Ben Huh’s Circa news service hires Reuters social media guru as editor-in-chief

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Circa, the mobile app hoping to redefine news presentation, today announced that it has hired Reuters social media editor Anthony de Rosa as its editor-in-chief. The seven-month-old company, which was co-founded by Seattle-based Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh, said that de Rosa will start work next month. The social media guru has spent the last… Read More…

The opportunity to redefine the feed reader experience

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I’ve used Google Reader almost everyday since 2008. I’m bummed it’s going away. And, clearly, I’m not alone. Millions of people are using Google Reader — evidence that there is still demand for a great utility to consume content in one location. It may not make sense for Google, but clearly there is a real… Read More…

Valve founder Gabe Newell on Linux; geeky maps; and other top posts of the month

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Well, GeekWire readers really must have a burning desire to study cartography. Maps were the hot topic on GeekWire during the month of February, from a rendering of the streets of Seattle post Zombie apocalypse to the tech startups in Pioneer Square to what Tweets have to say about Seattle neighborhoods. Those were three of… Read More…

City of Seattle releases mobile site and wants your feedback

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The City of Seattle is making it easier for on-the-go citizens to check snow plow maps and see the latest news from the Mayor with a new mobile website optimized for smartphones.  Here are some of the features of the mobile-optimized site: Crime activity displayed by region Power outage maps Traffic & road conditions information with… Read More…

Amazon.com vets launch news service Goldfinch, hoping to fill Summify void

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I was a huge fan of the news aggregation service Summify, and was bummed when the Vancouver, B.C. was shut down this past summer after being sold to Twitter. But now two former senior technologists who helped build the product recommendation engines at Amazon.com — Bob Cottrell and Andrej Gregov — are hoping to fill the… Read More…

Leaning left or right? This browser plugin looks to bring balance to political news

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It’s an election year, which means a lot of mud is being slung in various media outlets. Oftentimes, it’s hard to find the truth among all of the clutter. But a new online tool could help identify biases in news reporting, pointing consumers of news to other viewpoints, especially when they’ve been fed too many… Read More…

Audiosocket inks deal to provide indie music to Associated Press subscribers

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Editors and Web producers who subscribe to the Associated Press will now be able to add original music clips to their content through a partnership announced today with Audiosocket. “There is wide demand in online publishing for music to accompany photos and videos and many customers don’t know where to find, choose and license music… Read More…

Report: Some msnbc.com staff to move off Microsoft’s campus once split occurs

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It’s no secret that NBCUniversal is in serious talks to buy out Microsoft’s remaning stake in the online news venture msnbc.com. All indications point to a deal happening, with some speculation that an announcement is just days away. If the deal goes through, we’ve wondered what will happen to the msnbc.com staffers who’ve worked on… Read More…

Many residents in state live in ‘rural information ghetto’

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Researchers at Washington State University have concluded that large segments of the state are marooned in what they call a “rural information ghetto,” stuck with a lack of news coverage exacerbated by poor Internet access, bad cellular coverage and dwindling local journalism. For example, the report notes that 3.8 percent of the state’s residents do not… Read More…

Evri spins out SportStream with $3.5M from Paul Allen

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Seattle startup Evri was founded in 2007, designed to help people make better sense of news and information. A lot has changed since then, especially given the rise of tablets and mobile computers. Now, the company is evolving, announcing today that it has spun off a new social sports startup called SportStream with $3.5 million from… Read More…

Newspapers take it on the chin as online ad revenue falls into the hands of a few tech giants

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Americans are spending more time consuming news, using devices such as smartphones and tablets to track events on the go. But even as news consumption rises, the traditional media companies that have produced the news aren’t necessarily benefitting. The 2012 State of the News Media report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that five… Read More…

Anatomy of a news story: How Bing and Google performed when Steve Jobs resigned

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A new study out today from Seattle-based Optify attempts to get behind the scenes on how Bing and Google operate when big news breaks. Obviously, that’s an interesting topic for news hounds like us. And the results of the study show just how differently the two major search engines operate when news breaks. Optify analyzed… Read More…

Seattle Times lights up Denny Way with city’s first digital news ticker

The city's first live news ticker lit up Monday morning along Denny Way. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)

Most of us look for news on our smartphones, tablets, computer screens or TVs. Heck, we might even pick up a good old-fashioned newspaper. But what about news from a building? Drive along Denny Way and you’ll see it — the 44-foot, 6,400 light-bulb ticker that displays news headlines from the west side corner of… Read More…

Evri apologizes after iPad app crashes for first-time users

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There’s certainly no shortage of competition when it comes to creating news reader applications for the iPad, from Flipboard to Pulse to Zite. That’s why execution for any would-be entrants needs to be near flawless. But Seattle startup Evri, which released a new version of its news reader app earlier this month for the iPad, hit… Read More…

Evri’s iPad app lets you create personalized news channels on just about anything

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Flipboard may be the big kahuna of news reader applications on the iPad, with more than 4.5 million users. But Evri CEO Will Hunsinger thinks his company’s iPad app — which divides news and information into some 2.5 million niche topic areas ranging from knitting to wine to personal finance — offers an intriguing alternative…. Read More…

Open source developer objects to news hackathon’s 11-page contract

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Seattle developer Jeff Reifman was looking forward to participating in this weekend’s Hacking Seattle News contest, a three-day hackathon sponsored by Seattle TV station KING 5 in which geeks, news junkies and designers look to transform the way people consume and distribute local news. But Reifman, a former Microsoft employee who operates the open source… Read More…

Why KING TV is hosting a hackathon, with a $10k prize

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Seattle’s KING-5 is doing something unusual later this month, or at least something unusual for a regional television station. It’s bringing together a bunch of developers, designers and news geeks for a weekend hackathon, Oct. 14-16 at Adobe in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. The event is called “Hacking Seattle News,” and the goal is to come… Read More…

Evri’s new iPad app looks to reinvent the news experience

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Applications like Flipboard and Pulse look to transform the way people consume news and information on the iPad. Now, Seattle startup Evri is jumping into the mix with a new iPad app that creates an automated news feed around more than 2.5 million topic areas. For example, say you like the Seattle Seahawks. Evri can… Read More…

Four ideas from news geeks that all geeks should know about

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Nowhere does the idea that news is doomed seem more absurd than at the Online News Association conference. About 1,200 journalists, thinkers and entrepreneurs are in Boston for this year’s digital journalism pow-wow, along with popular evangelists from Facebook, Twitter and other companies eager to secure a place in journalists’ ever-expanding, ever-influencing toolbox. Already, I’m… Read More…

Does Facebook’s new ‘subscribe’ button go too far?

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Here’s a surprise. Facebook is copying Twitter. Again. But this time, they might be going too far — for their own good. Today the company announced the imminent arrival of a button that will let users track public feeds from any Facebook user, even if that user is not a Facebook friend. The button will… Read More…