The other day I got an email from a dear friend (but infrequent emailer) asking if I had come across “Slightly Foxed”. Wondering whether he was having a midlife crisis and had joined a secret society I had to admit I’d not.

A few days later the most beautifully produced, confidently-designed book arrived at home: Matthew had generously got me a subscription 🙂

If you think Granta meets Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent then you’ll get an idea of quirkiness and personality meeting intelligent analysis and literature.

It’s very much a miscellany though – just the thing to read through, ignoring any initial distaste for a topic, since even the most unpromising seem to flower into an interesting read. Ideal to expand and stimulate interests (for example I now have to read On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, following a great article called “Blame it on Matron”… You get the picture! Well, you will if you get a copy of Issue 9 from their backissues page:

Slightly Foxed

Overall, a really great recommendation which I’m very happy to pass on. Check it out! I was so pleased I sent the Publisher some fan mail 🙂

nowEurope: About

Interesting reflection from Steve Carlson about the 10 years of the NowEurope.com site-from-mailing list.

Steve started the list as a way of maintaining a ‘conversation’ with people he’d met at a conference Esther Dyson had organised. The list grew to some 4000 people, interested in “doing business online in Europe”.

Steve notes:

It may seem unlikely, but in 1995 it was still fairly controversial to talk about using the Internet for business. Few people were willing to use their credit cards online. We spent a lot of time sharing our experiences about what business models were working, and what directions looked promising.

In those early days, one role I played with nowEurope was introducing people to one another. In late 1999 I invited my readers to meet me on a business trip to London (I live in Budapest, Hungary). Fifty people expressed interest. Ivan Pope stepped up to organize the venue. I did the same thing in several other cities.

The focus is now upon Central/Eastern Europe since the feeling of ‘newness’ and the rush to growth there is greater (and having spoken last year in Prague I experienced the dynamism and bear-like embrace of the new economy by businesses there.

While the site is now more of a group blog/publishing exercise than a mailing list, it’s an interesting example of how the format of communication and expertise can change over time while remaining true to the founding purpose.

Wonder how it’ll be 10 years from now?

I rather like The Guardian’s new format (between the tabloid and broadsheet sizes: “berliner”, apparently). Good use of colour, clear type, size is fine. However it seems to lack “density” – a whole pile of stuff on the front page. Is it me, or does it look like (ahem) a blog? The main bit, right nav (linking to sections within, with a leading quote), and a ‘bot bar’ (category headlings along the bottom)?? [see Typepad‘s “2 columns right” suggestion…]

The Guardian is famous in its use and support of blogs, contributions and a ‘living’ online version, but this adoption of a weblike interface makes it like no other.

You can see the design here on their site.

Vin Crosbie also likes the design and you can see his comments here:
Digital Deliverance Archive: The New Guardian: Intelligent Design in Newspaper

The only other UK paper that approaches the ‘Grauniad’ (so-called in tribute to the infamous speeling erosr that used to plague the paper – before spellchecking?) is the Independent, but their design is more “picture banner at the top and look how much space we’re boldly giving the main story”. The could take a leaf from the Graun and make their comments on the design at least readable without a subscription… Pay for content? Moi?

The Friday Project :: Launch Announcement

The people behind The Friday Thing and ‘London by London’ (editorially-managed email newsletters) have racked up the PR by turning themselves into ‘a publishing company’.

The founders of the company are fortunate to have a) two titles which are book-ready; b) topics which lend themselves to the coffee-table/whimsy market and c) journalistic and commissioning experience – ie turning ideas into commissioning briefs for publications and/or pitching column concepts to editors.

Whether there’s a massive movement to create books from web concepts remains to be seen. There’ll certainly be enough to keep a publishing company busy for as long as it maintains a sense of whimsy and fun. From a web perspective, the myriad whimsical sites, personalities and one-line-jokes represent a real mother-lode for the A&R people in publishing… Maybe people should look carefully at their copyright statements on their blogs and mailing lists 😉