Years ago, before blogging evolved from a series of links, I made actual HTML files that I’d upload onto a single webserver using FTP. These were typically quickly typed essays—an effort to collect a random idea or two into something a bit more formed. They were rough, unedited, unique, and…

While creating purely virtual worlds remains the domain of experts, affordable 360º video cameras allow anyone to create immersive experience. Helped by Samsung (which is now selling a 360º camera with its phones), The New York Times launched a daily video franchise built around the experience. …

My perception of the world literally and figuratively changed when I first used Doppler Labs’ Here Active Listening earbuds. As promised, the wireless audio devices added effects to the music I was listening to, in realtime by altering my open office’s audio landscape. The space transformed from Carnegie Hall to…

I met Stuart McLean in three different eras of my life. Each time, his passion for the sounds of a city and his uncanny ability to find, and tell, a human story unlocked a sense of perspective in me I’ve never shaken. Somewhat appropriately, I’m writing this in Toronto on…

More than any other media company, The New York Times has embraced 360º video. In November 2015, it gave each of its subscribers a free Google Cardboard. That coincided with the launch of its own “virtual reality” app featuring extended documentaries, films, and, of course, advertising. The early videos spent…

Twenty years ago, the first printed magazines began the inevitable move online. If you didn’t peak under the hood (all-cap HTML tags, a plethora of font elements, and textured background images), those first sites would feel familiar today. …

A big part of launching a new and original product is first convincing people you’re capable of having innovative ideas. Although all companies of a certain age risk being seen as staid, some are particularly vulnerable. Take, for instance, newspapers. Toronto’s largest paper received some gentle mocking for a new…

A funny thing happened to me when I left The Globe and Mail: After nearly a quarter century, I stopped following the news. Sure, I still subscribe to, and read, the Saturday Globe and Sunday New York Times, but the ongoing news cycle has become nothing more than a quiet…

Ever since Joshua Topolsky left Bloomberg a year ago to start building something new, I, like a lot of other people, have been curious about his next play. Given his background and experience, he surely had a plan. He built news companies before. He’d understood the reality of the financial…