don’t share Fitchburg’s enthusiasm, judging by some of the less-than-generous comments posted there:

Dear prospective student: If you don’t have a computer, please consider this a pre-emptive rejection notice.

A podcast? You can’t frame that and put it on the wall.

Or colleges will have MySpace pages and add accepted students as “friends”.

What’s the next evolution of this, tuition payments through the iTMS after you download the acceptance podcast? Redeem gift certificates for credit hours or 30,000 winning Pepsi caps for four years!

Rejection notices will be provided through the use of smoke signals.

Give the college credit for trying something new. Judging by Dr. Fiske’s background, the theme music should be excellent.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.