Month: March 2009

NYT Exec Throws Fit Over Placement in Google Searches

Advertising Age has a great example of the complete and utter incompetence many newspaper executives still have when it comes to the web.

Then in January, Martin Nisenholtz, New York Times Co. senior VP-digital operations, got up at the annual Online Publishers Association summit in Florida, an event closed to the press, to blast both the algorithm and the results presentation on the screen.

Priorities
He’d just run a search for Gaza, which had been at war with Israel since Dec. 27. Google returned links to outdated BBC stories, Wikipedia entries and even an anti-Semitic YouTube video well before coverage by the Times, which had an experienced reporter covering the war from inside Gaza itself.

Search results for “Gaza” on March 20 began with two Wikipedia links, a March 19 BBC report, two video clips of unclear origin, the CIA World Factbook, a Guardian report and, most strikingly, a link to Gaza-related messages on Twitter.

The last paragraph isn’t quite accurate. What shows up is not a report from the Guardian on Gaza, but rather a portal-style page where The Guardian has *gasp* actually assembled a page listing all of its recent news stories on Gaza along with links to videos, photographs, commentary and assorted other resources on Gaza.

Now, there’s nothing stopping the New York Times from creating a similar aggregation page, except that it is too busy whining at publisher meetings and tinkering with nonsense like ACAP to think about what its readers (and, in turn, Google) might find valuable.

The reason the NYT didn’t show up on on the first page of a Google search on Gaza is quite simply that it didn’t deserve to. Maybe it can borrow more money Carlos Slim Helú to buy a clue. It might start by finding a VP of digital operations who knows what he’s doing.

Hinterland

For the most part, I’ve tried to give up computer games. I’ve got the XBOX in the living room and like to reserve that for gaming these days, so when I sit down at my desk I’m actually working on projects rather than firing up World of Warcraft to look for some hapless huntard to gank.

I had to make an exception for awhile for Hinterland, which crosses a Diablo clone with a city building RTS. So your goal is to take your village and upgrade the buildings, etc., to turn it in to a thriving settlement.

But rather than send out the villagers to gather wood or stone to build things, you have to take your adventurer out, killing things and steal their stuff, and then use the resulting treasure to build things. If it were board game it’d be Munchkin Carcassone.

It’s a fairly addictive little indie game that delivers plenty of fun for just $19.99.

Hinterland Screenshot

Fireman In Thailand Dresses up as Spider-Man to Coax Boy Off Ledge

Fascinating story from Agence-France Presse,

A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said.

Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities when an autistic pupil, scared of going to lessons, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant said.

Despite teachers’ efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son’s love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.

“My fireman rushed back to the fire station and took out his Spider-Man costume… The boy immediately ran into his arms with a smile,” sergeant Virat Boonsadao said.

He said the fireman keeps the costume at work to liven up school fire drills.

Wow. I can’t even coax my wife to dress up as Wonder Woman to … uh … coax me off a balcony  … yeah, that’s it.

Disturbing Attacks/Trade in Albino Body Parts In Tanzania

The BBC ran one of the more disturbing articles I’ve read so far this year, with its report on the murder of albino men and women in Tanzania by people who want to sell their body parts for use in ritual medicine.

According to the BBC, at least 40 albinos have been murdered since the middle of 2007,

The killers repordly sell albino body parts — including limbs, hair, skin, and gentials — to witchdoctors.

. . .

In the most recent case last Wednesday an albino man — named as Jonas Maduka — was killed in Sogoso village in the north-western Mwanza region.

He was reportedly eating dinner at home when people called and asked for his help.

When he went outside he was strangled, before his assailants chopped off his leg and made away with the limb.

The Tanzanian government has responded by revoking the licenses of all traditional medicine practitioners, effectively outlawing them, but there are apparently so many practitioners that the ban is being ignored.

Moreover, the BBC reports that at least some of the traditionalists feel they are being made scapegoats for a government that has been unable to stop the wave of albino killings.

Insanity.