boston.com

Alternate-history week at boston.com

adamg — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:11:20 +0000

Some lucky visitors to the Globe's breaking-news blog have been enjoying a what-if ad for at least the past couple of days. Hey, at least we still have T.C., right?

Today's least likely to actually be true boston.com headline

adamg — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:33:42 +0000

Eagle-eyed Ron Newman, who actually scrolls all the way down the boston.com homepage, noticed this link today, perhaps written by somebody with even less of a grasp on actual Boston geography than I have.

And now, not a word from our sponsor

adamg — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 20:46:09 +0000

Boston.com announces it's gotten rid of all its pop-under ads.

Wicked frickin' pissa, eh?

adamg — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:48:33 +0000

Dan Kennedy reports the Globe has given up trying to moderate story comments on boston.com and is outsourcing the whole thing to some company in Winnipeg. No profanity allowed and stop making accusations about Carl Crawford; one wonders whether wise-guy Boston trolls will try to sneak any Boston-English variants past the Manitobans.

Cool, I can run Globe photos without getting permission now!

adamg — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:18:53 +0000

UPDATE: Heard back from a boston.com editor, who says the photo "slipped through the cracks" and that they'll take care of it.

At least, that's what I'm assuming after seeing one of my photos show up on the front page of the Globe's Back Bay Your Town site without anybody from the Globe asking for permission. I realize there's fair use and I always appreciate links from giant media organizations (and I certainly do my share of linking to Globe stuff), but really, running an entire photo at near original size without asking first? Seems a bit much. Especially since somebody might now think the photo is copyright 2010 New York Times Co., when it's not.

See the duck photo below? Yeah, there's a reason it looks familar:

Psst, guys, the Red Line goes to Harvard Square, not Harvard Ave.

adamg — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:53:00 +0000

Did they advertise the new Dorchester site with a photo of the Blue Line?

H/t to the tipster who sent this in.

Globe to go behind online paywall

adamg — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:47:52 +0000

Announces two tiers of online access: Stuff produced by Globe reporters at bostonglobe.com, which you'll have to pay to see, and something at the current boston.com that sounds like G online with a bit of breaking daily news that happened too late to get into the paper. Plus more exciting pop-up ads:

BostonGlobe.com, with the goal of creating a "lean-back experience" for readers, will have a simpler, newspaper-like design with less intrusive ads, he said.

boston.com loses editor to Washington

adamg — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:31:01 +0000

Dan Kennedy relays the news that boston.com's Dave Beard is leaving to help the National Journal crush Politico.

boston.com launches barrage of Boston neighborhood sites

adamg — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:31:33 +0000

Although they're still called "Your Town:"

Globe disables entire online business directory until it can figure out how to block escort ads

adamg — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:59:53 +0000

The Globe reports on itself, quotes a statement from a Globe spokesman that boston.com has turned off a business directory until it can discover how the escort ads highlighted by local blogger Dave Copeland (note to boston.com readers: here's the link you won't find there) got into its system.

Copeland himself praises the Globe for acting quickly, but adds the real point is that pressure on Craigslist to shut down its ads isn't going to stop losers like Markoff:

Let's face it - the Craigslist Killer has a nice ring to it, but he easily could have been the Google Adsense Killer, The Boston Phoenix Killer or the Erotic Review Killer. And, most likely he would have done what he did, one way or another: the guy was sick and needed money and these things happen with or without free speech.

Now that the Globe's chased escort ads off Craigslist, how do you find an escort in Boston?

adamg — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:12:54 +0000

Why, boston.com and its handy search engine.

UPDATE: Blogger gets results as boston.com turns off the escort ads.

Boston.com to finally launch local site in Boston

adamg — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 01:11:01 +0000

The Globe will launch a South Boston Your Town site on Sept. 9, Mike Wallace at boston.com tweets. This will be boston.com's first neighborhood site in Boston.

Will Patch have every Boston neighborhood covered before boston.com does even one Your Town site in its own city?

adamg — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:53:31 +0000

The AOL hypermicrominisuperlocal effort is opening up sites for Jamaica Plain and the South End.

Commenters on boston.com articles powered by Mountain Dew, dieuretics and bananas

adamg — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 21:22:43 +0000

Somehow, that all makes sense. The Globe talks to some of the people who post replies to its articles, although not the hard-core trollers who blame Obama for car crashes on Gallivan Boulevard. For some reason, they didn't want to be quoted for the record.

The cesspoolization of online commenting has gotten so bad, the Globe reports, "even the Chinese government has had enough."

AOL goes where boston.com fears to tread

adamg — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:50:09 +0000

AOL's Patch hyperlocal network is advertising jobs for editors of new sites in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Charlestown and the South End, as well as all of Boston, according to postings on the AOL corporate site.

The incursion is a full scale attack on, well, almost nobody, since boston.com has yet to set up a single Your Town hyperlocal site in the city it's named for. The South End News does have a longstanding site, unlike the Back Bay Courant, which doesn't get this InterWebs thing.

In addition to these jobs, Patch is also advertising for editors in the sort of suburban towns now the domain of GateHouse Media's Wicked Local sites. And it's advertising for a Boston-specific ad director.

Lost Remote takes a look at Patch's massive expansion in metro areas across the country.

NOTE: AOL uses some furshlugginer token system to keep you from bookmarking specific job postings. If you want to see where Patch is hiring locally, go to the AOL careers page, click on Search Openings, then select Patch as the brand and United States - Massachusetts - Boston as the location.