Talking Points Memo in 2009 and Beyond: “January will usher in a new Democratic ascendancy in Washington. And here at TPM we believe we are uniquely qualified to chronicle it. So to that end we are hiring two new reporter-bloggers to be based in Washington, DC, one assigned to the White House and one assigned to Capitol Hill. We plan to be there on the ground and and here in New York, covering it in force, fully, critically and down to the minute.
“The big dailies have dozens of reporters on this story. And the VC-backed Internet outlets have not many fewer than that. So we’re not going to — and it’s never been our plan — to compete on numbers. But we do have you — an audience that is more engaged than that of any other publication covering what we cover. That’s not only important in the sense of the general support you’ve given us over the years that has allowed us to grow to this point. You’re also a critical part of our reporting model, our big leg up on everyone else.”
Blueprinting the Information Valet Economy. Interesting event coming up Dec. 3-5 in Columbia, Mo. “A senior-level strategy session designed to blueprint the law, ownership, management, marketing and technology of a shared-user network for user-centric demographics, privacy-protected purchasing and advertising exchange and compensation. Come help make the market for digital information.”
Google Flu Trends: “Can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena? We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. During the 2007-2008 flu season, an early version of Google Flu Trends was used to share results each week with the CDC. Across each of the nine surveillance regions of the US, we were able to accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports.”
