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How to run a revolution
Students in Chile are using MSN Messenger, SMS and cell phone calls to 'chat' their moves and strategies, writes Deepak Mankar.
Readers as journalists. Sounds interesting? And, refreshing? Well, Katja Riefler's June 6, post in Poynteronline tipped me off about this exciting journalistic experiment taking place in Germany. At netzeitung, the so-called 'Reader's Edition' is a six-section (politics, local, sport, Web and technique, economy and 'mixed') newspaper contributed by registered users who don't get paid. The published articles are edited also by unpaid 'moderators' who are 'super-users', not professional journalists. The sponsorship earnings go to pay for the costs (hosting and server). The new experiment is an amalgam of several online 'models'. As with the Korean ohmynews, all published articles are edited before posting. As with Digg digg, articles get an entry into the 'new articles' category only after approval and positive comment by at least 10 readers. The first day, though, was flagged off by posts from well-known German bloggers. One point puzzles me, though. If the whole wide world turns journalist and blogger, who will be the readers? And who will have the rime to read? By the way, have you been to popgoestheslop yet?
Google on top. But Google Book Search in trouble.
On the positive side, Google once again leads the search engine brigade in the US market with a 59.3 per cent share of all searchers for the four weeks ending May 27, according to Hitwise. Yahoo! And MSN trailed with 22% and 12.1% respectively. searchnewz. Also, it is being wooed by the recent News Corp acquisition, MySpace.com (85 million 'captive' members), along with Yahoo! - who is playing hard-to-get - and MSN to be its search partner. In other words, "to supply their internal search engine and search advertising functions". searchnewz. On the negative side, Google Book Search is once again in hot waters with the publishers. Copyright as before is the primary bone of contention. "There is the serious issue of the digitisation of massive library collections where the majority of works are in copyright. Google digitises entire books, not just indexing but displaying the entire work," said Hugh Jones, Copyright Counsel, Publishers Association. publishers.
Block 'n' bust. By a no-more-soft Microsoft.
Fons Tuinstra, posting at Poyneter.org on last Friday, wrote about an on-going covert operation by Microsoft. chinaherald. Its aim may be two-fold. (1) Catch fake Windows software. (2) Alert and later prevent users of such software from getting online updates for it from Microsoft. This seems to have panicked Internet users in China. According to Tuinstra, some even went as far as to say: "This is going to kill millions of PCs in China". Apparently, the 'culprit' is Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) microsoft. It installs with the Windows operating system. Its job is to determine if a PC is running pirated Windows. Microsoft's WGA director David Lazar, in a 7 June AP story said that WGA quietly checks in daily with Microsoft. news.yahoo. So far, said Lazar, Microsoft hasn't been frankly forthcoming about this operation. Once WGA is sure the Windows is fake, the user starts getting messages about its 'un-genuineness'. But "anyone (ostensibly including pirate users) who has registered to receive critical security updates will still get those automatically," writes Tuinstra.
Structured info. Obits, crime reports, event listing.
Amy Gahran, who edits Poynter.org and has a sharp eye for the tricks of the journalistic craft, cites an interesting segment from Robert Niles' 'The programmer as journalist' where he spoke with Adrian Holovaty, editor of editorial innovations for washingtonpost.comojr.org. For instance: "The majority of newspapers takes the time to collect this information [crime reports, obituaries, event listings] - which is the hard part - but they dramatically reduce its value by NOT storing it in structured formats. Instead, they distill it into big blobs of text for publication in their print editions, and then they shovel
those big blobs of text onto their sites. At this point, all structure is lost: Crime reports can't be sorted or searched intelligently, and event listings can't be viewed in any sort of user-friendly way." Gahran comments:" … to many journalists the reverse might seem true." Also: "Rather than talk about 'structured' vs. 'unstructured,' I think it might be helpful if geeks and journalists discussed the value of different ways of viewing structure in data and communication." How very sensible!
Ads sans intrusion. Kill the IntelliTXT swill.
Noticed the new online menace - so far mainly confined to tech news sites and blogs? The fake double-underlined automatically inserted links from Vibrant Media's IntelliTXT is what I'm referring to, boys and girls. vibrantmedia. Wall St. Journal's Jeremy Wagstaff recently wrote about a solution to this annoyance. loosewireblog. Poynter.org's Amy Gahran recalls in this context "the twist" that author and noted blogger John Battelle suggested in 2004 battellemedia. She thinks of it as "a better approach". He wrote: "What if it were possible to break out keywords for a given article in a separate box, and run that box at the end or to the side of the article? This addresses the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup problem (your advertising peanut butter is in my editorial chocolate....) but retains the power and reader service of the system." Ms Gahran has also tried two other weapons: the "definitely more versatile and targeted" but "considerably geekier to configure" Adblock adblock.mozdev and the "quick, no-brainer fix " Flashblock flashblock. For instant results, she recommends the latter.
How to run a revolution. Learn it in a computer lab.
Chile is turmoil. The students are rebelling. The revolution is more widespread than in 1972. Most of the bigger cities are under siege. The kids have taken over the state-owned high schools after two weeks of strikes protesting for better education and free admittance in public transport and the fees of tests to apply for universities. Where did the young ones learn how to organise and run the revolution? In the computer labs in the last ten years, it seems. They use MSN Messenger, SMS and cell phone calls to 'chat' their moves and strategies according to newspaper reports. And, digital cameras, phones and camcorders to track and record police attacks. bloomberg ; cnn.com;
washingtonpost (Free registration required).
Small is fabulous. Maybe, worth $1 million even.
This is not an apocryphal tale. There's this 21 year old smart guy in the UK, Alex Tew. He wanted to raise $1 million for his college education. He happened to be a programmer. So, what do you think he did? In case you don't know, he used his expertise. He opened a website on 26 August 2005 and promised to keep it online for 5 years. He offered ad space on it at the rate of $1 a pixel with a minimum unit of 100 pixels. The tagline of his website is "Own a piece of Internet history". He cleaned up within 4 months. In the meanwhile, he decided to postpone his education. When you know the secret of how to make a million within months, why go to school? Makes sense? Now Alex says he will keep his website crammed with tiny ads open forever - as a piece of frozen history. And, he's planning to write an e-Book about his experience. themilliondollarhomepage.
Useful add-ons. From Google, Marqui and CNet.
Go to Google home page content directory (google) to view and select the add-on you want. They look promising and helpful. For an excellent one-page glossary of marketing terms, go here: marqui. Learn to manage your Outlook E-mail box with an innovative online course that's actually a group blog starting Monday, 19 June 2006: manage-outlook.
Bad. As in 'atrocious', 'deplorable', 'heinous'.
Trust Bob Rankin to offer you the unusual. At askbobrankin, he opens up a treasure trove of the 'bad stuff' on the Internet. In his own words: "In the spirit of admiring the atrocious, displaying the deplorable, and highlighting the heinous, let me present you with some Really Bad Stuff. Nothing dirty or illegal of course, but stuff so bad it'll make you laugh."
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2006 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles at asiaondemand.com. Website: http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him at dmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in. Blog: popgoestheslop.blogspot.com.
