Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length
URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT
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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: NETWORK TELEVISION (90%); MEN (90%); AFRICAN AMERICANS (90%); INVESTIGATIONS (90%); ART & ARTISTS (86%); PAINTING (73%); PHYSICIANS & SURGEONS (70%); NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS (69%); SURGERY & TRANSPLANTATION (69%); SURGICAL PROCEDURES (68%); BRAIN (67%); MOUNTAINS (60%) PERSON: MARTHA STEWART (55%) GEOGRAPHIC: LITTLE ROCK, AR, USA (79%); SHANGHAI, CHINA (72%); CHONGQING, CHINA (72%) CALIFORNIA, USA (79%); ARKANSAS, USA (79%); EAST CHINA (67%); SOUTHWEST CHINA (67%); SICHUAN, CHINA (50%); YANGTZE RIVER (52%) UNITED STATES (94%); CHINA (91%) LOAD-DATE: July 24, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTOS PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 557 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence BYLINE: By BRAD STONE SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 8 LENGTH: 957 words DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO Facebook, the rapidly growing social network, unveiled some new features on Wednesday as it works to broaden its reach online and to recalibrate its sometimes contentious relationship with the thousands of developers writing programs for the service. In a speech at his company's annual conference for developers, called F8, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 24-year-old chief executive, also demonstrated the company's new design. He predicted that there would soon be a wave of social Web sites built on top of the information users give to social networks. ''We are going to see the big social networks start to decentralize into a series of social applications across the Web,'' Mr. Zuckerberg said. ''I think we are at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.'' To carve out a piece of that future, the company announced Facebook Connect, a way that other Web sites can integrate parts of Facebook's service. Web sites can ask users for their Facebook user name and password, instead of creating an identity verification system themselves, and offer their users the ability to import their list of friends from Facebook. For example, the mobile service company Loopt, based in Mountain View, Calif., helps people find their friends and see what they are doing on a map on their mobile phone. It will use Facebook Connect so its users do not have to re-enter their connections to the friends they want to track. ''Recreating the social graph and helping people identify who their friends are is never something we wanted to do,'' said Evan Tana, director of product management at Loopt. ''This makes our lives a lot easier.'' Sites including Google and MySpace have introduced similar systems for confirming users' identities. Facebook Connect is a two-way highway -- information about a user's activity on those other Web sites also travels back and appears on the ''news feed'' on Facebook, where it is seen by that person's friends on the service. But Mr. Zuckerberg said users could strictly control what they share, jokingly referring to last year's controversial Beacon advertising program, which was viewed as being overly invasive. ''We paid a lot of attention to making sure that people have complete control over what is in their feed,'' he said. ''We learned from last time.'' Mr. Zuckerberg also reflected on the 15 months since Facebook opened up its site to outside companies and invited them to build profitable features for it. The move was generally seen as smart and somewhat momentous inside the tech world. Facebook says 400,000 developers have worked on tools for the site, and other companies, including Google and Microsoft, have sought to create their own competing open systems. But Facebook's platform has also generated its share of controversy. Many trivial applications have clogged the site, and sought to spread themselves among users using a variety of tricks. Frustrated, Facebook has tried to counter that and put more emphasis on significant and trustworthy applications. ''As happy as I am with the growth of the ecosystem, there are a lot of mistakes we made,'' Mr. Zuckerberg said. ''I think we can all agree that we don't want an ecosystem full of applications that are just trying to spread themselves.'' To that end, Facebook announced a series of new incentives for developers to write what it characterized as ''meaningful'' tools for the service. It said it would pick certain applications that meet a set of Facebook principles to be part of a new ''Great Apps'' program. Those applications will get higher visibility on the service and will be able to work more closely with Facebook. Causes, a charitable giving tool, and iLike, a music sharing service, were the first two applications to receive this designation. Sean Parker, a former Facebook executive who now runs Causes, said Facebook was trying to stimulate the creation of more sophisticated applications. ''They are trying to evolve to a place where the right companies get funded and they launch more ambitious features on the platform,'' he said. Facebook said it was also setting up another level of certification, called the Facebook Verification program, for applications that meet the basic criteria of being secure and trustworthy. These applications will get added visibility and a graphical ''badge.'' Facebook also unveiled a new developer's site and pledged to communicate more openly with the entrepreneurs who have tethered their future to Facebook. The last few months have been marked by plenty of controversy in Facebook's world, with developers complaining that Facebook was not communicating well about changes to the service. Some accused Facebook of copying the most successful features of outside applications and introducing competing versions. One part of its redesign, for example, duplicates some of the features of Top Friends, a popular program created by San Francisco-based Slide, a leading applications maker. Keith Rabois, a vice president at Slide, said this was one reason that interest among venture capitalists in backing application makers had cooled. ''I think every venture capitalist is looking at Facebook very differently than it did a year ago,'' he said. ''No one wants to build something that just becomes an R.& D. company for Facebook.'' Not everyone was negative. Blake Commagere, the developer who created zombie and vampire games for a variety of social networks, said Facebook was simply learning as it goes, like everyone else in an unprecedented Web experiment. ''It's been a learning process for developers and for Facebook,'' he said. ''They are breaking new ground, but these guys are sharp. They are going to continue to improve it.''
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 558 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Fabricating Is Among the Heroine's Many Skills BYLINE: By JANET MASLIN SECTION: Section E; Column 0; The Arts/Cultural Desk; BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 998 words THE LACE READER By Brunonia Barry 390 pages. William Morrow. $24.95. Brunonia Barry's debut novel describes a community where women share many tasks. Among them: making lace, milking cows, growing flax, spinning yarn from yellow dog hair and protecting one another from abusive men. There is also a sisterly job that Ms. Barry herself has undertaken. Women write books that other women will want to sit around and discuss, preferably over tea and cucumber sandwiches. And for those who seize upon ''The Lace Reader'' as book club material, don't forget the doilies. They're very much part of the scene here. So is the witch-hunting locale that is Salem, Mass., a place that long ago enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame. Thanks to Ms. Barry, who lives in Salem and knows the place inside out, the touristy attributes of ''The Lace Reader'' are about to bring Salem new attention. She captures this setting evocatively and often wittily, as when a charge of modern-day witchcraft is filed against one controversial citizen. ''I don't even understand why we're taking this report,'' Salem's police chief says. ''Witchcraft isn't even a crime. In this town it's a profit center.'' So ''The Lace Reader'' unfolds against a backdrop where entrepreneurial witches set up a booth for selling Celtic jewelry to tourists. The town's most sporting avowed witch, a direct descendant of a married couple executed in 1692, seems to be acting out a one-woman family protest (''an 'I have the name, so I might as well have the game' type of thing''). And while the town still has militant Calvinists, they are now followers of a cult leader named Cal Boynton. A capital letter A is always sewn onto Cal's clothing. But it's on his Armani labels, not on his chest. In the midst of this admirably mischievous depiction of Salem, Ms. Barry introduces her mentally unstable heroine. Her last name is Whitney, and her first is either Towner or Sophya (the latter misspelled, but borrowed from Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife). Towner admits in the first paragraph of her story that she can be something of a liar. So the reader is left, as in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, to guess what her great big secret whopper happens to be. Here are some things Towner says about herself: That she was brought up in a blue-blooded but highly confusing family. That her biological mother, May, had twins but gave up one of them, possibly because she had a spare. That Towner's great-aunt Eva is the place's most eccentric citizen, which is Salem's equivalent of an Olympic gold medal. And that Eva could see the future by reading the Ipswich lace that is painstakingly handmade in this region. Eva, perhaps while imprisoned in a fortune cookie factory, has written a text called ''The Lace Reader's Guide,'' and lines from it are cited at the start of each chapter. Sample saying: ''Every Reader of lace must learn to exist within the empty spaces that form the question.'' Despite its title, ''The Lace Reader'' does not feature much actual lace reading. But it does convey the particulars of making lace with bobbins made of bone, navigating the islands near Salem with a fisherman's ease and, last but hardly least, recuperating from a mental breakdown. Towner has, for reasons that Ms. Barry will keep up her sleeve, undergone a long hospitalization and electroshock therapy. Her memory has been left highly unreliable. She exhibits the symptoms of dissociative disorder, which is this book's way of saying ''I see dead people.'' What's real in ''The Lace Reader?'' What is not? To her credit Ms. Barry makes this story blithe and creepy in equal measure. (The background strains of ''Some Enchanted Evening'' in a story rooted in witchcraft is one nicely double-edged stroke.) And she keeps it unpredictable, partly by switching narrative points of view. Sometimes the book is narrated by Towner in the present tense. Sometimes it shifts to third-person narration describing Rafferty, Salem's charming cop. Rafferty explains why he used to frequent the tea room run by Great-Aunt Eva by saying, ''I'm a big fan of the fancy sandwich.'' The moment would be breezier had Aunt Eva not just drowned during her daily swim. But Eva is still talking to Towner, watery grave notwithstanding. For as long as Ms. Barry can keep her book rambling this freely, it makes an intriguingly peculiar story. And there is much suspense invested in where all the lacunas in Towner's impressions will lead her. Then two unfortunate things happen: The narrative gives way to a long, long piece of so-called creative writing that Towner composed during the time she was hospitalized. But this manuscript sounds just like the rest of the novel. And the events it describes are overwrought enough to break this book's otherwise gentle spell. Then, when it finally becomes clear how directly Ms. Barry wants to link Salem's past to her present-day story, ''The Lace Reader'' heaves all remnants of subtlety overboard. The beguiling effects of the first part of this book are betrayed by its finale. To her credit Ms. Barry does set up this ending carefully. Few of her story's throwaway details turn out to be incidental. There are clues planted everywhere, and eventually she pieces them together to melodramatic effect. What's more, she has described herself in interviews as influenced by Joseph Campbell's myth of the hero. But this is more of a talking point for talk shows than a reflection of what she has put on the page. Perhaps there is mythic progress as the book moves from etiquette lessons (Towner was taught to eat vitamins with a dessert fork) to all hell's breaking loose (someone in the book is said to have been torn apart by dogs). Perhaps the author is just intent on churning up a big ending. After all, Towner has read not only lace; she's also read movie scripts for a Hollywood director. When she speaks of fleeing Salem and going as far away as she can, California is what she has in mind. URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: NOVELS & SHORT STORIES (90%); BOOK REVIEWS (90%); POLICE FORCES (73%); MARRIAGE (69%); FASHION DESIGNERS (66%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (64%); CULTS & SECTS (62%); TWINS & MULTIPLE BIRTHS (57%); RELIGION (50%); MAMMALS (90%) PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (71%) GEOGRAPHIC: MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (79%) TITLE: Lace Reader, The (Book)>; Lace Reader, The (Book)> LOAD-DATE: July 24, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY MARTHA EVERSON) DOCUMENT-TYPE: Review PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 559 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Correction Appended Late Edition - Final
One of the more innovative of these groups is the five-year-old Jumpstart Inc., which provides seed money to entrepreneurs with promising businesses in the Cleveland area. Like a venture capital firm, Jumpstart identifies companies to invest in and advises them on their next steps. But unlike a venture firm, Jumpstart relies on charitable donations, many of them from the private sector, for its financing and does not return a share of profits to those who provide the investment dollars. The return comes as satisfaction for elevating a region's economic standing. Robert Litan, director of research for the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on fostering entrepreneurship, is among those who see great value in Jumpstart's approach. ''The traditional model for helping relatively depressed areas of the country is smokestack chasing, where a city provides incentives to attract companies or to keep them from leaving,'' he said. ''But the problem with that approach is that it is very expensive and it is a zero sum game from the point of the country as a whole, because if I attract a company to my city, then I win, but the city where the company used to be from loses.'' If a city can successfully spawn more businesses locally, Mr. Litan said, then they are more likely to stay at home. Early results on the impact of Jumpstart's work are promising. According to a report it commissioned from Cleveland State University, Jumpstart's investments have generated ripple effects throughout northeastern Ohio, like the $56.3 million in goods and services produced and the creation of 346 new jobs. While the numbers are small now, Jumpstart believes those ripples will spread exponentially. Similar efforts at spurring economic development have been bubbling up around the country, with varying degrees of government and private support, and they are often the biggest source of early stage financing for technology companies in their regions. They tend to be found where there is a steady supply of innovation coming out of nearby research universities. One of the pioneers was the Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Pennsylvania, which was created in 1983 by the state's governor at the time, Richard Thornburgh, to breathe new life into the state. Jumpstart is led by Ray Leach, a serial technology entrepreneur who says he knows what it is like to build a successful company in northeastern Ohio because he has done it himself. After a 20-year career building companies and advising others, Mr. Leach said he was ready to turn his attention to the macroeconomic condition of his home community and to lay a foundation for his own reinvention as a venture investor. Using a team of other serial entrepreneurs, former investment bankers and a board of local business luminaries, Jumpstart plays many roles. Synapse Biomedical, a medical device company, is a typical Jumpstart company. Anthony Ignagni, one of the founders, encountered Jumpstart when he entered a business plan competition in 2003 at Case Western Reserve University, where a Jumpstart staff member was a judge. The company won $20,000 as well as introductions to people who gave feedback on its business plan. In 2005, Jumpstart invested almost $300,000 in Synapse, and then worked closely with the company as it went on to raise nearly $5 million in a first round of venture financing. Just last month the company received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a device intended to shorten the length of time patients remain on a respirator. Now that Synapse is more mature, Jumpstart plays a much smaller role. Warren Goldenberg, a lawyer who specializes in technology deals, represented several clients working with Jumpstart before becoming a client himself when he assumed the chief executive's role at CardioInsight Technologies, another medical technology company born out of research at Case Western Reserve. ''In Boston or Silicon Valley, you don't need entities like Jumpstart. But here in the Midwest, you need a little goosing, and CardioInsight is a good example of a company that would not have existed if a group of organizations had not proactively worked to pull the pieces together to form it,'' Mr. Goldenberg said. Jumpstart relies on financing from a mix of private companies, foundations and government entities, all of whom are committed to nurturing local companies in northeastern Ohio. The region was so economically battered that in 2002 it was ranked last out of the 61 largest metropolitan areas in the United States in a survey by Entrepreneur Magazine of the best regions for entrepreneurship. Mr. Leach likes to point out that by 2006, Cleveland had risen to the 23rd position. ''My most cynical side says it's a happy coincidence,'' he said. ''But clearly the momentum was starting.'' The federal government has also gotten behind Jumpstart's efforts. Robert Sawyer, the Chicago regional director of the Federal Economic Development Administration, awarded it a $750,000 grant. Mr. Sawyer's region encompasses six states -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. ''If I could seed a Jumpstart in each of those states, I would,'' he said. Innovation Works in Pittsburgh is a regional partner of the Ben Franklin Technology group and, like Jumpstart, is run by a former technology entrepreneur, Richard Lunak. ''When people think of technology entrepreneurs and venture capital, they think of Silicon Valley and that's where they think it ends,'' Mr. Lunak said. ''But there is a lot going on in regions like Pittsburgh, which has over a billion dollars of federally funded research pouring into its universities annually.'' According to the Kauffmann Foundation, the most successful of these organizations are those led by a chief executive who has stood in the shoes of a start-up in that region. Mr. Lunak certainly fits the bill. ''I'm the C.E.O., but 18 years ago I helped start a medical technology company, Automated Healthcare, which was started with an $89,000 loan from Ben Franklin Technology Partners,'' he said. ''When I left, the company, which had since been acquired by McKesson Corporation, employed about 1,800 people. But it is still located in Pittsburgh. In that time, it has grown and acquired other businesses that have relocated to our region.'' He added that ''it also drives a lot of other regional businesses, like suppliers of motors, amplifiers and sheet metal, so it has created both blue- and white-collar jobs. This is why these technology-based companies have sustainable competitive advantages.'' The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, a nonprofit affiliate of the city's chamber of commerce, has been working to expand that city's future businesses since 1999. David Weinstein, who was Mayor Richard M. Daley's technology adviser before starting a couple of technology companies, prides himself on knowing what fledgling entrepreneurs need. ''It comes down to three things: customers, capital and mentors,'' Mr. Weinstein said. To bolster the capital part of that equation, the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center also started the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund, a $10 million for-profit venture fund that invests $250,000 to $1 million in companies that have yet to produce revenue. Asked about the center's results, Mr. Weinstein cites the connections it makes for its companies. ''We measure how many introductions a year we make to our clients to potential customers and investors, and on average it is about a thousand a year,'' he said. ''It is all really tangible.''
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