Apple quit his part-time gig as director of interactive media for the Web site Nerve.com in New York and began recruiting. It wasn’t hard to find people eager to join. Employment in New York’s publishing sector shrank by a tenth last year, leaving behind a mass of glum, jobless writers. The good news, though, was that one of the very forces that was sapping industry profits - the Web’s demolition of barriers to entry - also made it quite simple and cheap for anyone to become a journalism entrepreneur. Using open-source software, which Apple hired programmers to customize, The Faster Times could get up and running for less than $20,000. Before the site went live last summer, Apple and a group of editors held marathon meetings at a Brooklyn coffee shop with free wireless Internet. In one sense, The Faster Times was supposed to be a traditional publication, staffed by trained journalists covering a wide range of beats and guided by a coherent editorial mission. Where Apple’s model departed from convention, as a matter of necessity, was in the area of compensation. He couldn’t afford to offer salaries and benefits, or even flat freelance fees, so instead he promised […]