Gigaom writer says tech blog's abrupt shutdown was about debt and hubris

The abrupt shuttering of Om Malik's leading technology blog, GigaOm, on Monday caught many by surprise — even its own media writer didn't see it coming.

"Like many of my former colleagues, I am still trying to process all of the feelings and thoughts its closure has triggered and understand why and how it happened. I consider this post part of that process — I'm certainly not claiming to have any definitive answers, if there are any," GigaOm's media writer Matthew Ingram wrote on Saturday.

Ingram wasn't alone. According to Recode, the company had been struggling financially for two months but had not made that public. It all came to a head when last weekend, GigaOm's investors failed to sell the company and then decided to take it over.

From CNN to the New York Times, media writers scrambled to figure out what had gone wrong for the site that attracted more than 6 million readers monthly between Monday morning when articles continued to post and later that same afternoon when Malik announced its closure, which would layoff about 70 employees.

"GigaOm is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company's lenders. It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end," the tech blog's founder wrote.

Founded in 2006, GigaOm not only provided consumer-facing content, but it also ran several high-cost tech conferences, performed white paper research and sold advertising. Despite raising $40 million with a recent $2 million more, the company found itself unable to pay vendors for a conference set for next week, which was the impetus for trying to sell the company last weekend.

After having the week to reflect on GigaOm's closing, Ingram explained that it came down to several factors, including its reliance on venture capital funding, taking on debt from bank loans and other lenders, and increased competition for advertisers against "behemoth" sites like Buzzfeed and Vice, as well as a lack of revenue from the research arm of the company that would've helped it stave off its venture capital funders and loan debts. And, maybe, Ingram wonders, the site just grew too fast.

"Some have argued that GigaOm was guilty of an excess of hubris, and that instead of trying to grow into something so quickly, it should have taken the slower approach," Ingram posed.

As for the future of GigaOm, Malik has said that he has no idea what the lenders will do with the company and its assets, but a bankruptcy filing is not being planned. Recode reports that the investors are still looking to sell the publication with individuals attached to GigaOm naming Time Inc., International Data Group and O'Reilly Media as interested parties.

2015 TheWrap news inc. All rights reserved.

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

News outlets fight to keep Massachusetts court records open

BOSTON — Judges across Massachusetts are sealing court documents with increasing regularity, forcing news organizations and First Amendment groups into costly and time-consuming legal battles to ensure the basic workings of the judicial system remain public.

In the run up to Aaron Hernandez's ongoing murder trial in Fall River, for example, a judge sealed search warrants and hundreds of pages of related documents following the former New England Patriots star's 2013 arrest.

In Falmouth, similar documents were barred from release related to the Feb. 5 shooting of two Coast Guard officers and a local Bourne police officer by Coast Guardsman Adrian Loya.

In both cases, the defense lawyers argued that the release of information could harm their client's constitutional right to a fair trial. Judges eventually unsealed the records after news organizations challenged the rulings, but journalists say the documents should never have been secret in the first place.

"What we're talking about is some of the most basic public information that has been always presumed to be available and transparent," said Paul Pronovost, editor-in-chief of the Cape Cod Times, which prevailed in its challenge in the Loya case.

Advocates and news editors say it's not clear the extent of the problem or its causes.

Matthew Segal, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, suggests the tendency toward secrecy stems, in part, from post-9/11 concerns about national security and how that thinking now pervades all levels of government across the country.

But he also submits that it is driven by factors unique to Massachusetts: The state has one of the weakest public records laws in the nation, and some government agencies have a tendency not to honor even those low standards.

"There isn't exactly a cheerful willingness to do what the law requires," Segal says. "You have to fight for every inch. The culture here does not favor openness."

News editors and First Amendment advocates say the problem is not exclusive to high-profile cases.

Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition that counts lawyers, journalists and historians among its members, points to lesser known cases — from child custody disputes and domestic violence incidents — where news organizations across the region have lodged challenges, and, in many cases, won.

"What makes me nervous is in these lower courts where you're not able to get that media presence," he says. "What's going unnoticed? What information is being sealed that we will never know about?"

To be sure, not every case where court records are sealed raises red flags.

In the federal terrorism trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for example, many of the legal briefs filed by defense lawyers and prosecutors — as well as related decisions by the judge — have been sealed.

Advocates concede confidentiality is likely warranted in many of those instances. One notable exception: the Boston Globe, CNN and the radio station WBUR-FM filed a request earlier this month asking the judge to unseal the witness and exhibit list, which are normally made public.

"The information contained in the lists ... is not by its nature private since all of the exhibits are presumptively public and all of the witnesses will testify in open court," the news organizations argue in their filing.

And not all judges are erring on the side of secrecy.

In the case of Philip Chism, a Danvers High School student accused of killing his math teacher, a judge recently rejected a bid by defense lawyers to seal their client's videotaped police confession after news organizations objected.

"The First Amendment was not intended to make life easy," Superior Court Judge David Lowy wrote in his Jan. 23 decision. "The exacting scrutiny of the press ... in covering the courts and providing an unobstructed view of the proceedings, therefore, remains at the core of protecting ordered liberty, the rule of law, and ultimately not just democracy, but constitutional democracy itself."

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

New England states face off in a race for casino dollars

BOSTON — A casino arms race is ramping up in New England.

From Connecticut to Maine, lawmakers worried about losing jobs and revenue are proposing expansion of the gambling industry in the increasingly casino-crowded Northeast.

Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun and other well-established gambling houses, meanwhile, are making moves to shore up business as MGM, Wynn and other new rivals prepare to open their doors.

"It could get nasty in New England," says Keith Foley, a senior vice president at Moody's Investors Service in New York. "You've got a Cold War going on. Everybody is trying to protect their border."

In Connecticut, lawmakers made a surprise pitch for opening up to three new casinos this week, including an unprecedented joint venture between Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, which are also planning major improvements to their flagship casinos.

The key driver in the region's ever-changing casino calculus: no less than three casinos are opening in Massachusetts in the coming years.

"Massachusetts has declared economic war on us," said Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Robert Duff, a Democrat. "And we're going to fight back."

At Suffolk Downs, a horse track in Boston, Patrick Pelosi thought the prospect of so many new casinos in New England sounded like overkill.

"One or two new ones in Massachusetts would have been more than enough," the Chelsea, Massachusetts, resident said while placing simulcast bets Friday. "We've been dying for one up here forever. Now they want to put ten of them in? Come on. That's completely out of control."

Other gamblers said they looked forward to having closer options than the Connecticut casinos, which are about two hours away from Boston, and Rhode Island's more modest Twin River Casino, which is about an hour away.

Many said they were anxiously awaiting the projected 2017 opening of Steve Wynn's flashy, $1.7 billion casino across the river from Boston. Few said they would be wooed by MGM's planned casino in Springfield, about an hour and a half drive west from Boston.

"I might check it out, if I was going with friends just to see it," said Walter Craig, of Medford. "But if it was just me, I might as well go to Foxwoods if I'm going that far."

And Nick Pepe, of Revere, said he'd be less inclined to check out Penn National Gaming's planned slot parlor in southern Massachusetts when it opens in June because it will not offer blackjack and other table games.

"I'd rather go the extra distance to Twin River," he said. "I go there all the time because it's close and Foxwoods is too far."

Casino experts say it's too soon to say how the region's casino landscape will shake out. What's clear is that New England casinos will increasingly be fighting over smaller shares of the regional economic pie as new facilities come online.

"It's very simple math: the more supply you have with the same amount of people, you're going to share it," Foley, of Moody's, said. "These things will cannibalize each other, but what they are hoping is they will cannibalize from the other jurisdictions to keep the money in state."

Alan Woinski, president of Gaming USA Corp., a New Jersey-based gambling consultancy, says Atlantic City provides a cautionary tale. The seaside New Jersey city saw four of its 12 casinos close in quick succession last year, after years of declines in the face of new rivals, from the Connecticut casinos to, more recently, Philadelphia- and New York City-area ones.

"Common sense tells you that you're not going to get that business from Massachusetts once those new casinos open," Woinski said. "Once it goes, it does not come back."

Still, analysts suggest there remains room for growth in the broader Northeast region, where casinos are opening faster than perhaps any other part of the country. Some 60 gambling facilities are projected to be in operation from Washington, D.C., to Maine by 2018.

"We're not all tapped out," says Steven Norton, an Illinois-based gambling consultant and former executive at the Resorts casino and hotel in Atlantic City.

The American Gaming Association, an industry lobbying group, has also pushed back against the notion of oversaturation.

"This is a competition among states right now to put into place policies that will allow the casinos in their state to best compete," says spokesman Christopher Moyer.

But Clyde Barrow, a casino expert at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, wrote in a recent report that much of the region's growth will continue to come at the cost of "legacy states" like Connecticut and New Jersey that enjoyed regional monopolies for decades.

Anti-casino activists, meanwhile, warn that casino expansion might make sense for the industry, but not necessarily the state and local governments that look to them for revenue.

"States are buckling under the pressure of casino interests and using the excuse of budget shortfalls to plunder the pockets of their citizens," says John Ribeiro, a Massachusetts resident who chaired last year's failed campaign to repeal the state's casino law. "Elected officials don't have the foresight to understand that casinos are a lose-lose for all except the owners."

___

Associated Press reporters Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; Alanna Durkin in Augusta, Maine, and Dave Gram in Montpelier, Vermont, contributed to this story.

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

UNH hosting 2nd robotics competition

DURHAM, N.H. — Nearly 2,000 high school students from teams in New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut are participating in a FIRST Robotics Competition at the University of New Hampshire this month.

The competition pits teams of high school students — mentored by professional engineers — against each other for a shot at the national championships and at scholarships. UNH is hosting for the second year, the weekend of March 21-22.

Each team has six weeks to build a robot from a common kit of parts for the competition. This year's contest is a recycling-themed game played by two teams of three robots each. The robots score points by stacking notes on scoring platforms, capping those stacks with recycling containers and disposing of pool noodles, representing litter.

"FIRST is more than robots. The robots are a vehicle for students to learn important life skills," said Dean Kamen, president of Manchester's DEKA Research & Development and the founder of FIRST. Its name is short "for inspiration and recognition of science and technology."

"Kids often come in not knowing what to expect - of the program nor of themselves," Kamen said. They leave, even after the first season, with a vision, with confidence, and with a sense that they can create their own future."

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

A look at casino developments in New England

BOSTON — A casino arms race is building in New England. Here's a look at some recent developments in the region's ever-changing gambling landscape:

___

CONNECTICUT

Leading lawmakers propose up to three new casinos in the home state of Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. One of the casinos could be run jointly by the two tribes. Foxwoods is also slated to open a roughly 80-store Tanger Outlets shopping complex at its flagship casino in May while Mohegan Sun announced plans this month for a second, 400-room hotel to open by 2016.

___

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Lawmakers are again considering allowing two casinos in the state. Supporters raise the specter of new Massachusetts casinos eating into the state's vital hospitality and tourism industries. A similar proposal fell one vote shy of passage last year.

___

MAINE

Several proposals have been introduced this year calling for more casinos, following a recent report suggesting there are still opportunities in the state's northern and southern extremities. The state already has two casinos, one in Bangor and one in Oxford.

___

MASSACHUSETTS

MGM Resorts International is slated to break ground later this month on an $800 million resort in Springfield, just north of the Connecticut border. Penn National Gaming is set to open the Plainridge Park Casino, a 1,250-machine slot parlor at the harness racing track in Plainville, this June. Wynn Resorts has set its sights on a 2017 opening for its $1.7 billion casino for the Boston area. And gambling regulators are weighing proposals for a third Las Vegas-style casino in the southeast of the state as the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe also hopes to build their own resort casino in the region.

___

RHODE ISLAND

Twin River Casino is in the process of purchasing its in-state rival, the Newport Grand slot parlor, while also seeking the state legislature's permission to build a 150- to 250-room hotel. The casino, located near the Massachusetts border, is a critical source of revenue for the economically struggling state.

___

VERMONT

A Republican lawmaker has filed his near-perennial proposal to open a single casino in the Green Mountain State, saying the plan could help generate revenue as the state faces a significant budget gap. Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin is opposed to casinos.

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Meerkat streams nearly double despite Twitter choke as SXSW kicks off

A tech war between Twitter and Meerkat has actually resulted in nearly doubling of streams for the buzzy new live streaming app, according to a Meerkat co-owner.

"Whoa this morning actually started with almost double the streams as yesterday," Meerkat co-owner Ben Rubin tweeted on Saturday.

The increase in usage occurred despite (or possibly because of) Friday's decision by Twitter to begin choking off Meerkat's exposure to its social graph just as Austin festival South by Southwest kicked off.

"We are limiting their access to Twitter's social graph, consistent with our internal policy," a spokesperson told Buzzfeed. "Their users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and log in with their Twitter credentials."

Meerkat uses Twitter to login and identify a user's followers who also have its live streaming app. When a user begins recording, their followers are alerted on Twitter that the video has started and provides a link to it. It also alerts followers who log in to the app that the video has been started. But, Twitter has now shut the secondary notifications down, which helps Meerkat keep users on its app.

Many believed the move would handicap Meerkat's meteoric growth, so why the increased usage? The news of Twitter's decision may not only have caused users to increase their live streaming in protest but also caused others to get the app after becoming curious as to what all the fuss is about.

The timing of Twitter's decision — at the kickoff of SXSW — has many people calling foul. Twitter officially announced on Friday it acquired its own live streaming app called Periscope (for a reported $100 million). No launch date has been announced, but the move comes two weeks after Meerkat made its splashy debut on social media.

Stars Jared Leto, Ashton Kutcher and companies CNBC, Mashable and Red Bull are just some of the high profile Meerkat users.

2015 TheWrap news inc. All rights reserved.

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Officials: Listeriosis not cause of 3 deaths, may be factor

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A foodborne illness linked to some Blue Bell ice cream products might have been a contributing factor in the deaths of three hospital patients in Kansas, health officials said Saturday.

But listeriosis didn't cause the deaths, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokeswoman Sara Belfry.

Officials have not released the names of the five patients at Via Christi St. Francis hospital in Wichita, Kansas, who developed listeriosis in after eating products from one production line at the Blue Bell creamery in Brenham, Texas.

But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the five individuals were older adults and three of them are women. The CDC did not specify the gender of those patients who died.

The five patients became ill with listeriosis during their hospitalizations for unrelated causes between December 2013 and January 2015. But hospital spokeswoman Maria Loving said she couldn't discuss why the patients were hospitalized, citing patient confidentiality laws.

According to the CDC, information available for four of the five patients shows they had eaten while hospitalized milkshakes made with Blue Bell ice cream product called "Scoops" in the month before the infection.

The FDA says listeria bacteria were found in samples of Scoops, as well as Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Country Cookies, Great Divide Bars, Sour Pop Green Apple Bars, Cotton Candy Bars, Vanilla Stick Slices, Almond Bars and No Sugar Added Moo Bars.

Blue Bell spokeswoman Jenny Van Dorf said the company has recovered all recalled products from all 23 states where they were sold, as well as those that were in storage.

Cincinnati-based supermarket chain Kroger removed recalled Blue Bell products from 860 of its 2,625 stores and the company is alerting customers through its recall notification system, spokesman Keith Dailey said in an email.

"We would not sell any product that we believed to be potentially harmful to our customers," Dailey responded when asked if Kroger has confidence in Blue Bell products not affected by the recall and that remain on store shelves.

Blue Bell says its regular Moo Bars were untainted, as were its half gallons, quarts, pints, cups, three-gallon ice cream and take-home frozen snack novelties.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said facilities like Blue Bell's are inspected on a monthly basis. The agency added that no enforcement action has previously been taken against the facility in Brenham and it is operating in compliance with food safety laws.

"Our last full inspection was February. We cited a couple minor issues but nothing related to this issue," agency spokeswoman Carrie Williams said in an email.

Van Dorf said the machine that the contamination was traced to has been shut down permanently.

It's not unusual to see listeria outbreaks linked to dairy products, including ice cream, said William Marler, an attorney who represented victims of a 2011 listeria outbreak that killed 33 people and was traced to a Colorado cantaloupe farm.

In December, an ice cream company in Snohomish, Washington, recalled nearly a year's worth of ice cream and related products because of possible listeria contamination that sickened two men.

Marler said he thought Blue Bell had responded appropriately once it knew its products were linked to illnesses and deaths. His only criticism was that Blue Bell didn't mention the patients who were sickened or died in Kansas in a statement on its Web site, instead highlighting that this was the first product recall in its 108-year history.

Listeriosis is a life-threatening infection caused by eating food contaminated with bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes, the CDC said. The disease primarily affects pregnant women and their newborns, older adults, and people with immune systems weakened by cancer, cancer treatments, or other serious conditions.

___

Lozano reported from Houston.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at www.twitter.com/juanlozano70

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Juries in the drivers' seats

Two federal lawsuits brought by a Boston labor attorney are going to trial thanks to rulings by federal judges in California last week — with vast implications for Uber and Lyft.

"The judges soundly rejected the companies' arguments that they are not in the car business, they are a technology business," said Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who brought the suits.

Two judges both denied a motion for summary judgment, ruling that the cases would have to be decided by juries.

The suits center on how Uber and Lyft classify their drivers. The companies claim the drivers are independent contractors, but Liss-Riordan and her clients say the drivers should be treated as full employees. By classifying drivers as independent contractors, Uber and Lyft avoid having to pay for benefits including unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and overtime. If the companies are required to pay their drivers as employees, it would mean a huge change to their business model.

"Companies like Uber and Lyft save enormously on their labor costs by calling their workers independent contractors," she said.

The problem, the two federal judges said separately, is that neither the legal definition of employee or contractor seems to describe Uber and Lyft drivers.

Uber and Lyft drivers can choose their own hours and accept or reject ride requests, like independent contractors. However, like employees, the drivers are subject to control and potential termination at will by the ride-for-hire companies.

"The jury in this case will be handed a square peg and asked to choose between two round holes," Judge Vince Chhabria wrote of the Lyft case.

"The application of the traditional test of employment — a test which evolved under an economic model very different from the new 'sharing economy' — to Uber's business model creates significant challenges," wrote Judge Edward Chen in the Uber case. "Arguably, many of the factors in that test appear outmoded in this context."

The lawsuits will only apply to California right now, but another case that would apply to Massachusetts is ongoing. The companies have come under fierce fire in Massachusetts, largely by taxi companies and cab drivers who claim they are being driven out of business.

Traditional employment laws have a long way to go to catch up with the rise of the so-called gig economy, said Pat Petitti, chief executive of HourlyNerd, which connects freelance consultants with companies looking for outside expertise.

"Neither the employee or contractor definition fits what an Uber driver does," he said. "The traditional definitions for an employee and contractor are not correct — they don't work in a world like this, where technology is changing the workforce."

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

BCEC expansion weighed against other needs

Boston officials yesterday weighed in on the debate over spending $1 billion to expand the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center amid a deep budget deficit and a crumbling public transit system.

"In difficult economic times we have to look at every single thing ... and determine what's best for now and the long term," said Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson. "Everyone has to take a look at their budgets. We need to look at the T not only as transportation, but as critical infrastructure, and it's literally the driver of our economy."

The Herald reported yesterday the convention center authority's expansion committee held an emergency closed-door session over fears the bond offering meant to pay for the expansion would be cut by Gov. Charlie Baker.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh yesterday said he supports the convention center expansion, which backers say will draw bigger — and more lucrative — shows to Boston, but said the T is in desperate need of a fix.

"The governor has to look at the budget, look at the numbers and how they work for him, but I'll be talking to him as well. I think the expansion of the convention center is about economic development and the future of our city, and this region," Walsh said. "Certainly the governor has a big concern with the MBTA ... it's not going to be one easy fix, the governor inherited a big problem here."

During the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority's public meeting on Friday, MCCA head Jim Rooney said he "has a high level of confidence" that the project will go forward.

Baker remained noncommittal on his plans yesterday, saying his administration needs to look at the numbers involved.

"We're just getting started on the capital budget, and until we have a better understanding about where the capital budget sits — not just for this year but for the next year and the year after — we're not going to say much more about it than that," Baker said. "We need to do a thorough deep dive on the capital budget before we talk about specifics or proposals."

Baker said his administration will spend the next 30 days reviewing capital projects.

In January, Baker told the MCCA he would delay the bond offering until March 30, to give the incoming administration time to review the project. The expansion will add 1.3 million square feet to the South Boston expo center.

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Robert Durst, subject of HBO's 'The Jinx,' arrested in New Orleans

Robert Durst was arrested in New Orleans on Saturday on a warrant issued in a homicide investigation issued by Los Angeles County. The news was first reported by The New York Times.

Durst, who is currently the subject of an HBO documentary, "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," has been a suspect in the unsolved death of a friend in L.A. 15 years ago.

Durst's friend and confidante, journalist Susan Berman, was shot dead in her house in Benedict Canyon on Christmas Eve, 2000. Numerous questions have been raised about how much Durst knew about her death.

Questions have also been raised about his involvement in his first wife's disappearance in 1982 and the shooting of a neighbor in Texas in 2001.

Durst, 71, was being held without bond.

The final episode of the HBO documentary is scheduled to be shown Sunday night.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

00.52 | 0 komentar | Read More