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Thanks for the mini-review! Perfect!

12 days ago on Who am I? Data and DNA answer one of life’s big questions

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This is the kind of feature that DOES fit on The Verge — it takes the innovation angle toward a non-gadget-related topic. KUDOS on the topic, the write-up and the stunning scrolling design.

Question, though: It’s not clear from the write-up if I’d want to engage with Ancestry’s DNA search or 23andme’s offering. They appear to be quite similar, so I think I kind of need a “review” accompaniment to the article to guide me toward how to best engage these ‘DNA gadgets.’

Cheers,

Jon

12 days ago on Who am I? Data and DNA answer one of life’s big questions 2 replies 1 recommend

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Best. Headline. Ever.

It’s the first time the Verge homepage made me actually laugh out loud. Thanks Nilay! Now, onto reading the actual article….

23 days ago on Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?

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Hi Josh,

Thanks for opening up a forum for this topic! Even those of us who complain only do so because what you’ve built has been so great to-date, and it’s just that it’s recently evolved rather quickly for us. I completely understand that what we’re seeing on our screens now was likely already in your brain two years ago… but it really wasn’t in many of our brains. At least not to this extent.

It always seemed to me that ever since you decided to call it “The Verge,” you were aiming to be a kind of WIRED 2.0, which is great. However, the seeming lack of “angle” on non-future/non-tech content has been confusing me and others. I’m naturally looking for everything you produce to have a unified purpose. An editorial perspective. A reason beyond “we find it interesting.”

“We find it interesting” to me isn’t a good enough editorial policy. It certainly seems like it is for you, but I think a lot of the hoopla you’re hearing on the forums is a reaction to kind of being left in the dark as to what the purpose of The Verge is, and how we can best navigate it to find the stuff that we find interesting — which will increasingly be a subset of what you find interesting.

Also, I do think that there’s a bit of a cart-before-the-horse situation occurring, because the hardware reviews are still tech/gadget centric (just look at the reviews categories), which to me are still the spinal column of sorts of the site. If you’re going to be more broad in your coverage, then I’d imagine that your reviews would need to expand equally to match the editorial. Otherwise, we’d kind of have a mismatch of a post-Engadget site when it comes to reviews, an a post-WIRED mag when it comes to coverage and features. To wit: movie reviews currently don’t sit in the reviews navigation area of the site. I think this is an example of how the evolving The Verge hasn’t really fully connected to the original/core The Verge of 2011/2012.

Ultimately, I’m for expanding the remit. But I’m even more for clearly defining the remit in a way that we the readers can understand and navigate The Verge to avoid confusion or, worse, disappointment. I want to be informed on what is “on the verge” of happening next — in technology & beyond. And if the Boston Bomber stories even attempted slightly to slip in an angle about how it relates to being “on the verge” of something, that would have been more than enough for me to tie it all together. But, as many of the Boston articles stood, they seemed to stand alone on an editorial island that didn’t connect back to the purpose of The Verge.

Cheers, and I hope this helps clarify some of the consternation out there in the The Vergisphere.
Jon

24 days ago on If you have questions about The Verge and our coverage, feel free to ask them here

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A thought and question I’d like to share as The Verge expands and evolves….

I get why you called it The Verge… its very essence speaks to innovation, and being on top of what’s next. It’s true that there’s a ton of innovation in technology, which is why it’s a natural place to start, but that’s not only where innovation occurs. And I think (and hope) that The Verge’s editorial team sees their own brand in this light — that the features, the content focus… the purpose… of The Verge is to report, educate and entertain around what’s on the verge of happening next.

The question, though, is how do gadget reviews fit into this larger remit? I’d imagine that the reviews strategy should also ramp up and include of a lot of emerging things beyond core tech gadgets. Otherwise, it feels like either the editorial is running away from the core, or the reviews are stuck in an old casing of the site.

I feel like some of the most recent articles are straying even from the notion of “The Verge” as defined above. I’d appreciate some editorial cohesiveness — some unifying purpose that links it all together. For instance, I’m just not getting the “Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged as civilian, will be tried in federal court (updated)” article in the scheme of Verge coverage. I just don’t see the connection to an editorial strategy. Now, if this article’s angle was how the modern surveillance state enabled his capture, or how criminal law is so different (or the same) as patent law, etc., I could at least understand the connection. But, despite the fact that it’s really a great article (really loved it!), I just don’t get why it’s here. The same goes for a number of articles that I just don’t connect to being on The Verge.

27 days ago on What is The Verge really? 2 replies 3 recommends

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Good article, but what’s the editorial strategy for The Verge? Josh & Nilay – it’s cool to expand and all, but how about some kind of over-arching editorial philosophy that we can get our heads around. I’m just trying to see the common thread beyond “culture” — which is far too broad to be a editorial focus. I feel like you’re trying to be Wired 2.0 without actually saying so.

Keep on moving forward! Just give us a map. :) Thanks!

30 days ago on Controversial update to 'bible' of psychiatry fuels debate over foundations of mental health 1 reply