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Bite-Sized New Yorker Bits at Brijit

Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: David Remnick, design, Oliver Sacks

Surely I'm not the only person who thinks that "Pick of the Issue" describes not only one of Emdashes's more debate-worthy features but also the entirety of Brijit's business plan?

Don't mistake that for a dis. Brijit (keep wanting to slip a d in there) certainly looks like a competent stab at the concept, and we wish it luck. I'm for any website that pays handsomely for reading and then writing about the experience. (That sector is having a hard time.) The concept, which the site describes as "great content in 100 words or less," er, fewer (sue me, I'm an editor), reminds me of two other wonderfully terse sites, 75 or Less and A Brief Message. Brijit may be especially useful for me—an occupational hazard of mine is occasionally forgetting that there are magazines aside from The New Yorker! (Emily doesn't exactly have this problem.)

I like the elegant way the three dots in Brijit's name are spun out to the three points of the rating system. Of the hundreds of New Yorker articles rated on the site, I could only find two that garnered three dots ("exceptional, a must-read, not to be missed"), neither of which appeared as a Pick of the Issue, as it happens. We too sometimes skip the obvious praise for David Remnick or Oliver Sacks in favor of other accolades, so it's not as though we disagree. To be fair, it does seem like an awful lot of New Yorker articles get two stars, which means they're "special, worth making time for."

Here's hoping that Birjit doesn't go the way of Plastic.com. (Oh wait, Plastic still exists.) —Martin Schneider

2 comments

Comments

In far fewer than 100 words:

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. Please keep those cards and letters coming. (And for the record, we tried really hard to live with the more colloquial "100 words or less." But of course you're right, and we'll be changing it soon.)

Best,
Jeremy Brosowsky, founder & CEO, Brijit
www.brijit.com

JeremyBNovember 01, 2007

For what it's worth, I can see the argument that keeping it as "less" is a better business decision. It's the way people speak.

Good luck!

MartinNovember 01, 2007

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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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A few clips

Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)

More clips.

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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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