Now the New York Times might be buying Letterboxd

11 November 2026

The price is reported to be about $[US]330 million, which amounts to more than 20 times Letterboxd’s projected earnings for 2026 of about $[US]15 million. The New York Times said that the deal was not yet final.

If the deal proceeds, it is said Matthew Buchanan, and Karl von Randow, the New Zealand based founders of the social film cataloguing website, will retain their leadership roles.

The same thing happened of course when Meta, then Facebook, bought Instagram, but let’s not to think too much about that. Meanwhile, it seems efforts by Netflix to acquire Letterboxd have stalled.

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entertainment, film, social media

A short film by Maria Tomazou made with Microsoft Excel

10 November 2026

London based Cypriot animator and filmmaker Maria Tomazou recently made a short film (just over a minute long) using Excel, the Microsoft spreadsheet. Great work.

Imagine electing to use Excel instead of Generative-AI for the job…

Salon ceases publishing after thirty-one years

9 November 2026

The announcement was made last Thursday:

The business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly over the years. After careful consideration, we have reached the difficult decision that our publishing model is no longer sustainable.

I haven’t read Salon much in recent years, I was following their RSS feed though maybe the URL changed and I didn’t notice.

Many of their articles piqued my curiosity, such as the one about a uni student living in his van parked on the campus, or the story of Anthony Perkins being absent during the filming of the shower scene in Psycho. Say what?

Apparently there are plans to keep Salon’s articles online, at least for the time being.

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current affairs, publishing, technology

Vibe coding an ad free TV viewing experience

6 November 2026

Vibe coded apps are improving the TV viewing experience by doing away with adverts, removing bloatware from the device, and blocking tracking apps, enhancing viewer privacy in the process, says John Higgins, writing for The Verge.

Maybe now we can settle into an evening of watching some TV, without being watched by the TV.

AI the elephant in room as Canva announces large staff layoffs

5 November 2026

The Australian founded graphic design platform says it plans to retrench almost a quarter of its global workforce. Canva CEO Melanie Perkins refrained however from attributing the job losses to AI, instead citing “new technology” as the cause:

New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use.

Terrible news for about twelve-hundred Canva employees, as the company looks to consolidate operations to its Sydney base, and compel those who remain to spend more time in the office. The terms for departing staff seem as reasonable as can be expected under the circumstances, and include an incentive to start their own companies:

Departing staff will receive at least six months’ salary, 12 months of healthcare where Canva provides it, and they can keep their work MacBooks. They can also apply for $US10,000 grants to start their own ventures.

Starting a new venture isn’t a half bad idea in this environment, as I fear what happened at Canva yesterday may become commonplace. It seems a stretch, but there may be more job security doing your own thing rather than working somewhere that will repeatedly restructure and downsize.

A data centre by any other name still has thorns

5 November 2026

If OpenAI has its way, AI data centres may soon be known as AI compute campuses. When a product or service develops a reputation beyond redemption — and data centres could hardly be any more abhorred than they are presently — don’t withdraw or cease production, rename instead.

Who on earth is going to know the difference? I for one would much rather be living across the road from a compute campus than a data centre.

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Democrats take Congress in US Midterms, Trump still wields much power

5 November 2026

John Lyons writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Many Democrats are now openly expressing their claim that the result of these midterms indicates Trump has become a lame-duck president. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some things might change, but some things won’t.

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America, current affairs, politics

Bid your name into the next novel of a best selling author

4 November 2026

My old English high school teacher once told us authors take great care choosing the names of their characters. He said many writers opted to go with more common names such as, for example, John Smith or Mary Brown. They refrained, we were told, from using unique, made up names. This lest it turned out there was someone named thusly, who might threaten legal action for whatever reason.

But now well-known writers including Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and Zadie Smith, are giving people — however common or not so common their name is — the chance to be characters in their upcoming novels. The move is in support of Freedom from Torture, a British charity organisation. I’m not sure if you have a say as to what sort of person — good, bad — your name sake will be though.

When Reddit gives you login screens, go back to the open web

4 November 2026

CEO of social news aggregator Reddit, Steve Huffman:

This is a big change for Reddit, where we’ve allowed logged-out access to basically all of Reddit for the last two decades. And I don’t know about you, but as someone whose life has been defined by the open internet, it’s a big change for me. But I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the right decision for our platform and the right decision for our business.

The results of one search engine in particular seem to, or did, rely heavily on the masses of content published at Reddit. But soon, anyone wanting to verify that information will need to login to Reddit.

That’s probably not too difficult though. But there is an opportunity here for actual pundits of the open web, who publish quality content on their website/blog, that isn’t hidden behind a login screen.

Just as well-written blogs can counter AI slop, they can also keep the web open, truly open.

Yes, there’s an inordinate quantity of information dwelling within Reddit. But there are also bloggers who loath login screens and walled gardens, and are passionate about the open web.

The end of internet, and what comes next

3 November 2026

Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery:

My life is defined by the Internet: I witnessed and participated in its evolution, and maybe in some small way contributed to it; I certainly owe my livelihood and success to it. I bemoan its passing.

A thought provoking read. It’s strange to think I may not be doing what I’ve been doing in this space since 1997 for much longer, or what I might be doing going forward will be quite different.

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open web, technology, trends

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