3. WHAT IS LIFE.DATA.TECH?
Quality
The best writers, the best minds, and the best of technology.
Long-Form
Screw pageviews. This is writing worth reading.
Journalism
Integrity, style guides – this is journalism the way it’s supposed to be.
4. WHAT IS SECOND GEEK?
Second Geek, as in, second opinion.
2G is a community website. The Life.Data.Tech backstage.
5. THE LIFE.DATA.TECH CORNERSTONES
Writers, Writers, Writers
We value individual style.
We want writers to write stories worth reading.
Writers are LDT’s rockstars.
Flexible and fair licensing agreements.
Readers, Readers, Readers
We don’t waste their time.
We don’t bullshit them.
They are invited to participate in every aspect of our operations.
We make it easy for them to access our content.
6. WHAT CAN I FIND ON LDT?
Articles, features, editorials, interviews, reviews, infographics, and more.
Articles: The general work unit of the site. Thoughtful content that doesn’t quite
warrant a feature.
Features: The pièce de résistance of LDT – long, thoughtful, and investigative.
Editorials: The second pillar of content. Long, thoughtful, opinions from smart
people.
Interviews: Find out what the best minds know.
Reviews: Everything that’s wrong with Engadget… fixed.
Infographics (and other data dumps): Just the facts.
7. OUR WRITERS ARE PART OF THE STORY
Gonzo Journalism is a first person narrative style that often includes the reporter
as part of the story.
Popularized by Hunter S. Thompson.
Contemporary examples include This American Life and Radiolab.
Our writers are part of the story. How they found information, the process of
writing, the context and process of the interviews should be a part of their stories.
We invite the readers behind the scenes, into the minds of the writers to better
understand the stories they are covering.
Our writes engage their audience on the 2G backstage.
8. OUR READERS ARE PART OF THE STORY
We take the readers backstage with 2G.
Full utilization of social media.
We invite readers to participate in our editorial process: Propose
writers, stories, topics, and more.
Require our writers to have minimum engagement with readers as part of the
overall process of their contributions.
If a writer just wants to write a 1,000 word piece, or write a piece and walk away
from it, they should not be writing for us.
We want writers who will engage the reader, and continue the story with them
after the story is published.
9. THE DATA IS THE STORY
Information is power.
As often as possible we expose the readers to the raw data. The full
transcripts, the tables, the charts, etc.
If you’ve ever read a story and found yourself wishing you could simply
read the writer’s source material, you’re gonna like us.
We invite readers to use the data to second guess us.
10. ALARMINGLY TRANSPARENT OPERATIONS
Nothing is off limits.
Our mission to provide the raw data doesn’t stop at the story.
Virtually every aspect of LDT’s operations will be available on 2G. If you want to
see our analytics, you can. If you want to see what’s getting our page views, do it.
Quarterly Reports – We release entire packages of information, including
communication between the editorial board members.
Probably even the rates we pay for stories will be public.
If you’ve ever wondered if a cozy relationship between a company and a
publication caused a story, you’re going to like us – because you can check our
work.
11. OUR CONTENT GOES WITH YOU…
...on Kindle, one of our premium features.
We take our best stories, compile them, and release them as affordable, bite size
e-books on Amazon’s market.
We can release monthly compendiums.
We can release topical compilations.
We can pick the best of the year.
All in addition to a fully functional mobile website.
Kindle allows us to leverage Amazon’s network, and cross-platform app, without
wasting our time constructing a custom app.
