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☆ Defector Media started with a bang. It's an uphill climb to keep growing — just like in most of digital media.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-16 | by ( Peter Kafka | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Defector, which relies on subscription revenue, was a hit out of the gate. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Defector's revenue is now up to $4.6 million a year, and it's still profitable. Defector thinks it can combat this with gift links that paying subscribers can pass along to their friends.

Persons: Deadspin, —, Tom Ley, Meredith DotDash, Jasper Wang, That's Organizations: Service, Media, Twitter, Google, Facebook

☆ Google’s Olympics ad went viral for all the wrong reasons
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-29 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Well, a new Google ad says artificial intelligence can now do that for you. It shows the young girl training to compete like her hero, thanks to hurdling technique tips generated by Google’s AI search feature. But many early AI tools seem to do the opposite, instead enabling computers to generate traditionally human creative outputs such as art, music and stories. And yet tech firms have forged ahead with rolling out AI tools that can create new emojis, speak and even generate videos. Google did not respond to CNN’s request for comment regarding the backlash to the Gemini ad.

Persons: Mickey Mouse, It’s, Sydney McLaughlin, “, Google’s, McLaughlin, OpenAI’s, Deadspin Will Leitch, ” Shelly Palmer, Syracuse University’s S.I, ” Apple, Sonny, Cher’s, Apple Organizations: New, New York CNN, Olympics, Google, Big Tech, Tech, Syracuse University’s, Newhouse School of Public Communications Locations: New York

☆ Deadspin’s entire staff has been laid off after the sports site was sold to a startup
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Liam Reilly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Deadspin, the irreverent sports and news site best known for its commentary and analysis, laid off all of its staff on Monday after the outlet was sold to a startup firm. A G/O Media spokesperson confirmed that 11 Deadspin staffers were impacted by the move on Monday. Last year, G/O Media also sold Jezebel to Paste Magazine after briefly shutting down the publication and laying off its entire staff. The slashing of Deadspin’s staff is the latest in what so far has been a tumultuous year for the news media. TIME also laid off 15% of its unionized editorial staff and The Los Angeles Times cut over 20% of its newsroom staff.

Persons: CNN — Deadspin, Jim Spanfeller —, —, Spanfeller, ” Spanfeller, “, Deadspin’s, ”, Condé Nast, Forbes Organizations: CNN, Publishing, Media, O Media, Magazine, Vice Media, TIME, Los Angeles Times, Condé, The New York Daily News Locations: newsrooms

☆ Opinion: What the Sports Illustrated AI debacle is telling us
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Opinion Will Leitch | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

(Full disclosure: I briefly hosted a television show for Sports Illustrated a few years back that no one watched.) But the only difference between those sports sites using AI writers and other sports sites using AI writers is that people actually used to enjoy Sports Illustrated and Deadspin; Yahoo, for example, has been contracted with a company called “Automated Insights” to write AI sport stories for years. Another game I like to play in my downtime is NBA2K, the wildly popular NBA video game. But in the game, Aldridge is not real; he’s just some pixels synced to audio the real Aldridge recorded years ago. Sports writers insist, as we fight back against a creeping AI world, that we can always do our jobs better than a robot can.

Persons: Will Leitch, ”, it’s, I’m, —, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, AdVon, Richard Johnson, Emma Baccellieri, Pat Forde, Tom Verducci, you’ve, It’s, Fox, Charissa Thompson, I’ve, Hall, Hall of Famer Andrea Kremer, Thompson, “, can’t, Curt Gowdy, David Aldridge, Aldridge, Video Aldridge, Julius Randle, Randle, … I’d Organizations: New York Magazine, CNN, Park Baseball, MLB, Sports, The Arena Group, The, Group, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, Amazon, Hall of Famer, New York Times, NBA, Video Knicks

☆ Jezebel to Be Resurrected by Paste Magazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Katie Robertson | More About Katie Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jezebel, the famed feminist website, is set to return less than a month after it was shuttered. Paste Magazine, a music and culture outlet, acquired Jezebel on Tuesday and planned to start publishing on the site again as soon as Wednesday, said Josh Jackson, a co-founder and the editor in chief of Paste. “The idea of there not being a Jezebel right now just didn’t seem to make sense,” Mr. Jackson said. Jezebel, once part of the Gawker universe of websites, brought a brash new kind of internet writing to feminist issues when it was introduced in 2007, paving the way for a generation of like-minded outlets. In 2019, the private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Jezebel as part of what is now called G/O Media, a portfolio of digital news outlets that includes Gizmodo, Deadspin and The Root.

Persons: Josh Jackson, Mr, Jackson, O, Jim Spanfeller, ” Organizations: Paste Magazine, Gawker, Great Hill Partners

The company owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Gizmodo, Quartz and Deadspin. News of the site’s closure bookended a revolution of feminist writing on the internet that Jezebel helped kick off when it launched in 2007. A wave of sites, including DoubleX, from Slate, and Reductress, followed, many of them adopting Jezebel’s incisive focus on gender politics and racism. Anna Holmes, who founded Jezebel and left the publication in 2010, woke up to the announcement of the site shuttering on Thursday and said she was still processing the news. Ms. Holmes, 50, said that she was hired by Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, to launch the publication in 2007.

Persons: Spanfeller, “, Jezebel, Anna Holmes, ”, Holmes, Nick Denton Organizations: O Media, Slate, Gawker Media

☆ Ted Cruz shares fake photo of a shark swimming on a flooded highway as Tropical Storm Hilary batters California: 'Holy crap'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Taylor Berman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ted Cruz saw a photo someone jokingly shared of a shark swimming on a flooded highway in LA. "Holy crap," the Texas senator tweeted about the fake photo. Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily. And Monday morning, he quote-tweeted an obviously fake photo of a shark swimming on a flooded highway that a Twitter user said was in Los Angeles, which is being hit by its first tropical storm in over 80 years. "Holy crap," Cruz wrote about the photo, which was jokingly shared by Dan Katz of the newly-independent sports media company Barstool Sports.

Persons: Ted Cruz, Cruz, Dan Katz, he'd, I'm, Hurricane Irene, —, Cruz didn't Organizations: Service, Barstool Sports, Hurricane, Puerto Rico, TCU Locations: LA, Texas, Wall, Silicon, Ted Cruz of Texas, Cancun, Los Angeles, Puerto

Yogesh Raut on "Jeopardy!" Fans of the venerable answer-and-question show were introduced to Raut on Jan. 11 when he won the first of three games, which were taped in mid-November. That true quizzing talent isn't displayed on "Jeopardy!" Raut was annoyed that word leaked that another big name in the quiz community, Troy Meyer, was on the "Jeopardy!" It is fundamentally incompatible with incentivizing the next generation of quizzers to excel, and it is fundamentally incompatible with true social justice.”A "Jeopardy!"

Sanders has a 27-5 coaching record at Jackson State, including going 12-0 this year and winning two consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference titles. Sanders will owe Jackson State around $300,000 in a buyout for the 2020 contract, according to USA Today. This is not a Deion Sanders thing,” Parker told NBC News. “I do think he cared about the well-being of Jackson State football players. I think the buzz around the program will change, especially if they don’t hire a coach that has a similar stature as Deion Sanders.”

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