Results tagged “blogging” from 60 Second Science

In an attempt to measure how social media affects the music biz (a different take than the constant attempts to just shut down the Interwebs), NYU Stern Professor Vasant Dhar looked at how the number of blog items about an album posted before its release could predict its sales. Looking at 108 albums released in early 2007, he found that it worked out pretty well.

With more than 40 "legitimate" blog posts prior to the album's drop, the artist could expect three times as many sales as the average. If that album was associated with a major label, the artist could expect five times as many sales. So, you know, there go the hopes of tastemakers everywhere looking for the next indie band out of Omaha.

Continue reading 'Bloggers can help sell music; influentials can't; I'll take cash to write about Bright Eyes' >

I'll always be forever grateful to the overlords at 60 Second Science for giving me a job that practically mandates I stay in my underwear and drool all day. So what if I get paid in Nestle products? Did I mention the underwear, or the drooling?

But maybe I should be a little concerned: After the recent heart attack of blogger Om Malik of Giga Om, some brand-name bloggers report that the stress of their jobs can create serious health problems.

Health problems other than morbid obesity and missing out on a woman's touch for decades on end? I'm listening.

Continue reading '"Stress" of blogging could be hazardous to your health, sex life' >

A couple goodies for geeks that the new year has ushered in...

1. SciBook—Social Networking for Life Scientists. After you've improved your image by deleting all the unattractive friends from your Facebook profile, you can lower your reproductive fitness again by adding this fun application. SciBook matches scientists with prospective friends and collaborators on Facebook based on their research interests, favorite journal articles, disciplinary training, research methods, "favorite proteins," and "favorite scientists of all time." I'm unsure whether to describe it as "a breakthrough tool for collaborative research," or "kind of like eHarmony for people who don't get out much." You be the judge.
2. io9.com—Strung Out on Science Fiction. Gawker Media, the people who brought you Wonkette and Lifehacker, has officially acquired io9.com, a snarky blog that threatens to do for science fiction what engadget did for technology. The site is full of snarky and incisive commentary, along with plenty of random and hopelessly inside jokes. It also contains a healthy dose of science writing alongside science fiction, and according to the site's editor, Annalee Newitz, it aims to celebrate the blurring of the line separating the two. She told the New York Times, "The present is thinking of itself in science-fictional terms. You get things like George Bush taking stem cell policy from reading parts of Brave New World. That’s part of what we are playing with. We are living in world that now thinks of itself in terms of sci-fi and in terms of the future." Whether you buy Newitz's idea here, enjoy snarky humor, or you're just one of those people whose subscription to Omni got canceled every time the magazine went under, io9.com is probably worth checking out.

If science has a Thomas Pynchon, it's Russel Seitz, who usually blogs at Adamant. Once a week he shows up here to drop some knowledge.

...Ye Pilgrim Bloggers First Thanksgiving

"a recently unearthed  Compaq desktop PC offers a tantalizing glimpse into the day-to-day life of a primitive Internet society, said archaeologists --The Onion  "

...HEREIN , PILGRIM,  ADAMANT  REVEALETH  HOW THIS INFERNAL ENGINE OR MACHINE BROUGHT BLOGGING HITHER  IV CENTURIES AGO  Since the year of our Lord 1620 we in New England hath looked for our Hiftory of Technology  lessons to The Puritan Broadcafting System. Yet the Godless minions of Antiques Road Show recently defcribed a Gadget delivered to The Bay Colony in 1638 as ye nations "firft printing press."

This is arrant knavery --any mechanical Philosopher knoweth this infernal Machine to be forsooth a PC peripheral, for  Blogging , like bundling, is among the First Fruits Of New England. Did not Nathaniel Hawthorne  of Salem complain that Mifstress Hester Prynne's lap-top was busy even before the Pilgrim  Fathers landed?  So heere be set forth 
.......                .YE MAYFLOWER COMPAQ: a Ufers Manual.

Continue reading 'The Mayflower Compaq' >