MISSION: BUBBLE
Introducing a new kind of publication about tech and innovation in Boston
By Chris Faraone
A few years ago I was at a gala hosted by one of the local Boston tech sites. It was a swanky event (I may have even worn a blazer), complete with cool kid DJs and a separate wine bar so you didn’t have to wait in line with the artificially confident set.
At some point in the night, I found myself standing at one of those circular cocktail tables with a stranger in a suit and tie. He didn’t quite fit in with the casual crowd, and so I asked what business he had there. It turned out the guy was an angel, a venture capitalist on hand to mingle with ambitious minds. Instead he got stuck with me, but we’re both better off for it.
As it turns out, said angel and his small investment group had been following the publication hosting the party for tips about startups. I rudely chuckled upon his first telling me this — I figured everybody knew their articles were often written hurriedly by college interns, and that some companies actually paid to place positive content on their site along with countless others like it. He wasn’t joking though, and so I broke the news that investors like him were essentially on their own. By the end of our exchange, I realized just how desperately Greater Boston needed critical coverage of the so-called tech and innovation sector. I didn’t care enough to do much about it, as I have my hands full covering the less fortunate half of the Hub, but I recognized the void before putting my grievance on ice.
We are for commerce but against hype, psyched for innovation without believing that development inevitably breeds progress
Roughly two years later, I still don’t give a damn where venture capitalists catch headlines, or if someone blows a couple mil backing a company in which some social-climbing nitwit blogger saw potential. At the same time, I no longer feel comfortable dallying so far on the periphery, as tech companies boom and underserved Bostonians, at least those who haven’t already been chased to more affordable regions, watch their share of the Commonwealth slip away. And so here we are. The last thing I care to do is work against the existing tech sites, some of which do excellent reporting on occasion, or to jump into the race of ascertaining which caterpillars will morph into the next billionaire butterflies. But while the Boston Bubble isn’t meant to be the biggest kid on the block — even our physical format is small enough to fit in your palm, and our online presence is selective — our aim is to at least inject more honesty into the conversation.
In interviewing hundreds of people over the past year, formally and informally, about the new economy in Boston, we were made aware of several underreported concerns. The picture being painted of what’s happening here is bright and rosy, like tales of up-and-coming programmers who work around the clock and keep a low carbon footprint, all under the mirrored and cascading towers being jammed into the skyline to contain the boom. Underneath the glam, however, are endemic problems that go unnoticed, or unheard of amid the symphony of cheerleading for the most privileged entrepreneurs. For example: Have you ever seen an article about area tech workers organizing? Neither have we, but you can count on finding one in these pages eventually.
Too many publications covering the most significant commercial revolution in Boston since the 19th century don’t think far enough into the future to follow up on the companies whose capital injections they slobber over. So it’s no surprise that those same voices rarely stop and analyze where this avalanche of ingenuity is headed or came from, or lend sufficient attention to civic issues beyond those which impact their readers directly, namely transit and housing. To answer that clarion call, the Bubble will examine topics including infrastructure needs for our rapidly growing workforce — in corners ranging from surveillance and biotech to film and interactive media — as well as the diversity of people and ideas that are a part of those environments. For our second issue, we’re months into investigating how, despite Greater Boston’s blossoming business ecosystem, there remains a lack of computers and STEM education in public schools, effectively guaranteeing the displacement of more lower-income natives.
We’re not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions, like this one: What happens if the entire bubble bursts, and the streets of Kendall Square fill with suddenly broke $85,000-a-year-and-up earners who for some reason were renting $3,000-a-month apartments despite working 90-hour weeks? You will see the word “gentrification” often in the Bubble, not because we believe all urban improvement is negative, but rather because that’s what it’s called when wealthy interests run roughshod over communities where longtime residents are deemed pests and inconveniences. Most important: We are for commerce but against hype, psyched for innovation without believing that development inevitably breeds progress, and certain that the politicians beating drums and subsidizing everything from civic apps to drones are as clueless as they are compromised by contributions from entrenched software contractors.
Search Twitter for #BostonTech, and you’ll find yourself awash in dollar signs and drool. We believe that the startup scene deserves to be covered with integrity, and that innovation ought not be processed through the lens of naive hacks who are impressed by offices with harborfront views. Furthermore, we have seen countless individuals and companies that eschew the aforementioned shortcomings, and who are contributing to the greater good. Though our informal focus groups have indicated little interest in executive profiles of the traditional magazine sort, people overwhelmingly noted a lack of attention to smaller outfits that grow steadily without enormous fanfare. We look forward to identifying those enterprises, and are also a project of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, so readers can rest assured that we aren’t whoring for revenue from advertisers masquerading as subjects.
Though we hesitate to compare ourselves to anyone — at the least, no other quarterly distributes in miniature newspaper boxes that are cute enough to hug — our mentors say we’re more Pando than Mashable, at least as far as tech pubs go. In any case, Bubble is unlike anything New England has seen in this realm. We come from an alternative background, and our collective experience includes everything from streaming radio to ebooks. We plan to wrap those influences and innumerable others into every issue, from leads that wrestle readers, to infographics, to images that tell entire stories. We also have a historical mission, and in the belief that regional economies can learn from past wins and whiffs, Bubble will explore and highlight key New England inventiveness dating back long Before Zuckerberg (BZ). As a kicker, local comedians have agreed to punch up our content; they’re working for cheap, too, because there’s nothing our broke loser friends love more than badgering a bunch of barely post-pubescent high tech millionaires. And since we’re getting the cliches out of the way …
If there’s one thing that the biggest plutocratic monsters doing business in Boston would probably agree with us on, it’s that great things aren’t born out of the status quo, the status quo being most of what we’re getting in the way of contemporary tech coverage. There’s no need to name specific culprits while our nonprofit venture is in beta; as we dig into the Boston innovation scene though, some business journalists will definitely be fired upon. From the reluctance of old media to understand and report on burgeoning industries, to the lack of transparency in new pay-to-play models, to shameless marketing content, it shouldn’t be hard to outclass the offending parties. We won’t panhandle in the promoted puff post pigpen for perfunctory clicks, or give one shred of a damn about whichever new inane app that other outlets claim will change the world.
As for whether anyone should fund a particular business based on the content herein, they’re probably better off reading us than chasing the rat race. If it’s a good investment you’ve come for, then you’ve picked the right publication.
