The Satiric iPad App Punch Wants You To Laugh, Play, Pay

Despite a cheeky promotional claim that profitability is "not something we think about," Punch has a grand vision of becoming a lucrative tablet publishing platform. But first, a quiz: hedge fund or organic farm?David Bennahum is the CEO of Punch, a news and entertainment app that launched last week for the iPad. Pulling up Punch on your iPad brings shelves filled with various items; tapping on these loads miniature in-app apps that feature topical, interactive content. (Want to dress a digital Rick Santorum doll? You came to the right place.) Fast Company spoke with Bennahum about Punch’s antecedents--including the historical British satire publication of the same name--as well as its future; Punch has a grand vision of becoming a publishing platform. Despite the claims made around the 0:45 mark in Punch's self-satirizing promo video (below), the company very much has thought about profitability--perhaps more deeply than most iPad publishers.The tagline for Punch is “Make Fun.” How does that motto inform the core of Punch?The idea emerged between [Punch founding editor, Radar magazine founder] Maer Roshan and myself about two years ago. Both of us, I think, first of all, appreciate the commercial value of satire and comedy as a way into journalism and the news. Secondly we felt the emergence of the tablet was creating a hunger for topical original content that could only exist on a tablet and nowhere else. We had a sense even back then that it was going to be a huge... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2012-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Hyena’s Laugh: I. U. Tarchetti and the Birth of Italian Gothic

TARCHETTI! WHO WAS TARCHETTI? To Italian readers, he is very much a “minor author” in the landscape of their national literature as it is currently drawn. Although he died in 1869, he can still vie in the cultural marketplace, where his “best” work remains available in cheap paperback editions.... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-12-04 16:00:52 UTC ]
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First PRH ethnicity pay report shows gap of 16% for BAME employees

Penguin Random House has published its first ever ethnicity pay report, which found that BAME staff are paid 16% less than their white colleagues, on average. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-29 12:21:20 UTC ]
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‘The Freezer Door’ is an aching, playful memoir of vivid desire amid the desperation of midlife disconnection

Queer activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s book is alive with the existential nausea of being displaced. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-24 13:00:00 UTC ]
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'Much work to do': pay transparency and hiring processes must change now, FutureBook hears

Ensuring transparency around pay, demystifying the hiring process and giving illustrators the recognition they deserve are among the most fundamental changes the industry needs to make now, delegates at The Bookseller's FutureBook conference heard. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-17 02:31:32 UTC ]
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Michelle Harrison | 'We’ve still got superstitions all around us and I love playing on that'

A family curse trapped the three Widdershins sisters on the prison isle of Crowstone in A Pinch of Magic. The sequel, A Sprinkle of Sorcery, took them across the marshes and waves to a secret island not found on any map. In February, Simon & Schuster Children’s Books will publish the third... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-13 07:14:55 UTC ]
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Lucy Jago | 'It really mattered to me that I didn’t play fast and loose with the facts'

In 1615, a sensational public murder trail took place  in London. The victim, courtier and poet Sir Thomas Overbury, had died in 1613 while a prisoner in the Tower of London, but his death was only investigated two years later as wild rumours swirled around the court of James I. The whispers... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-10 17:39:33 UTC ]
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PRH 'disappointed' as gender pay gap widens

Penguin Random House has said it is “disappointed” after the company's gender pay gap widened by 2.1% over the past year, but insists new initiatives mean it is making long-term progress. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 11:01:34 UTC ]
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Why Nordic publishing giant Schibsted joined the coalition lobbying for Apple App Store ‘fairness’

Schibsted is one of the newest members of the Coalition for App Fairness, a group that includes the likes of Epic Games and Spotify. The post Why Nordic publishing giant Schibsted joined the coalition lobbying for Apple App Store ‘fairness’ appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2020-10-29 04:01:18 UTC ]
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Headline to publish 'laugh out loud funny' memoir of autism

Headline has acquired Drama Queen, a "compelling and funny" memoir about autism from comedy writer Sara Gibbs. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-29 03:20:34 UTC ]
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Samantha Bond to play the Queen in Windsor Knot audiobook

Samantha Bond will narrate the audiobook of S J Bennett’s novel, The Windsor Knot.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-21 13:14:02 UTC ]
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Hodder pays tribute to Jill Paton Walsh

Hodder & Stoughton has paid tribute to Jill Paton Walsh, following the author's death at the age of 83. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-20 12:23:56 UTC ]
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Thomas Nelson Pays $3M Judgment to Printing Company

EPAC Technologies was awarded $3 million in compensatory damages from Thomas Nelson last month after an eight-year lawsuit alleging breach of contract and fraud. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-10-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Emily M. Danforth’s ‘Plain Bad Heroines’ mixes up a delectable brew of gothic horror and Hollywood satire

Danforth tells the story of an ill-fated all-girls school and a movie made about it a century later. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-10-15 12:00:00 UTC ]
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New Macmillan c.e.o. lifts US entry-level pay to $42k

Macmillan is raising the entry-level salary of its US trade publishing staff to $42,000 (£33,000). Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-25 00:04:20 UTC ]
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Deborah Tannen’s ‘Finding My Father’ pays tribute to a man whose many jobs became his life story

With so many contemporary memoirs devoted to the sins of the author’s mother, a focus on a loving dad seems a welcome change. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-09-23 05:01:31 UTC ]
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Third of Pearson's shareholders vote against CEO's £7.2m pay package

Former Disney chairman Andy Bird is to take up job at education publishing group in OctoberPearson has suffered a significant shareholder revolt against controversial changes to its remuneration policy, which will grant its new chief executive a multimillion-dollar pay package.Almost a third of... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-09-18 14:02:55 UTC ]
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Shobna Gulati: 'I've played the Queen, Thatcher and the Virgin Mary – on radio'

As she publishes a moving memoir, the Corrie, Dinnerladies and West End star talks about her three-decade battle with typecasting – and almost dying of Covid-19 Shobna Gulati is speaking about this past horrendous year in surprisingly serene tones. Her mother died last autumn, and a few months... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-09-16 05:00:14 UTC ]
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Octopus pays tribute to author and 'design visionary' Sir Terence Conran

Octopus has paid tribute to British designer, retailer and restaurateur Sir Terence Conran, who died aged 88 over the weekend. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-14 03:25:58 UTC ]
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Ruth Ware’s ingenious ‘One by One’ pays homage to Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’

Over the past five years, Ware has produced five suspense novels, almost all of them weighing in from really good to spectacular. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-09-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Indebted rural council asked to help pay for News Corp 'bush summit', documents show

The Daily Telegraph and Sky News summit was designed to help reinvigorate rural towns but some councillors unhappy they were asked to help fund itThe Daily Telegraph and Sky News asked the Snowy Monaro regional council for $15,000 in cash and services to help pay for the newspaper’s “bush... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-09-04 20:00:35 UTC ]
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