In an age of overwhelming abundance of data, journalists and media organisations are learning to separate signal from noise in order to provide valuable insights to society. From the Guardian to the New York Times, La Stampa to Die Zeit, journalists and media organisations are experimenting with new ways of using data to improve reportage of complex issues and to give readers direct access to the sources behind the headlines.
For the past 10 years Google has always published a year-end Zeitgeist report on the major search trends around the world, 2011 is no except – they have sorted billions of searches to capture the year’s 10 fastest-rising global queries and the spirit of 2011.
Last Tuesday, Google Buzz marked one month since its launch, and it has not been an easy one. From the word on the e-block, more users are bashing what was touted as the new uber-social online tool rather than buzzing about it. However, apparently against the odds, Google’s venture into real-time web networking does not look likely to buzz off soon.
Media140′s newest blogger, Petya Panduleva, takes a look at where things stand for Google Buzz, and where they may be going. Read More…
Roll up! Roll up! Take your seats ring-side for what is shaping up to be one of the most serious real time web scraps of the 21st century!
Recent headlines might have had the casual reader drawing some slightly superficial conclusions: China supports evil hackers! Google is the saviour of democracy!
Really? asks Media140 Sydney panellist and our inaugural guest vlogger Stilgherrian, who writes for several key opinion sites in Australia, including Crikey and ZDNet.
*****
It takes a little digging on Stilgherrian’s website to discover the origins of his unusual moniker, but his passion for politics and the online environment is immediately obvious. An internet pioneer since the mid-1980s, Stilgherrian continues to delve into the increasingly complex web of communication and collaboration technologies, inevitably emerging with acute insights into how they are continuing to shape our society.
For Media140, Stilgherrian has taken time out – from a hectic afternoon at the pub – to explain why he does not necessarily buy the mainstream view of Google’s recent row over cyber-attacks and censorship in China. Neatly showcasing the possibilities of the real-time web, he uploaded this clip to Viddler.com, from which source we at Media140 were able to simply and swiftly lift the embed code.
NB: There is a small encoding glitch at 03:20:00, but we would not dream of holding it against Viddler.
Google offers newspapers more than a search engine to demonize
Ben LaMothe is a junior associate with a London public relations agency who spends his spare time concocting new ideas for old media.
He is especially interested in how real-time web technology can help save newspapers.
In his first post for #Media140 on the topic, he proposes local rags make Google their friend by utilising its new email platform, Wave.
Real-time web offers an opportunity for newspapers to regain at least part of the ground they have lost to poor planning and bad decision-making.
That newspaper readerships are plummeting is no secret, and local dailies are among the hardest hit. Audit Bureau of Circulation figures released last October showed that 379 daily US newspapers had lost 10.62 percent of their readers on average.
Tricky question in the pub quiz? Few of us these days would hesitate to trust Google to come up with the goods, Wikipedia ruses nonwithstanding.
Find a good pub, decent cup of coffee, cheap B&B near your next out-of-town meeting? Few of us would now hesitate to throw out a query to the Twitterverse. More often than not, a varied, and invariably helpful, response comes winging back within minutes.
But what about a dilemma rather more serious than “Thai takeaway tonight or the tapas bar?” Would you trust your followers to steer you in the right direction on a thornier ethical or health issue? Below, Henry Elliss, head of Social Media at Tamar.com, tells Media140 about his experience of trying to find out a bit more about the H1N1 vaccine via Twitter, and whether or not the response was sufficient to make him reconsider his views on giving the jab to his infant son.
Scroll down to read a companion piece by Media140’s creative correspondent, Stuart Witts, on whether or not there are some questions which are just too important to trust to your Twitter followers. Stuart’s piece is not a response to Henry’s experiences but both raise thought-provoking questions about using Twitter to help make difficult decisions in an increasingly complex world.
I suspect my dear wife would laugh if she knew I had asked a question about the Swine Flu jab on Twitter. She sees it very much as a personal decision between the two of us. But I felt that I just didn’t know enough about the jab, and, since I was the one pushing the “let’s give it to him” (our 17 month-old son, Robert) I thought that I would need some back-up if I wanted to continue to push the debate. When I asked the question on Twitter, I simply had no idea what kind of response I would get. Given the amount of tweets I do, I think I assumed it would just get ignored – I didn’t realise there was such strength-of-feeling out there on the jab!
As I am someone who knows Search extremely well, I would usually stick that sort of thing in to Google. To be honest, I’d probably trust Google on a pub quiz question (not that I’d ever cheat, I hasten to add!) rather more than I would my Twitter followers. This was different though, since I was looking for opinion, rather than for facts.
I was pro the jab, Mrs E. was anti; she felt that it had not been tested enough yet, and just wasn’t convinced of the need for it. I may be more naively trusting: I just saw that it was being “recommended” and so assumed that we should get it done.
To be honest, the Twitter responses I got didn’t really help me make up my mind either way, since there was a marked contrast in people’s answers. I got some horror stories from people who said we should, then I got some very wary warnings from people who said we shouldn’t, so I wasn’t really any the wiser.
I was hoping the tweet might get spotted by a few medical experts, but I guess my tweets must be unappealing to the medically trained, since none came! In the event, my opinion was eventually swayed by a person IRL, a colleague of mine. Whilst she did see the tweet on Twitter, she came over in the office and explained her stance to me in person, so I’m not sure whether it counts as a win for Twitter or not!
I don’t think we will be giving Robert the jab for the moment – the opinion of the few medically knowledgeable people from whom I got advice IRL was that the 1,000 test-bed which they have used for the jab is too small and had been too rushed, to know for sure whether there were any serious side effects. Read More…
But you can catch all the highlights from the recent event this year at the liveblog
Sydney science [rewired]
How can social media, citizen science and digital technologies enhance international collaboration on the major social and scientific issues of our time?
Barcelona
