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Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

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Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#11

Post by ugh »

jerf wrote: post #8

The thing about technological progress is that the replacement is never just "the old thing, only on computers". When people in the 90s wrote about the Internet and the Digital Library, quite a lot of them were envisioning something like Google Books, which is just a collection of books, only online! What actually happened was Wikipedia. (And a lot of other stuff, all of which further proves my point, but Wikipedia i…

I don’t necessarily want to disagree with you, just mention that there are examples were the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography. Sure, photography got a lot faster but it’s basically still the same thing. Changes have been slow and only recently began to have an impact.

And I don’t think Canon or Nikon did anything wrong. I think that it was probably correct to understand digital photography as analog photography – only on computers – first and look which places you can go only after you executed that perfectly.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#12

Post by jerf »

ugh wrote: post #11
jerf wrote: post #8

The thing about technological progress is that the replacement is never just "the old thing, only on computers". When people in the 90s wrote about the Internet and the Digital Library, quite a lot of them were envisioning something like Google Books, which is just a collection of books, only online! What actually happened was Wikipedia. (And a lot of other stuff, all of which further proves my point, but Wikipedia i…

I don’t necessarily want to disagree with you, just mention that there are examples were the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography. Sure, photography got a lot faster but it’s basically still the same thing. Changes have been slow and only recently began to have an impact. And I don’t think Canon or Nikon did anything wrong. I think that it was probably correct to understand…

The point is not that there isn't a point of overlap, the point is that the digital world can go many more places. Every digital camera I've ever bought has come with photo manipulation software that may include various physically-inspired tools, but also goes above and beyond what can be done in analog. Any company that tried to be just "analog photos, but on computers" would be stomped in the marketplace. I have found digital photography to be a qualitatively different experience than analog photography for over a decade now.

(Which isn't to say the digital experience is all pros and no cons; photography has held on to some "pros" longer than many other fields.)

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#13

Post by credo »

>>and thus "deliver the final blow to the newspaper industry".

Language like this generally makes me more skeptical that they'll accomplish this

It is one thing to blog or to aggregate "news", it is another to actually investigate and report the news. I don't know if they realize this, when they talk about delivering the "final blow to the newspaper industry"

>>The first 100 TechCrunch readers to retweet this article and add the hashtag #freeapollo (ha ha, retweet bots!) are getting a promotion code for the app on iTunes.

Their 1.0 version launched today. Apple only gives you 50 promo codes for an app version. I wonder whether they really have some way to hand out 100 promo codes today or whether this is just going to be their first case of over-promising and under-delivering.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#14

Post by myprasanna »

credo wrote: post #13

>>and thus "deliver the final blow to the newspaper industry". Language like this generally makes me more skeptical that they'll accomplish this It is one thing to blog or to aggregate "news", it is another to actually investigate and report the news. I don't know if they realize this, when they talk about delivering the "final blow to the newspaper industry" >>The first 100 TechCrunch readers to retweet this article…

One can gift apps to a friend. 100 means, stuff is being paid out of the pocket.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#15

Post by chime »

ugh wrote: post #11
jerf wrote: post #8

The thing about technological progress is that the replacement is never just "the old thing, only on computers". When people in the 90s wrote about the Internet and the Digital Library, quite a lot of them were envisioning something like Google Books, which is just a collection of books, only online! What actually happened was Wikipedia. (And a lot of other stuff, all of which further proves my point, but Wikipedia i…

I don’t necessarily want to disagree with you, just mention that there are examples were the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography. Sure, photography got a lot faster but it’s basically still the same thing. Changes have been slow and only recently began to have an impact. And I don’t think Canon or Nikon did anything wrong. I think that it was probably correct to understand…

> ...the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography.

And that led the Flickr and Photoblogs & Tumblr. Not the same thing if you ask me.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#16

Post by ynniv »

lkozma wrote: post #7

I wonder if personalized news has that much appeal, really. Part of the success of traditional tv, radio and newspapers is the shared experience with some group you identify with. Incidentally, this is why I read news.YC also, it's fascinating to read what smart people have to say after they have been exposed to the same stimulus like you. With traditional media, this discussion was in the pubs or the workplace the d…

The product seems like a shiny interface to a personalized Google News, which as you say is just not very interesting.

A word to aspiring news startups: journalism is old and sophisticated - try learning something about it instead of pretending it is a data clustering or personalization problem.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#17

Post by ideamonk »

Nice to know the problem of content overflow is being solved intelligently.

Haven't spent time finding out it this exists already, but would love to have sometime which lets me follow a news item over a time period, like a story unfolding everyday and I could track it from its beginning and analyse like a detective :P

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#18

Post by ugh »

chime wrote: post #15
ugh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily want to disagree with you, just mention that there are examples were the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography. Sure, photography got a lot faster but it’s basically still the same thing. Changes have been slow and only recently began to have an impact. And I don’t think Canon or Nikon did anything wrong. I think that it was probably correct to understand…

> ...the new thing was the old thing, only on computers. One would be digital photography. And that led the Flickr and Photoblogs & Tumblr. Not the same thing if you ask me.

Eventually. At a time when pros were already routinely shooting with expensive digital gear that looked and worked a lot like the analog ancestor.

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#19

Post by redorb »

Any ideas what they are doing in their source of their homepage with G-analytics JS written 4 times in a row? Then also it seems 2 more times at the bottom; Is that A/B testing or are they pumping numbers>? (and surely pumping numbers this way wouldnt work)

Re: Ex-Google News, Bing Engineers Set Out To Build ‘Newspaper Of The Future’

#20

Post by RobertL »

ynniv wrote: post #16
lkozma wrote: post #7

I wonder if personalized news has that much appeal, really. Part of the success of traditional tv, radio and newspapers is the shared experience with some group you identify with. Incidentally, this is why I read news.YC also, it's fascinating to read what smart people have to say after they have been exposed to the same stimulus like you. With traditional media, this discussion was in the pubs or the workplace the d…

The product seems like a shiny interface to a personalized Google News, which as you say is just not very interesting. A word to aspiring news startups: journalism is old and sophisticated - try learning something about it instead of pretending it is a data clustering or personalization problem.

Agreed.

When you have new technologies solving old problems what you need to do is use the features of the new technology in new and creative ways to serve the same need that the old technologies were serving. These guys are just using the new technologies to add a few new bells and whistles to the old way of doing things.

I think some clever programmer is going to address this market in a totally new and creative way and this will cause a big stir and all the newspapers will finally turn off their tree consuming presses.

That said though, I don't think this programmer is going to come from Bing, Microsoft, or any of the big software companies. He will probably be some college kid who, like zuckerman, just has an epiphany one day and then writes the code that solves the problem.

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