• Crisis talks: the texts America sent on 9.11.2001
  "The messages – drawn from ‘text pagers’ carried by people in an official capacity – range from snap news reports to messages between members of essential services as well as expressions of support for loved ones. They were, Wikileaks said, “a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time.”"
  (tags: data)

• NSFW: 1200 words absolutely, definitely not about Rupert Murdoch and Google
  "…I did almost consider surrendering to popular pressure and dedicating an entire column to my analysis of whether such an arrangement is ever likely to happen and what it would mean for Google, and the wider world. But then I realised that I’m paid to write long, and that a column like that would read as follows (in its entirety)… Will News Corp Remove Its Content From Google, And If So What Will It Mean For The World? No. And nothing. …which feels lazy, even for me."
  (tags: google newscorp)

• The Death Of The Blog Post – Smashing Magazine
  seven half-hearted articles a week does not equal one very polished, interesting article.
  (tags: webdesign blogging wordpress)
• wheresrhys » Blog Archive » Geocoding in the UK
  The art of geocoding addresses in the UK, as I previously explained, is a soul-destroying process, frought with inaccuracy, bugs and convoluted workarounds.
  (tags: maps)
• 10 Days
  '10 Days' is a study of news headlines taken from the BBC News Online between May 6-15th, 2009.
  (tags: video news)
• Murdoch barters Google links for Microsoft cash
  "Nonetheless, the principle does not strike me as far-fetched, even if we have yet to find whether he can pull it off. If the revenue from search traffic is low, why not swap it for something else?"
  (tags: newscorp paidcontent business)
• iPhone users 'happier to pay online'
  "Consumers with an iPhone show more willingness to pay for digital content than the wider online population, according to research published today, although the chances of getting people to pay for newspaper content on the web are still slim."
  (tags: business paidcontent)
• Roy Greenslade: Johnston Press to erect website paywalls
  Regional newspaper publisher Johnston Press will erect paywalls at six of its weekly paper websites from next Monday. According to chief executive John Fry, it is a small-scale trial to assess the impact of charging for content.
  (tags: business paidcontent)

• The WoW Paywall: What Newspapers Can Learn From Orcs And Dwarves | paidContent:UK
  What makes pretending to be an elf more profitable than publishing news and information online? Maybe newspapers could learn a few things from the world of games as they try to monetise digital behaviour…
  (tags: gaming socialnetworking)
• This is a Bad Time to be a Journalist If…
  "You don't like the readers talking back – because they have innumerable methods to respond to your work, whether or not you have comments on articles"
  (tags: blogging journalism)

• Who's Talking About Me?
  "…people are increasingly likely to discuss and interact with content away from the site where it was originally posted. Grigorik studied 1,000 of the feeds his company has monitored for the past three years and found that about 60 percent of the interactions PostRank recorded happened on sites other than where the content was originally posted. "As a publisher or blogger, I want to see these conversations," he says. "
  (tags: newspapers socialmedia)

• Facebook helps build buzz for brands
  "Members of Facebook, the social network, have more conversations about brands than the typical US consumer, be it on the web or offline, a new study has found."
  (tags: advertising socialnetworking)
• UK 2nd in world for online ad spend, but slips to 5th for total ad spend
  "These comparative country figures are based on Purchasing Power Parities, a system that uses the US dollar as a base point, and eliminates the different price levels between countries that typically result from currency conversion."
  (tags: advertising)
• "Augmented reality" attracts big advertisers
  "Forecasts from ABI Research predict the value of this market will rise from $6 million (€4.0m; £3.6m) in 2008 to $350m in 2014, with around half of this figure being generated by mobile ads."
  (tags: advertising augmentedreality mobile)
• A Portuguese success story: could i be the future of newspapers?
  "Being a new newspaper, part of a new brand, gives I the freedom to experiment and it seems that this freedom has been passed on to all the staff. Mrozowski and Bello were extremely enthusiastic about their working environment and what it allows them to do. "There's this motivating feeling," Bello said. Mrozowski said that the two senior editors, Figueiredo and André Macedo, "have imparted this feeling of accomplishing the impossible at every step… There is no cap to how big these guys will dream and it presses you to do things that you wouldn't do at another newspaper."
  (tags: innovation newspapers design journalism)

• Is Twitter a Complex Adaptive System? « emergent by design
  Diving talent into silos is an outdated paradigm. Rather, we should be encouraging the facilitation of diverse groups of people working together on common problems.
  (tags: business twitter)

It was a shame that I couldn’t stay longer at the 140 Character conference at O2 Indigo yesterday.

But, in the short time I was there, I did get to listen to a very interesting talk by Stephen Fry. How Stephen is discovering, using, experiencing and reacting to Twitter is fascinating.

One point he made particularly made me think. He explained his annoyance at how some in the mainstream press had suggested he had orchestrated the online reaction to Jan Moir and also the breaking of the Trafigura super-injunction.

Stephen was annoyed that he was being singled out when many, many others had particpiated in both these events. As he correctly pointed out, it was unfair to others who had been more involved and had not been recognised. It was, he argued, lazy journalism.

Actually, Stephen went on to argue, he doesn’t have any influence at all. His followers are intelligent beings who can make up their own minds about things. If he had asked them to stick their heads in the oven, would they have done it, he asked? It is a point he explains more fully in a post he wrote last month.

This gets right to the heart of my concerns with the perceptions of influence and responsibility that people have online. I have two points which I would very much appreciate your thoughts on:

Point 1: If a newspaper with a circulation twice the size of The Times (or 3.5 times the size of The Guardian) joined a campaign (even it it was late in the day), how much influence would you credit them with having over readers that joined in? How much responsibility does the newspaper have for the outcome of that campaign? How would you feel if this was a campaign with aims that you agreed with? How would you feel if it was something you disagreed with?

My point being that Stephen has over 1 million followers on Twitter. Why should his influence on them be any more or less than a newspaper has on its readers? How do we judge that?

If we can say his influence is the same, then surely we have to say that his responsibilities when wielding that influence must be the same. We need to look at this both for campaigns we agree with and ones we don’t because we will react differently to each. I suspect we are more likely to claim the newspaper acted irresponsibly if we don’t agree with their campaign’s aims.

Point 2: A very interesting chat with someone who understands the intricacies of UK libel law revealed this nugget to me: when it comes to libel, you do not necessarily have to sue the person who was first to utter the libel. You can sue anyone who repeated the defamation.

In this situation clients are advised to choose to go after those people who can afford to pay damages. The people most likely to fall into this category? Large organisations (like newspapers) and anyone with a large influence and (as a result) a potentially larger-than-average bank balance.

Of course Stephen is a pretty sensible tweeter and is unlikely to be retweeting libellous statements and getting involved with questionable campaigns. But, I worry about his lack of awareness of the influence he has and, therefore, the potential consequences of it. I don’t think he is the only one who thinks like this.

It seems, as I’ve mentioned before, that individual influence and responsibility online is a tricky thing for us all to guage. I think the consequences of that are interesting and slightly worrisome.

• Times editor James Harding outlines plans for online charging
  ""Pledging to "rewrite the economics of newspapers", Harding said the Times would charge for 24-hour access to that day's edition of the paper alongside a subscription model, but dismissed the idea of micro-payments for individual articles.
  (tags: journalism newspapers micropayments business)
• BBC appoints Alex Gubbay as first social media editor
  After announcing late last month that it would create the role of Social Media Editor, the BBC has appointed Alex Gubbay as the first to fill the position.
  (tags: bbc socialmedia)