The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model

Source: Wired
Published: Oct 19, 2009
Length: 37 minutes (9,296 words)

The Next Brainiacs

This is the story of the most fearless entrepreneur ever: the human brain.

Source: Wired
Published: Sep 1, 2009
Length: 26 minutes (6,621 words)

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

Source: Wired
Published: Sep 21, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,892 words)

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

After some trial and error, Pure Digital released what it called the Flip Ultra in 2007. The stripped-down camcorder—like the Single Use Digital Camera—had lots of downsides. It had a minuscule viewing screen, no color-adjustment features, and only the most rudimentary controls. It didn’t even have an optical zoom. But it was small, inexpensive, and so simple to operate—from recording to uploading—that pretty much anyone could figure it out in roughly 6.7 seconds.

Source: Wired
Published: Aug 24, 2009
Length: 16 minutes (4,059 words)

Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.

Merck was in trouble. In 2002, the pharmaceutical giant was falling behind its rivals in sales. Even worse, patents on five blockbuster drugs were about to expire, which would allow cheaper generics to flood the market. The company hadn’t introduced a truly new product in three years, and its stock price was plummeting.

Source: Wired
Published: Aug 24, 2009
Length: 17 minutes (4,481 words)

Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess

At times it has occurred to people that the problems with craigslist could be solved by appealing to its eponym, Craig Newmark. Newmark is under lots of pressure these days.

Author: Gary Wolf
Source: Wired
Published: Aug 24, 2009
Length: 21 minutes (5,416 words)

Speechless: Dilbert Creator’s Struggle to Regain His Voice

The rules dictated when and where Scott Adams, the chief engineer of the Dilbert comic empire, was allowed to speak. He could neither control them nor predict exactly when they’d go into effect. All he knew was that he’d woken up one morning and found that his voice had turned against him, imposing a set of bizarre restrictions.

Source: Wired
Published: Jul 20, 2009
Length: 19 minutes (4,762 words)

Billions Registered

Right now, there are no rules to keep you from owning a bitchin’ corporate name as your own Internet address.

Source: Wired
Published: Nov 1, 1996
Length: 13 minutes (3,364 words)

The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics

Veronica Noone has joined the legion of people, from Olympic-level athletes to ordinary folks just hoping to lower their blood pressure, who are plugging into a data-driven revolution. And it goes way beyond Nike+. Using a flood of new tools and technologies, each of us now has the ability to easily collect granular information about our lives—what we eat, how much we sleep, when our mood changes.

Source: Wired
Published: Jun 22, 2009
Length: 16 minutes (4,223 words)

And Data for All: Why Obama’s Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov’t Info Online

The Obama administration’s most radical idea may also be its geekiest: Make nearly every hidden government spreadsheet and buried statistic available online, all in one place. For anyone to see. On Vivek Kundra and Data.gov

Source: Wired
Published: Jun 18, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,523 words)