Google backs new digital journalism initiative
Google is investing $2.7 million into a new digital journalism project.
You can read more on Google’s blog.
Archive for February, 2011
News article fee trial with Google in Germany
German news site Focus Online is trialling a small per article fee using
Google’s new check out system. It is the equivalent of 8p an article.
Network effect in the Arab World
Thoughtful piece here about the role of social media networks in generating protest movements and leaders. It looks, for example, at how particular Twitter channels can become more influential.
Useful insight, as well, into how key networks generally emerge, and how they are changing the nature of the diffusion of knowledge and information.
Infographic of LinkedIn usage.
I often feel LinkedIn goes unnoticed sometimes with the constant revamps and chat about Facebook and Twitter changes. But the business social media network has maintained a steady and reliable service for a long time – at least in social media terms.
Are you Linked In? According to this infographic, there’s a higher chance you are if you work in the Finance or High Tech industry and you work for a company containing over 10000 employees.
Have a look at a few other statistics about the business network.
Mashable enters the social media market.
Mashable is arguably the leading source when it comes to social media and web news. So it was only a matter of time before they branched out into their own social media network.
Mashable Follow was announced in response to the growing number of sources for news and information in social media. With so many stories emerging about social media and the web, Mashable Follow is designed to give users access to all the stories in a customised environment. So you only have to see what you want to.
The Mashable Follow button will sit next to the articles so you can click ‘Follow’ on an article you get and then follow all similar stories.
The exciting concept though is the Mashable Follow button which replaces the various Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Digg etc share buttons that currently clog up most blog posts. The Mashable Share button will drop down and let you share the content with a number of sites at once. You can then see stats, get notifications when people comment and even earn badges.
It’s a little bit like a mashup of Digg (with the topic and people following) AddThis (for content sharing) and Foursquare (for the badges.)
It’s only in beta at the moment, so I’m still waiting for an invitation. I’m excited to try it out though, and to see what else Mashable has up their sleeves for 2011.
You can sign up for an invitation at http://mashable.com/follow/login/
The history of the mobile phone
Mobile phones play a huge, and growing, part in the world of social media. Without it, we wouldn’t have twitpics, real time updates from conferences or the opportunity to check in to our favourite places.
It’s interesting to see how advanced mobile technology has become in the relatively short time it’s been on the market. This video celebrating the history of the mobile has some interesting facts about the history (not least the fact that children are more likely to own a mobile phone than a book these days!)
Can you remember a time before mobile phones?
The future of business is the ‘mesh’
This is an interesting extension of the gift economy model.
Thanks to Andrew (Currah) for finding it!
Tweeting with more than 140 characters
Tweetdeck has introduced a new service called Deck.ly, a feature
which lets users send longer messages to Twitter. Anyone have any thoughts on
it?
Map of tweets in Cairo
Hypercities has created an interactive map of all the tweets in Cairo. Take a look.
High Tech car lets the blind drive
A fascinating glimpse into how technology in cars can imitate the
functioning of the human brain and nervous system to create new
opportunities for travel…
