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2012: The Year of the Cooperative

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

nationofchange.org - By Jessica Reeder - Feb. 02 (Special Report) - What do coffee growers in Ethiopia, hardware store owners in America, and Basque entrepreneurs have in common? For one thing, many of them belong to cooperatives. By pooling their money and resources, and voting democratically on how those resources will be used, they can compete in business and reinvest the benefits in their communities.

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Web Piracy Bills Invite a Protracted Battle

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jenna Wortham, Somini Sengupta - Jan. 16 (News Report) - The Obama administration’s statement of opposition to antipiracy legislation let the technology industry claim a victory, but few in Silicon Valley or Hollywood consider the battle over.

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The Rise of the New Groupthink

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Susan Cain - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

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@MentionMachine tracks the presidential candidates: Who’s up, who’s down on Twitter?

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Cory Haik, Amanda Zamora, Natalie Jennings - Jan. 03 (Special Report) - When Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination Aug. 13, the same day as the Ames Straw Poll, those watching social streams could have rightfully assumed he had won the Iowa contest. Twitter exploded with Perry mentions, even though he didn’t participate in the straw poll, while the winner, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), drew far less attention. Social media was the writing on the wall. Perry would soon trend up in polls, surpassing Bachmann and the rest of the field. Twitter was the early — scratch that — Twitter was the real-time warning ...

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How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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Fact-checking in the Echo Chamber Nation

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news. "I listen to Rush and read NewsMax," he said. "And to make sure I'm getting a balanced view, I watch Fox." My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click Facebook links — from their liberal friends. This is life in our echo chamber nation. We protect ourselves from opinions we don't like and seek reinforcement from like-minded allies. The paradox ...

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Four lessons from Flipboard’s reinvention for the iPhone

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Jeff Sonderman - Dec. 07 (News Analysis) - The most popular news aggregation app for the iPad launches a new iPhone version Wednesday. Flipboard’s redesign for the smaller screen offers lessons in how publishers should tailor apps for the different needs of tablet and smartphone owners.

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The World Is Ending, Please Update the Home Page

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Carr - Dec. 06 (Opinion) - Let’s say, just for giggles, that the word was ending. Could be an alien invasion, a pandemic or nuclear annihilation. If one of those scenarios became a news event, how would it be covered? That question was posed by Andrew Fitzgerald, one of the partic

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Shirky: Many news orgs must choose between ‘radical restructure and outright collapse’

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Julie Moos, Clay Shirky, Steve Yelvington - Dec. 03 (Opinion) - In response to an essay by Dean Starkman, NYU professor Clay Shirky has reiterated his belief that newspaper organizations are being disrupted at a rate that requires radical reinvention. Saying newspapers will provide a stable home for reporters, just as soon as we figure out how to make newspapers stable, is like saying that if we had some ham, we could have a ham sandwich, if we had some bread. We need to support the people who cover hard news, but when you see a metro daily for a town of 100,000 that employs only six such reporters (just 10% of the masthead, much less total staff), saving the entire edifice just to support that handful looks a lot harder than just finding new ways to support them directly.

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How news orgs are reaching millions through Facebook’s new apps

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Poynter Institute - By Jeff Sonderman - Nov. 30 (News Analysis) - It has been over two months since Facebook announced a new class of social news applications — ones that automatically share links to everything a person reads. Now we are learning more about the readership, strategies and effects of these “open graph” or “frictionless sharing” apps. Here are the six big lessons so far.

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The Apologies of Zuckerberg: A Retrospective

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Liz Gannes - Nov. 29 (News Analysis) - At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and

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DHS seeks intelligence on "domestic threats" from Twitter traffic

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Boing Boing - By Xeni Jardin - Nov. 01 (News) - Popular uprisings in the Mideast and North Africa, and now, Occupy Wall street: all examples of popular unrest powered in part by Twitter and other online social networks. In response, the U.S. government is reported to now be developing guidelines for culling intel from social media, according to a Homeland Security official.

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Why Parents Help Tweens Violate Facebook's 13+ Rule

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Danah Boyd - Nov. 01 (Opinion) - "At what age should I let my child join Facebook?" This is a question that countless parents have asked my collaborators and me. Often, it's followed by the following: "I know that 13 is the minimum age to join Facebook, but is it really so bad that my 12-year-old is on the site?" While parents are struggling to determine what social media sites are appropriate for their children, government tries to help parents by regulating what data internet companies can collect about children without parental permission. Yet, as has been the case for the last decade, this often backfires. Many general-purpose communication platforms and social media sites restrict access to only those 13+ in response to a law meant to empower parents: the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This forces parents to make a difficult choice: help uphold the minimum age requirements and limit their children's access to services that let kids connect with family and friends OR help their children lie about their age to circumvent the age-based restrictions and eschew the protections that COPPA is meant to provide.

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Social Media -- 4 Trends To Watch in 2012

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Oct. 29 (Opinion) - I am on a mission to help Fortune 500 companies answer the question, "What is a social media and how can it help our company?"

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Best Media Watchdog Experiment: NewsTrust

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

City Paper - Sep. 21 (Editorial) - We got used to NewsTrust Baltimore’s e-mails very quickly. More than a thoughtful amalgam of Baltimore stories from around the web, the alerts came with an invitation to think about the stories in a critical way and comment via a strict form included on the site. Inveterate web commenters might at first be offended by this kind of formalism, but it worked: The idea of rating which news sources are “trustworthy” is, of course, not new. But in using this form to guide self-selected readers, NewsTrust helped its readers (and itself) understand something about the news ecosystem from the point of view of both newsmakers and consumers. NewsTrust, launched via a now-concluded six-month pilot program but with its site still active, was filled with thoughtful, constructive criticism of stories and articles both local and global, and was blessedly devoid of moronic flame wars. In this age of partisan rancor, that is no small thing.

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Why Do They Do It?

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Sep. 16 (Opinion) - Why do politicians persist in peddling exaggerations, twisted facts and outright falsehoods? Here's a theory from a veteran political reporter. Jon Keller of WBZ in Boston offered up his explanation in his "Keller @ Large" commentary for Sept. 15. It was prompted by our coverage of the recent Republican presidential candidates' debate and our criticism of President Obama's jobs speech. We were flattered by the nice mention, of course. But what really caught our attention was Keller's conclusion: Jon Keller, Sept. 15: The president and all his allies and enemies have one thing in common — they frequently cite and repeat falsehoods that reflect, at best, sloppiness and carelessness, and, at worst, outright dishonesty. Why do they think they can get away with this reprehensible behavior? Because we do it all the time ourselves. We repeat gossip and rumor, forward garbage e-mails, and convince ourselves that falsehoods which fit our world view are actually the truth. So I’m wondering – why would we expect the people who represent us to not reflect us in this way as well? We see evidence of that every day at FactCheck.org. Readers forward to us an endless stream of chain emails they have received containing false claims. The emails come from family, friends or acquaintances who either don't know that they are repeating falsehoods, or don't care. Some of these messages have been circulating for years, despite being debunked by us and often by other myth-busting sites as well. So do we, the public, get the politicians we deserve? That's a question worth pondering before sending on that viral email that so perfectly confirms your opinions, but which you haven't really checked out for factual accuracy.

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Escaped Pet Birds Are Teaching Wild Birds to Speak English

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Treehugger - By Stephen Messenger - Sep. 15 (News) - Across parts of Australia, reports have been pouring in of strange voices chattering high in the treetops -- mysterious, non-sensical conversations in English. But while the phenomena is certainly quite odd, its explanation isn't paranormal.

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Twitter Reaches 100 Million Active Users

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nick Bilton - Sep. 09 (Opinion) - Twitter says 100 million people actively use the service. The company also discussed goals to eventually reach people on two billion devices.

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NewsTrust on Fact-Checking and the Wisdom of Crowds

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Walter Frick - Aug. 25 (Interview) - Truthsquad is a new pro-am fact-checking service we are developing with the Center for Public Integrity, to help journalists and citizens separate fact from fiction together. We are combining the best practices of crowdsourcing with the knowledge of a large nonprofit newsroom and the reach of major news partners. This unique approach empowers citizens to collaborate with journalists to investigate controversial statements from politicians and newsmakers. Participants are invited to post questionable claims online, research factual evidence supporting or opposing these claims, and verify their accuracy as a community, with professional oversight.

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First Details About Lift, the Next Social Network From the Founders of Twitter

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ReadWriteWeb - By Marshall Kirkpatrick - Aug. 24 (News Report) - The recently-departed co-founders of Twitter who are now working together again under the old Obvious Corp. name (Ev Williams, Biz Stone and Jason Goldman) announced their first official partnership today, with a stealth alpha app called Lift. It's described as simple app for achieving goals through positive reinforcement. It sounds like Twitter and from what I've seen (which is more than I've seen reported about elsewhere yet) it looks a lot like Twitter too - but with more structure. What's called Lift today was apparently called Mibbles just weeks ago and was described then as "a very simple tracking and...

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Google’s +1 Button Gets Its Treat: Now Lets You Share To Google+ Circles

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Jason Kincaid - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - Over the last several months you’ve probably come across Google’s +1 quite a few times. You may have even clicked it, only to wonder what exactly you’d just accomplished. Because, at least from the user’s perspective, there hasn’t been any reward from clicking on it. You’d push the button for the treat, only to leave empty-handed. That hasn’t stopped the +1 button from getting huge distribution — it’s now on 1 million sites and appears in 4 billion impressions every day, but that growth has had more to do with the fact that it’s Google than it does with the button being useful. The +1 button has always had a subtle purpose, of course: Google says that it impacts search results, so pages you +1 may show up in your friends’ queries more prominently than they would otherwise. But who knows how often that happens. And while these +1 clicks also get saved in your Google+ profile, they’re not anywhere your friends are going to see them.

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Facebook users jailed over 'riot that never was'

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - Aug. 17 (News Report) - Two British men have been sentenced to four years in prison for trying to organize riots on Facebook, according to reports.

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Facebook's Mysterious Hire: The Guy Who Designed Much of the iPhone

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ReadWriteWeb - By Marshall Kirkpatrick - Aug. 03 (Opinion) - Matas wasn't just one of many Apple designers; he designed many of the key interfaces you probably interact with every day if you own an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac.

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Debate: The news industry

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By Jay Rosen, Nicholas Carr, Tom Standage - Jul. 16 (Opinion) - There is no question that the internet is transforming the news industry, just as it has reshaped so many other industries. And, as in those other cases, the internet's impact has both positive and negative aspects. Does this, on balance, strengthen or weaken the news system? This question is not merely of academic interest, or self-interest on the part of journalists. Through an accident of history, the news industry is a largely commercial venture that provides important public goods: serving communities, facilitating public debate and holding those in power to account. This debate will hinge, I suspect, on the effectiveness and sustainability of the new models of accountability journalism that the internet makes possible.

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Google+: The Complete Guide

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mashable - By Ben Parr - Jul. 16 (Special Report) - This guide has everything you'll ever want to know about Google+. Updated regularly. Google+: It’s the hot social network on the block. In just three weeks, Google’s competitor to Facebook and Twitter has amassed more than 10 million users, and its users are sharing more than 1 billion pieces of content daily. It’s become a hotbed for early adopters, tech luminaries, marketers and businesses around the world. Google+ isn’t the easiest thing to understand, though. It has a lot of features that can confuse beginners. Even advanced users can miss a lot of the little gems and nuances that define Google+. That’s why we decided to dig into every aspect of Google+, from Hangouts to Circles, from Google+ for businesses to what’s next for Google’s social network. The result is an extensive guide on all of Google+’s key features, as well as an introduction to the service and the important things you need to know about it. We’ve included commentary, videos, photos and more in our in-depth guide. In addition, we will update this guide regularly with the newest information on Google’s Facebook competitor. So, without further ado, here is Mashable‘s complete guide to Google+

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