Brijit on The American Scene

Reihan Salam, whom I first met in the days just before Brijit launched to friends and family last summer, is going to make me blush. This wasn’t enough to keep me from sharing his post, of course. Any introductions you want to make would be much appreciated, Reihan. And thanks for the kinds words.

To the point that we should re-launch the site without the writer payment component, I think it’s safe to say that when (if?) Brijit comes through on the other side of this challenging time, I’d expect our editorial compensation structure to be, well, different. This jives with the vast majority of the feedback we’ve been receiving, from Brijiteers and others. Exactly what that looks like is still a work in progress.

I headed up 95 from DC this morning to attend the second day of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association’s annual Capital Connection event. Brijit wouldn’t be a good fit for most of the investors here even under the best circumstances. Nonetheless, there are a handful of potential investors and strategic partners that I’m hoping to see today.

Site’s Back Up, New Abstract Is Coming

Thanks to Brent Thorington for stepping up on Memorial Day and getting Brijit back up. And thanks to Hurricane Electric for being responsive, too.

I’ll write the abstract later this evening, but for now, check out the New York TImes’ obituary of Sydney Pollack, who died today at 73.

Brijit.com is Temporarily Down

A power outage at our co-location facility late last night caused the main Brijit site to go down. I’m aware of the problem, but without a team in place (with the technology expertise that comes with it), it may take a while longer for the site to come back up. Sorry about that, folks. I hope everyone has a meaningful Memorial Day.

Make That “the Award-Winning Brijit.com,” Please.

The good folks over at TheMorningNews.com has honored Brijit with a 2008 Editors’ Award for Online Excellence. Here’s the citation:

“Favorite Helping Hand When in Content Quicksand

A friend once pointed to a foot-tall stack of New Yorkers in his apartment and said he was a few months behind, but was determined to read every article. A praiseworthy effort, for sure, but not everyone has that kind of fortitude. For us, skimming the issue and reading only the articles that beckon is enough; and thanks to the now sadly defunct Brijit, we don’t even have to do that. This service presents a 100-word abstract (with a rating!) of every article from a bevy of magazines, helping you decide if the article is worth the time investment. Alternately, you could read only the abstracts, get dressed up, and remnick cocktail-party conversations all night long.”

This appears about two-thirds of the way down the page. Check out the full piece here.

Brijit on NYTimes.com

Since we launched last October, Brijit has received an overwhelmingly positive response in the media. Marci Alboher writes the Shifting Careers blog for the New York Times, and first mentioned Brijit not long after we launched. I spoke with her earlier this week. Apparently she came back after some time out of town, and told a colleague how useful she found Brijit as a tool for catching up with things she may have missed while she was gone. But alas…

Brijit is featured today in Marci’s blog; we’re currently the lead post on Shifting Careers. Thanks for sharing Brijit with your readers, Marci. Here’s the bit I was most jazzed about:

“The comments to this post are great reading — users of the site offer their suggestions on how to tweak Brijit’s business model and one of the site’s writers weighs in on why the site is appealing to contributors.”

That’s you, Brijit fans. Please don’t hesitate to comment on nytimes.com and tell the world how much you miss the 100-word version.

Positively Un-American?

So now luggage costs extra? Apparently, according to this depressing piece.Thanks to Brijiteer Brian Willett for this one.

Writer Payments Are On the Way

Checks went out yesterday afternoon; PayPal payments went out last evening. These payments cover everything Brijit published this month through May 15. Thanks again to all our Brijiteers.

Cable Killer?

Decide for yourself, here. Thanks to new Brijiteer Greg DeSantis for allowing me to publish his abstract fee-free.

New on Brijit — Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?

Another Brijiteer steps up! Thanks to Chris Lugardo for letting me publish his fee-free abstract of “Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?” by Thomas Powers in the New York Review of Books.

David Breashears’ Storm Over Everest

Now here, on Brijit. Thanks to Brijiteer Adrienne Jenkins for allowing me to publish her abstract without a fee.

New Abstract On Brijit. Anyone Else Want To Write One?

Great feedback everyone. Thanks for the terrific show of support. Very helpful as I continue my conversations with potential investors and partners.

I’ve decided that, at least for this week, I’m going to try to do an abstract or two a day — only good stuff. It’s obviously a poor substitute for a fully-staffed Brijit, but it’s better than nothing, and it just feels like the right thing to do as try to find a home for the service while simultaneously closing it down. Here’s one I wrote last night: “Can a Dead Brand Live Again?” by Rob Walker in the 18 May 2008 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

If anyone else wants to write an abstract of something great that they read, watched, or listened to on one of our 100-plus sources, please let me know. If there’s enough interest, I’ll put a process in place to include abstracts from the Brijit community. I think I can handle edits on about a dozen abstracts a day. Leave a comment here if you’re in. Would love to have you. Tell your friends!

To be clear, though (and I don’t even have the technology resources at the moment to change the text of the Brijit site to reflect this): WE ARE NOT PAYING FOR ABSTRACTS AT THIS TIME. Many in the comments have suggested that the site could thrive without the $5 fee — we’re about to find out, albeit on a small scale. I hope you won’t let it dissuade you from writing.

Also, you may have noticed that you’ve stopped receiving your email digests from Brijit. Sorry about that — we know it’s a great product, and if we can figure out a way to come through on the other side, we’ll be makign them a priority from a business development perspective. But we’ve spoken with our friends at SilverPop, our email newsletter provider, and given the situation, we both agreed that we needed to stop sending Brijit emails, at least for now.

Your thoughts on a Save Brijit campaign?

Trying to get a handle on the pros and cons of a Save Brijit campaign of some sort. I’m heartened by all the great feedback here and around the Web. Would need to happen by Monday, for sure, and ideally by COB today. A Facebook group? A petition? Any thoughts? Ideas and volunteers wanted!

Can You Feel the Love?

Yesterday was awful. Out of financial runway, Brijit stopped publishing abstracts for after more than eight months of continuous service to our growing community. Ripped the band-aid right off!

Personally, at least, today’s a much better day. The outpouring of affection and support around closing Brijit, at least temporarily, has been amazing. One of my favorites:

Here’s Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb: “In a tragic and surprising turn of events, Brijit, one of the most interesting startups on the web, has announced that the company has run out of money…”

Thanks, Marshall. You’ve always had nice things to say about our service, and I appreciate it.

Comments like this one from a loyal reader named Gabe: “I visited Brijit 2-3 times a day. Bottom line is that out of the gazillions of sites out there, there are only around 5 (and Brijit is one of them) where I’m guaranteed to be given quick and easy access to more than 5 articles that I’ll find interesting.”

Also plenty of notes of encouragement from friends, acquaintances and total strangers. Great stuff.

Professionally, I’m pleased to say, I also received inquiries from a handful of credible potential investors and partners, upon which I’m already following up. Long shots, to be sure, but worth a shot nonetheless.

Today I’m feeling the love. Please keep it coming!

Honk If You Love Brijit!

We’ve been proud to work with so many talented and dedicated writers over the past 6+ months. Together we’ve published nearly 16,000 abstracts, covered more than 100 sources, and provided a service that’s proven valuable to hundreds of thousands of people.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we’ve run out of money, and can no longer afford to pursue our vision of adapting great long-form content for a short-form world, at least not as a stand-alone company. As recently as yesterday morning, we thought we had the funding in place to continue our work together. But as it turns out, we don’t.

I’m sorry to share that we are ceasing publication of Brijit, at least for the time being, and possibly for good. Beginning today, I’ll be blogging here, and will keep you up to date on our status. I’m still working hard to find a home for Brijit and our community of smart readers, listeners, watchers, and writers. In the meantime, I hope you’ll stick with us on this blog.

Writer payments for all May abstracts published through the 15th will be made next week. As always, we appreciate the good work. And please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email or comments here on the blog.

Save Us, Jack Donaghy

We haven’t blogged much about the presidential campaign of late. You’re welcome. But this week, as Hillary Clinton (or at least her advisers) appear to be slowly accepting defeat, there’s been some worthwhile analysis. It’s always intriguing to see what the objective Brits at The Economist have to say about the wacky American politicians, and Time has an uncommonly good piece about the calculated moves on Obama’s path to success. Plus, the conversation about the race between journalism giants Bill Moyers and Charlie Rose is worth watching.

And while the media’s got its eyes superglued to Hillarack, one Mr. Alec Baldwin might be staging his great political coming out … one can only hope.

But Who’s Signing the Checks?

With all these reports of questionable medical experts showing up on public broadcast shows, we’re wondering if maybe we should just take two aspirin and call back in the morning. Salon reports on a PBS show featuring Dr. Daniel Amen, who posits that Alzheimer’s is curable — the problem is, the show is produced by Amen with very little vetting, and it sort of looks like an infomercial. And all this just days after Slate told us that public radio show The Infinite Mind had strong ties to drug companies. (Thanks to current top Brijiteer John Lister for the heads-up!)

Speaking of conflicts of interest, The New York Times weighed in on former Bush honcho Karl Rove’s transformation into a pundit — he’s offering advice on the airwaves and pages of Fox News, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal. And while his tips for Barack Obama were only so-so, he wrote a colorful profile of John McCain, someone on his side of the aisle. The Times piece points out that even if he’s not really independent, readers know what they’re getting into with Rove. Want to read them for yourself? Start here.

Megan McArdle Likes Brijit.

Megan McArdle, self-styled “the world’s tallest female econoblogger,” just published an interesting take on Brijit on her blog Asymmetrical Information over at The Atlantic. A good deal of virtual ink (and some real ink, too) has been spilled about Brijit since we launched 6+ months ago, but Megan’s the first one to dig into the economics of our writers’ area. To wit:

“The Brijit concept… take people who have time but no money, and marry them to people who have money but no time. Or rather, pay the people who have a lot of time on their hands to read stuff, and then tell the people who have money but no time what they really need to look at, and what they can safely skip.”

I met up with Megan a few weeks back near our offices here in DC. She is, indeed, quite tall. She also grasped intuitively how Brijit has created a system to take advantage of a classic arbitrage opportunity created by information overload. Nice.

Maternal Affairs

Mother’s Day is Sunday, which means procrastinators are buying last-minute cards, florists are putting their game faces on, and siblings are trying not to wring each others’ necks as they fight over where to take Mom for brunch. And as anyone with siblings knows, at times like this it’s best to have an arsenal of insults at the ready — like the one we Dugg up — the more original, the better.

For those of us with dysfunctional families, it’s refreshing to hear about those that make ours seem like Ozzie and Harriet — like the Paskowitz family, all 11 of whom lived in a camper and traveled around surfing. (“Gnarly barrel, Ma!”) Or Margot Livesey, whose story in Vogue details how she escaped her actual family and adopted another. And then there’s the confrontation between a born-again Christian and his lesbian sister on an especially good familial episode of This American Life from last month.

The best Mother’s Day gift? Write a book about Mom, like Jimmy Carter did. But since time is short, yours can be made out of construction paper, for old time’s sake.

On The Daily Show, No Laughing Matter

John McCain joined The Daily Show last night, rounding out its run of hosting one presidential contender in each of the past three months. It was a flimsy ordeal of dodged questions and easy answers, and while the interview marked the Arizona senator’s 13th visit on the show, familiarity wasn’t the only reason for Stewart’s slow pitches — the other candidates got the same treatment. When Barack Obama came on the show in April, he similarly used it as a platform for talking points, while Stewart salvaged the interview with some apolitical zingers (including one about Obama enslaving the white race). And like Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s visit in March was also plagued by a lagging satellite feed, which meant Stewart again had to yield to the candidate’s sound bites.

Granted, you can’t expect any presidential hopeful to pull a surprise this late in the game, when gaffe coverage has overtaken policy. And a TV professional might make the argument that staying germane to high-profile visitors will keep the guestbook full. But philosophy aside, Stewart and the show’s producers should ratchet up the pressure on political guests, if only for the education of its audience. The Daily Show is comedy first — as Stewart noted in 2006 during his brilliant plea on Crossfire — but it’s hard to make people laugh when you leave the joke-writing up to senators.

Making a Joke of Justice

In case you forgot, the US is still holding people at Guantanamo Bay without telling them why — 775 detainees to be exact since 2002 — and the Washington Post reports that not a single one has gone to trial, and President Bush ain’t likely to make it a priority in his last year. (And don’t forget the March three-dot piece from the Los Angeles Times describing a day in the life of a Guantanamo detainee.) What’s equally horrifying, The New York Times uncovered that 66 people died in immigration custody in less than four years, including a man who died in a coma after suffering a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages. These two pieces are enough to make you agree with the lately-ubiquitous Fareed Zakaria, who’s on the PR tour for his book, The Post-American World. Watch his Daily Show interview — at least there’s a bit of Jon Stewart’s humor thrown in to an otherwise bleak reminder that America’s international reputation is in shambles.

In Profile

Calling The New Yorker a good magazine might be like calling the Beatles popular, but they’ve done a particularly commendable job this week, offering a quartet of profiles that span the artistic spectrum. We first recommend Alex Ross’ portrait of Alaska composer John Luther Adams, whose seismic symphony is literally conducted by the mountains that surround him. There’s also an unpretentious piece about London architect and designer Thomas Heatherwick, whose fluid, organic forms can also function. From the fashion industry we get a profile of top digital touch-up artist Pascal Dangin, and the story of Grant Achatz leads in the tragic irony department — the Chicago chef lost his sense of taste to tongue cancer but still pioneers in the world of molecular gastronomy.

Bachelor’s Degrees are So Passé

I graduated from college with a degree in English, which to some means I have a BA in absolutely nothing. I prefer to believe the parents and professors out there who claim that a liberal arts education is about learning how to think (yes, often at the expense of actual workplace skills). Perhaps I am naive; The Chronicle of Higher Education published a discouraging piece about the worthlessness of the bachelor’s degree. Graduation rates are down, the quality of the education is in question, and the degree itself means less and less. But for those still excited about heading off to college — and congrats on getting in, it’s harder than ever — the Washington Post offers a very basic primer about what to expect. The Post also printed a refreshing essay arguing that many of the students matriculating at top-tier schools are impressively brainy and ambitious — but not exactly kind. And as for recent graduates, take comfort (or not) in knowing that entry-level wages have been falling since 2001. You may be destitute, but you are not alone.

When You’ve Got a Hammer…

Dear New York Times: Last Friday you told us that — surprise! — rich people are feeling the housing crisis like the rest of us. And we didn’t even roll our eyes — we’ll walk a mile in their Manolos before we criticize. But when you file two reports, just a week apart, that lipstick and elective surgery are economic indicators, we have to wonder if you’re reaching for a story. Granted, we’ve all got pages to fill, and we’ll admit your profile of recession-friendly clothing chain Steve & Barry’s was a winner. Just don’t tell us on Monday that newspaper sales are depressed by the economy as well.

Gloria Gaynor Would Be Proud!

In business and politics, as in nature, only the strong survive. There’ve been some great stories of survival this week, beginning with a quirky piece in the NYT about a culinary expert who’s hoping to save rare species by putting them on the menu. New York’s cover story this week carefully dissected the controversial firing of Zoe Cruz, one of Wall Street’s most powerful women, and former heir-apparent to the CEO slot at Morgan Stanley. Perhaps Cruz couldn’t cut it in the competitive world of Wall Street, but some are crying foul, claiming the episode is blatant sexism. Meanwhile, there’s another brand of prejudice being perpetuated around the world: biobigotry. Do you swoon over charismatic megafauna — the big, furry zoo animals — and ignore — or worse, revile — the less cuddly organisms of equal ecological importance? You’re a biobigot, according to another curious science piece from the Times — or maybe you’re just a human with a healthy imagination.