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National Office of Importance

24 September 2012

Keeping up with the fake but vintage blog trend blogs like Fake Science popularized a couple of years ago here’s a new discovery from the rainy lands of Britain… not entirely sure about the role of this brand new national office but we’re pretty sure that like the Audit or the Statistical one … it has good and bad employees.

Tonight and every night
Tonight and every night (image via NOoI)

The National Office of Importance is all about crucial facts for British citizens that should Keep In Mind for improving their living standards… An office that unfortunately closed back in 2003 while Blair was still in command but its archives have now been made public…

Think before you...
Think before you… (image via NOoI)

An office that carried out its statutory public duty “to inform, insist and admonish” on behalf of the British Government. Seen by some as a necessary conduit, and derided by others (notably the formidable editor of The Times, Auberondley Handelsman, who memorably dubbed it “a zoo of nannybodies, nincomboobs, whows, bingo-morts, gundiguts, mopsies and trotterclouts given inexplicable charge of a printing press”) many of its campaigns and much of its publicity material has now become as fondly-remembered a part of the cultural landscape as coddled eggs and transistorised wainscotting.

Only 5 magnificent recommendations from the NOI, hopefully more will come… more this way.

Dreams
Dreams  (image via NOoI)
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Portals

17 January 2012

Two months ago when knowing Altered Zones was no-more we panicked. Where are we going to get our amazing news from besides label newsletters, pr agencies and artists themselves? AZ and it’s great galaxy of indie music blogs (gorillavsbear, internationaltapes, yourstruly….) was considered by many the best agglomeration of quality music discovery. 15 sites, each with its very own identity and even radically different music styles, but a great exercise of rootless music coverage.

We know AZ is not entirely dead, at least 2 of its editors: editors Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander will continue this mission by opening adhoc.fm later on this year. But they’re facing some competition in the indie-blog associative movement: Portals.

 If AZ was 15, Portals will be 16 (we’re big fans of Pasta Primavera ourselves!). If AZ was an international collective, Portals will be a “transcontinental intersection”… but does bigger mean better?

Besides the international coverage of the DIY movement in all its forms Portals aims to “change the way music is discussed online”, it will also include a traveling showcase that will begin in the USA initially and a monthly mixtape where each blogger provides an exclusive track from one of their favorite artists. Here goes the first one…

Let’s see where this collaborative futuristic adventure takes us to, we shall embrace it without complaints.

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The Verge

4 November 2011

The Engadgetians got independent! That’s how most on-line publications have described the launching of flashy site “The Verge“, our new technology, gadget and nerdiness temple. And we salute Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel and many other ex-Engadget columnists with admiration and devotion, will we ever look back to Engadget?

The Verge team
The Verge team

Despite the relationships and exclusivities AOL’s Engadget team may keep enjoying over the coming months with manufacturers they’re surely already suffering from a tech-headache since Thisismynext was launched a few months ago.

After a lot of buzz and a close partnership (and funding) with Vox (who aren’t new to on-line media) The Verge went live last Tuesday with a design, look&feel that many people @ AOL may envy for their own blogs. As Josh pointed in a recent intervew… “To me, design is super-important”, and you can certainly feel that on their new adventure.

An exercise of portal design into the future leaving behind the traditional blog layout although guess who’s behind it? Exactly the same people that won a webby award for Engadget’s redesign when AOL came in… Code & Theory.

Many similarities with their previous employer’s blog although the new team have been working hard on bringing some differentiating features so us, gadget lovers (who don’t like to name them “sexy”) stick with them and click on their Samsung or BMW ads rather than those of Engadget. Features like a forum, a product database (sort of absorbing Gdgt idea?), in depth interviews & analysis (some of them look more like research papers than mere blog posts).

(the urgently need to improve the quality of their video reviews…)

We’re going to have a dilemma from now on when choosing our daily tech-news bible, Engadget has become this sort of messy blog with alts, mobiles and hds sub-blogs that certainly don’t help when scanning for our preferred news, Gizmodo…. is more of a pop -tech site than a serious publication (although Engadget never was serious was it?), and now The Verge with this sort of grid news layout… the visitors & advertising partners’ battle is served!

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