Word: likenesses
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Perhaps this is why the possibility of a new, Venice-like waterway in the heart of Brooklyn held such appeal. Against all odds, for the past several years Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has lobbied to turn the borough's Gowanus Canal - a foul, PCB-laden channel that winds for nearly two miles (about 3 km) - into a destination spot for condo dwellers and upscale retail developers. On March 2, however, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offered the city a reality check when it designated the Gowanus a Superfund site. The distinction is reserved for the country's most hazardous...
...reason for my nighttime writing adventure was to see what life is like on a massive content farm. I was working for Demand Media, the content-provider start-up that has quickly become the Web's least understood and most vilified juggernaut. The company has come up with a ruthlessly efficient way to churn out stories it knows will be profitable online. The topics may seem bizarre, but the method, though controversial, is unquestionably a success. (See the best social networking applications...
...most lucrative to create content around. All this gets fed into an algorithm that spits out only the most-in-demand story ideas, no human guesswork required. Sometimes the results make sense ("Nightlife in Paris," for example), but the computer often generates cryptic or oddly specific titles as well, like "How to Start a Lace-Wig Business in Maryland" or "How to Make a Room with a Waterfall." (See the top iPhone applications...
...point, says co-founder Shawn Colo. "It doesn't pay to do journalism," he says. He's right. Sending writers to Haiti, for example, would defy the company's No. 1 rule: Every piece has to be profitable. That's why Demand's algorithm favors quick explainer pieces like "How to Remove Dents in a Hair Dryer." (See 10 perfect jobs for the recession - and after...
...same applies to all the cogs like me in Demand's ever whirring machine. After Google helped me track down an article that claims people near a small city in Kenya see the giraffe as a divine omen of good luck (close enough), which I used as a source for my piece, I am ready to tackle my next assignment: home remedies to remove cat urine from parquet floors. Florid prose it may not be, but according to Demand, it's what you want to read...