Spring is about more than just the weather. Maybe it signifies the start of baseball season, the influx of wedding invites, or the countdown to your favorite summer festival. We have something for everyone this week, with our special Sports Illustrated MLB feed, brand new Wedding Collection, and more.
Wedding Collection
Image: Scallops: A Little Detail That Goes A Long Way On Wedding Dresses (SHEfinds: Weddings)
Wedding season has begun, and we’re already working on our bouquet-catching skills. Check out top-notch nuptial sources like Loverly, SHEfinds: Weddings, The Knot, and Destination Weddings in our new collection under Lifestyle.
Sports Illustrated MLB
Image: Aces Wild
We have a special offering from that big kahuna of sports publications, Sports Illustrated. Don’t miss their comprehensive coverage of major baseball moments.
AppleInsider
Image: iTunes accounts with credit cards a ‘tremendous asset’ for potential Apple e-wallet
Are you an Apple junkie? Take it to the next level and be a true insider. From apps to iTunes, AppleInsider has the news and analysis for even the biggest fans.
Hypebeast: Music
Image: James Blake featuring RZA – Take a Fall For Me/Everyday I Ran
Get your music news from those arbiters of taste and trends, Hypebeast. They put the same care and curation into their music choices as they do fashion, art, and culture, so rest assured you’re getting the cream of the crop.
Music Festival Junkies
Image: Pitchfork Reveals Full 2013 Lineup
Even if you’re not gearing up for a weekend in the desert, you may still be following the ins and outs of Indio, CA’s Coachella. It marks the beginning of music festival season, so keep your eyes peeled on Music Festival Junkies as the spring and summer go on.
There are few sources as trusted and revered as Forbes. The publication has been a leader for nearly a century, and it continues to innovate and expand. We spoke with Bruce Upbin, Managing Editor of Forbes, to learn about its history, trajectory, and business trends for 2013.
How has Forbes evolved over the course of its history?
We’ve been at this for 96 years, so I’d say there’s been plenty of evolution, and even some disruption of the news business lately. Forbes started out as a financial column written by B.C. Forbes, a Scottish immigrant. He turned out his first magazine in 1917 but it really took off after the 1950s and 1960s under the late, great editor Jim Michaels. Ever since it has been one of the world’s most widely read business magazines for its sharp, contrarian takes on business movers and shakers, access to the world’s billionaires and sophisticated investing advice. We launched Forbes.com in 1996, quite early in the first dot-com boom and never stopped investing in it when a lot of other news sites pulled back after the early growth stalled. In the last 3 years we have built a whole new publishing platform and network of online contributors working alongside our veteran journalists. We’ve nearly tripled our global online audience since 2010 and now rank ahead of Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal (which have multiple times the number of employed writers) in domestic visitors. What’s amazing to me is that an almost 100-year-old brand can transform itself in a few short years, leading the way as entrepreneurially as the people we write about.
What sets Forbes apart as a leading business publication?
We’ve managed, so far, to find the right balance among the three attributes all publishers need to pursue: quality, quantity and variety. We cover the bread and butter stuff like breaking news, mergers and acquisitions, big product launches and executive hires and fires, but people also love us for our franchise lists of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people, the highest-paid celebrities, most valuable sports teams, the best VCs in tech (the Midas List) and our city rankings of best and worst places to live or start a company. On top of all that we throw in some of the Web’s best video-game coverage (who knew?), biotech commentary and retirement and tax advice. We serve so many interests with the voices of more experts than can fit in all but the biggest newsrooms of the world.
How do you keep content fresh?
We have a staff of around 50 writers and a network of 1,000 contributors who are motivated and incentivized to post at least weekly if not daily. We look for contributors who are so passionate about their area of expertise that they feel the need to respond anytime some news breaks affecting what they know. We also get out of the way of our better contributors, who don’t have to pass through one or two editors before their posts hit the site. They get to hit publish. We want to eliminate delays between thought and publication. We operate with two gears. The magazine work is carefully edited, factchecked and designed. It could take a week or two weeks to perfect one story once the manuscript is handed in. The Web demands immediacy. We expect our contributors and staffers to get it right the first time, but we also expect there will be some fixing after the fact as corrections and updates demand.
What’s next for Forbes?
Continued push into mobile, which for us includes different approaches to tablets (like our new magazine app) and phones. Our mobile site keeps adding features and new ad formats. No one has gotten mobile right yet. We’re also pushing for more international growth. We get 30% of our traffic from outside the U.S. so we’re looking for more and better contributors in Europe and Asia. This year will also see a continued push for higher quality writers and contributors, and cutting the ones who fall short of our standards. In print, you’ll see bigger and better magazine cover stories, investigative features and sharper photography. One more thing we are working on for 2013 is more passive and active personalization on the site, with tools behind the scenes to surface stories you’ll want to read because they’re being shared and read on social and on Forbes.
Are there any business trends to watch in 2013?
“Crowd is the new cloud” is one of my new slogans. We’re seeing a lot more businesses getting funding and product ideas from customers and crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and all the new ones that will be sanctioned under the JOBS Act. Data is another big trend. I think this year we’ll hear less about how “big” data is and more about how businesses need to change what they do to take advantage of the insights they can get from all the data flowing in from social, email and the Web. My colleagues and I also get a sense that conflicts between age groups and classes will only get worse in the U.S., with more stories to come about retirees demanding more precious resources despite the protests of younger generations, which despite college degrees, are struggling to find a way up the economic ladder.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since the beginning of Pulse. As we celebrate our birthday, we can’t help but reflect on this wild ride—what started as a small class project has become so much more, and we’re thrilled to be a platform for millions of readers to access great content.
Thank you for joining us on this amazing journey—we can’t wait for the next three years!
“I started working at Pulse as a student intern when we were a scrappy desk pod in a shared workspace in Palo Alto. I would bike down from Stanford after my classes and spend the evenings hacking away. I can’t believe how many people we’ve touched in a few short years, how much I’ve grown in the process, and it’s only just the beginning!” - Elliot Babchick, Product Engineer
“I have never met this many smart and passionate people in such a short period of time. It’s the bee’s knees.” - Tim Jurka, Machine Learning Engineer
“In three years, we have gone from an app to a service, from San Francisco to New York. 3 years 3 platforms. The future looks bright.” - Ketaki Deo, Web Developer
“One of the most amazing things about Pulse is that as the team’s grown, we’ve managed to retain a family-like atmosphere in the office.” - Dmitry Shevelenko, Head of Monetization
“There’s a silly saying that “bad things come in threes”. Well, personally, I believe: “Great things come in threes” and Pulse is an example of it. Our first two years were focused on building up a great product and a phenomenal team. Now we’re at year three. In conjunction with growing, I think we’re at a stage where we can gather our learnings and really take Pulse to another level. I am excited to see what’s to come.
At the end of the day, I’m happy to be part of a company that pushes out a product that users love and are passionate about. I will never tire of hearing: “You work for Pulse?! I LOVE Pulse!” :)” - Jessica Chan, Partnerships Manager
“Time flies when you’re working on an amazing product with a great team. The most exciting stuff is yet to come!” - Albert Lai, Lead Android Developer
“Being part of Pulse has been a thrill and a joy. We’ve come so far in such a short time, and I’m so excited to see what’s next. With such a great team, I have faith that anything is possible.” - Katie Carroll, Social Media Manager
“This is an exciting time to join the team! I’m looking forward to the next 3 years of AWESOME.” - Jen White, Community Support Specialist
We’re always learning more about how our community reads the news. We’ve learned that some people enjoy reading Pulse on their phones as they commute to work, while others leisurely browse on their tablets in the evening. Still others use the web app to read news on their coffee breaks. Through our research, we discovered another exciting opportunity for providing our users with the best personalized reading experience.
We’re thrilled to announce that Pulse is launching a daily print service for your news. The Daily Pulse combines the customization of the digital age with the time-honored experience of a newspaper. You choose your sources, and we’ll deliver an individually-printed digest to your doorstep every morning. Enjoy the tactile sensation of newspaper while reading your Facebook feed, tech news, or entertainment updates. It’s the best of both worlds.
The Daily Pulse will be available soon. Keep your eyes peeled on our blog for more.
You can already add Google Reader feeds to your mobile app, but now it’s easy-peasy to add them straight from the web. Just select your Google account and start enjoying more content on Pulse.
Have questions? We’re here to help! Talk to us on Twitter and Facebook.