The NanoBusiness 2005 event, held last week at the New York Marriott Financial Center, attracted little or no attention from the MSM (mainstream media). In fact, a search at Google News didn't turn up any MSM links to New York nanotech news, only a short preview of the conference from a site called Monsters & Critics:

"While applications for the technology are wide open and venture capital dollars are readily available - many of the companies assembled at the NanoBusiness Conference 2005, a trade show held here wherein nanotechnologists are rubbing elbows with each other and Wall Street types - the challenges are great for the industry, which is still in its infancy."

A few tech sector publications, however, did provide coverage of the nanotech conference keynote speech from Bell Labs president Jeffrey Jaffe: Information Week, PC Magazine and Red Herring.

JupiterResearch recently launched a podcasting service, called JupiterResearch Conversations, that will feature regular podcasts from the company's technology analysts:

"JupiterResearch's podcasts feature conversations with JupiterResearch analysts about key topics relating to the Internet and emerging consumer technologies. The first podcast, moderated by David Schatsky, senior vice president of JupiterResearch, is a conversation between senior analyst Gary Stein and research director David Daniels, on direct marketing online, and explores the best practices of paid search and e-mail marketing."

Jupiter's podcasting experiment owes at least a small debt to the efforts at IT Conversations, which was one of the first sites to offer high-quality audio content from technology Big Thinkers.

Viacom's stock price is down 18% over the past 12 months, but Sumner Redstone's paycheck is bigger than ever, and that's got shareholders rankled, says the New York Daily News. The news of Redstone's "mega payday" was especially irksome to CBS employees, who labor in the part of Viacom's media empire that is experiencing the most turmoil.

For those keeping track, the 82-year-old Redstone pulled in $56 million last year, a hefty 58% increase from the previous year. His left-hand and right-hand men, too, had nice paydays, with each of them pulling in $52 million last year.

MIT Technology Review has been sponsoring Innovation Futures, a "predictive marketplace" focused on technological innovation as it relates to economic growth. It's similar in nature to the futures markets for political elections, which claim to predict the outcomes of elections with uncanny precision. If enough people believe it's true -- and are willing to put their money where their mouth is, it must be true... Or something like that. Anyway, it's worth checking in now and then to see how popular sentiment is shifting:

64% predict that more than 7.0 million satellite radio receivers will ship in 2005

53% think that approximately 15% of US households will have an HDTV by the end of 3Q05

44% think that SIRIUS will have between 2.5 million and 3.0 million subscribers by the end of 2005

36% of those polled believe that there will be 2.51 million to 2.75 million VoIP US subscribers by the end of 2005

By now, stories of iPod subway muggings are nothing new. The New York Daily News, though, has apparently found a new twist on the same ol' story: three urban teenagers tried to steal a subway commuter's iPod only to be busted a few minutes later by a Manhattan cop who happened to be sitting a few feet away.

Gotham Gazette highlights a number of blogs that post regular updates on the plans of Big Box retailers to set up shop in the city. The blogs include The Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Big Cities Big Boxes and the Wal-Mart Free NYC Coalition.

As might be imagined, there's a predominant anti-Big Box ethos at work here, especially when it comes to Wal-Mart.

On Memorial Day, the New York Post splashed a "Big Brother" story about the NYPD across the front page:

"Big Brother really will be watching. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has told top police brass that he wants to put up about 400 surveillance cameras on high-crime and high-traffic streets to catch crooks in the act, even if cops are not there. In the next few weeks, police officials are expected to give Kelly a list of roughly 50 areas where they think cameras should be placed."

Over at the Village Voice site, we almost did a double-take.. Looks like the Village Voice has outsourced its online real estate coverage to top-flight NYC real estate blog Curbed. It may not be a lucrative deal, but surely is an example of how a niche content Web site can make some money without counting on online advertising dollars to pay the bills.

Anyway, Curbed fans (and we're one of 'em) should check out the 'Hoodwinked contest that the site is sponsoring over the Memorial Day Weekend:

"Here's How it Works: You email us the specific boundaries, name, and a detailed description of a New York City (all boros welcome) neighborhood of your creation... You may rename an existing 'hood, but you are encouraged to create your own. The more detailed the description, the better."

As seen in the print edition of New York Magazine -- online grocer FreshDirect is summering in the Hamptons this year:

"FreshDirect introduces summer delivery in the Hamptons. Go to the beach, not the grocery store. Order your food online from FreshDirect."

There's even a convenient drive-thru pickup location in Riverhead, just minutes from the L.I.E. -- "great for both The Hamptons and the North Fork."

The Web is starting to look a lot more like TV, according to The New York Times, and that's great news for marketers who once were afraid to venture online. There will soon be all-video Web sites, a greater concentration of traditional "offline" brands appearing online, and more cases of consumers staying glued to the monitor for 20 minutes, even 1 hour, at a time, as they watch video clips over high-speed broadband connections.

There are finally some signs of life in New York's early-stage VC market! Early stage investment group New York Angels recently announced two new angel financing deals: MediaTile and Spotlight Data. In addition, New York Angels made follow-on investments in three portfolio companies -- Content Directions (CDI), Zero-G and BioScale.

Over the past 18 months, membership in New York Angels has increased from 20 to 54 -- a sign that either the tech sector has bounced back, or that well-heeled private investors are tired of speculating in real estate deals.

Tom Foremski, a blogger journalist with SiliconValleyWatcher, fresh off a week of events and meetings in New York City (including the Syndicate Conference), discusses some topics that should be front-of-mind for any "successful micro-media mogul." There's talk of the "furious pace of M&A activities in the media sector" -- as well as other topics of lesser importance (how to avoid being mistaken for a humble blogger during a midtown power lunch).

Crain's New York reports that About.com has signed a two-year deal with comparison shopping site Kayak.com to offer readers online travel information:

"In a first-of-its-kind deal for Manhattan-based About.com, an online consumer information network that was bought in March by the New York Times, Kayak.com will serve as its 'premier booking partner.' Visitors to About’s travel pages will find a box where they can enter basic information on a planned trip; they will then be connected to Kayak’s site. Links to Kayak will also be embedded in articles about destinations."

There's a high-powered team at Kayak -- some senior-level execs from Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia.

Eugene Hernandez, editor-in-chief of indieWIRE, draws a link between the world of independent blogs and the world of independent films. Hernandez, who will be teaching a class at The New School on American independent films, hints at the impact of blogs on the future success of underground NYC films:

"A peculiar hallmark of New York's cinematic counterculture is the role that the city's intense, sophisticated audience has played in pushing once-fragile films like ''Open Water'' and ''Garden State'' into prominence. Often, small movies that break out have taken root on a single screen at the Angelika Film Center, Film Forum or Lincoln Center, where an enthusiastic reception has opened the door to a wider audience in other cities and on DVD. That audience seems to renew itself each generation, with fans of newer styles and genres (like Asian horror or Dogme, the Danish-based film movement) joining the aging cinéastes who devour sophisticated European fare. And the tribe has grown through the Web, which is alive with blogs and enthusiast sites like indiewire.com that create viral marketing and lead fans elsewhere to order up DVD's of lesser-known films."

The old journalism is broken, now it's time to fix it: The Carnegie Corporation and the Knight Foundation are contributing a total of $6 million over a three-year period to five top U.S. schools (Columbia, Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern, USC and Harvard) to "try to elevate the standing of journalism in academia and find ways to prepare journalists better."

The dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Cal-Berkeley explains what's at stake:

"Journalism as a whole is clearly in something of a crisis. Those of us who run journalism schools are confronted with the prospect of ever fewer distinguished media outlets - especially in broadcast - to which we can aspire to send our students to work. So this is a time not only to try and make journalism schools as relevant as possible to the evolving profession, but also to have universities begin to weigh in on the debate about what happens in the media."

No word yet on whether blogs and podcasting will become part of the new training in journalism.

Long Island-based Allion Healthcare priced its IPO yesterday. The company plans to sell 4 million shares at an estimated price range of $12 to $14 per share, for a total of up to $56 million. The lead underwriter for the deal will be Thomas Weisel Partners. Allion provides specialty pharmacy and disease management services to patients with HIV and AIDS.

Tired of following expired links that have disappeared behind paid subscription walls, Tom Coates of Plastic Bag is finally cutting the cord with the New York Times:

"Eurgh. I am so bored of following other people's links to something on the New York Times and finding it all login-required and password-protected. I cannot be bothered any more. I. can. not. be. both. ered. So as of now I'm not going to link to them any more. And I'm not going to follow any link that goes to them. And I'm not going to engage in any debates they allegedly start behind their blanket of white."

Mark Glaser of Online Journalism Review interviews a few big-name media pundits (including A-list bloggers Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen) about the future of magazines in the digital age.

In response to a question by Glaser, Jay Rosen puts the future of the magazine business into perspective:

"At NYU, I have colleagues who share my fascination with the future possibilities of long-form journalism, and social criticism in periodical form; and if you start where we do, the natural question is not 'how can magazines prosper economically in the digital age?' (your perfectly valid industry query) but 'how can a Republic-enhancing form of journalism -- long-form journalism, narrative journalism, the journalism of ideas, of criticism in tune with the news -- thrive in the years ahead, whether or not the market values it at such and such a rate, whether or not people call it a magazine.'

Profit, non-profit, semi-profit, patron model, public radio model, new model, old -- we'll take anything that works -- even bake sales -- because we care about continuation of a form, and the chance to be great in it, guaranteed for future authors."

Jason Gooljar of Daily Gotham provides a public service reminder on good cellphone etiquette:

"I hate those Motorola two-way radio cell phones! It is one of the worst inventions ever! Well actually it's a good invention it's just being used in a horrible way.

Just like how there is talk about possible legislation geared towards cell phone camera users, who use them for voyeurism. There needs to be talk about these little annoying two-way radios. Matter of fact I’ll throw in those new phones that play snippets of songs when the phone rings! Sitting on a bus or a train that can really be annoying too. Not to mention these little phones can pack a wallop with that little speaker. It's enough to jar you out of whatever you were thinking or reading!"

If you're flabby, you've got to slim down: MarketWatch has the details on the impending layoffs at the New York Times Co. About two-thirds of the 190 job cuts will come from The New York Times, with the remainder of the cuts coming from publications in the NYT's New England Media Group.

Worried that many of your favorite op-ed columnists at the New York Times will soon be disappearing behind a paid subscription wall? Susan Mernit uncovers a comprehensive plan by Peter Levinson to replace the New York Times op-ed columnists with bloggers. Paul Krugman? Replace him with blogger Brad DeLong. David Brooks? Try Andrew Sullivan. Tom Friedman? How about Juan Cole?

Jason Calacanis points out that Andrew Rasiej, candidate for New York City Public Advocate, recently added a campaign videoblog to his growing arsenal of online tools. As a preview of things to come, the Advocates for Rasiej site has posted a short two-and-a-half minute campaign video that was shot using a handheld mini-DV camera.

Another sign that podcasting is entering the mainstream: both ABC News and NBC News are experimenting with podcasting initiatives. Paid Content compares and contrasts the two rival efforts, calling them "far too reminiscent of a round of Spy vs. Spy." Looks like both networks will offer a mix of short clips as well as hour-long podcast specials and news updates.

This came across my desk recently: on Thursday, there will be a news briefing in midtown in which the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation -- together with Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, UC Berkeley and USC -- will announce a new multi-year, multi-million dollar initiative to "revitalize and reform journalism education in the U.S." Among those scheduled to speak at the event: Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation and Hodding Carter, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Just browsing the Knight Foundation Web site, I stumbled across a pretty cool resource: News University, "an innovative Web site designed to help journalists improve their work." Looks like a number of e-learning modules and courses are available now.

Unions are picketing IBM's headquarters in Armonk in an attempt to get the company to curtail - or even abandon - its workforce downsizing plans. For now, though, "there have been no signs Big Blue is about to blink," according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. Union pressure in New York is having less of an impact than one might suppose because most of the job cuts are planned for Europe; thus, most of the efforts within the U.S. are aimed at showing solidarity with their European co-workers.

According to the New York Times, the Starr Foundation is planning to donate $50 million to three Upper East Side medical institutions (Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) in order to conduct stem cell research. Details on how the $50 million will be allocated has not yet been determined, but officials say that "the foundation favors projects that cross institutional boundaries." Interestingly, the foundation also said that it was not attempting to make a political statement about stem cell research -- the broader goal was simply to keep New York City as a world leader in medical science.

Peter Rojas of Engadget interviews Jeffrey Citron, chairman and CEO of Vonage. In a wide-ranging interview, Citron discusses the big picture view of VoIP, the emergence of Skype as a potential rival, the new generation of Wi-Fi phones, and E911 calling.

Heather Green of Business Week's new Blogspotting blog interviews Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis about his decision to quit his full-time job and devote himself full-time to the blogosphere and citizen's media.

Jarvis, who will be a consultant for About.com and the New York Times, explains part of his vision for distributed media at About.com:

"The world of centralized marketplace is yielding to distributed news. Our new role is finding new ways to aggregate. I am hoping there are ways to set up ad hoc networks. I want to enable good things to happen and allow people to be supported, with training, content sharing, etc. About starts with this incredible army of people putting out 500 guides. It's my hope that they can become a platform for distributed media. A locus and starting point for new and great things."

The New York Daily News has the details on Trump University, which won't award grades or degrees, but will charge $300 per course for a business education approved by The Donald:

"Don’t expect ivy-covered walls or a football team. Trump University will consist of online courses, CD-ROMS, consulting services and Learning Annex-type seminars."

(We will expect, however, a cool coat of arms that looks like something from Oxford or Cambridge as a logo for the school)

At a press conference, The Donald explained how the learning mission of Trump University differs from that of traditional schools:

"The problem with school is that school is a little academic, a little theoretical, not necessarily practical. It doesn’t necessarily serve the general public, who may just want to know how to do something. [Trump University] is going to be a tremendous venture. It’s going to really help a lot of people, which is what we really want to do."

If nothing else, the project is an interesting way to take advantage of unleased space at 40 Wall Street, one of Trump's properties that will serve as the HQ for the new "university." We speculate also that Donald Trump may need to create a third category for the next edition of "The Apprentice" -- E-learning Smarts. (The most recent season of "The Apprentice" featured a team of "Book Smarts" versus "Street Smarts.")

The New York Daily News takes a futuristic look at RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology for retail consumers. In one scenario, small computer tags would be embedded right into clothing and other store items. Consumers would then scan the products that they want to buy, and the items would be automatically billed to your debit or credit card. It sounds kinda cool, but as the article points out, there are a number of privacy issues to resolve before RFID technology really takes off.

Looks like more people have stopped drinking the Blog Kool-Aid... Ad Rants explains why blogging is no longer cool (was it ever?):

"Following the recent whirlwind of blog hype including Nick Denton's love affair with the New York Times, his pie to the face at the Radar Magazine party, the launch of Blogebrity, Jason Calacanis' three million micro-blogs, a sudden explosion of branded character blogs and "all marketers should blog" blog conferences, it's now official. Rick Bruner and I, today, declare blogging to have gone the way of the trucker hat. In celebration of this sacred event, May 20, 2005, you can pick up your memorial, Nick Denton Trucker Hat over at Cafe Press."

What's going on behind that gleaming facade at Time Warner Center overlooking Central Park? Fortune goes behind the scenes with Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons to see if there are any interesting new initiatives afoot at the company. Somewhat surprisingly (depending on how you look at it), the answer is basically "business as usual." The company is paring down debt, stabilizing operations, settling federal investigations, and trying out a few ideas to boost the stock price. The only problem is that Wall Street isn't paying much attention -- the company's stock price hasn't budged in nearly 12 months.

The takeaway lesson? A few new projects are in the works, but not "some newfangled thing that people can't understand." When asked about some kind of grand strategy at Time Warner, Dick Parsons doesn't seem to have much in mind: "It's not terribly different from what you see today." If you own shares of Time Warner, that has to be disappointing.

(Photo credit: Cornershots)

At a Securities Industry Association conference in Manhattan, "acquisitive-minded" Archipelago CEO Gerald Putnam hinted that additional market consolidation could be on the way for electronic trading networks. While Putnam has not discussed any concrete deals with NYSE CEO John Thain, he conjectured about the possibility of cross-border deals, in which U.S. markets join with foreign ones.

Putnam also shed some light on the details of the merger between Archipelago and the New York Stock Exchange. For now, the two exchanges plan to operate separately after the deal closes, with "no immediate plans to integrate the entities."

Christopher Lawton of the Wall Street Journal Online interviews newspaper exec Gary Pruitt, who explains how traditional newspapers are attempting to attract younger readers and, at the same time, counteract the recent growth trend in online advertising. When Lawton suggests that the traditional print newspaper might be "dead," Pruitt quickly counters:

"I would say that the migration of content and advertising online means we will face new competitors. The barriers to entry are less, and there are many more classified companies that can compete... There are many more competitors online, but it also means that we have opportunities. We now compete in the breaking news space that we once fed to broadcasters. We can deliver targeted advertising to online audiences, measured and identified with greater precision than ever before..."

Not quite as exciting as the news about Saddam Hussein in his undies, but... Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine quit his full-time job at Advance.net on Friday to pursue a number of interesting media projects -- including a high-profile consulting assignment with About.com and New York Times Digital:

"I just quit my job at Advance.net to do lots of new things -- a damned career smorgasbord -- all related to changing news and to citizens' media. I'm going to work on content development About.com, on a consulting basis, working with Martin Nisenholtz at The New York Times Company... I will act as editor in chief of a new news start-up founded by Upendra Shardanand (ex Firefly, Microsoft Passport, AOL, and Time Warner) and a sterling team... I got a chance to write the new media curriculum for the new City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism... I am hanging out my consulting shingle to take on a few good projects... I have a book I'm finally ready to start writing and I'm thinking about writing some of it here on this blog. And, of course, I will blog -- blog more, I hope."

Congratulations, Jeff, and good luck!

Bookmark this for the Christmas shopping season: KidRobot NY in SoHo. The store offers "the best in urban vinyl toys, mini-figures, t-shirts, posters, accessories, action figures & more!" The lil' pink fella is called Fling the Monkey and retails for $59.95.

A number of factors -- including the proliferation of bloggers and other Internet pundits -- has resulted in the demise of the newspaper art critic. Nowadays, when art journalists gather, supposedly all they talk about is their declining influence on the masses. There are perhaps only a few "stern, doctrinaire" critics left who can literally make or break a show:

"What happened? Besides the Internet and its rash of blogs, suspected culprits include the culture of celebrity, anti-intellectual populism, stingy newspaper owners and what some critics say is a loss of vitality or visibility in their art forms."

Oh... and the New York Times says that the Internet also killed the narrative joke of the type "Two guys walked into a bar...":

"Whatever tenuous hold the joke had left by the 1990's may have been broken by the Internet. The torrent of e-mail jokes in the late 1990's and joke Web sites made every joke available at once, essentially diluting the effect of what had been an spoken form. While getting up and telling a joke requires courage, forwarding a joke by e-mail takes hardly any effort at all. So everyone did it, until it wasn't funny anymore."

The New York Daily News reports that the NYC subway photo ban has been dropped:

"Click away without fear, shutterbugs - a controversial proposal to ban photography in the subways is dead. The Police Department recently told transit officials the photo ban is unnecessary."

According to the New York Daily News, though, police officers will "continue to investigate and intercede if necessary, if the activity - photo-related or not - is suspicious."

Bloggers are celebrities, right? With that in mind, A-list blogger Jessica Coen points to Blogebrity:

"Hi, everyone, I'd like to introduce you the load of genius behind Blogebrity since, you know, normally venerable folks like Glenn Reynolds are even linking to this odd site. Blogebrity poses as a "blogger gossip" page, which smartly creates a blogger hierarchy and has everyone all pissy and intrigued."