This is a piece for my weekly Loose Wire Service column. I’m posting it here because it’s timely. That’s why there are no internal links in it. Michael Jackson is dead. You’ve probably heard that already. But where did you hear it? Chances are you read about it on twitter. Or more or less anywhere … Read more
I don’t really know what to make of this, but I occasionally trawl Google Search Trends/Insights to see what people are looking for, and whether they’re changing much over the past few years. This seems to me to be as good an indicator of things as anything else. I did it back in 2005 with … Read more
I have actually been appearing on Radio Australia’s Breakfast Club pretty much every Friday—around 1.15 GMT–for the past year or so, but don’t always remember to post the links to the things I talk about (or intend to; there’s not always time). Here’s to trying to remember to do it (and audio, now it’s available.) … Read more
I’m a big fan of The Guardian, but their auto-linking software needs some tweaking. It’s a classic example of trying to provide that extra value to data on the cheap. My argument for a while has been that the only lasting way for traditional media to make itself competitive again is not to create more, … Read more
Paul Lamb over at MediaShift asks: Is there still a need for vetting and fact checking of stories. Absolutely. But isn’t that something a machine, building off our collective intelligence, could be trained to do far better than any one human or editorial staff? Of course this ignores the fact that machines aren’t good at … Read more