Sips from the firehose
A Blog That Seeks to Reduce the Web to One Easily-Gulped BeverageGuccifer hacker is back; claims not to be Russian
Guccifer hacker - the one who leaked DNC emails - taunts US government I guess this is the world we live in now. With increasing attention being paid to the way that hacks of formerly secure and private information is destablilizing governments around the world, the...
Solutions to Fake News 1: Deny Lie Merchants Access to Premium Ad Revenue
Is a market-based solution the best way to solve the fake news problem? There's been a sudden realization outside the cozy confines of digital business model nerds, that the open nature of the web has allowed an entire class of scammers to establish themselves, grow,...
12 Steps to Media Sobriety: the Storify is the First Step (sorta)
OK, this is going to need a bit more work to turn into something that rivals the Cluetrain Manifesto, but there is definitely something here. (Photo below added because so many Chrome users are seeing only blanks on this page, and you should know at least what you're...
Venezuelan currency – are any of these bills still used?
While rummaging around the various souvenirs and mementoes from all our travels, I ran across these: With the inflation rate running in the near-four-figure range (the way it did in '88 when I was an overwhelmed editor there), I wonder if there is even a use for...
SoCal UX Job Fair & Meetup
Nerd heaven: learning about the latest in UX while meeting killer startups On Sept. 17, I attended the latest SoCal UX group meetup in downtown Los Angeles, where 29o designers mingled with startups looking for talent, and honed their skills by learning about the...
Should Local News Be Marketed as “Infrastructure”?
Ken Doctor at Neiman's "Newsonomics" points out that the "self-asphyxiation" cycle is nearing endgame I cross-posted a response to this on Facebook, so if you've already seen it there from me, my apologies. But I've been watching the gradual descent of local news for...
Brainwashed User Confesses: “I Was a Human Bot-net for Klout”
When Hootsuite, the industry leader when it comes to managing social media profiles, removes a feature so essential to what community managers, social marketing execs and wanna-be YouTube stars are trying to do (i.e. identify & interact with “influencers” to thereby achieve business goals), then there is definitely Something Really Heavy going on behind the scenes.
Jiangsu Broadcasting learns about transmedia, social media and multimedia at Annenberg
So this happened: I got asked to help train a team of 25 bright, ambitious, clever & talented people from Jiangsu Broadcasting. I believe they are headquartered in Nanjing, and they were set loose in Los Angeles for 20 days (missing out on some big & important...
“Fairness over truth” – StopFake points out vulnerabilities in The View From Nowhere
Ukrainians fighting the Kremlin's propaganda machine release report on what they've learned While I've been regularly sharing, reposting and ReTweeting the efforts of my friends, colleagues and students in Ukraine over the past year and a half, I must admit that there...
How Big Data and Online Games Help Catch Scammers
I did a case study on this use of analytics technology more than a year ago. The gist of it is this: online MMPORGs like World of Warcraft, EVE, Everquest, etc., are wonderful tools whereby to study human interactions. Here's the gist: when you map the connections...
Mary Meeker’s yearly “Future of Internet” PowerPoint
Shorter: Mobile is still undervalued. Hackers suck. China is about over; India is next. Professional content producers still doomed. But good design still matters. Every year, Mary Meeker produces a massive presentation that quickly makes the rounds on Teh Interwebz...
Five classes. Two years. One graduation day.
In a business environment that closely resembles the last five minutes of a James Bond film, where the klaxons are blaring and guys in white jumpsuits are frantically running around and dying in explosions because Bond just set the reactor to overload… the absolute stupidest, most dangerous thing you can possibly do is just stand still. Act defensively.