• Foursquare Raises $20 Million In New Round (Finally)
  Foursquare ultimately went with a consortium of venture capital firms, which are investing $20 million in the company. They include existing backers Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, as well as new investor Andreessen Horowitz.
  (tags: mobile geolocation)

• “The art itself is the software”: Jer Thorp on the aesthetics of data
  "In many of his renderings, in fact, his goal hasn’t been to simplify the news, making it comprehensible and accessible, in the manner of the typical visual journalist. On the contrary: It’s been “to reveal some of the confusion that’s inherent in our media.”
  (tags: data)
• 10 tips for 'ambush guerilla user testing'
  Over the last couple of years I've been practicing 'ambush guerilla user testing', which is basically the art of pouncing on lone people in cafes and public spaces, and quickly filming them whilst they use a website for a couple of minutes. It isn't by any means a formal research technique, but you can soon build up a valuable clip library of initial reactions to you and your competitors' products, and tease out interesting anecdotal evidence about the way that people use and feel about your website.
  (tags: interaction webdesign)
• ThinkGeek: Officially our best-ever cease and desist
  "It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. "In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity."
  (tags: funny copyright law)

• Le Monde on The Brink | Monday Note
  The only tangible achievement was the creation of Le Monde Interactif, this against most of an internet-adverse newsroom. In fact, Le Monde’s digital unit had to handle 34% of its ownership to the Lagardère Group in order to get sufficient funding.
  The group’s current valuation reflects the state of the different business units.
  (tags: business journalism news)

• Cory's Curiosities: "Edgy" Alert
  "WHAT is edgy?? Faster edits? Rock music for the score? Boober wearing some gangsta bling? I have no idea. "
  (tags: blogging)
• Let’s stop this ‘Curation is King’ crap right now
  Like ‘Content is king’, ‘Curation is king’ is a comfort blanket for the afflicted, a sticking plaster for injured pride. It says nothing about the new environment in which we’re operating; it suggests we do nothing other than more of the same; and it suggests our old position as arbiters of The Truth is unaltered.
  (tags: journalism)
• Sky Sports News to go pay-only
  BSkyB is to pull Sky Sports News from Freeview in a bid to drive subscription revenues, ending eight years of free-to-air broadcasting of the channel.
  (tags: news newscorp)
• Is Sly Bailey Past Sell-By Date As Trinity Mirror CEO?
  "…the difference between Trinity and its rivals is that its peers seem much more keen on seeking new ways to generate revenue, like DMGT’s diversification into exhibitions and conferences."

  Trinity has plans for more iPhone apps, but it would seem much more innovation is needed if it is to meaningfully recover from its recent run of poor results and bring in significant new revenue.

  (tags: innovation trinity_mirror)

• Nieman Reports | A Message for Journalists: It’s Time to Flex Old Muscles in New Ways
  Stated simply: I am the new homepage. Stuff gets to our pages in all kinds of ways, including the semi-serendipitous sharing. All of this, while interesting, might be just prologue. News aggregation is young on Twitter or Facebook, and even on the old folks, Google and Yahoo!. Very first-generation, very primitive, and done by amateurs for amateurs, largely.
  (tags: journalism future collaboration)
• Tableau Public
  Tableau Public is for anyone who likes to post content to the web. It’s a tremendous advancement for online publishers.
  (tags: data infographics tools free)
• Associated Northcliffe Digital aims to double size of hyperlocal network
  "What we're trying to do is go to really localised, small businesses and offer them a proposition that we think is completely different to anything out there. We can say to them: 80 per cent of their custom can come from within their town, but at the moment only 40 per cent of their marketing budget will be spent within that town."
  (tags: hyperlocal)
• YouTube to launch breaking news feed
  "The news feed will provide a stream of breaking news videos on YouTube, with a focus on strong visuals, non-traditional sources and the very latest uploads (…) Our goal with this news feed is to learn more about the news ecosystem on YouTube," says YouTube's head of news and politics Steve Groves in a blog post.
  (tags: youtube video journalism)
• New York Times Plans Public Beta Site for Its Experiments
  "The New York Times is building a public beta testing site where it will experiment with new ideas and applications before deciding whether they deserve to go live on NYTimes.com. "
  (tags: innovation newspapers)
• Beautiful: Fiery Spacecraft Re-entry Goes Viral
  The video, taken from a NASA DC-8 airborne laboratory, depicts the spacecraft’s re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, where the Hayabusa breaks apart into hundreds of beautiful, glowing pieces.
  (tags: youtube video)
• Transport for London frees first tranche of data for developers' use
  Today's announcement on licensing coincides with the release of several new data sets both on the TfL developer page and feeds to live tube travel news, tube departure boards, tube station and tube line status on London's Datastore
  (tags: data government)
• PCUK/Harris Poll: Quarter Of Times Readers Likely To Pay Online | paidContent:UK
  "Leaving aside those readers who are virtually certain of paying (which, at four percent, is in the accepted premium subscription ratio), there is a significant middle tier, equivalent to nearly a fifth of Times Online readers, which may be persuadable to at least some occasional form of payment."
  (tags: newscorp paidcontent)

• Public Media Joins Forces for One Big Platform
  "The country’s five silos of public radio and television are spilling into each other with a joint program that will allow them – and eventually the public itself — to build apps, stations, websites and other media services combining audio, text and video content from every public radio and television outlet in the country."
  (tags: community strategy journalism api)
• Associated Press: Interactive Newsroom Technology Manager
  "The applicant will be in a leadership role and charged with assigning, managing and ensuring high-quality content as well as integrating workflows and technologies to increase the speed of production."
  (tags: innovation technology)
• Robot Messenger Displays Person-to-Person Notes In Public
  "Known as the “notificator,” the new machine is installed in streets, stores, railroad stations or other public places where individuals may leave messages for friends."
  (tags: twitter technology)
• Skiff: Murdoch tries to buy the news platform. Again.
  One point to note is that Apple’s business model is primarily based on selling devices; Amazon’s is mainly about selling things; but News Corp is mainly about selling the intangibles of advertising and content. That may give them cause to discount their technology heavily as a mass-market offering to tie people in, and acquire customer data.
  (tags: newscorp)
• News Corp buys paid content firms
  Rupert Murdoch's company has acquired Skiff, established by magazine publisher Hearst last year to develop an online store and e-reader for its publications, which delivers "visually appealing layouts" of content to tablets, smartphones, e-readers such as Kindle and netbooks.

  In addition News Corporation has invested in Journalism Online, which has a multi-faceted e-commerce platform, which develops models to enable newspapers, magazines and online-only publishers to charge for content. Publishers can select their own business models and pricings.

  (tags: newscorp paidcontent)
• News Corp reaches for the Sky with takeover offer
  News Corporation, the media group headed by Rupert Murdoch, confirmed this morning that it had made an offer to take full control of BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster in which it has a 39 per cent stake.
  (tags: newscorp)
• World Cup 2010: BBC may offer vuvuzela-free matches
  The BBC was investigating the possibility of transmitting an alternative "vuvuzela free" version of its World Cup coverage tonight, as the fierce debate over the buzz of the horn looked set to be heading for football grounds all over Britain.
  (tags: bbc)

• How To Create Measurable Objectives | Brass Tack Thinking
  "Goals are your general intentions, the big picture aims. Your objectives are the outcomes that represent achievement of that goal. Things you can actually observe. In order to be classified as an objective, something has to be measurable. You need a way of defining whether or not you have completed them successfully."
  (tags: social)
• Times editor defends pay websites
  (tags: newspapers newscorp business)
• Social Networking Ranks as Fastest-Growing Mobile Content Category
  "Social Networking experienced the strongest growth in app access, increasing 240 percent to 14.5 million users. Accessing News apps followed, growing 124 percent to 9.3 million users, while Sports Information apps experienced a 113-percent surge to nearly 7.7 million users."
  (tags: socialmedia statistics trends mobile)
• The Newsonomics of tablet ad readiness
  The newsonomics of tablet ad revenue are uncertain — will iAds simply flood the ad market with more low-cost ads, as developers happy to get any ad revenue price their ads low? — but the tablet offers the biggest do-over potential for engaging readers anew and re-engaging advertisers, at rates somewhere between the laughably low of the web and the near-impossible-to-sustain-long-term highs of print.
  (tags: ipad newspapers advertising)
• Telegraph to fold Euston Project into Victoria HQ
  The division, which had been launched to develop new digital revenue streams, will be rebranded as the Digital Futures division.
  (tags: innovation newspapers)
• Government ‘doesn’t understand economics’ over relaxing ownership rules
  “They don’t understand economics,” if they thought that would happen, he continued. “We need people to start more media organisations, not merge into fewer organisations.”
  (tags: business economics newspapers)
• Trinity Mirror national journalists vote for strike ballot
  Journalists on Trinity Mirror's three national titles have today voted to ballot for strike action over better terms for the 200 staff facing redundancy.
  (tags: trinity_mirror journalism)
• Elizabeth Spiers’ media-entrepreneur summer school
  "The media consultant, founding editor Gawker, and builder of DealBreaker, several Mediabistro blogs, and other sites is looking for a handful of people with smart ideas for a small business — but not experience launching one — to join her two college interns in a 90-day class. By the end of the summer, Spiers expects her students to have learned everything they need to get their media projects off the ground."
  (tags: business)
• Kosmix Unleashes Its Realtime Tweetbeat On The World Cup
  Tweetbeat ingests the entire firehose of 65 million Tweets a day, and spits out only those about the World Cup which are it deems to be the most popular and important. It tries to capture everything from news to teams, players and fan shout-outs.
  (tags: search twitter)
• Op-Ed Contributor – Mind Over Mass Media – NYTimes.com
  The effects of consuming electronic media are also likely to be far more limited than the panic implies. Media critics write as if the brain takes on the qualities of whatever it consumes, the informational equivalent of “you are what you eat.”
  (tags: internet technology culture socialmedia)
• The FT’s experiment with paywalled blogs
  (tags: paidcontent)
• Scripting News: New feature: Blog post sub-text!
  (tags: journalism design)
• Technology giants throw news brands a lifeline
  Technology companies might well look at the costly and draining business of managing creatives or journalists and wonder out loud, as indeed Google has, "Why would we want to do that?" But as the cost of content production drops and revenues consolidate, "Why not?" is a more likely question.
  (tags: newspapers)
• Evening Standard almost in profit after going free
  Sunny news in a grey old world. Maybe last week, next week or some week very soon, the Standard will be in profit. Not losing money, making it.
  (tags: newspapers free journalism)
• 5 Tips To Transition From A Free To A Paid Service
  (tags: business strategy marketing)
• iPad Media Apps: can do better
  "The next batch of apps will have to offer more on the interactive side. Although its virtual keyboard is not comparable to a physical one, many people will want to use their iPad to interact with medias; that feature should not be limited to the web, especially since large chunks of content will switch to apps in order to become paid-for."
  (tags: ipad apps)
• From the bedroom to the Guggenheim: search is on for a YouTube masterpiece
  New York's Guggenheim Museum is using YouTube to source a new generation of creative talent, hosting a biennale of video art this October.
  (tags: video youtube)
• The first lady of Wapping – may the force be with her?
  "If you keep thinking about your consumers as readers you create the ongoing belief in volume versus value and you don't mind whether they've purchased you. It's quite a big change for us because actually a customer is someone you have a transactional relationship with, someone you deal with differently, it leads you to think about their customer experience and customer service."
  (tags: newspapers advertising)

• Today's Guardian (Phil Gyford’s website)
  "I’ve made a new thing, Today’s Guardian, a website that features today’s edition of the Guardian (or the Observer on Sundays). Hopefully it’s as easy to browse through today’s newspaper as it would be with the print edition."
  (tags: guardian design usability api)

• Four do's and three don'ts about story commenting for reporters
  "Engage. Online behavior always improves when responsible adults are present."
  (tags: comments community interaction journalism)
• BBC: Goats, condoms and paper clips
  "In the process of upgrading some of the software which publishes our site, we inadvertently started to show you "most shared" on story pages as well as the front page."
  (tags: socialmedia)
• Facebook founder predicts personalised sites are the future
  Despite the concerns, Mr Zuckerberg predicted that in a few years’ time thousands of websites and services would be linked to consumers’ profiles and preferences, following the trend that Facebook has started.

  People would share more information and expect to see services, advertising and websites that were targeted at them, he said. “Things are going to be designed around people,” he added.

  (tags: future business data)

(Image by koadmunkee)

What: Ruby in the Pub
When: Tuesday, June 22nd, 7pm
Where: LBi, 146 Brick Lane (streetview – turn right for the entrance)
Why: More hacks learning to hack, but with free food and drink!

*FREE*
Please register for the event by emailing joanna.geary[at]thetimes.co.uk

Well, I said this month’s Ruby in the Pub (#ritp or #rubyinthepub) was going to be a bit different!

It’s still following the same format – volunteer programmers spend time with journos over a beer and – if not teach them a little code – at least help demonstrate the amazing things that are possible if you combine the power of programming with an eye for a story.

However, this time the lovely folk at LBi (especially the very lovely Paul Carvill)  have offered to host the fourth Ruby in the Pub, which takes place on June 22 from 7pm.

They are also offering us free drinks and pizza for up to 30 people.

If you want to come along, please email me so we can put your name on the door.

Remember: Just turn up with your laptop and, if you have one, an extension lead. Also, downloading Hackety Hack before you arrive is advised.

Also, developers: if you want to run a specific session at this event (scraping, spreadsheets, Twitter API, etc.), feel free to let us know in the comments below. Journalists – if there is anything specific you want to learn, please do the same!