The Web Is a Customer Service Medium The web was surprisingly good at emulating a TV, a newspaper, a book, or a radio. Which meant that people expected it to answer the questions of each medium, and with the promise of advertising revenue as incentive, web developers set out to provide those answers. As a […]
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Longreads Is Joining Forces with The Atlantic
We have some big news to share today: Longreads is teaming up with The Atlantic, in a partnership that will allow us to expand our site and membership model—and continue to serve this community of readers, writers and publishers. When I first started the #longreads hashtag four years ago, The Atlantic was one of the […]
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Reading List: Brave New Internet
Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. 1. “The Vice Guide to the World.” (Lizzie Widdicombe, The New Yorker, 8 April 2013) “My big thing was I want you to do stupid in a smart way and smart in a stupid way.” […]
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How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying: The True Story of J.C. Penney
Jennifer Reingold | Fortune | March 2014 | 29 minutes (7,108 words) Download as a .mobi ebook (Kindle) Download as an .epub ebook (iBooks) When you find a savior, you don’t quibble over details. So it was that J.C. Penney, the long-stagnating mid-tier department store chain, announced in June 2011 that it was hiring Ron […]
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Swiping Right in the 1700s: The Evolution of Personal Ads
Noga Arikha | Lapham’s Quarterly | 2009 | 13 minutes (3,200 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) I. In 1727, a lady named Helen Morrison placed a personal advertisement in the Manchester Weekly Journal. It was possibly the first time a newspaper was ever used for such a purpose. As it happens, Morrison was […]
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David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact
David Foster Wallace saw clear lines between journalists and novelists who write nonfiction, and he wrestled throughout his career with whether a different set of rules applied to the latter category.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lessons in Fame from P.T. Barnum's Autobiography
From Lapham’s Quarterly, lessons on fame and advertising from The Life of P. T. Barnum, which was published in 1855. “Put on the appearance of business, and generally the reality will follow.” And what follows then? Profit. How is this miracle achieved? First, through false superlatives and inflated rhetoric, e.g., “The world-famous _______ is the […]
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Geoff Van Dyke: My Top 6 Longreads of 2010
Geoff Van Dyke is deputy editor of 5280 Magazine in Denver. *** The Future of Advertising, by Danielle Sacks, Fast Company A must-read for anyone in the media business. Innocence Lost, by Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly Instrumental in getting a Texas man off death row and out of prison. Burger Queen, by Lauren Collins, The […]
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The Web Is a Customer Service Medium
The Web Is a Customer Service Medium The web was surprisingly good at emulating a TV, a newspaper, a book, or a radio. Which meant that people expected it to answer the questions of each medium, and with the promise of advertising revenue as incentive, web developers set out to provide those answers. As a […]
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George Lois on Advertising and the Death of the Magazine Cover
George Lois on Advertising and the Death of the Magazine Cover “[Magazine covers] are very carefully researched. They test them: ‘Do you like this line better than this one?’ If you have to depend on blurbs to have people buy your magazine then you’ve got a piece of shit! You don’t have a brand! You […]
