Researchers measured popular websites. “Web pages that hadn’t existed when the year began accounted for just under half of the winners – displacing an equal number of older, more established pages in the process. That proportion held even when the bar for success was raised, suggesting there is a general tendency for young websites to out-compete established websites half the time.”
Tag: 09.11.08
Art Basel to Stay in Miami Beach Through 2011
Contemporary art’s equivalent to Cannes, which had insisted on year-to-year contracts with the city since it came to Florida in 2002, has agreed to a three-year contract “under a hard-fought deal with the city that gives the show’s owner a financial stake in the Miami Beach Convention Center.”
Anti-Terrorism Anthem Becomes Phenomenon in Pakistan
“Ye Hum Naheen” (“This is Not Us”), a protest song recorded by eight Pakistani pop stars, has given rise to a petition, signed by more than 60 million people, denouncing terrorism as un-Islamic.
Billboard Top 100 of Past 50 Years Has Surprise Leader
Surely the best-selling No. 1 song of the past half-century was by Elvis or The Beatles? Well, no – The King isn’t even in the Top 10, and (in a testimony to the nation’s taste) “Hey, Jude” comes in behind “You Light Up My Life” and “Macarena.” Twisting to the top of the chart of charts is Chubby Checker.
A Bookselling Strategy – Giving Them Away?
“John Warner, chief creative tsar of struggling independent publisher TOW Books, is so sick of sending his books out to newspapers and magazines and television shows for review, and hearing nothing back, that he’s decided to give up on the media and send books directly to his readers.”
Jed Perl On The Met Museum’s New Director
“This choice is fresh, daring, and unconventional. Under Philippe de Montebello’s directorship–he retires at the end of the year–the magnificent stone pile on Fifth Avenue has become the most exciting museum in the world. And I feel fairly sure that the selection of Campbell is going to be remembered as the last miraculous act of the de Montebello years.”
Study: London Theatres Are Big Polluters
London’s theatre industry pumps 50,000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year – equivalent to 10% of the city’s total bus emissions or the annual energy consumption of 9,000 homes.
How Classical Music Concerts Became What They Are Today
Classical music concerts weren’t always presented in the format they now are. “The problem isn’t that the modern way of giving concerts has grown hopelessly decrepit, as some say; it’s that music has for too long been restricted to a single, almost universally duplicated format.”
Japanese Museums Told Their Chagalls Are Fakes
The Marc Chagall Committee, a Paris-based group authorized to authenticate work by the Franco-Russian artist, has told the Bunkamura Museum of Art in Tokyo that the paintings attributed to Chagall in a recent exhibition are fakes.
Libraries Are Making A Comeback?
“Reading rates are down and Americans say they love casual living. And yet, one of the most popular rooms in big new houses is a library. Rather than being about books, their appeal is often about creating a certain ambiance. In the latest annual National Association of Home Builders consumer survey, 63% of home buyers said they wanted a library or considered one essential.”