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Tags > media
Four short links: 20 December 2011 - Maximum MySQL, Digital News, Unbiased Mining, and Congressional Clue
By Nat TorkingtonDecember 20, 2011
How Twitter Stores 250M Tweets a Day Using MySQL (High Scalability) -- notes from a talk at the MySQL conference on how Twitter built a high-volume MySQL store. How The Atlantic Got Profitable With Digital First (Mashable) -- Lauf says his team has focused on putting together premium advertising experiences that span print, digital, events and (increasingly) mobile. Data...
Big crime meets big data - Data and social media are being used against us in creative new ways.
December 19, 2011
Marc Goodman, consultant and cyber crime expert, explains how criminals and terrorists can put data, automation, and scalability to effective use.
Four short links: 24 November 2011 - Libraries and the Internet, Cheap Multicore, Online Exceeds Print, Perpetuating Ignorance
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 24, 2011
Libraries: Where It All Went Wrong -- I was asked to provocatively help focus librarians on the opportunities offered to libraries in the Internet age. If I ask you to talk about your collections, I know that you will glow as you describe the amazing treasures you have. When you go for money for digitization projects, you talk up...
Four short links: 23 November 2011 - Inside-Out Libraries, Cleaner YouTube, Kid Tablet, Facetracking Toy
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 23, 2011
Massive Wikimedia Donation -- I missed it when it happened, but the State Library of Queensland made the 4th largest ever donation of high-resolution out-of-copyright images to the Wikimedia Foundation. The image metadata are available through Wikimedia under liberal licensing terms, too. This is what your national and state libraries should be doing! Clea.nr -- strip all the crap...
The future of social media at the National Archives - The National Archives described a dashboard for "citizen archivists" at a recent forum in D.C.
November 18, 2011
A recent forum at the National Archives featured a preview of a "citizen archivist dashboard" and a lively discussion of the past, present and future of social media.
Strata Week: Why ThinkUp matters - ThinkUp and data ownership, DataSift turns on its Twitter firehose, and Google cracks opens the door to BigQuery.
November 17, 2011
Data democratization gets an important new tool with the release of ThinkUp 1.0. Also, DataSift offers another way to get the Twitter firehose, and Google offers a little more access to its BigQuery data analytics service.
Why we needed EPUB 3 - New reading devices, multimedia storytelling and accessibility needs made EPUB3 a necessity.
November 17, 2011
EPUB3 is more than just bug fixes and tweaks from the last version. It represents a major change in what an ebook can be. (This is an excerpt from the Tools of Change for Publishing report, "What is EPUB3
Civic media competition attracts a new generation of change agents - A global conversation with finalists in Ashoka's civic media innovation competition.
November 14, 2011
Finalists in the Ashoka Foundation's civic media competition offered honest and perceptive observations about the role of civic media in the expanding information ecosystem.
On the media reaction to the death of Steve Jobs - The events of the past week generated powerful reactions inside of the Radar team.
By Alex HowardOctober 9, 2011
In the context of worldwide reactions to the impact of Steve Jobs on the arc of history, recognizing the complexity of his life and offering a balanced assessment of the impact of his legacy on this earth matters. In that context, O'Reilly editors share their reflections on the passing of one of the technology industry's iconic figures.
From crowdsourcing to crime-sourcing: The rise of distributed criminality - How criminals are applying crowdsourcing techniques.
September 29, 2011
Crowdsourcing began as a way to tap the wisdom of crowds for the betterment of business and science. Crime groups have now repurposed the same tools and techniques for their own variation: "crime-sourcing."
For local news, TV is dominant but the Internet is our digital future - A Pew survey of local news sources reveals the influence of social and mobile trends, along with a generation gap.
September 26, 2011
A new Pew report on local news reveals reasons to be hopeful about digital platforms as information sources. But it's not all positive: The decline of local newspapers will leave a civic gap for local government accountability.
Four short links: 23 September 2011 - Visualizing Populations, Hardware Futures, Radio Different, and Kooky Javascript
By Nat TorkingtonSeptember 23, 2011
How Many Really? -- project by BERG and BBC to help make sense of large numbers of people, in the context of your social network. Clever! (via BERG London) Why the Best Days of Open Hardware Are Yet To Come (Bunnie Huang) -- as Moore’s law decelerates, there is a potential for greater standardization of platforms. A provocative picture...
If you're a content designer, the web browser will be your canvas - Peter Brantley on designing and thinking browser first.
September 12, 2011
The Internet Archive's Peter Brantley discusses the influence of web browsers on content design and the challenges of complex media.
Visualization of the Week: Social media and the UK riots - Did social media catalyze UK violence? The Guardian casts doubt on that conclusion.
August 26, 2011
The Guardian has created an interactive visualization of some 2.5 million tweets to challenge the British government's contention that rioters used Twitter to organize the recent violence.
Four short links: 26 August 2011 - 9/11 Footage, Finland's Schools, Javascript Presentations, and Hollowed-Out Manufacturing
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 26, 2011
911 Footage -- the Internet Archive has published a great collection of video from Sep 11 2001. A tremendous boon to researchers. Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? (Smithsonian Magazine) -- not sure if why they're successful is ever definitively anointed, but the article is fascinating reading. deck.js -- Javascript presentation library. Why Amazon Can't Make a Kindle in the...
The Daily Dot wants to tell the web's story with social data journalism - A new media startup tries to mine the social web for stories.
August 25, 2011
The newly launched Daily Dot is trying an experiment in community journalism, where the community is the Internet. To support their goal, they're applying the lens of data journalism to the social web.
Four short links: 23 August 2011 - Piracy of Convenience, Machina Ex Artist, Disaster Art, and CI Conference
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 23, 2011
Late to Hulu Means More Piracy -- more evidence that price isn't the main reason people pirate. If they can get it legally online in a convenient fashion, they will. If you delay online release, or make it inconvenient, your erstwhile customers will turn to piracy because "it's illegal" is less important than "it's convenient". Welcome to the modern...
Developer Week in Review: Google Goes Yardsaling - Google consumes mass quantities of mobile, social media gone bad, and C++ learns new tricks
August 18, 2011
We learned that Google liked Motorola products so much they decided to buy the company, that social media has a dark side, and that C++ isn't ready to join Sanskrit in the dead languages section just yet.
Dominant form of journalism foretold by Reynolds Journalism Institute - Why a new proposal for making the news business sustainable deserves attention.
August 15, 2011
A new paper from the Reynolds Journalism Institute deserves a look from anyone interested in publishing, social networking, or democratic discourse.
Visualization of the Week: The growth of newspapers in the U.S. from 1690 to date - An interactive visualization maps the spread of newspapers across the U.S.
August 5, 2011
Using data from the Library of Congress, an interactive visualization maps in time and space the spread of newspapers across the United States.
Four short links: 3 August 2011 - Library Licensing, Mac Graphics, Coal Computing, and Human Augmentation
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 3, 2011
Just Say No To Freegal -- an interesting view from the inside, speaking out against a music licensing system called Freegal which is selling to libraries. Libraries typically buy one copy of something, and then lend it out to multiple users sequentially, in order to get a good return on investment. Participating in a product like Freegal means that...
Open question: Which streaming services do you use? - Are you loyal to one streaming service or do you sample from a streaming buffet?
July 22, 2011
New usage patterns are emerging as streaming services go mainstream. With that in mind, I'd like to find out how Radar readers puts streaming products to use.
If it's important, the news will find me - Which works better: gulping from the info firehose or letting news come to you?
By Peter MeyersJuly 21, 2011
Facing info overload, Peter Meyers ponders more efficient ways to find what’s newsworthy. What works for you?
Four short links: 20 July 2011 - Meaningful Subsets, iPhone Reading, JSON Parser, The Epiphanator
By Nat TorkingtonJuly 20, 2011
Random Khan Exercises -- elegant hack to ensure repeatability for a user but difference across users. Note that they need these features of exercises so that they can perform meaningful statistical analyses on the results. Float, the Netflix of Reading (Wired) -- an interesting Instapaper variant with a stab at an advertising business model. I would like to stab...
Search Notes: Why Google's Social Analytics tools matter - Can we finally track social? Also: New Google UI elements and a look at Plus response
July 5, 2011
In the latest Search Notes: Google Plus got all the publicity, but Google's Social Analytics tools and new interface elements are also notable.
Four short links: 28 June 2011 - Mediasaurus Dix, Mobile Numbers, Machine Learning, and Software Patents
By Nat TorkingtonJune 28, 2011
Networks Blocking Google TV -- the networks are carrying over their old distribution models: someone aggregates eyeballs and pays them for access. In their world view, Google TV is just another cable company. They're doubling down on this wholesale model, pulling out of Hulu and generally avoiding dealing with the people who ultimately watch their shows except through ad-filled...
The blurring line between speech and text - We all say things we regret, and now we all write things we regret.
June 14, 2011
Recent social media gaffes show that our definitions and thresholds for speech and text must evolve. A third category has emerged: Internet-based updates that marry the ephemeral nature of speech and the archival permanance of text.
Publishing News: Rebooting online news presentation - Ben Huh has a fling with news, checking in on the Twitter archive, and readers can now fund authors directly.
June 3, 2011
In the latest Publishing News: Ben Huh dishes on news organizations moving in the right direction; one year later, the Library of Congress' Twitter Archive is still being built; and the Unbound.co.uk publishing platform launched with some big-name authors.
Will your business survive the digital revolution? - There's a big risk in failing to recognize and respond to the magnitude of technological change ahead.
By Jonathan Reichental, Ph.D.June 1, 2011
Once we recognize the magnitude of change that digital innovation is causing and may bring in the months and years ahead, it will help us to think bigger and to think in ways that may previously have seemed absurd.
News organizations still party like it's 1899 - Ben Huh's new project focuses on news presentation. Here he talks about who's doing it well.
May 31, 2011
Ben Huh, the CEO of Cheezburger, Inc., loves his Cheezburger project but is ready to engage in a fling with news. Huh's new Moby Dick project will address the limitations and frustrations of stagnant news presentation. In this short interview, Huh discusses news outlets that are headed in the right direction.
And the BAFTA goes to ... an app? - For the first time, an app has been nominated for a TV BAFTA.
May 18, 2011
"The Malcolm Tucker: The Missing Phone" application has been nominated for a TV British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. Henry Volans, head of Faber Digital, discusses the app and why he thinks it's being honored with the nomination.
Four short links: 2 May 2011 - Internet Cafe Culture, Image Processing, Library Mining, and MediaWiki Parsing
By Nat TorkingtonMay 2, 2011
Chinese Internet Cafes (Bryce Roberts) -- a good quick read. My note: people valued the same things in Internet cafes that they value in public libraries, and the uses are very similar. They pose a similar threat to the already-successful, which is why public libraries are threatened in many Western countries. SIFT -- the Scale Invariant Feature Transform library,...
Legally speaking, think before you tweet - David Ardia on how libel laws apply to Twitter and new media.
May 2, 2011
Most of us are familiar with the libel lawsuits aimed at magazine and newspaper publishers, but how do libel laws apply to Twitter, Facebook, and blogs? David Ardia, fellow at the Berkman Center and the director of the Citizen Media Law Project, breaks it down.
Open Media Boston forum examines revolution and Internet use in Middle East
By Andy OramApril 1, 2011
I came away convinced that Internet sites — Facebook in particular — were crucial to the spread of the revolutions.
For election info, the Internet reaches a new high-water mark - Pew finds more than 50% of US adults used the Internet for political purposes during the 2010 elections.
March 22, 2011
New research from the Pew Internet and Life Project on the 2010 midterm elections shows that a majority of U.S. citizens are now turning to the web for news and information about politics.
The magic adapter: Apple TV and the battle for the living room - Why conventional wisdom about Apple's failure to secure the living room is wrong.
By Mark SigalMarch 22, 2011
The Apple TV appears to be an afterthought, but its iOS-based second generation may actually blaze Apple's trail into the connected living room.
Four short links: 22 March 2011 - Local Community, Building Memories, Social Media, and ChumbyVision
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 22, 2011
EveryBlock Redesigned -- EB has been defined for a while now as "that site that makes my city's statistics useful and relevant". Now they're getting more into the user-reporting: As valuable as automated updates of crime, media mentions, and other EveryBlock news are, contributions from your fellow neighbors are significantly more meaningful and useful. While we're not removing our...
Social media design should start with human behavior - Facebook's Paul Adams says social media is about more than just technology.
March 18, 2011
In this interview, Facebook global brand experience manager Paul Adams says social design is to web developers as electricity is to appliance engineers. It's an essential element that must be baked in rather than bolted on.
Knowledge management in the age of social media - The days of the single, authoritative voice are coming to an end. The community has prevailed.
March 16, 2011
The shift to the adoption of social computing, somewhat driven by consumerization, points to one emergent observation: the future is about managing unstructured content.
Social media in a time of need - How the Red Cross and the Los Angeles Fire Department integrate social tools into crisis response.
March 7, 2011
The Red Cross and the Los Angeles Fire Department have been at the forefront of incorporating social media into crisis response. Here's a look at some of the tools and techniques they've adopted.
Media old and new are mobilized for effective causes - Sasha Costanza-Chock on why old and new media will continue to co-exist.
By Andy OramMarch 2, 2011
Sasha Costanza-Chock explains why both conventional media and social networks are critical resources, and why social causes have just as much trouble as corporations using the latter effectively.
Empowering digital diplomacy at the edge of the network - The State Department launched new Twitter accounts in Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Spanish, Hindi and French.
March 1, 2011
When the State Department launched new Twitter accounts in a number of languages, it provided an opportunity for digital diplomats to engage in a global conversation at the edges of the network.
Four short links: 28 February 2011 - Culture, Wifi, Emotion, and Piracy
By Nat TorkingtonFebruary 28, 2011
Making or Breaking Culture -- I'd never thought of HR as something that requires courage, but these stories clearly illustrate that if you want to put your people first then you must do so when it would be easier to buckle. (via Richard Hulse on Twitter) Lightpainting Wifi Signal Strength in Urban Neighbourhoods (Vimeo) -- I'm a junkie for...
Smaller search engines tap social platforms - Some niche engines are using social activity as a search signal.
February 25, 2011
Integrating social media into search engines is one thing, but engines like Foodily and BuzzFeed's Pop Culture Search are basing some of their results on social platform activity.
Apple iTunes gifts users with a privacy hole - An iTunes privacy issue uncovered by Andrew McAfee highlights the need for better privacy by design.
February 18, 2011
The Apple iTunes gift function comes with a privacy issue: whoever is making the gift can see if the recipient already owns a song, video or app. The mechanism illustrates why privacy needs to be baked into electronic commerce from the beginning.
Mind-blowing, world-changing technology by the numbers - Facts and humor in this video illustrate the reach and impact of new technology.
February 16, 2011
This is a golden age of technology. Almost anyone with modest technology such as an internet connection or a mobile phone can have an impact on the world. This video is just a small slice of the staggering numbers and impact of technology that we witness today.
Indexing the social signal - Charlene Li on the problems and possibilities of social search and realtime updates.
February 15, 2011
Search engines used to leisurely index static results, but the rise of social media and real-time updates has changed the game. In this interview, Altimeter Group founder Charlene Li looks at how search will have to adapt to this new environment.
What investors are looking for in publishing companies - Catalyst Investors' Ryan McNally on the business opportunities born from publishing's disruption.
By Jenn WebbFebruary 10, 2011
Ryan McNally, co-founder of Catalyst Investors, discusses the opportunities for publishing startups and investors (here's a tip: you're in good shape if tablets and multimedia are priorities).
Pages before ads and other Facebook marketing tips - Authors Dan and Alison Zarrella on how businesses can put Facebook to use.
January 20, 2011
Traditional marketers and businesses tend to downplay Facebook's utility. That's a mistake, according to Dan and Alison Zarrella, co-authors of "The Facebook Marketing Book." In this interview, they explain why engagement is the key to Facebook campaigns.
Backtype: Using big data to make sense of social media - Nathan Marz on the data tools that help marketers understand their social media efforts.
By David SimsJanuary 11, 2011
Nathan Marz of Backtype discusses his work with Hadoop, Cascading and Clojure.
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