1 Aug 2010
Sunday Roundup: WSJ on Privacy, NYT on Italian Business, NYC Losers
WSJ: Interesting dive into digital privacy, including a look at tracking tools on the top 50 most popular US websites and a how-to guide to manage/block cookies, of mid-level sophistication.
Of note: I like the “news as resource” packaging of tabbed elements that go with the main story, including the detailed video on the history and mechanics of cookies, interactive infographic on how to manage or block tracking code, in addition to links to third party privacy tools like PrivacyChoice.org.
Sidebar: It’s amusing and interesting to see how various ad networks have profiled me (pretty accurately). Check out Yahoo! Ad Interest Manager and the BlueKai Registry, for example.
Commentary: Largely praised as useful, albeit “consumery,” by WSJ readers, lambasted as a “scare story” by Jeff Jarvis, who ironically spends much of his critical blog post alleging the the WSJ is scarier than any site it calls out in the story because it has a vast database of subscription information and is “owned by a company some people don’t trust. Hmmm. News Corp.”
Jarvis wonders with astonishment “how the Journal could be so breathlessly naive, unsophisticated, and anachronistic about the basics of the modern media business,” and rejects as “elitist and insulting” the many comments by his own readers asserting that most Web users don’t fully understand behavioral targeting. I’m with the commenters.
(Full disclosure: I’ve been an MBA Strategy & Development intern at Dow Jones for the past nine weeks, potential bias, etc.)
NYT:
A fascinating business cover story on the societal and business dynamics stifling Italian industry, viewed through the lens of bespoke suit designer Luciano Barbera. Featuring: guilds, family mistrust, Versace and comparisons to Greece and Argentina.
Moving from Milan to the Meatpacking District, a meandering NY Metro story about personalities and lust at the Hotel Gansevoort’s rooftop pool, including: sketchy lurkers, creepy married guys, numerous nameless ladies and Soho House envy (“Down there is old money, up here is new money”). Curiously tagged “Summer Rituals | Rooftop Pools.”
The story ambles among the various personalities seen at the pool over the course of a weekend without reaching any sort of meaningful climax or conclusion, except that the two ostensible lead characters who are there “marking their prey,” as the headline promises, are actually losers:
… another pool man said the two always seemed to leave alone. “I’ve seen other guys get girls here,” he said, adding that [the two guys] “are usually on their own.”
Boom, roasted.
