Gawker: valleywag, damon darlin

Worried about Twitter? So was Socrates

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:40:00 EDT

Today in Twitter Journalism, it's our man at the Times, Damon Darlin. You've probably heard about, but haven't read, lovable IT crank Nick Carr's anti-Internet essay, "Is Google Making us Stupid?" Darlin helpfully pares Carr's 4,175-word article down to a single tweet. Then, contrary to what you'd expect from the Gray Lady's newsroom, he says there's a basic human fear over new communications technologies that goes all the way back to the original master of irony. We fed Darlin's essay into our shiny new 100-word-version machine:

Maybe you are thinking that Twitter, not Google, is the enemy of human intellectual progress. It is hard to think of a technology that wasn’t feared when it was introduced. Socrates feared the impact that writing would have on man’s ability to think. The advent of the printing press summoned similar fears. Professors feared that engineers would use the HP-35, the first hand-held scientific calculator, as a crutch.

For all the new technologies that increase our productivity, there are others that demand more of our time. That is one of the dialectics of our era. With its maps and Internet access, the iPhone saves us time; with its downloadable games, we also carry a game machine in our pocket. But the engineer’s point of view puts trust in human improvement: writing, printing, computing and Googling have only made it easier to think and communicate.

Oh, and we tidied the author's bio: Damon Darlin is not on Twitter.

Why the New York Times will soon be a brochure

Owen Thomas — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:40:00 EDT

In a roundup of every current media-wonk topic — the Olympics, YouTube, TiVo, and the Philadelphia Inquirer's boneheaded move to keep its hottest stories offline — David Carr of the New York Times has deftly buried a hint to his employer's Web strategy: "The horizon line for when a newspaper on the street is serving as a kind of brochure of a rich online product does not seem far off." Carr's not just speculating. He's alluding to a move already being made at the Times:

The Times's San Francisco-based technology editor, Damon Darlin, is recruiting for two positions to write stories on technology, some of which will only appear online. In print, the appetite for tech stories among the Times's stable of luxury advertisers is limited. Online, tech brands are begging for more Times-quality pageviews to advertise against. Two questions: First, how will that change the meaning of "All the news that's fit to print?" Second, will the Times be able to convince reporters that "online exclusive" reporting is no longer a second-tier career?

Timesmen learn us good on lazy blogging

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:40:27 EST

New York Times tech writers are confused, or at least a little bit lazy. Over Christmas Eve they posted to the Bits blog a post titled, "Questions We Thought, But Didn't Ask, in 2007." Then, "A Few More Questions" And then, "More Questions." Reading them, it's clear that coming up with questions required no reporting, little research and maybe five minutes. Why didn't we think of that? One very special correspondent could have actually seen his wife over Christmas. Here are their top three questions — and our helpfully provided answers.

If you know someone obsessively checks his email on his iPhone, should you be insulted when he fails to answer your email in a timely manner? — Brad Stone

For mere mortals, the answer would be "no," but Brad, you should take offense. After all, you're Brad "Brad to the Stone" Stone, the Timesman who outed frigging Fake Steve Jobs. Has your email correspondent heard of you?

Are we about to enter 2008: "The year of the in-flight fistfight caused when the person next to you spends four hours from San Francisco to New York talking loudly on the cell phone about his/her dating habits/pet's grooming needs/excitement over the availability of airplane Wi-Fi?" — Matt Richtel

Yes, Matt, we're about to enter 2008.

If the theoretical limit of a social network is about 150 people, does an online social network decline due to the sheer weight of its popularity. Or is decline still tied to too many grandpas signing on making a network un-cool? — Damon Darlin

Actually, Damon, it's when people prone to tossing the Dunbar Number into casual conversation start signing on that a social network becomes uncool.

New York Times panty-raids Valleywag

Paul Boutin — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:00:37 EST

I just published my first in what will be a whole lot of New York Times personal technology articles for non-nerds. "A Universe of Gadget Advice" leads those of us (read: me) who can't follow the gadgetspeak on Gizmodo through the hell — well, the heck of online last-minute gadget gift shopping. NYT techniology [sic] editor Damon Darlin turns out to be a perfectly nice guy who gets my jokes. And then edits them into English. I'll be writing about cellphones, cameras, TVs, and any Web 2.0 stuff that survives Ted at Uncov. I'm pretty sure I'm now the first writer to simultaneously contribute to the NYT, the Wall Street Journal and Gawker Media. Look, you've got your creepy life goals, and I've got mine.

Writer-poaching NYT editor an expert in "techniology"

Owen Thomas — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:42:43 EST

The New York Times, despite recent cutbacks, still employs an army of copy editors, right? Right. But none of them appear to have tended to technology editor Damon Darlin's biography recently. Or is that techniology editor? "He is most interested in the consumer side of techniology, particularly in supply, demand and pricing," says the Times.

Techniology! I'm putting Carlson right on this Next Big Thing from New York. CARLSON! TIMES SCOOPED US! AGAIN! Speaking of "supply, demand and pricing," what really annoys me is that Darlin's horning in on my bloggers. Offering to pay $12.50 a post. Bastard!

What if the Times scoop was a setup?

Owen Thomas — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:39:53 EDT

My musing on why it took Forbes so long to reach a deal with its own editor, Dan Lyons, to bring his Secret Diary of Steve Jobs to Forbes.com, raised a question in my mind: How do we know the outing of Fake Steve Jobs wasn't an inside job? There's one very close link: Damon Darlin, the recently appointed technology editor at the Times who edited the story, used to work at Forbes. I have the utmost respect for the reporting skills of Brad Stone, the Times reporter who broke the story, and believe he discovered Lyons on his own, the old-fashioned way, through hard work and shoe-leather reporting. But is it possible Forbes insiders, to create buzz for both Lyons's forthcoming Fake Steve book, Options, and the arrival of his blog on Forbes.com, fed the Times just enough tidbits to help Stone land the scoop — or, at the very least, decided to play along once they learned he was on the hunt?

Forbes.com's coverage of Fake Steve Sunday seemed curiously prepared, with a video, a column by publisher Rich Karlgaard, and a host of companion pieces. Sure, they could have worked on them over the weekend after getting calls from Stone and his colleague John Markoff on Saturday. But I'm still curious about the timing of it all. Some have accused Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton, this blog's owner, of running Fake Steve jobs as an elaborate publicity stunt for Valleywag. Is our opinion of mainstream media now so low that no one's willing to think the people at Forbes capable of the same Machiavellian marketing?

Update: Darlin tells me that "how the story came down is exactly as we reported." Fair enough. Let's assume that the Times got this scoop on their own time schedule, and leave that bit aside. But doesn't it seem, nonetheless, that Forbes had this all planned?