The Fold is distributed through PostTV, an Android app that debuted this week on Google TV and Android tablets, and Ravindran told me that the program was made very much with Google TV devices in mind. The show, which runs a total of 15 minutes every night, is split up into several segments, giving viewers the option to either watch the whole thing without any interruption, or skip over the stories that don’t interest them.

Ravindran said that his team followed a mobile-first kind of approach when developing both the show and the app, except that it put the connected TV experience first and then rethought how to make a show that works for it. “We are really working backwards from there,” he said.

A lot of other apps simply take all the video assets of a publisher and make them available on TVs without any additional curation, he lamented. His team on the other hand wanted to build a unique experience that people come back to, much like people used to come home to the evening news. “We are more focused on the daily habit than on one-time use,” Ravindran said, explaining that the app lets users know via Google TV’s notifications whenever a new episode is available.

So why launch on Google TV, as opposed to Roku or maybe even Samsung’s connected TV platform? Ravindran’s answer was refreshingly pragmatic: “We had to start somewhere.” His team had a lot of experience with Android, he added, and developing for Google TV had the benefit that they could also have it work on Andoid tablets without too many modifications. But there will be apps for other platforms as well going forward. Said Ravindran: “We aspire to be on all the platforms that make sense.”

To learn more about cord cutting, check out my ebook Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable.

But he knows, as do I, that changing news organizations these days isn’t always a zero sum game. Sometimes it’s a matter of different budgets covering different areas. Sometimes it’s a series of tradeoffs. If you want to invest in X, you have to cut back on Y. If you want to have reporters covering one area, sometimes you have to give up on another. Sometimes it’s about dumping the costs of having more experienced journalists to make the budget. (See the mention of ex-editor in the lead.) Sometimes one part of a company is cutting back while another area is expanding.

You have to invest

You can’t cut your way to success and you can’t spend your way there either — although we can list plenty of people in the news business who thought otherwise. But if you want to change the trajectory, you have to invest in research and development. You have to experiment. You have to be willing to think differently or to hire people who can.

That’s what Don Graham has been trying to do at the Washington Post Co. while keeping up the standards of journalism he followed as a reporter and publisher. That’s one reason he ended up as an investor in Facebook and a member of the board. That’s why he hired Vijay Ravindran as chief digital officer and started WaPo Labs, why the WaPoCo acquired iCurrent in 2010 and launched personalization service Trove last year, why it invested in social news site Ongo with the New York Times and Gannett, why Ravindran recently hired Rob “cmdrtaco” Malda to lead strategy.

So what is it doing with Digg?

No comment tonight from WaPo, other than a PR rep declining comment. Also no direct confirmation that it’s doing anything at all with Digg but according to some reporters I trust (even if they can’t spell acqhire), at least some of the tech/dev Digg team is headed to WaPo. Engineering, tech and dev talent is at a premium these days as is the ability to mesh it with news and information. WaPo doesn’t need Digg — but it can use a talented team of makers, if that’s what is happening.

Does the company need them more than its journalists? It needs them each differently.

Whither Digg?

The WaPo-Digg storyline emerged Monday as a rumor from The Next Web that the Washington Post was acquiring Digg, the once-hot social curator that has gone dim,  followed by reports that it was hiring some of the Digg team. (Anthony, I promise you it’s acqhire.) According to Peter Kafka, Digg won’t shut down just yet. I envision this as one of those creatures that keeps living even after you cut off the head although I can’t decide if it’s a chicken, a snake or a spider. Some might argue that happened years ago and what we’re seeing now is just the winding down.

Rob Malda, who founded slashdot, will be at paidContent 2012 with other leaders in tech, media and investing to explore how to make the most of today’s opportunities. Join us at The TimesCenter in New York, May 23.

Not clear: if his responsibilities are on the tech side, similar to what a CIO does, or if this is a business position. Also, will he overlook all digital businesses at the entire company including WaPo Online and the new-ish Slate Group? More as we find out from the company.

Update 1: The company clarifies: This is a tech position, so perhaps more in the mold of a CIO(see below)…

Update 2: Turns out the company’s being a bit coy about his exact mandate, and possibly for competitive reasons, based on the job description that a source sent me: “[The person] will be responsible for building and leading a small Research and Development team that is working on new Internet products for the Company. This person