February 2012
2 posts
January 2012
1 post
McDonalds, Taxing Those Who Are Bad at Math
I don’t eat Chicken McNuggets, but a few years ago, I was in a McDonalds with a friend who noticed a strange price discrepancy. The dollar menu — all items for $1 — offered a pack of four Chicken McNuggets for, you guessed it, $1. Great deal! But buy in bulk, and you can get a better deal, right? This McDonalds offered a 10 McNuggets for $4.29… which, if you do the...
December 2011
1 post
The Wonder Ball Goes 'Round and 'Round
Today’s Now I Know focused on Kinder eggs — which are banned in the United States. A reader (thanks Adam!) alerted me to another product called the Wonder Ball — originally, “Nestle Magic” — which followed the same pattern: chocolate on the outside, toy surprise within.
Here’s an ad for it, below.
So what happened? The New York Times has the...
November 2011
6 posts
Citation Needed: Why Times Op-Ed Columnists Should...
Maureen Dowd is a columnist for the New York Times. This morning, the Times published her piece “My Man Newt.” I’m not going to address the substance of the article — this post isn’t intended to be about politics.
But to give context, in one part, Dowd discusses Newt Gingrich’s alleged hypocrisy. Dowd levies six distinct allegations in the course of three...
How valuable are shared links on Facebook? Not...
Facebook seems like the perfect (or, at least, best) environment for turning ideas and products into something viral. It has three big things going for it — your messages go to many people, the people who receive the messages are people you actually know to some degree (setting aside Pages for now), and they can re-share the item in the same environment.
So I’ve always assumed that...
Plaque Avoidance, Baseball Style
Warning: Baseball wonkery ahead.
But it sure seems to me that purely as a baseball question, you would much rather give a guy a bigger and shorter contract than stretch it out over six or seven or eight years, where everyone finds themselves facing an awkward ending when the player isn’t worth the money anymore and the team has to figure out how to handle it, the player has to deal with the abuse,...
mental_floss on tumblr: Nigeria's Version of... →
mentalflossr:
Sesame Square — the Nigerian adaptation of Sesame Street — stars Kami, the world’s first HIV-positive Muppet (introduced by South Africa’s Takalani Sesame), and Zobi (pictured), a blue cab driver who educates children about malaria. The production has its lighter side, too. Zobi is the…
They update the picture of the Queen on pennies as...
CNN? This Isn't "News"
Front page of CNN, right now:
Note the name, Daniel Kish.
Now I Know, June 10, 2011:
(link)
Great scoop there, guys.
October 2011
3 posts
New to Now I Know? Welcome!
This last weekend, Now I Know grew tremendously, picking up over 3,500 new subscribers — 25% growth in basically a day. Thanks for joining.
If you’re new, here are a few things you probably should know about Now I Know:
1) I publish it Monday through Friday, at roughly 6:45 AM New York time. There are times when it comes a bit later, but those are rare. I don’t publish on...
Why Yahoo Should Start an Incubator For Digital...
For a $20 billion company, Yahoo is in shambles. Four years ago, its shares were trading at about $30; now, they’re struggling to stay over $15. The board recently ousted the CEO and now, it’s at least an even bet that Yahoo will end up gobbled up by another company or sold to a private equity firm.
But if Yahoo stays independent, here’s an idea for their long-term health:...
August 2011
3 posts
United Illuminating, Tweeting in the Dark
United Illuminating (“UI”) providers electricity to 324,000 homes in southern Connecticut — including, most importantly, my parents. At about 8:45 AM on Monday, August 29, 2011 — that’s the day after Hurricane Irene hit Connecticut, and, more importantly, 26 hours after my parents lost power — they sent the tweet above.
The big question? What would make for...
Twitter: Not so great for newsletter growth. ...
On the 22nd, I (finally) published my retrospective on how Now I Know went from 0 subscribers to 10,000 in 13 months. As part of it, I said that Twitter wasn’t so great for newsletter growth. Specifically:
I have gotten some great endorsements from twitter users with tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands followers. None of them have been gangbusters in terms of growth, at...
How I Grew My Email Newsletter From 0 to 10,000...
I published the first issue of Now I Know on June 22, 2010. It went to 20 people. I knew most of them — a few others came in from, if I recall correctly, a Facebook post by Jimmy Wales, who I used to work for at Wikia. Only 12 people opened it — that’s high, at 60%, but low, at 12 people.
On June 22, 2011, Now I Know went to 5,897 people. And on August 1, 2011, it broke...
July 2011
1 post
What the Airbnb Saga Tells Us About the (False?)...
In early 2006, my now-defunct startup wanted what almost all startups do: a write-up on TechCrunch. When the four of us who founded the site started talking to Wikia about the acqu-hire which would come at the end of that year, one of the not-so-trivial (but by no means core) points was Wikia’s promise of coverage in the tech blogs, and explicitly, a massive chance that TechCrunch itself...
June 2011
7 posts
Now I Know, Redesigned: New Look, Ads, and...
At some point this week, I’ll be rolling out a new design for Now I Know, courtesy of ad network LiveIntent. The new version will have the same content, of course, but in a fresh new look, ads, links to the archives, and lots of dancing clowns. (Okay, that dancing clowns thing is a joke.)
Here’s the back story and some answers to some questions I’ve gotten.
To date, Now I...
"Blogosphere"?
Quick question: When was the last time you heard, or said, the word “blogosphere”?
Yesterday, at the RWW 2Way conference, Jason Calacanis took the stage and proclaimed that blogging is dead. You can — and should — read RWW’s recap of the talk here. (As an aside, he — and I — believe that email newsletters are making a come back; read more...
Why an Email Newsletter? Why not a Blog?
Next week — June 22nd, if you’re counting — marks the one year birthday of my “learn something new every day” email newsletter. One of the common questions I get asked is “why an email newsletter? why not a blog?” To date, I’ve avoided answering that.
A few years ago, noted serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis shuttered his blog and instead...
1 tag
Please Think Of The Environment Before Having Your...
The image above is from http://thinkbeforeprinting.org/ — which, amazingly, exists. They — whomever they are — are trying to get lots (everyone?) of people to put that line in their email.
Please, for the love of the Lorax, DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM. You are killing innocent trees.
Let’s say someone prints your email. If you have that line on it, you’re adding...
May 2011
1 post
April 2011
2 posts
March 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Twitter Needs Topical Chats. Here's How It'd Work
What Twitter needs is baked-in hashtags-as-chats, or, even better, the ability to do on-twitter chats w/o hashtags. For example, I should be able to enter a twitter-based Mets chat pretty easily, (a) discovering other Mets fans and (b) not polluting my stream.
It could be done as a kludge pretty much immediately:
Participants in the chat would follow a hub account, such as @MetsTweets
...
1 tag
This would be the "Float Like a Butterfly" part.
thebestdamnsportssiteever:
Found a great animated gif of Ali toying with an opponent.
The Best Damn Sports Site Ever
February 2011
11 posts
WatchLove this video.
You will click this link because for years... →
sesamestreet:
And besides, look at how awesome Super Grover 2.0 is.
You wouldn’t want to upset him, would you?
November 2010
2 posts
what i learned today: why is a turkey a turkey →
Thanks for the link!
dihard:
Today I learned how turkey got its name, thanks to the newsletter to which I am newly subscribed, Now I Know. Now I Know was recommended to me by a w.i.l.t. reader who sends out a daily dose of something he finds interesting.
So turkey. It’s actually indigenous to the US and Mexico. The bird,…
September 2010
2 posts
