Whenever I buy electronics, outdoors gear, or kitchen equipment, I do a ton of research. I want to ensure that I am buying the best that I can afford. It’s easy to spend hours on this stuff if you’re not careful. While that can be a form of entertainment for some people, it’s a lot of time to spend on something that might only cost a few hundred bucks. What if you had someone to read all of the reviews and even test the products for you? That’s what The Wirecutter does. It’s “a list of the best electronics and gadgetry, each pick chosen mindfully and in accordance with many hours of research, interviews with the world’s most knowledgeable experts and testing, all backing up smart opinion.” While lots of other sites are constantly churning out new content to get more eyeballs, The Wirecutter just wants to give you all of the facts that you need to make the best purchasing decision.
Internships in Journalism
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Health is all about information. There was a time when we didn’t know how unhealthy smoking was. Now we do. Many people will live longer, healthier lives because of this knowledge. Any tool that can help both doctors and patients make more informed decisions is immensely valuable. Healthline is a San Francisco, CA based company that has built “the largest, most clinically accurate classification of health information available on the web.” They offer this resource both to consumers in the form of Healthline.com and to brands in a variety of solutions.
If you’ve watched as much Seinfeld as I have, you’re familiar with Lloyd Braun. He’s the guy who George Costanza’s mother wants George to be more like. Anyway, the real Lloyd Braun was Larry David’s lawyer and manager. I’m not sure how similar he is to the tv character, but let’s hope it’s not very. Anyway, the real Lloyd Braun moved away from the legal side and started a company called BermanBraun. The company recently rebranded as Whalerock Industries, but it’s still “a media company for the 21st century, one where the best and brightest minds come together to create world-class content, spanning all mediums and screens.” They’re based in Santa Monica, CA, and they’re behind some brand that you may be familiar with–for instance they’re managing Moviefone for AOL.
A few days ago we looked at a company called Groundspeak that uses GPS data to “to make everyone an explorer and to put an adventure in every location.” There are lots of other ways to use location data, and an obvious one is advertising. It used to be that you knew an ad would target a specific locale because it was on a billboard or a local radio station. Today it’s possible to advertise to people all over the planet with a few mouse clicks, but what if you want use where they are to your advantage? xAd is a New York, NY based company that allows advertisers to pinpoint “target audiences at pivotal moments during the consumer’s decision-making journey.” It’s a kind of targeting that seems to get far less attention than it should.
I try to avoid going to the doctor at all costs. While I’m not one of those people who constantly self-diagnoses via WebMD, I do try to use the Internet to inform my decision on whether an office visit is necessary (it usually isn’t). Most younger people are like me, they turn to the web first when they have a health issue. Patient Conversation Media is a company that aims to be found when people make those initial searches. They are based in Austin, TX, and they publish “doctor-reviewed health-related content online for consumers” and use that influx of traffic to connect “patients to [their] network of physicians and other health care providers.” Patient Conversation Media came it at #22 on the Inc. 5000 with 8,782% three-year growth to $9.8 million in annual revenue.
The last time that I picked up a hard copy newspaper was because I was in it. I consume almost all of my news online, and I don’t even have much loyalty to a particular source. I guess it’s people like me who have ruined the news business, but I’m not going to change. The news businesses that adapt and innovate are the ones that have the best shot of being around in a decade. Digital First Media might be one of them. They are a New York, NY based group of companies that has more than “800 multi-platform products” that reach “61 million Americans each month across 18 states.” They’re still all about the news, but they realize that an outlet can only continue to put out quality content when it is backed by a solid business.
One of my favorite tools for company research is CrunchBase. While it isn’t typically all that detailed, it’s a great way to get a quick overview of many privately held companies–especially startups. Just the information on investment rounds is insanely valuable to me, but it’s far more valuable to entrepreneurs seeking capital and venture investors. They need to know what’s going on in their industry, and CrunchBase doesn’t go deep enough. There’s a site called ChubbyBrain that tried to build a similar, but deeper database, but it doesn’t seem to have worked out. However, that team is now behind a company called CB Insights, which is based in New York, NY and “helps you track the world’s most promising private companies, their investors, their acquirers and the industries they compete in.”
Yesterday was a big news day with the State of the Union address and the culmination of the Dormer drama. For online news outlets that means pageviews, and pageviews equal revenue. Unfortunately for journalists, they aren’t supposed to create the news (except through investigative journalism), but they’re still pushed to drive more ad revenue without jumping the “Chinese wall” between advertising and editorial. To do that, you need to know what readers are most likely to respond to. Visual Revenue is a New York, NY based company that helps editorial teams figure out what that is and react to it in real time. They do this through a “predictive analytics platform that makes human editors the most powerful force in today’s data-driven newsrooms.”
While the Holiday Season is a time that many of us offer help to the less fortunate, it’s usually in the form of gifts or donations. This kind of help is great, but it’s typically temporary. Homelessness and poverty are both societal and individual problems, so bringing about real change is going to take a lot more than a few weeks of giving. Real Change is a Seattle, WA based non-profit that “exists to provide opportunity and a voice for low-income and homeless people while taking action for economic justice.” By focusing on helping the individuals while at the same time pushing for societal change, Real Change is able to make a meaningful difference.
There are some websites that I never intentionally visit, but I always end up visiting anyway. Links to their articles just pop up all over the place–Facebook, Twitter, Google, and even e-mails from friends. Business Insider is one of those sites. I’m not typically a huge fan of their content (maybe because they published an “article” that was derived completely from comments on our post about Bridgewater Associates), but they’re certainly prolific. They cover a wide range of verticals, which makes them a good source for students who want to stay current on news and events in a particular industry. Business Insider is based in New York, NY and was founded in 2007, and since then they’ve been able to drive a ton of traffic. That traffic has helped put Business Insider at #354 on the Inc. 500 with 1,055% three-year growth and $7.7 million in revenue.
When you hear the word media, you usually think about exciting markets like sports, entertainment, and technology, but there are media businesses in nearly every niche that you can imagine. Business-to-business isn’t something that most college students and recent grads think about, but it’s an area with a ton of opportunity. 1105 Media is a company that “provides integrated business-to-business information and media” with a “focus on technology, products, policy, regulation, and news delivered through an assortment of media including print and online magazines, journals, and newsletters; seminars, conferences, executive summits, and trade shows; training and courseware; and web-based services.” It’s not the kind of content that you consume in your free time, but there are people who do, and they’re extremely valuable to reach. That’s why Chatsworth, CA based 1105 Media has a business that seems to be growing.
Sometimes a company knows that they’re on to something, but they can’t quite get it right at first. They have an idea, they build some technology, they hire some people, but the business doesn’t come together. That seems to have been the story with NewsCred for their first two iterations. Now it sounds like the New York, NY based company may have it figured out. After scrapping publisher ranking and a custom online newspaper engine, they’ve moved on to “sourcing and licensing trusted content across a broad range of subjects and perspectives.” Generating quality content is extremely hard. NewsCred allows the brands who need it to get it from the publishers who are experts at creating it.
This weekend I spent an equal amount of time watching sports on tv and playing sports outside. That didn’t leave a lot of time to read about sports online, but I’ll guarantee you that a lot of sports sites saw a ton of traffic this weekend (and will continue to see it over the next few weeks). One of those sites is SB Nation, which is a site that is focused on “reinventing the media model with profitable, high-quality, innovative coverage from passionate, talented creators.” SB Nation used to be a company on its own, but it’s been so successful that a larger company called Vox Media has been built around it. They’re based in Washington, DC, and they also run The Verge, a technology news site, and will be launching a gaming focused site soon. Word is that they just closed a big round of funding, and the expectation is that they’ll use the cash to build out into more verticals.
The next car I get will definitely have some sort of iPhone integration. Right now I still rely on one of those tape to AUX thingies, which means that I usually just listen to the radio. I couldn’t find any good stats on the topic, but I have to think that listeners in cars are what’s keeping radio going. But according to Entercom, radio is still going strong. You would expect them to say that though, considering that they’re “one of the five largest radio broadcasting companies in the United States.” Entercom is headquartered in Bala Cynwyd, PA, but they operate more than “100 stations in 23 markets, including San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Portland, Sacramento and Kansas City.”
We’re finally getting our first snow storm of the winter here in Chicago. I’m not traveling anywhere, I don’t have a commute, and I know well enough not to drive on Lakeshore Drive today (this is what happened last year), so I’m excited and watching the weather hoping for a lot of accumulation (even though there are no sledding hills nearby). I don’t have a favorite weather site, so I keep my eyes on a number of them including Accuweather. I guess it’s a bit of an understatement to call Accuweather a site–they’ve been around since 1962 and they call themselves “the World’s Weather Authority.” They’re based in State College, PA (with an office in New York, NY) where they’re stockpiling meteorologists there (the most in any location in the world). They need these weather guys and girls because they provide “products and services to more than 175,000 paying customers in media, business, government and institutions.”
I have a simple investment strategy: Buy AAPL. I’ve had a few other winners, but Apple is the reason that my portfolio is up over the past 5 years. I’m not much of a trader, so I typically buy a stock and hold it indefinitely. If I took a different approach to investing, I might want to spend time on Benzinga. It’s “an innovative news and analysis service that focuses on global markets” and is intended for developing “actionable trading ideas.” Benzinga has offices in Chicago, IL and Dover, DE, but it’s very clear from their Careers page that everything important happens in the Southfield, MI office… very clear. There’s something about Benzinga’s site that reminds me of a social gaming site, which I guess is appropriate since stock trading is the ultimate social game.
On Saturday I’m heading to Aruba for two weeks! (Don’t worry, you’ll still get your daily e-mails–even on Christmas Day.) I booked well in advance, so I got a decent fare, but it’s still about four times more expensive than traveling at a different time of year. If you want to travel during the holidays, you’re probably going to have to pay through the nose. Still, it’s worth looking for a deal, and there’s no better place to do that than Travelzoo. They’re a New York, NY based company (with 23 other offices all across the world) that has perfected the art of the travel deal. They don’t just go out and find low rates–they actually “research, evaluate, and test thousands of deals to find those with true value.” Although it’s not exactly the same, they kind of do for travel deals what I do for jobs: curate. Though they have 250 experts working on it, which is 249 more than we have.
Now that I’ve lived in Chicago for three years, I’m starting to feel more like a part of the Chicago business community. And a big piece of being a part of a community is keeping up on your local news. I rely a lot of sources, but I’ve found that Crain’s Chicago Business consistently does great reporting on the Chicago business scene. Crain’s Chicago Business is published by Crain Communications, which is “one of the largest privately owned business publishers in the U.S., with more than 27 leading business, trade and consumer publications and related websites in North America, Europe and Asia.” Crain is headquartered in Detroit, MI, but their publications are headquartered in a variety of places. Crain was founded in 1916 by GD Crain Jr., and it remains a family owned business to this day despite a few bumps in the road that would be expected for any company in the publishing industry (like layoffs a couple of years ago).
I’m a complete Apple fanboy. I have been since since I first touched an Apple IIe in 1990. Today is the keynote of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, so I’m all sorts of excited. I’ve come to accept that they almost certainly won’t be announcing the iPhone 5 today, but I’m still pumped to hear about all of the software stuff that they’ve been working on. This means that I’ve been anxiously (and irrationally) reading all of the major online tech sites so that I can uselessly speculate about what kind of cool things my phone will be able to do after the next software update. A lot of interesting businesses have been built in the tech news space, which is why we’ve already profiled companies like Engadget, Gawker (Gizmodo), TechCrunch, and gdgt. Today we’re going to look at GigaOm, a San Francisco, CA based company that does the whole tech news thing, but also has a research arm that is growing extremely quickly.
I’m offering up a prize for the first person to find a college aged subscriber to Reader’s Digest. Ok, there’s no prize (unless you want a One Day, One Job sticker–I don’t even have One Day, One Internship ones made yet), but does anyone actually know a Reader’s Digest subscriber under the age of 60? The magazine was tops in circulation for its category for a long time up until 2009, but now demographics are working against them. At least they still can claim “more readers with household incomes of $100,000+ than Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Inc. combined.” That means that they have some serious advertising power. Reader’s Digest is just one of the publications owned and operated by New York, NY based Reader’s Digest Association, which is “a global multi-brand media and marketing company that educates, entertains and connects audiences around the world.” They also have AllRecipes, Every Day with Rachel Ray, The Family Handyman, and quite a few other brands.