A profile of fifth-generation beekeeper Leigh-Kathryn Bonner, whose startup, Bee Downtown has 100 sponsored hives on the roofs of old tobacco warehouses in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The hives house thousands of bees who do their part to pollinate the cucumber, apple, and berry crops that are staples of North Carolina’s economy. Bonner is not only helping the local economy and the environment, she’s bucking convention in the traditionally male-dominated apiary industry.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, every struggling startup struggles in its own way. Except they all seem to feature extravagant soirées, hazy business plans, and round after round of beer pong on a SoMa roof deck. At Fast Company, Ainsley Harris charts the decline and fall of Tilt, a social-payments platform billed as the “Facebook of Money.” Joining other examples in the emerging genre of schadenfreude-laced startup postmortems, it offers an almost-wistful glimpse at Silicon Valley culture at the precise moment when easy funding became a thing of the past.
Over time, Beshara’s leadership alienated some of Tilt’s more experienced hires, who chose to move on rather than challenge their rookie boss. Meanwhile, Tilt continued to attract young talent barely old enough to join the company’s happy hours.
“There was too much focus on culture and creating this nirvana of a company. This is not a fraternity, this is a business,” says a former manager. Beshara seemed determined to keep the party going until the bitter end. Last September, for example, with a cash crunch imminent, he pressed forward with Tilt’s final Lake Tahoe retreat. Only a small group of employees had any idea that a sale was already in the works.
Looking back now, Beshara acknowledges the imbalance. “I feel very strongly that you want to end up on the side of human connection, human relationships,” he says. “But I think you can index too far on that and really miss the importance of really high standards.”
Enter an excerpt for your post. Excerpts should be under 160 characters long. If you don’t see the excerpt field in WP-Admin, you might need to manually display it via the checkbox in Screen Options at the top of the page.
Add a handful of relevant categories, such as “Quotes,” “Essays & Criticism,” and “Nonfiction.”
Add tags for additional keywords, plus the author and/or publication names as necessary. Add a maximum of 10-15 tags and categories total to ensure the post appears in the WordPress.com Reader.
Add a photo credit to images: In the WordPress media gallery, there is a “Caption” field. Add a photo credit naming the source and linking (using HTML) to the original. Example: Photo via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/skynoir/11224284884">John Smith, Flickr</a>
For very short quotes, you can use a larger, bolder font by adding class=”short” to the blockquote. For example: <blockquote class="short">This is the quote</blockquote>
Stories / Exclusives / Excerpts
All of our original stories get the feature article treatment, with large photos and centered headlines/deks. These should all be assigned to the “Story” category. See examples here:
The dek is pulled from the “Excerpt” field in WordPress.
Example of a headline and dek on top of a Longreads Exclusive. The dek only appears like this for posts with the “story” or “top 5” categories.
Pullquotes
Add pullquotes to break up the text. They’re formatted like this:
<blockquote class="pullquote center">Here is a sentence copied from the story.</blockquote>
You can also change the alignment for pullquotes (replace the “center” class in the example with “right” or ”left”)
Example of a pullquote on Longreads.com.
Images & Videos
Add images or videos, depending on the story. You can embed most videos on other services (YouTube, Vimeo) by pasting the URL into the WordPress visual editor. To add more images, pick a spot in the story, then click “Add Media.” You can also center the image, or align it left/right.
Header Variations
Our original stories have four options for header treatment:
To choose one of these header variations, make a selection from the “Longreads Exclusive Options” panel in the WP Admin interface:
We don’t currently have any strict rules around when each header variation should be used. If you have an especially impactful featured image, give “Image Only” a try. If you have a vertically-oriented image, use “Dual Pane.” Give a couple of the layouts a try, and see which one looks better. Don’t hesitate to ask the group for feedback if you’re not sure.
The “Longreads Exclusive Options” panel also contains an experimental “Move the byline to the top” feature. This checkbox grabs the first paragraph (<p></p>) of the post and moves it up into the header. It’s a little finicky, so be sure to verify that it worked before you leave it checked.
Here’s an example of a byline that should work, if you’d like to copy and paste it:
If you try the checkbox, but it doesn’t work, give Kjell a ping and he should be able to help. A known issue for the byline feature is that it sometimes will create unfortunate line breaks for longer bylines. We’ll figure that out. 🙂
Quote Posts
A quote post is short and simple, but it’s a great way to distill “what we’re reading,” what we love, and why we love it. A quote post is a short blog post that features a link to a story or book along with a notable excerpt or quote.
It can be helpful to think of a quote and headline or angle that is different from the original story’s headline or angle. Often quote posts work well for surfacing a different story that’s buried deeper inside of a longer piece or inside a book.
Quote posts usually begin with a short introduction by you, followed by the quote. You can also do it the other way around: first quote, then context. The latter works best if the quote itself is short. If the excerpt is longer than a couple sentences, then it can be better to start with your own introduction, so people know why they should keep reading.
We usually don’t use more than 3-4 paragraphs to excerpt from the story. Quotes are meant to be quick, notable moments from a story. Exceptions can be made for books, since readers will be taken to a book purchase link rather than the full free story.
For direct quotes in the post, use <blockquote></blockquote> tags.
Every quote post should include a red button to “Read the story” “Read the interview” or (for Amazon links) “Get the book”. This is the code for that button: <a class="button-red">Read the story</a>
Interviews
Same as “Story” above but also include “Interviews” category and use bold text for interviewer questions.
All list items will be linked and wrapped in <h2></h2> tags. Include the title, and in parentheses, add the author, publication and year if not current.
2. Longreads Picks
Longreads Picks are stories that we recommend. Picks are shown to users in the feed on the right side of the homepage, and on our picks page: https://longreads.com/picks/
In technical terms, Picks are a custom post type (CPT) on Longreads. All that means is that they work a little differently than posts do.
Enter a title and a short description for your picks. You can see examples here.
Below the main content box, there’s a new box with some additional fields:
Click “Add Author” and start typing the name of the article’s author. This text box will auto-suggest matches from our database. If the author is brand new, you’ll need to visit this page, and add them manually first. Then go back to your pick, refresh the page, and try adding the author again. You can add multiple authors if necessary.
The Publisher box works the same way. If your pick is from a new Publisher, you can add them first from this page.
Enter the URL publsher date, and word count. No need to add tags or a featured image.
Hit publish or schedule the post when you’re ready.
3. Weekly Top 5 Email
The Longreads weekly newsletter goes out every Friday between 3pm-4pm ET. It’s manually built in MailChimp. Here is a brief checklist on preparing each week’s newsletter.
Once you have your Top 5 picks, create a draft blog post, titled “The Top 5 Longreads of the Week.” Use previous versions for formatting code.
In Mailchimp, under “Campaigns” in the top nav, create a new Campaign by going to a previous week’s “Longreads Weekly” campaign, and selecting “Replicate” from the dropdown menu.
Doublecheck that “Recipients” list is “Weekly Longreads Email” (You shouldn’t have to change anything.) Then click “Next”
Under “Setup” leave all settings the same but change the date under “Name your campaign”.
Skip the “Template” section and go straight to “Design” to make the following changes:
Click “Edit” on the “Longreads Weekly” section to change the email date and change any intro language or links if necessary. Click “Save and Close” when finished.
Click Edit on the Top 5 and story promos section. In this section you will update the Top 5 links and story links, along with their promo images and language.
Edit the post grid at the bottom. You can add, hide, or remove rows of stories using the buttons on the top left. Always add stories in groups of two — don’t leave one of the grid cells empty.
In the story grid, please make sure to crop the images to 1024px wide by 585px tall. You can do this within Mailchimp by choosing “Edit” when hovering over the image, then selecting “Edit” on the right. There’s a “Crop” tool in the Mailchimp image editor.
In the “Confirm” section, first select “Preview and Test” in the upper right menu and “Enter Preview Mode.” You will see desktop and mobile versions of the emails. This is also a good place to test all of the links. Be sure to check all the links for all the story picks, headlines, images, and “Read Now” buttons.
Close out of the window, and under “Preview and Test,” select “Send a Test Email” and send the email to yourself, Kjell, and at least one other Editor.
Check the email and links.
Before you send the email, be sure to FIRST publish the Top 5 Longreads blog post live, and check that your Top 5 link matches the live Top 5 blog post.
Under Confirm, double check that the email will go to the “Weekly Longreads Email list.”
Hit “Send” in the bottom right corner, and enjoy your weekend!
4. Image Specifications and Tips
Blog Posts and Exclusives
Images for blog posts should be at least 1456px wide. This allows for them to display at full retina resolution on desktop monitors. Landscape images tend to work best, but portrait images can be used from time to time as long as the minimum width is met. Featured images for exclusives are displayed larger than they are for regular blog posts. These images should be 2400px wide by 1400px tall. This is an image ratio of 12:7.
Emails
To keep load times down in emails, images should be no more than 1200px wide. You can resize to this width in Mailchimp. For images in the bottom grid, crop to 1024px wide by 585px tall.
Stock images
We usually use AP Images for our paid stock photos. Ping an automattician to purchase.
The following sources are great for finding Creative Commons photos. Be sure to include credit when necessary.
In between heatsticks, you holster the cyberpipe in a mobile charger, a smooth, palm-size contraption that calls to mind a cigarette pack mated with a smartphone and designed by Apple’s Jony Ive. “I was a smoker before,” Calantzopoulos said as he handled a charger. “I switched to this completely, and I cannot smoke cigarettes anymore.” Somewhere in flavor country the Marlboro Man is turning over in his grave.
At The Verge, Ben Popper takes a look at Koko, a startup with an app that helps people connect and provide emotional support to peers and, in the process, allows them to recognize and “rethink” their own problems:
The Koko app starts users off with a short tutorial on “rethinking.” The app explains that rethinking isn’t about solving problems, but offering a more optimistic take. It uses memes and cartoons to illustrate the idea: if you choose the right reframe, a cute puppy offers his paw for a high-five. The app walks new users through posts and potential reframes, indicating which rethinks are good and which aren’t. The tutorial can be completed in as little as five minutes.
Once users finish the tutorial, they can scroll through live posts on the site. Despite the minimal training, the issues they are confronted with can be quite serious: an individual who is afraid to tell her family that she’s taking anti-depressants because they might think she’s crazy; a user stressed from school who believes “no one actually likes the real me, and if they see it, they will hate me”; a user with an abusive boyfriend who has come to feel “I am a failure and worth being yelled at.” I walked a friend through the tutorial recently, and they were shocked by how quickly Koko throws you into the deep end of human despair.
Koko lets you write anything you want for a rethink, but also offers simple prompts: “This could turn out better than you think because…,” “A more balanced take on this could be…,” etc. The company screens both the posts and rethinks before they become public, attempting to direct certain users to critical care and weed trolls out of the system. Originally, this was accomplished with human moderators, but increasingly, the company is turning to AI.
Accepting and offering rethinks is meant to help users get away from bad mental habits, cycles of negative thought that can perpetuate their anxiety and depression. Over the next few months, Zelig found herself offering rethinks of other Koko users almost every day. “Having it in your pocket is really good. All of sudden it would hit me what I needed say in the reframe, so I would pull my car over, or stand in the produce aisle.”
In the process of giving advice Zelig felt, almost immediately, a sense of relief and control. She began to recognize her own dark moods as variations on the problems she was helping others with. Zelig says the peculiar power of Koko is that by helping others, users are able to help themselves.
Urban theorists and tech accelerators are asking what cities would look like if people built new ones from the ground up with innovation and the internet at their core, but can we treat cities the way we treat startups and technology?
Michael Hobbes | Longreads | February 2017 | 10 minutes (2,600 words)
“Wait, so your ex called your boss and tried to get you fired?”
This is me.
“Genau.”
This is Andy. We are on a break from German class, 15 minutes between the future tense and the subjunctive. He’s from Baton Rouge and I’m from Seattle, but we’re speaking German, for practice. We are not very good.
“Er ist ein … Fucker,” Andy says. “He told my boss I was reading ebooks at my desk instead of working—which I totally was.”
“So, did you get fired?” I ask.
“No, my boss already knew I was a super shitty employee. But then I called up my ex’s boss and got him fired.” Andy’s former boyfriend is in Amsterdam; he’s a mechanic. A few months ago he told a customer that her car was totaled, bought it off her for a few hundred euros, then sold it the next week for two thousand.
“Es ist nicht so gut,” I say, my German failing, as always, to reach the correct level of emphasis. We are both going through breakups. It’s been a week since mine and six since his. This is what we talk about every day, 15 minutes at a time.
Two weeks ago, Andy’s ex visited him here in Berlin. They had dinner, then sex, then Andy asked him to leave, told him he shouldn’t sleep over now that they’re not boyfriends anymore. Three days later, the cops called. His ex is filing charges for attempted murder. He says putting him out on the street in middle of the night in February is an act of violence. Andy has to be in court next week.
With rising costs and competition from food startups, the trendy, farm-to-table style of sit-down restaurant might be facing extinction sooner than we think.
When I woke up on January 1st of 2012, I resolved not to drown. At 24 years old, I still lacked a crucial survival skill that most American children pick up before finishing elementary school.
It wasn’t for lack of opportunities. As a toddler my parents enrolled me in classes at a local YMCA; while I did develop an electromagnetic poolside grip, I did not successfully learn to swim. Later, I took a few lessons at a neighbor’s pool until those ended abruptly following rumors that another neighbor was threatening to alert the authorities to the unlicensed swimming business. In high school, during a harrowing water-treading test, my gym teacher hovered nervously over me as I flailed my gangly limbs to keep my face just above the water’s surface, and when I looked up I saw in his eyes my own terror reflected back. Knowing that he wouldn’t want to be responsible for a kid drowning in his gym class, I was certain he’d happily let me switch to the more terrestrial bowling/tennis/golf PE track that term. After high school I went to a college that had a somewhat absurd but rather practical requirement that in order to graduate, you had to be able to swim two pool lengths. I passed by back-floating across; no one seemed to mind that it took me nearly a half hour to “swim” a total of 50 yards.
Being in the water terrified me, evoking the kind of primal fear that our ancestors learned, generally, to heed. But I rarely told anyone; I was too embarrassed to admit I couldn’t swim. Attending an outdoorsy college with more riverside ropes to swing on and cliffs to jump off than I cared for meant that I often found myself in the water hoping and praying that I could thrash my way to some semblance of dry land before swallowing too much water–or before a fate worse than death to my idiotic college-addled brain: to have to be saved from drowning by a peer.
So on New Year’s Day that year, I promised myself one final chance to figure the damn thing out before resigning myself to a lifetime in fear of three quarters of the Earth’s surface. Read more…
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