June 2011
19 posts
Sum Up: NY Times' Bill Keller is an Expert on...
Reuters: An interview with New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller by Anthony DeRosa
Sum Up: I’ve never actually used Twitter for conversation, but I’m sure that it’s bad at it because I once picked a fight there. Also, anyone who disagrees with me is just not reading or a “cyber-puritan.”
Confidential to Bill Keller: You might want to try actually having a...
“Turn your readers into members. Not visitors, not subscribers; you want members....”
– The Web Is a Customer Service Medium by Paul Ford
“Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We...”
– How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet by Douglas Adams in 1999 and just as relevant today.
PR is Not Crowdsourcing
Guardian.co.uk: Mob rule: Iceland crowdsources its next constitution by Haroon Siddique
Sum Up: Using social media tools is not “crowdsourcing” but it makes for a punchy headline.
Stories like this make it obvious when someone else is writing the headline. “Mob rule” has an undeniably negative connotation. And “crowdsourcing” is already a pretty watered-down...
The Wisdom of Crowds: Harder Than It Looks
The Wall Street Journal: Head Case: When We’re Cowed by the Crowd by Jonah Lehrer
Sum Up: If you’re trying to get wisdom out of a crowd, you have to set up the right interface.
There are a lot of stories like this. Set up examples of the Wisdom of Crowds without ever defining it correctly, then knock it down with examples of people being stupid. But the Wisdom of Crowds (WoC) does...
“A fun parlor game I like to play in my head is to replace words like “bloggers”...”
– Emptyage: OTM Sum Up: The Point of Twitter
OTM Sum Up: The Filter Bubble
Sum Up: Let’s wring our hands about the internet echo chamber for a guy plugging his book, even though solid social science (that we reported on in 2009) proves that internet use widens our social network, not narrows it.
Look, the “filter bubble” is like the Terminator - it’s an interesting sci-fi concept that takes a technology idea and pushes it to its logical...
OTM Sum Up: How Tweet It Is
Sum Up: Bob Garfield does not understand Twitter. Clay Shirky does.
“It still strikes me as being a bit pathological.” -Bob Garfield
OTM Sum Up: Comments on Comments
Sum Up: Online commenters are idiots. Don’t they know that it’s their job to listen to us, not our job to listen to them?
Back when it aired, this story inspired me to post a thoughtful response and a list of suggestions for how to improve online comments. Three years later, nothing’s changed.
“You’re old enough, and I’m old enough, that you were very comfortable...
OTM Sum Up: Online and Isolated?
Sum Up: The internet is not making us more isolated. In fact, internet users have bigger and more diverse social networks.
Also, this may be the best story OTM has ever done on the net. Thanks, Brooke.
“The internet allows people just to be more engaged and more active in their networks because they can reach out to more people more quickly than people who don’t use it.”...
OTM Sum Up: The Point of Twitter
Sum Up: In spite of all these great stories about how Twitter is changing the world, we still can’t quite accept that it’s important.
“So, why do people care more and tweet more about Justin Bieber than malaria? I don’t know.” -Lee Ferreira
OTM Sum Up: Bridging the Online Language Barrier
Sum Up: I actually really like this story. Historical, social, technological … and Meedan’s side-by-side comments example is inspiring.
“The solution isn’t machine translation just getting better or human translators just getting more pervasive. The solution is some combination of the two.” -Ethan Zuckerman
OTM Sum Up: The Cost of Privacy
Sum Up: We don’t understand the difference between Facebook’s business model and the failing business model of traditional media. Also, all those people sharing their lives on Facebook? What idiots!
OTM Sum Up: Web Sickness
Sum Up: The web makes us think we’re sick! See? The web is bad!
“Ma’am, step away from the computer. Step away from the computer!” -Bob Garfield
OTM Sum Up: Life 2.0
Sum Up: It’s 2011 and we just discovered Second Life.
OTM Sum Up: An Internet Archivist Recommits to...
Sum Up: See? Books still matter! Even the guy from the Internet Archive says so!
“Have you given up on the zeroes and ones?” -Bob Garfield
OTM Sum Up: The Paleozoic Internet
Sum Up: Can you believe people think this crap is important enough to save?
“Isn’t it weird to look at 1994 as history? I still have stuff in my fridge from 1994.” -Bob Garfield
OTM Sum Up: Psychic Tips, Media Frenzies and Texas
Sum Up: We don’t understand that posting to Twitter is different than publishing a news story. Social media! Don’t trust it!
“Why do you keep making this distinction between on the air, and on the web, and on Twitter? This is 2011. They all the same, aren’t they?” -Bob Garfield
