New York Times Traffic Surges

Mathew Ingram yesterday proclaimed that "free is better" when it comes to news sites, and he offered new evidence to support this assertion.

He pointed to web traffic data of the New York Time's website that TechCrunch analyzed.  According to comScore data, traffic to the paper's site has surged since it ended its Times Select subscription pay wall back in September. ...

Friday Five: Some Recently Redesigned News Sites

It seems like at least a few major news sites have launched redesigns over the last several weeks.  Here are five that I've noticed:

1. Newsweek magazine

I like how the sister sites for Newsweek and MSNBC are now much different from each. 

Check out the nifty multimedia page header that can collapse or expand on each page on Newsweek's site....

Send a free eTree!

Last week I wrote a quick list about 5 ways you can give tech-inspired philanthropic gifts this holiday season. One I mentioned was sending eTrees through Mokugift. Normally, you can buy or send someone else an eTree for $1, and Mokugift plants a tree in the real world.

Hans from Mokugift saw my post,...

LA Blogger Heads to MSM

I read today that an editor for the blog LAist, Tony Pierce, accepted a position running about 25 blogs over at the LA Times. I thought it was interesting to see such a huge paper, with such a mixed record in the online world, making a blogger an important part of the paper's team. ...

The Columbus Social Media Cafe

It appears that there is exciting social media action happening out in Ohio.  Public broadcaster WOSU and COSI, an area science museum, in Columbus are now hosting the Columbus Social Media Cafe group in their WOSU@COSI center.

According to the Columbus Social Media Cafe blog, the mission of this group centers around the following question that WOSU and COSI asked themselves:

What if we —...