Interesting feature in the New York Times on Macrumors.com founder and senior editor, Arnold Kim, and his decision to stop practicing medicine and pursue blogging full time. The kicker: his popular blog now nets him a hefty six figure income (the same amount he made as a doctor):

Stepping away from medicine felt somewhat strange, he admits. Dr. Kim was bringing home a six-figure income as a doctor, but he recognized that blogging was becoming more lucrative. He says the site also yields a six-figure income for him.

About three years ago, through a combination of Google text advertising, banner ads and commissions on product sales, MacRumors started turning a substantial profit. While Apple is obviously not an advertiser, other technology-oriented companies are, including Verizon, the online audio-book store Audible.com and the information technology products company CDW.

Still, he hesitated to make it a full-time job because he enjoyed medicine — and he had invested almost $200,000 in his education. But he finally concluded that “on paper, it was an easy decision.”

Just goes to show you that content (plus traffic) is king!

(via NYT)

Looks like the hardest working man in hip-hop show business is about to make a splash in the sneaker world. This morning on his blog, The Roots’ ?uestlove proudly unveiled his upcoming Nike signature shoe, the Air ?uesto 1. After a year in the making, the kicks will be available in select stores on August 1st in two very, uh, how do you say, interesting colorways–one of which will be a limited release:

25 lucky people across the US will open their boxes to receive a “golden ticket”—and unlike mr wonka i aint talkin a piece of paper.

the shoes will be golden (the one on top)—them shits are the ones to kill for.

i cant make the “official” announcement on what you will get if you are the lucky ones but lemme just say im gonna stand in line for my own damn shoe.

Best of all, ?uest will be dj’ing in several stores to promote the shoe’s release:

aug1- i’ll be at ALIFE in NYC
aug5- i’ll be at UBIQ in philly
aug 7th I’ll be at Undefeated in LA

Now, my question to you guys: Would you pick these up, or pass ‘em by?

(via ?uesto’s Blog)

Then said ghost blogger is doing a pretty half assed job over on Kanye Universecity. That’s my short response to this whole situation.

If Kanye really is doing all the blogging himself, then he should definitely be commended on his efforts. The guy is an international celebrity, with a demanding schedule, and somehow he still finds the time to deliver several blog updates a day–you gotta respect that. However, if it’s all the work of a ghost blogger within his camp (which he denies), then it’s all pretty pathetic. Not because it’s false advertisement, but because I’d expect higher posting quality from such a person. I mean, assuming that a ghost blogger’s schedule wouldn’t be nearly as demanding as Kanye’s, I’d like to think that he/she would have a little more time on his/her hands to compose a bit more than just the one sentence, picture heavy, “oh look cool” type posts that we often see on Kanye’s blog (again, if it’s Kanye himself, he gets a pass, considering his hectic, stadium status schedule and all).

One last thing, and this is something that I’d like to explore further in a future post, I can’t understand why celebrity hip-hop blogs & fan sites feel the need to follow in the footsteps of existing hip-hop news and gossip blogs. Instead of sticking to the exclusive, behind the scenes content that you’d expect from an artist’s blog, many dish out the same news and gossip that can be found on hundreds of other hip-hop sites around the web. So disappointing, so disconnected.

MagCloud:

MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.

It costs you nothing to publish a magazine on MagCloud. To buy a magazine costs 20¢ per page, plus shipping. For example, a 20-page magazine would be four bucks plus shipping. And you can make money! You set your issue price and all proceeds above the base price go to you. Shipping is a flat $1.40/copy (USPS first class mail) for quantities 1-9, or a flat $13 for quantities from 10-100 (per box of 10-100).

I really wish this service was around way back when the idea of Gureala first entered my mind. Back when I wanted to bring the vision to life in the form of a monthly or bi-montly arts & culture mag, but settled on Moveable Type after peeping the costs of printing and distribution. I really have to tip my hat to HP on this one (yep-yep, MagCloud is an HP Labs creation). Lots of possibilities here. I’m really excited to see how bloggers will take to this service, as well as the types of publications that we’ll begin to in the MagCloud library (there’s already a nice little collection forming) over the next several months. Call me corny, but I’d really like to see some blog year in review-type pubs come out of this…crazy possibilities. What say you?

Update: Thanks for the publisher invite!

Ok, go ahead and hand me a super late pass on this (and I certainly deserve it considering I haven’t posted much of anything lately…my bad): apparently, while I was away from the interwebs, RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan and Chesspark joined forces to launch Wuchess, a chess-centered social networking site with a hip-hop twist:

Designed for chess enthusiasts addicted to hip-hop music, WuChess.com is the place where your favorite music, movies and celebs will be all while you get your game on. WuChess members will get exclusive offers such as MP3s you can’t get anywhere else, playing a surprise celebrity guest, access to one of a kind video clips and many more surprises. This is hardcore chess with half the stuffiness.

Chess x Hip-Hop x Social Networking…you gotta love it! What I love even more is that Wuchess doesn’t come off as just another social networking site fronted by a hip hop artist. You know the ones…self promotion first and foremost, with cheesy graphics and cluttered user interfaces, and blogs that read just like the gazillions of other gossip and hip hop blogs already on the net. There’s none of that here. It’s all about introducing young members of the hip-hop generation to chess, and offering chess veterans an alternative online gaming spot with comfortable, hip-hop laced atmosphere. Oh, and they even have an account on Twitter!

My only gripe/question to you: Can you get down with the site’s $48 membership fee?

Finally! After months of speculation and tons of leaked photos hitting the web almost daily, Steve Jobs & Co. officially introduced the 3G iPhone to the world during today’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

Aside from a thinner profile, solid metal buttons, and a glossy plastic back panel (which will be available in black and white colorways), everything on the outside looks about the same. Unfortunately, there’s no front facing camera for video conferencing as many had predicted.

The real magic, however, is on the inside: faster web speeds (twice as fast as the first gen. iPhone), push email, GPS, improved battery life and support for tons of 3rd party apps available via Apple’s App Store at launch. Speaking of which, the officially launch date is set for July 11 (current iPhone owners will receive the 2.0 software update on that day). That’s a little disappointing considering the way we were teased with all the awesome app demos during the keynote. In the meantime, start stacking your chips ($199 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 16GB model) and plotting your launch day plan of action.

Lots of major announcements coming out of the Apple camp today, which means that I’ll be glued to the following sites live blogging today’s WWDC events:

•Tech Crunch
•Gizmodo
•Engadget
•TUAW
•Twitter

Any predictions?
Stayed Tuned.