Dozens converged at Daylife headquarters last week on Tuesday, June 23rd for the monthly NYC Python Meetup. The event featured presentations from Michael Diroff of MongoDb and Brian Mitchell of CouchDb, ‘Lightening Talks’ from Meetup members, and of course, beer .
As always, Daylife was honored to help support innovation in the New York City community. If you have a New York-based event that furthers media and technology development and are look for a venue, please contact us to explore hosting.
It is an ancient and inarguable truth that other peoples’ pain is deeply hilarious.
I of course mean that only mild, transient, goofy pain is hilarious. Whether it be physical or emotional, there’s a wee bit of comedy and frisson in seeing someone else take some hurt. Do I mean suffering? No. Anguish? Uh-uh. Despair? Only the fakey, recreational goth kind. Real despair is impressively unfunny.
No, I just mean the football-to-the-groin kind, which somehow never gets old. Wire photo caption writers need to be diplomatically understated and almost dry in their work, and so they have frequent need of the word “grimaces”.
We recently shipped Release 2.07 of Daylife Select. Here are some of the highlights:
EDITOR’S PICKS: The Editor’s Picks feature released in v. 2.0.6 is now expanded, enabling publishers to add editorially-curated content to more than just topic pages. Nnow you can add the modules to the home page, custom pages, and groups of custom or topic pages (using templates). Publishers can also schedule expiration dates for pinned content.
CUSTOM PAGE TEMPLATES: In response to your feedback, we’ve also rolled out Custom Page Template Management. That means you can now bulk-edit the layout and module settings of custom pages using a default shared template, or create additional shared or standalone templates.
MORE FEATURES: Other features in this release include a new Related Videos module, adding additional video sources and the ability for publishers to submit their own video feeds. Last but not least, we are unveiling new beta topic leaf pages on Daylife.com for Related Conversations from Twitter and Related Videos.
BusinessWeek, who collaborated with startup-grader YouNoodle on the report, stated that
Daylife combines news with photos and video from “high quality” information sources and delivers it in a format that more closely resembles a magazine than a Web site.Calling itself an “urban newsstand,” it aims to make money by licensing its technology to publishers such as The Washington Post.
Building on our curatorial toolkit, Daylife’s latest release introduces Editor’s Picks, a feature that lets publishers select articles, photos, quotes, and Twitter tweets for feature at the top of any topic page.
In coming releases, publishers will be able to set ‘expiration dates for Editor’s Picks, and the feature will be expanded to Homepage, Custom Pages, and groups of topic pages. It’s Daylife’s most recent step in giving publishers more control over their content.
How does it work? Watch the video below for a quick tutorial:
There’s more to the release, like improvements to existing features and expanded topic list support. To learn about all the features in release 2.0.6, read on here.
Following yesterday’s mass protest at the iconic Freedom Tower in Tehran, Iran’s government has announced a ban on foreign journalists covering events in the city.
Foreign correspondents covering the elections had already begun to leave as their visas started to expire.
But as events unfold, traditional media has only provided part of the coverage. Twitter, already an important source of information for both protesters and the global community, has grown even more crucial in breaking the news embargo.
Daylife has also emerged as a powerful tool in navigating the river of news, photos, videos, and tweets on the global protests surrounding Iran’s elections. Yesterday’s protests, hundreds of thousands strong, were documented in pictures like these:
Hot on the heels of Daylife’s Newsmap feature, Andres Ferrate of the geospatial startup Cartosoft releases BlinkGeo, a slick mashup that plots breaking news on a dynamic world map.
BlinkGeo uses the Daylife API to list headlines, show their geographic locations, and display article excerpts. Ferrate is also developing a “spy” functionality that updates the news on an open browser page as new stories come in.
Ferrate calls BlinkGeo, “a neat little way of using the articles from DayLife in a different context.”
Have a great idea for mashing up the news? We’d love to see it. Learn more about working with the Daylife API here.
USA Network series Burn Notice has expanded its website to bring viewers the latest show news, photos, videos, and tweets in a newly launched Buzz section. Fans can also drill down to search for headlines about Burn Notice actors like stars Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar. The show tracks the life of Donovan as Michael Westen, a blacklisted spy in Miami.
Burn Notice launched the section using Daylife Select, a product allows publishers to add constantly updating content, integrated to match site look and feel, without expending extra editorial resources.
Burn Notice, now in its third season, premiered last Thursday with 6 million viewers–its biggest audience yet– according to Nielsens. The show tracks the life of Donovan as Michael Westen, a blacklisted spy in Miami, and airs Thursdays on USA at 9 PM.
The following is a guest post from James Erik Abels, founder of Three Minute Media.
On April 23, Three Minute Media hosted the first Life After Digital forum at Daylife headquarters. Before a crowd of 100 people, Ty Ahmad-Taylor (FanFeedr), Sara Clemence (Recessionwire), Thomas P. Farley (New York Insider TV), Brian Farnham (Patch) discussed how they are using digital tools to build media businesses. Three Minute founder and media reporter James Erik Abels kicked off the inaugural event with a vision of the future.
Here are three simple ideas that came out of the event:
The market approves of professional content creators who hustle, embrace risky business, and develop material defined by the quirks of the Web environment, such as the time of day stories are “consumed”;
The future of editorial is bound up with marrying quality content — both professional and user-generated — with valuable information repositories, or databases of relevant information;
Working in an online environment means journalists and other content creators are closer to the market than they have been in generations, e.g., the wall between editorial and business is thinning.
Below is Abels’ introduction of the evening, as edited by photojournalist Michael Colin. To catch videos of the other speakers, go to Three Minute Media.
Interested in hosting an innovative media event at Daylife headquarters? Contact us to discuss.
What’s the NY Tech Meetup Showcase? A showcase of 60 of New York City’s top tech and digital media startups. The NY Tech Meetup says “it will be the single biggest and best place to see demos from NYC’s coolest tech startups and their products.” Daylife will be there to demonstrate its latestfeatures and partners.
The NY Tech Meetup Showcase takes place June 2nd from 3:30 - 6:30 PM, in the FIT Great Hall, and runs right until the NY Tech Meetup.
NY Tech Meetup Showcase Details
When: Tuesday June 2nd, 3:30 - 6:30 PM
Where: FIT’s Great Hall, located on 27th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.
Cost: FREE
Come by, say hi, and see what Daylife has been cooking up. We hope to see you there!
The goal was to give publishers greater design flexibility, and allow for emphasis on different kinds of content. For step-by-step instructions, publishers should see Topic Page Design documentation for Daylife Select.
By default, Daylife Select Topic Pages use a shared, site-wide template, so editing any topic page affects an entire website. Now with Topic Page Template Management, publishers can create separate, shared templates for groups of topics, or standalone templates for individual topics. They can also customize an unlimited number of templates, and change the template settings at any time.
Taken together, Multiple Topic Page Designs and Topic Page Template Management give Daylife Select publishers unprecedented flexibility in shaping their content experience. To learn about how Daylife Select helps publishers do more with less, click here.
In his latest PaidContent feature, Daylife CEO Upendra Shardanand takes a cue from former General Electric chief Jack Welch to consider whether the corporate obsession with shareholder value is misguided. Shardanand warns of the results of a myopic fixation, saying that “in an age where investors and management can get out quick, leaving all the other stakeholders holding the bag, what we end up with is Enron, AIG and Tyco.”
Welch, considered the father of the shareholder value movement, recently told the Financial Times that, “on the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world,” he said. “Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . It is the product of your combined efforts - from the management to the employees.”
Welch took GE from a $14 billion valuation to $410 billion on his exit in 2004. While he didn’t coin the term, Welch is credited with launching the shareholder value movement with a 1981 speech that urged executives to focus on long-term value over short-term profits.
His recent remarks have stirred debate. Daylife’s Shardanand thinks they come at the right time, saying, “perhaps in this era of Obamanomics and global cataclysm, where the maxim of endless growth fueled by endless consumption is being questioned, we’re starting to reset a bit.”
He continues:
“And perhaps boards and VCs will take Jack Welch’s advice and depart from their scripts and start viewing shareholder value as a result, not an objective. I’ll give a discount on the deal if any VC ever asks me questions along the lines of, “what do you do to make your office a fantastic place to work?” or “would you disclose the identity of one of your users to the Chinese government” or “who are you fighting for?”
Read the entire feature here on PaidContent, and share your thoughts in comments.
Daylife Select 2.0.5 brings publishers more flexibility and control with Topic Page Template Management and Beta Topic Leaf Pages. Read how below.
Topic Page Template Management. By default, Daylife Select Topic Pages use a shared site-wide template, so that any change you make will affect your entire site. Now with Topic Page Template Management, publishers can customize templates for individual topics and topic groups.
Beta Topic Leaf Pages. Want to get granular with the news? Daylife’s Beta Topic Leaf Pages let you filter topic coverage by media type and sort it by date along a timeline module. We’ve added Leaf Pages for Topic Articles, Topic Photos, and Topic Quotes.
