Friday Five: Broken Hand Edition

After suffering through lingering pain in my right hand for nearly two weeks, I finally sucked it up and went to the hospital. A few x-rays later, broken fifth metacarpal confirmed. I now have a snazzy purple cast. Typing is difficult, and yet I soldier on. You're welcome.  :)

Now, onto the links!

1. Joshua Topolsky, co-founder of The Verge, writes about why media business fail... and how they can succeed. 

Your problem is that you make shit. A lot of shit. Cheap shit. And no one cares about you or your cheap shit. And an increasingly aware, connected, and mutable audience is onto your cheap shit. They don’t want your cheap shit. They want the good shit. And they will go to find it somewhere.

2. Kristen Taylor, former community editor for Serial podcast, writes about her strategies in engaging the community during Season 2.

What you’re always looking for with an audience are their universals — what connects them to each other, what unites them. Understanding why they are listening, or what they are listening for, is a good way to research their universals (I’d say their ‘globals’ like in programming, but fandoms work in universes).

3. Slate's Will Oremus on Facebook's transformation from social network to personalized portal.

The company has reinvented itself in two distinct ways. First, Facebook as a platform has been quietly evolving into something different than a social network—something less personal, but no less useful. Second, Facebook as a company has been furiously hedging its bets on the future of technology and social media, to the point that it is no longer properly described as merely a social network—no more than Alphabet (né Google) is properly described as a search website.

4. Gawker's Hamilton Nolen on the brutal struggles of adjunct professors.

Higher education is an industry with a two-tier employment system: the full time and tenured professors and the administrators with well-compensated, stable jobs, and the adjunct professors who have no guarantee of job stability and pay near poverty levels.

5. Jason Boucher on using Snapchat Geofilters at University of New Hampshire.

Still not sure what a geo-filter is exactly? Think of it as a digital sticker or a badge you can add to each snap you take with most only available is specific geolocations. It's also a form of marketing based on your locale or region where segmented audiences can be reached. Snapchat users are able to share your logo or event info without having any contact or interference from the sponsor.

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Still reeling from Prince's untimely death, but as the proud owner of something like 30 of his CDs and records, I sure have been listening to some great music this past week and reminded of why I have long considered him my favorite artist.

He wrote this song when he was 21, he played every instrument on it, and it's better than anything I'll ever do in my life. Sigh...