So Bryce, tell us about yourself and how you became interested in the culinary world.

I’ve always had a deep fascination in the culinary arts, though I never expected to end up quite so influential in that rarefied field of human endeavor. My first serious foray into cooking was at my college in Cambridge where I took the job of assistant junior sous chef. I was soon promoted up through the ranks, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Describe a day in the life of Bryce Chartwell.

Usually I rise around six and jump straight onto a conference call with my UK team. This allows me to stay in touch with that evening’s menu, and intervene if anything appears doomed to failure. After a few laps in the pool I breakfast while perusing the day’s news on Zite, the BBC website and Country Life. The rest of my morning is typically employed in the kitchen at The Last Parsnip guiding, challenging and stretching my staff. I like to have a leisurely lunch, for at least two hours, which I find stimulates the creative juices to no end. I try to stay out of the restaurant for most of the afternoon – instead spending my time writing, conducting interviews and meeting with other influential people. By evening you’ll find me back in the restaurant – greeting guests, keeping my hand in on the more challenging dishes, and generally ensuring that we once again achieve cooking perfection. At the end of the day I’ll return home for a late supper with my family. I finish with a few minutes of Radio 4′s Today Programme, which usually settles me in nicely for a night of blissful sleep.

You’re quite the jetsetter. Where do you spend most of your time and which country are you in now?

I have restaurants in both the UK and the US – and like to spend some time at each during the year. I’m currently based in Seattle, managing the growth of our Bainbridge Island establishment. However, the sourcing of ultra-premium ingredients is critically important – and I like to stay hands on with our supplier relationships. These require frequent business trips to New York, San Francisco, Scandinavia, France, various rather ill-kept countries in Eastern Europe and the occasional journey to the Indian sub-continent. I’m currently typing this at 35,000 feet somewhere over the Massif Central.

We noticed you’re a fan of Zite (thank you!). Why do you use Zite?

In my position it’s important to appear more knowledgeable than my customers on all things related to cooking. Zite helps me to stay abreast of new developments in my field, and it also provides me with splendid information on any mishaps that my competitors may have experienced.

We heard that you have quite the set up for your Zite? What do you like to read?

I like to use Zite on my iPad 4 with its musk ox leather case. I follow gastronomy and the restaurant industry in general. Other interests include skeet shooting (or, as I would say “clay pigeon” shooting), foraging and truffle hunting. I find articles that explain the difficulties and occasional risks associated with extreme cooking to be particularly illuminating.

You and The Last Parsnip host quite a few special events. Any memorable moments? What are the best/worst dishes you’ve made?

The Chartwell Feast, an epic dining event spread over five full days of eating, always provides many memorable moments. However, under legal advice, I’m not at liberty to reveal any of the details.

My best dish may well be the bird-in-a-bird-in-a-bird-in-a-bird-in-a-bison that I made at last year’s Chartwell Feast. I like to think of it as the dish that keeps on giving.

My worst was possibly a soufflé that I presented at Davos a few years ago. I incorrectly read the mountain-top dining room’s altitude as being in yards rather than meters. Sadly, the incremental barometric pressure made a critical difference. Let that be a lesson to all burgeoning chefs.

What are some of your favorite sources of content that you read on Zite?

I appreciate reading content in Zite from its nose to its tail. In the nose, I’m partial to articles from Serious Eats, Saveur and Food 52. In the tail, I’m inclined towards any of the specialty offal blogs that are out there today.

Have you learned any cooking tips from Zite? What’s next for the “how-to’s” on your YouTube channel?

Surprisingly, I have to admit that, yes, I have. However I’m loathed to share them with you in this interview. If you are also of the gastronomical curiosity, take a look at my YouTube channel videos to learn a thing or two for yourself.

There are so many kitchen fundamentals that can benefit from a little attention to detail. Expect to see future episode covering the more common techniques such as grating, slicing, plucking and strangulation.

What’s next for you and The Last Parsnip?

We’ll continue to push the bounds of cooking – with more special events like our newly introduced dark dining program. Myself – I’ll be continuing to raise my profile in the US over the coming months. There’ll be more videos, podcasts and even a Kindle Single coming out shortly.

If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would you choose and why?

I assume that when you say “dead” that they would be alive once-again in this particular scenario. In which case I think Leonardo Da Vinci would be a fine guest for The Last Parsnip. I have always found his work to be both inspirational and ahead of its time – much like my own.

You seem to be able to do it all whether you’re traveling or enjoying a Lakers game at home. What does a day in the life of Christine look like?

Every day is different, which is why I love my job. Some days are spent in front of a computer, other days, I’m driving across LA for back-to-back-meetings with clients, and others, I’m jetting off to New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris, and beyond!

What’s the most interesting part of your job?

Working with brands across industries I am personally passionate about. I would urge anyone starting out in PR to find a niche they are personally passionate about – what do you talk about with your friends over dinner? Music, food, wine, fashion? Focus your PR career on those you care most about – you’ll be better able to promote products and companies you love.

PR has to have its stressful days – what is your biggest PR pet peeve?

The old-school PR approach of press releases. At this stage of the game, they are what I call a “necessary evil.” Journalists rarely get their news from the wire anymore, so really you’re just writing a press release for the company, and as a formality. If you have a strong story pitch – either via phone or email – and a company or product fact sheet, you almost don’t need a press release anymore.

You’re an avid social media user. Why do you choose Zite for sharing content?

Because it’s beautiful. For my Type A personality, Zite organizes my favorite news outlets and Twitter and Facebook feeds into a gorgeous, magazine-quality layout.

What types of articles do you tend to share most?

I share articles about food, luxury travel, social media, and business with my friends on Twitter and Facebook using the Zite app.

What are some of your must-have sources of content that you read on Zite?

JustLuxe, A Luxury Travel blog, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Social Media Today, Forbes

What are your must-have sections that you look at daily?

I peruse on a daily basis sections on Entrepreneurship, Food & Cooking, Luxury Lifestyle, Social Media, Travel and Fashion. I also read my Twitter and Facebook feeds in Zite as the layout is so much more visually appealing than any Facebook or Twitter-branded mobile app.

When you’re not working, what activities do you enjoy?

Reading, eating, cooking, traveling, watching bad (but so good) reality TV, and spending time with my husband, family and friends.

Any events you’re looking forward to in the coming months?

I’m excited to be speaking on a Luxury Daily panel in New York in May about social media’s impact on the luxury industry in 2013. For more information and to register to attend the conference, visit: www.luxuryroundtable.com

That’s exciting! We’ll look out for your tweets. Lastly, if you could do PR for any company, which would you choose & why?

Over the course of my PR career, I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the best brands in the world – there isn’t one specific one I’d like to work with because I like to keep my options open. I have found my passion in representing restaurants, luxury hotels, and startups – so any company looking for PR services or social media management is a company I want to work with!

Donna Brazile is a political strategist and a contributor to CNN and ABC News. Follow Donna on Twitter: @donnabrazile

Thanks for speaking with us, Donna – we noticed you’re a big Zite user. Why do you use Zite?

For online news stories, breaking news and original features. I use it for research, writing and background information on particular topics of interest. Zite helps me sort out topics for future columns. I have a voracious appetite for news, gardening tips, philosophy, humor, sports and philanthropy.

That’s a lot of subjects! 

Even though I tend to share political news, polling, civil rights, healthy living and women’s issues, given my profession, the three sections I look at daily are culture, gardening and healthy living.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned throughout your career?

The most spiritual thing we can do is help another on some level, materially or emotionally or even intellectually. We do that by increasing each day, even a little, in our acts of goodness and kindness.

What is Bill Clinton like?

He has a magnetic personality, good southern charm and a sense of humor. Most of all, he is one of the smartest men I have ever encountered.

You also supported President Obama’s re-election. What was the most impressive moment of his first term?

Either when he announced that Bin Laden was dead or his speech proposing what is now called Obamacare. Every president since Harry Truman had tried to move the country toward universal healthcare, but he did it. The first unalienable right listed in the Declaration is “life,” and “heal the sick” is a universal spiritual commandment. Obamacare’s not perfect, but it took courage to push that through during a financial crisis. Also, I admire his handling of Hurricane Sandy and how he worked with Gov. Christie, who had disparaged him only a few weeks earlier.

What are you looking forward to in his second term?

Action on climate change and our energy policy. An end to the playground tantrums in Congress, leading to a mature approach to the economy. Fixing the cost of health care, long term. Infrastructure repair – badly needed. Continued economic growth – the latest figures are very encouraging – and tax code reform; investment in and a serious discussion about education; immigration reform. Overturning of Citizens United, so we take back the electoral process from the special interests and return civility to our public discourse. To accomplish any of this, the President will need the cooperation of Congress, which means the legislators will have to grow up and put the country first.

What are the five things you’ve learned about President Obama that other people wouldn’t know?

1) I am impressed with how deliberate a thinker he is, how he’s not afraid of debate. 2) He seems genuinely moved by what I’d call the small interactions. Remember that hug with the restaurant owner, who picked him up? President Obama seems to treasure the in-the-moment exchanges that connect heart-to-heart. (Watch his smile when a child reaches out.) 3) His sense of humor and playfulness. The self-deprecating wit is genuine. He enjoys his inner child. 4) His competitiveness. 5) He really respects people. He listens. He’s truly family and child-centered. Obama is someone I’d like to have a beer with, or a glass of red wine to discuss philosophy with and debate the writings of Frederick Douglas or WEB Dubois.

Who has been your favorite person to interview and why?

Nancy Pelosi for Capitol File Magazine. She is one of the most inspirational figures of our time.

When you’re not working, what activities do you enjoy?

Gardening, playing fetch outdoors with my dog, cooking, reading books or magazines or watching movies or sports.

Since Google Reader is dying, we created a replacement in Zite that doesn’t depend on Google’s infrastructure.  From start to finish, in six hours.

How it works

First, link your Google Reader account by visiting Explore (or during initial set up)

                                        -> 

You’ll find a section called ‘Google Reader Feeds’ in your Quicklist.  (If it doesn’t appear, kill the app and restart)

Zite was able to pull this together so quickly because of how our backend works.

1. Google Reader has always been part of Zite – users have always had the option of adding their Google Reader account to tell our personalization algorithms which sources they prefer and what types of stories they like to read.
2. Zite ingests millions of articles each day from hundreds of thousands of sources.
3. Zite has deep personalization technology that can analyze user reading habits and pick the best stories from their Google Reader instead of getting inundated with hundreds of articles.

Note that this is a basic feed reading only.  There are definitely some limitations:

• The “Google Reader” section will only appear after you’ve restarted the app or added another category (something we’ll fix in the near future)
• Not every RSS feed is currently indexed by us, which is something we’ll be working on.
• There’s no way to edit your feeds (something we hope to add an interface for, probably on the Web)
• No folder support (we’re thinking about the best way to implement or eliminate the need for folders)
• No ongoing syncing with Google Reader (you can force a sync by re-linking, though)
• No prominent count of unread articles (just kidding, this is a feature!)

We know there’s a lot more to do to improve this functionality within Zite, but we’re excited that we’ve been able to build something so quickly for disgruntled Google Reader users and look forward to adding more features.  Please let us know what you want to see by e-mailing feedback@zite.com

Today, we’re excited to announce another update to Zite that includes a few new features, usability tweaks, and a few bug fixes.  We’re continuing to listen to our users and working hard to keep releasing updates that make Zite the type of app you want to come back to again, and again.  Here are some of the key updates we’ve made in this release:

• Like and follow topics from Reader Mode – when you thumb up an article, you’ll get a list of related topics, which you can either like or dive into for more articles.
• Image Gallery – when an article has multiple images, just tap on one image and you’ll see all of them presented in a slideshow.  This is great for image-heavy sections like “Interior Design” and “Street Art.”
• Native Facebook sharing – besides being faster and slicker, this will eliminate errors that our users have been seeing.
• Share and thumb pages after following a link – when following a link from an article, the option bar on the bottom of the page will remain, so you can give articles a thumb up (or down) and share the story.
• Turn off “Popular on Zite” and “Headline News” modules – from your Quicklist, go into settings and you’ll be able to toggle Top Stories modules on or off.

In addition to new features, we’ve made some minor UI tweaks (note that the heart now looks much more tappable).

As always, we’re open to feedback and looking forward to another release in a few months with even more of your suggestions. Email us at feedback@zite.com to share your experiences.

What do you like to read on your Zite?

I mostly enjoy my created categories of North Korea, Sudan and gadgets.

What types of articles do you tend to share most?

I tend to gravitate toward International articles that fly under the radar and few people notice. Since Zite makes it easy for me to scan articles outside of the mainstream, I like to share the articles that I feel others are less likely to read on their own.

If you could add one new category to your Zite – anything – what would it be?

I would like to be able to create a “Newsmakers” category that is dedicated to a particular person. I would be able to get all the news relating to that person, and as it’s no longer a focus for me, I could create a category for my next interview.

Why do you use Zite?

I use Zite for 2 reasons: 1) I can create my own personalized news topics and Zite collects info for me in those categories and 2) Zite tends to gather news from news sites that others like Google do not.

Clearly we know you’re a fan – but what other apps can you not live without?  And what’s your device of choice?

I like the iPad (I have the mini but don’t like it…too small). Netflix is a great app. So is Dragon Dictate.

Describe a day in the life of Greta, how do you start and end your day?

News…news…and more news!

Where do you see broadcast heading in the next 5-10 years?

All news will be by demand and it will be delivered mostly on mobile devices. News organizations will keep uploading news and news users will type in a word to get all the latest. This won’t be that much unlike Zite but it will be all or mostly video and each news organization will seek to dominate it – and not collate each other’s like Zite does. Branding will be huge – I suspect people will go to news organizations and news people they know.

What’s the most enjoyable part of your job? 

Nothing is ever dull. It is constantly changing, and there are constant surprises. I may wake up in Washington expecting to spend my day in Washington and find myself 2 hours later on a plane to London!

What was your most memorable interview and why?

I have had a daily cable news show for just under 20 years, and each hour has at least 5 interviews. If you do the math, I have done thousands of interviews! Which is the most memorable? Impossible to say. Each has its own charm! I am very lucky in that I have also traveled the world as part of my job – from North Korea, to Saudi Arabia, to Afghanistan, Haiti, Peru, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Israel, Thailand, China, Kuwait, UAE, north slope of Alaska to Aruba etc…

What would you do if you weren’t covering news?

There is so much to do that I don’t know where to begin my list.

This post is part of the What’s on my Zite series.  The first post was with Nina Garcia of Project Runway.  If you’ve got a great story to share, let us know.

When we launched Zite 2.0 back in December, we included a new feature that let you view the most popular stories being read on Zite.  This module is extremely popular and now accounts for 7 percent of total article clicks.  We’ve recently made some updates to the algorithm and wanted to share some of the behind-the-scenes geekery that went into those improvements. (For additional background, we wrote a post on how Zite works.)

Popular stories were originally calculated by showing the most clicked-on stories in the last 24 hours. This led to interesting stories, but unfortunately also surfaced stories that user had thumbed down.  This often caused stories about celebrity wardrobe malfunctions to show up, even though they weren’t well-liked. Zite didn’t want to manually specify topics and domains to exclude from the Popular on Zite, so instead we used the massive amount of data we have about stories and our users to improve the articles being chosen.

The second issue we faced was that the stories being displayed were often fairly old. Since we were displaying the most clicked on stories in the last 24 hours – older stories had more time to be clicked on in the app. This meant that old stories would stick around well after they still were interesting.

To get rid of the sensationalistic celebrity gossip stories appearing, we integrated the data on the thumbs up and down for each story. We tested out a couple of variations on this idea, but the one that performed best was combining the raw interest in the document with the average thumb rating for the document. By multiplying these factors together, we completely filtered out results that were universally disliked – and halved the score of ‘controversial’ items that had roughly equal measures of thumbs up and thumbs down.

To bring more recent content into this module we also tested out an age based exponential decay of the interest score. The idea here is to provide a half-life for each story.  We ended up using a half-life of 6 hours, which means that a stories interest score is halved at 6 hours, and quartered at 12 hours.

Combining both the average rating and the age based decay, leads to the following formula for ranking documents in Popular on Zite:

Since document views here follow a power law distribution, we take the logarithm of the total interest before combining with the average rating. We also calculate the average rating for a story by using the lower bound of the wilson confidence interval so that we don’t overestimate the rating of documents with low thumb ratios.

We ran an A/B test on this algorithm for a period of about 3 weeks, and this ranking scheme increased click throughs by over 10 percent in this module. About 70 percent of this increase can be attributed to combining the average rating, with the rest being from promoting more recent stories.

There’s a lot that happens in Zite under the hood and we hope to post more stories like this in the future to give you an idea about what’s going on beneath the surface.

Below is a list of the top five most liked and five most disliked articles of 2012, as rated by Zite users, with a bit of commentary on what that says about our user base.

Liked

1. 40+ Super Secret OS X Lion Features and Shortcuts, AppStorm

• Who wouldn’t love a good cheat sheet for your favorite features and shortcuts?!

2. New Apps for 2012, MacStories

• Just like Zite, these apps are all about making life easier. Shout out to Federico @Vittici for thinking of us as he put this list together.

3. And Here’s The Secret Reason Apple Is Crushing Google…, Business Insider

• This is a testament to our Apple and iOS fans, given our roots as an iPad application.

4. All the Awesome Things You Can Do with a Long Press on Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, Lifehacker

• As the title suggests, there are some awesome quick tips and shortcuts in this article.

5. 10 things science (and Buddhism) says will make you happy, Wildmind

• As techies, we weren’t surprised that Zite users would show their love to Apple stories, but we did find it interesting that the intersection of science and religion, namely Buddhism, made the top five.

Disliked:

1. Obama: ‘Help Us Destroy Jesus And Start A New Age Of Liberal Darkness’, The Onion

• We can only hope that the fine humor in The Onion was only decried by our users because they thought this was actually a real article.

2. Top 10 gadgets for Men, Menz Magazine

• This is a mystery, since we think that there are some cool gadgets in this article, even if they are a little old school.

3. Opinion: Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion — why Apple Suddenly Sucks, Digital Trends

• OK, Zite fans: I know you are often Apple fanboys (and girls) but what about some love for the underdog?  Besides, this piece is written by respected analyst, Rob Enderle.

4. Apple announces iBalls: the ultimate Retina Display, Scoopertino

• If you are one of the users to ‘dislike’ this article, don’t let it turn you off of the blog as a whole; there are some pretty hilarious posts for Apple and Droid lovers alike.

5. Santorum hopes to rebuild middle class, Rick Santorum Blog

• Rick didn’t make it to the final round. ‘Nuff Said.

Wondering what other cool things we can uncover about Zite users’ interests? Send us your thoughts to feedback@zite.com.

Success of Zite 2.0

First, we’d like to share some numbers that speak to the success of Zite 2.0 as an improvement over Zite 1.0.

• Article views per user, one of our primary metrics of how well we’re doing, increased by 11%.
• Topic Tags on articles are a huge success. 13% of section views now come from users clicking on Topic Tags.
• Users giving feedback through thumbing articles up and down doubled, thanks in large part to users being able to thumb articles directly from the section view.
• Before Zite 2.0, usage was split 71% on iPad, 29% on iPhone; after Zite 2.0, we’ve seen usage of 60% iPad, 40% iPhone

New Icon

The first thing you’ll notice about Zite is that we’ve brought back “Zite” as our icon, with a new typeface and a refreshed look. When we rebranded to the owl (affectionately known as “Hibou” internally), we were hoping to personify the complex artificial intelligence that powers Zite in an approachable icon. You, our beloved users, were vocal about what you thought of our new icon: you didn’t think Hibou’s playfulness was representative of the powerful app underlying the icon. Rather than try to do something fancy, we’ve returned to a simple word mark, which we hope you’ll love.

New Features

One of the goals of Zite 2.0 was to make sure we could release features more quickly to our users.

• History for articles and topics – now you can see all of the topics you’ve liked and the articles you’ve read and shared. You can access your history through your profile in your Quicklist.
• Swipe to change topics on the iPhone – back by popular demand from our users, you can now swipe left to go to the next topic in your Quicklist.
• Swipe to close an article on the iPad – instead of having to click on the “X,” just swipe to the right to close an article on your iPad.
• LinkedIn and Google+ sharing are back – ’nuff said.
• Improved Evernote sharing – you can now pick your notebook, add tags, and the article will be saved instead of just the URL.

User Experience Tweaks

Based on usability testing, feedback e-mails, and monitoring Twitter, we identified a number of user experience improvements that we could make to enhance the Zite experience.

• Errant thumbs up/down reduced – you’ll notice that you’re much less likely to activate by mistake.
• Readability improvements – we’ve adjusted the font size, font color, background color, and spacing to improve text readability and help differentiate among stories.
• Topic Tags will have a heart if you’ve liked them – if a Topic Tag appears on an article and you’ve liked it, then you’ll see a heart next to the tag.
• Article titles are more rarely truncated – so you’ll know exactly what you’re clicking into.
• Overall performance improvements – articles will appear in web mode and images will load much faster.
• General app stability – we’ve fixed numerous bugs that cause blank screens, app crashes and weird behavior.

This is just the beginning. We’ve got another release in the works with more features, so keep the feedback coming to feedback@zite.com. We’re listening and eager to make Zite a better way for you to discover interesting content.

What device do you use Zite most on?

My iPad.

Walk us through your reading process.

Well, it’s a very straightforward process… I always start with my Top Stories and click to the ones that seem interesting… If I think that this story in particular will interest my twitter and facebook followers, I will share it… Then, depending on my mood or time, I will visit more or less sections… I do always make it a point to click on Arts & Culture, Fashion & Social Media.

What types of articles do you tend to share most?

It all depends on the article… I like to be surprised and I like to surprise my followers as well… Obviously, a lot of my followers expect that I share stories related to the fashion world, but, for example, I learned that people LOVE to read articles from the Harvard Business Review and stories about social media… As I said, there’s no rule. It’s really what piques my interest.

What are some of your favorite sources of content that you read on Zite?

To me, the Harvard Business Review is a must. Fashion articles from Marie Claire & The Guardian (FashionBeans for men’s) and then articles from Mashable, The Next Web and Inc.

How much time do you spend reading on Zite daily?

It all depends on the day… I generally use Zite in the mornings and nights… I would say between 30-60 minutes daily.

What are your top three sections that you look at daily?

Top News, Fashion and Social Media.

If you could add one new category to your Zite – anything – what would it be?

A category about TRENDS. A category that talks trends in general terms: architectural trends, fashion trends, book trends, arts trends… etc… All in one category.

When you’re not working, what activities do you enjoy?

As a working mom, I like to spend time with my family.  I’m also an avid TV viewer (although mostly on my iPad!). Some of my current favorites are Game of Thrones, Homeland, and Downton Abbey.

What’s the most interesting Holiday-related reading you’ve read on Zite this week?

There was an article from The Next Web about online activity during Christmas day that really interested me… It was proof that we really live in a mobile world and we (the people that work in the magazine and fashion world), need to learn from that. (see below)

More than 50% of all online activity took place on mobile devices during Christmas day, study shows http://zite.to/Rkzzmt  via @tnw

What’s your favorite fashion trend right now? And what’s one you wish would go away?

One fashion trend that I wish would go away are angry shoes. I like shoes that are feminine and attractive… And there are so many trends that I like for spring…. The black and white combinations, the return of the 60s, white, gold, etc.  However, the most important thing to keep in mind about trends is not to follow them, but rather, to make them your own. So I always encourage my followers to be bold, creative and have fun with their fashion choices.

What are you most looking forward to in 2013?

I’m very excited about 2013. We are launching a new season of Project Runway on January 24. I’m very excited about my ongoing partnership with JCP–this is the year when we’ll really start seeing some of the hard work that the great team there has been working on for the past months! And of course, I’ll be reporting from the couture shows in Paris before fashion week takes off in February! And hopefully, you’ll soon start seeing some of the projects we’ve been incubating in 2012.