Death-Row Pen Pals
Deidre Depke, a New York writer, is a former assistant managing editor of Newsweek.
A Texas inmate, executed Wednesday, sought companionship via the Internet before his death. Inside the death-row pen-pal business-and how felons bid for friends.
Can Yahoo Save the News?
Larry Kramer is senior adviser at Polaris Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm. He served as the first president of CBS Digital Media. Prior to joining CBS, Kramer was chairman, CEO, and founder of MarketWatch Inc. Kramer spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Post, and the Times of Trenton.
As newspapers continue to struggle, traditional news-aggregation sites like AOL and Yahoo are planning to produce more original content. Are they the future of journalism?
Microsoft's Prison Yard Conquest
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.
Today's Microsoft-Yahoo partnership is a necessary declaration of war on Google. But while both sides needed Micro-Hoo, writes Douglas Rushkoff, it's Bill Gates flashing the victory sign.
Web Site Flashbacks
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Remember when Google.com had an exclamation point and WhiteHouse.gov was barely functional? Yahoo's new design got us looking back. View our gallery of our favorite retro homepages.
China’s War on Google
Maura Moynihan is the founding director of Friends of Moynihan Station. She lives in New York City.
In the wake of an Iranian uprising broadcast to the world through YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, the acquiescence of American search engines to Chinese censorship laws feels more dangerous than ever.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Jeffrey Koterba is an acclaimed syndicated political cartoonist. Since joining the Omaha World-Herald in 1989, he has been a finalist for Editorial Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society and has placed second in the National Headliner Awards. His work is distributed through King Features Syndicate to 400 newspapers nationwide, and has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post, among others.
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