CULTURAS IN VITRO
Communist theme park to open its gates: Hoping to capitalise on a wave of nostalgia for Communist East Germany, a Berlin company is planning to build a theme park that revives life behind the Iron Curtain in the country that disappeared nearly 13 years ago.
28 Fevereiro 2003
CONTAMINANTES
Research Blogs: This is an annotated list of weblogs I have found that are used by researchers and academics as a part of their research practice.
VITAMEDIAS
Blogger Google F.A.Q.
Q: Will Blogger go away?
A: Nope. Blogger is going to maintain its branding and services. While we may integrate with Google in certain areas there will always be a Blogger.
Google is not a search company: With their acquisition of Pyra and new Content-Targeted Advertising offering, it should be apparent that Google is not a search company. What they are exactly is unclear, but their biggest asset is: a highly annotated map of the web.
Google's search for new ad revenue
.DE!
Dope gets suspects in big trouble at cop party: "I've met a lot of dumb drug dealers, but none this dumb."
VITAMEDIAS
TSF - Há quinze anos no ar: A TSF, criada a 29 de Fevereiro de 1988, celebra agora quinze anos de existência.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
In a spin: The record industry is desperately seeking a way out of its problems
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Verbing Weirds Google: "Back in January, the American Dialect Society voted the neologism "to google" as the most useful word of 2002. Now bring on the lawyers! Google's have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of the famous Word Spy site, demanding he remove google as a verb from his lexicon, or else. Frank Abate, an American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary, points out, however, that you can't claim proprietary rights to a verb."
27 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Has Online Media Bottomed Out? [A]n online media recovery based only on tiles, banners, and ever-more-intrusive advertising is not going to happen. Wait until you read that subscriptions and transactions are way up too, before you take out the party hats.
VITAMEDIAS
Saddam: French media mogul : Media monolith Hachette Filipacchi, already fearing an anti-French backlash, has a bigger problem: Saddam Hussein owns a $90 million stake in its parent company.
Saddam owns just under 2 percent of Lagardere SCA, the French company of which Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., publishers of Elle, Car & Driver, Women's Day and other titles, is a unit. His shares are held by Iraqi-controlled Montana Management, based in Geneva.
VITAMEDIAS
Lynch Moblogs: News travels faster than ever - and that includes news about your company. First came the Internet, with its seething chat rooms and mailing lists. Then came blogging, which made it easy for loudmouths to publish commentary on the Web. Now get ready for moblogging - shorthand for "mobile weblogging" - which can turn any street corner, checkout line, or supermarket aisle into a multimedia complaint hotline.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Studio Daniel Libeskind's plan for the World Trade Center site was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
ECO-TERROR
Win Without War - A mainstream voice advocating alternatives to preemptive war against Iraq
On February 26th, hundreds of thousands of Americans flooded the Senate and White House with calls and faxes saying: Don't Invade Iraq, Use Tough Inspections to Disarm Saddam Hussein.
VITAMEDIAS
Questão argumentativa num blog que tenta ser de factos: Devem os media ser escrutinados com mais atenção?
Ponto prévio: é possível polémica saudável na blogosfera sem ser entre os entediantes infames, esquerdistas e derivados, fascinados pela recente descoberta da comunicação "online" e que arriscam a tornar-se em modelos de discussão "pública" semelhantes aos "newsgroups" nacionais, cujo ruído se sobrepõe ao conteúdo?
A questão surgiu derivada de um triângulo de pessoas interessantes (em termos do questionamento da actualidade social e mediática) que leio, concorde ou não com elas: uma opinião no Público, uma pergunta sobre esse ponto de vista e um contraponto.
Começando pelos fins: diz António Granado: "Pacheco Pereira [PP] escreve hoje no "Público" um texto onde, pela milésima vez, diz que é preciso escrutinar a comunicação social [...] Alguém é capaz de me explicar onde é que o homem quer chegar?"
Manuel Pinto argumenta (síntese): "Tal como há uma crítica de TV (de facto: da sua programação), de cinema, de música, etc, porque não há-de existir igualmente uma crítica dos media?" [...] Só me parece que uma tal linha de trabalho dos/nos media não pode ficar circunscrita ao jornalismo. Penso mesmo que tendências de fundo que se registam hoje no campo jornalístico resultam, em grande medida, da "contaminação" de outras variáveis do campo mediático-económico que não podem deixar de ser equacionadas.
Vamos a isto:
1) a crítica de TV não é apenas da sua programação mas do seu conceito, história e mesmo ideologia (veja-se o nem sempre interessante Cintra Torres no Público);
2) existe já e cada vez mais uma crítica implícita dos media, alicerçada em personagens mediáticos (como PP o faz cada vez mais, tal como Edite Estrela o fazia no Expresso no final da era Guterres, acabando como António Granado a questionar-me sobre qual o real objectivo destes textos...). Eles descobriram formas funcionais de interagir com os meios de comunicação social. Ainda há pouco tempo, o próprio PP referia em público como deixava tocar o telefone de manhã quando pressupunha vir de uma certa rádio e não lhe interessava falar ou negociava o "tempo de antena" para dizer o que entendia ter a dizer (para evitar com os "soundbytes" de que qualquer piada sobre sexo na Assembleia da República teria mais tempo de antena em "prime time" do que uma proposta legislativa - o exemplo foi do próprio PP). Por outro lado, há muito que as grandes empresas sabem gerir o seu "timing" mediático, pelo que a questão é se há crítica sobre esses movimentos mediáticos. Não há, digo eu!, concordando com Manuel Pinto de que há tendências de fundo que devem ser equacionadas. A questão é onde: nas universidades, nos media? Qualquer desses meios terá fragilidades próprias...;
3) finalmente, o texto de PP, que vale a pena analisar e argumentar:
"O único produto volátil, perigoso, capaz de envenenar milhões, capaz de levar pessoas ao suicídio ou ao homicídio, individual ou colectivo, que não tem qualquer controlo público, é a comunicação social."
- É um exagero e podia dizer-se o mesmo do antrax, da política em geral ou dos livros, alguns escritos pelo próprio PP;
"Os iogurtes têm de ter prazo de validade, os restaurantes são inspeccionados, o ar das cidades analisado, a água que bebemos purificada, a bolsa regulada, as empresas auditoradas, há controlos de qualidade por todo o lado, menos na comunicação social".
- Curiosamente, PP não fala da política...
"Numa sociedade em que somos protegidos de tudo por um edifício gigantesco de leis, regulamentos e instituições reguladoras, nada nos protege de sermos manipulados, falsamente informados, excitados por campanhas populistas, atingidos pela violência e a exibição agressiva de imagens poderosas e tantas vezes montadas."
- PP esquece que a liberdade de expressão passa exactamente pela diversidade de pontos de vista - embora eu suponha, até por escritos anteriores dele, que PP se refere à TV quando fala da comunicação social... E não é verdade que estamos "numa sociedade em que somos protegidos de tudo" - quem nos protege de legislação aprovada a favor de "lobbies"?!
"A última coisa que defendo é qualquer espécie de censura, prévia, posterior, de baixo, de cima ou do lado. A censura, nenhuma censura, é para aqui chamada. Oponho-me frontalmente a qualquer sugestão nesse sentido seja de que forma for, mesmo através da póstuma proposta do V-chip para as televisões."
- Não há quem defenda a censura nos dias de hoje, principalmente quando se sabe manobrar os meios mediáticos, como o exemplo do V-chip não é póstumo - os Estados Unidos continuam a bater-se por ele. Por cá, não houve reacções tecnológicas ou políticas no momento da sua famosa defesa por Paulo Portas, quando não havia sequer tecnologia para um V-chip - mas era uma boa bandeira de propaganda que todos temeram confrontar!
[...] "A única regulação que tem sentido neste terreno é a auto-regulação e essa deve ser incentivada."
- Claro, mas devemos questionar os exemplos recentes desta auto-regulação: se a TVI foi criticada por inserir factos dos "reality shows" no Telejornal, não vi críticas à RTP por anunciar no Telejornal novos bonecos (caricaturas de políticos) do Contra-Informação - quando ambas concordaram num processo de auto-regulação...;
[...] "A primeira, segunda, terceira e milésima coisa que defendo é um debate público, aberto e o mais amplo possível, contínuo, sistemático, envolvendo todo o tipo de órgãos de comunicação social."
- Uma forma de adiar o debate sério e a tomada de medidas eficazes em Portugal não é o de convocar todos para um debate público?...
"Este debate deve ser societal e estender-se sob formas próprias a todos os principais mecanismos de reprodução social, como sejam as escolas. Nas escolas, insisto há muito tempo, deve-se ensinar a ver televisão, a ouvir rádio e a ler jornais, não podendo continuar a cegueira de um sistema de ensino que de há muito perdeu o principal papel na socialização das crianças para a televisão e que insiste em não a estudar, nem a ensiná-la."
- O "Media Virus" do Douglas Rushkoff explica como a única educação televisiva que o autor teve foi a ver televisão em casa e não se saiu mal.
"O problema principal é que há um escasso debate público sobre a qualidade da comunicação social. Há ocasionalmente surtos de queixas e uma ou outra controvérsia, mas a comunicação social é a mais importante actividade que se passa no espaço público sem ser escrutinada."
- Sem dúvida, sobre o escasso debate público, com muitas dúvidas sobre o segundo ponto, tanto mais que a agenda mediática é comandada pela política e esta pela económica (ver "Mário Soares Alerta para Risco de "Afunilamento da Democracia" "e sublinha que o poder económico é superior ao mediático e ao político").
[...] "Uma é a de que esse escrutínio, a fazer-se, teria de ser feito na própria comunicação social e essa é avessa a discutir-se a si própria."
- Mas em que outro meio ou local a comunicação social foi tão discutida?!?!
"Tende a considerar-se que é pouco elegante que de forma regular no PÚBLICO se pudesse comentar o "Diário de Notícias" ou vice- versa, e muito menos que no PÚBLICO se pudesse criticar o PÚBLICO a não ser nas páginas dos "provedores dos leitores", de cuja eficácia duvido."
- Tal como se considera "pouco elegante" criticar os eurodeputados no Parlamento Europeu!!! É tanto uma questão corporativa como de defesa de emprego - será que PP está disposto a financiar uma "Brill's Content" em Portugal?
[...] "outra coisa é a existência de espaços regulares independentes onde, como há "crítica de televisão" como produto, o mesmo pudesse acontecer em relação a todo o sistema comunicacional".
- Mas se não há comunicação social independente, nem organismos de análise mediática independente, onde é que se vai fazer esta crítica??!!!
"Não me refiro como é óbvio aos estudos académicos sobre comunicação social, que são fundamentais mas cumprem outro papel."
- Nem eu...
"[Mas estes não substituem] uma ecologia de permanente debate e crítica. Só esta tem o efeito de educar o público e introduzir um efeito de rigor e vigilância que melhore o trabalho de edição - que tanta falta faz às redacções - e os níveis de exigência nas redacções."
- Sem dúvida!
"A segunda razão, talvez mais perversa do que os preconceitos corporativos de autodefesa profissional, é a escassez de informação sobre a própria comunicação social. Uma coisa é os órgãos de comunicação social não deverem ser a notícia, mas darem a notícia, outra perceber que eles são a notícia e ninguém a dá. Quer os procedimentos internos, que podem e devem ser escrutinados, como são normalmente os dos órgãos e instituições que actuam no espaço público, até ao conhecimento das redes de poder económico que os possuem, às escolhas, carreira e actividade pública dos que os dirigem ou nele trabalham, aos seu conflitos internos, debates de orientação, métodos de investigação utilizados, problemas de deontologia, tudo isso deveria ser normal matéria noticiosa, mas não é."
- Não é? Permito-me duvidar: quem hoje (se o desejar e se der ao trabalho de pesquisar fontes públicas) não sabe a quem pertencem os grupos mediáticos e o que fazem alguns dos seus responsáveis? Sobre o resto (procedimentos e "conflitos internos, debates de orientação, métodos de investigação utilizados, problemas de deontologia"), não vejo estes tópicos divulgados sobre os políticos ou outros sectores. Tem PP razão quanto aos media? Sim, embora tenha mais se defender o mesmo para os restantes sectores: porque não fala PP do Canal Parlamento, da sua obrigatória visão positiva sobre os deputados, cujas imagens são depois passadas aos canais generalistas? Quando foi a última vez que vimos um deputado a dormir? Eu quero vê-los a dormir e a trabalhar!!!
Devem os media ser polícias, sobre eles próprios ou a sociedade? De certeza que não devem ser ladrões da verdade. Sem dúvida que "o debate sobre tudo isto devia ser tão quotidiano como as notícias", diz PP. "Talvez assim houvesse menos erros por ignorância e desleixo, menos manipulação ideológica e mais esclarecimento."
Todos o desejamos, sem dúvida.
Respondendo à questão inicial, e em síntese, claro que os media devem ser escrutinados com mais atenção pelos media, tal como estes o devem fazer para outros sectores da sociedade: "uma tal linha de trabalho dos/nos media não pode ficar circunscrita ao jornalismo", afirma Manuel Pinto. Mas existe uma crítica dos media frágil tal como é a crítica a sectores económicos e políticos. Reclamar uma linha de acção forte num momento em que há cada vez menos jornalistas nas redacções é sintomático da linha de actuação dos políticos: intervir num sector quando ele está mais fragilizado.
26 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Lista do FBI está cá há 18 meses: As notícias sobre a lista que terá sido enviada pelo FBI às autoridades portuguesas com nomes de pessoas que acederam a sites com imagens de pedofilia não passam de «contra-informação» e o documento já se encontra em Portugal «há um ano e meio».
O EXPRESSO On-Line teve acesso à última edição do Boletim da Ordem dos Advogados, que chegará às livrarias na próxima segunda-feira, onde está transcrita esta afirmação, feita por um elemento da Polícia Judiciária (PJ) no decurso de um debate sobre criminalidade informática.
[Também o ContraFactos "teve acesso à última edição do Boletim da Ordem dos Advogados, que chegará às livrarias na próxima segunda-feira", e está em condições de divulgar o relato concreto da conversa, cujo tema era a criminalidade informática:]
Manuel Lopes Rocha: Então como é que se vai resolver o problema, agora que vem nos jornais que o F.B.I. vai mandar para as autoridades portuguesas uma lista das pessoas que procuram a pedofilia na internet?
Rogério Bravo: Isso é má contra-informação! Essa lista já cá está há um ano e meio, e não tem nada a ver com os factos que aí aparecem. [...]
Pedro Amorim: Pegando neste exemplo, na tal lista do F.B.I. de que tanto se fala. A lista já é pelos vistos antiga mas foi anunciada nos jornais, e provavelmente terá deixado algumas pessoas assustadas. Mas essa lista determina que certo endereço IP esteve ligado ao site de conteúdos pedófilos. Era preciso obviamente a colaboração do ISP, para saber quem é que estava ligado a essa hora, com esse IP. Portanto o que o Sr. Inspector [Bravo] disse é que a utilidade dessa lista, e era o que eu temia, é zero.
Rogério Bravo: Do ponto de vista técnico é zero. [E explicita porquê.]
VITAMEDIAS
The Diversity Divide: The present media environment is being shaped by two seemingly contradictory trends: on the one hand, the digital revolution has lowered the costs of content production and distribution and greatly expanded the range of available channels to deliver it. At the same time, there has been an alarming concentration of the ownership of mainstream commercial media, with a small handful of multinational media conglomerates dominating all sectors of the entertainment industry. [...]
The greatest diversity will exist in pay media, the least in free media. So, what percentage of Americans will be left out in the cold if, say, the bulk of children’s and educational programming shifts off network and onto cable television? Twenty-six percent of American children have no access to cable television. What percentage of Americans will receive little or no benefit from the media diversity represented by cyberspace? Only 45 percent of children from low-income houses (under $15,000 per year) have any access to the Internet and less than 25 percent have access from their homes.
CONTAMINANTES
L'ONU contre la dépénalisation des drogues: Les profits de la drogue vont aux riches et non aux pauvres, certains pays développés sont irresponsables de dépénaliser car ça contrecarre la lutte mondiale contre la drogue, et ce n'est pas bien de prendre des drogues... Voilà ce que nous apprennent les experts de l'Organe international de contrôle des stupéfiants (OICS, un organisme dépendant de l'ONU), dans leur rapport 2002.
ECO-TERROR
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a series of declassified U.S. documents detailing the U.S. embrace of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980's, including the renewal of diplomatic relations that had been suspended since 1967. The documents show that during this period of renewed U.S. support for Saddam, he had invaded his neighbor (Iran), had long-range nuclear aspirations that would "probably" include "an eventual nuclear weapon capability," harbored known terrorists in Baghdad, abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid to ensure Iraq would not be defeated by Iran, and to send a high-level presidential envoy named Donald Rumsfeld [sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001] to shake hands with Saddam (20 December 1983).
Did the US Help Saddam Acquire Biological Weapons?: Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate)
Mr. President, yesterday, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I asked a question of the Secretary of Defense. I referred to a Newsweek article that will appear in the September 23, 2002, edition. That article reads as follows. It is not overly lengthy. I shall read it. Beginning on page 35 of Newsweek, here is what the article says:
America helped make a monster. What to do with him - and what happens after he is gone - has haunted us for a quarter century.
Firing Leaflets and Electrons, U.S. Wages Information War: As of last week, more than eight million leaflets had been dropped over Iraq - including towns 65 miles south of Baghdad - warning Iraqi antiaircraft missile operators that their bunkers will be destroyed if they track or fire at allied warplanes. In the same way, a blunt offer has gone to Iraqi ground troops: surrender, and live.
But the leaflets are old-fashioned instruments compared with some of the others that are being applied already or are likely to be used soon.
VITAMEDIAS
Dan, Saddam et all:
[Dan] Rather's Saddam interview draws skeptics:
The newsman said it was all because of "hard work and luck," though an Associated Press report said Mr. Rather had the help of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, now an anti-war activist who met with Saddam on Sunday.
Mr. Clark has his own agenda. [...]
The Media Research Center took Mr. Rather to task yesterday for saying he had a startling scoop: Saddam had "challenged" President Bush to a televised debate. No such scoop, the center pointed out. Saddam had proposed the same thing in a 1990 interview with Mr. Rather.
Saddam Hussein, Reporter: After an interview that ran three times as long as scheduled, Hussein took Rather into his office and quizzed him extensively about "American public opinion and President Bush."
Trust CBS? I'd Rather not: I phoned my son, an active duty soldier, and asked him if he had seen the broadcast. With a degree in communications, and having worked for NBC News in London as an intern, he's a pretty sharp young media observer in his own right. "Wow, if nothing else, Dan Rather's got the interview of a lifetime!" was his response.
Well, the "interview of a lifetime" became more dubious when I delayed my usual departure time for the office, to watch Harry Smith on the CBS Morning News program. Smith, who I always viewed as a solid news citizen, sheepishly said something like this: "We're going to bring you some more summaries of Dan Rather's exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein, but we are have some technical problems with the actual tapes.
"The interviews were translated by government translators, and CBS needed time to re-translate the interviews, but the Iraqi government broadcast agency has still not provided CBS with the unedited tapes from the three-hour broadcast. When they do, we'll bring them to you, but in any case, Dan Rather will update on some other revelations from his remarkable interview."
This sparked my memory, of a brief mention Rather made in the Monday evening broadcast about the need for "double translation" of the interview.
It will take awhile for non-newshounds to work this out, but look at it this way. Either as part of the terms of this "exclusive" interview, or as a backstop to arrangements CBS felt were suspicious all along, the interview was not only government arranged and controlled, but when Rather posed a question, it was translated by an aide to Saddam, and his responses filtered for U.S. viewers by an aide to Saddam.
VITAMEDIAS
How the news will be censored in this war: A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.
Indeed, reading a new CNN document, "Reminder of Script Approval Policy", fairly takes the breath away. "All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval," it says. "Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved... All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval."
The date of this extraordinary message is 27 January. The "ROW" is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or "balances" in the reporter's dispatch.
VITAMEDIAS
Stop "la presse"! O visado refere hoje que "Le livre sur Le Monde déjà épuisé dans de nombreuses librairies", no primeiro dia da sua distribuição. No entanto, «Le Monde» réplique à Péan-Cohen, "dénonce un «livre-réquisitoire», sans répondre sur le fond" e "va engager des poursuites judiciaires contre les deux auteurs, les éditions Mille et Une Nuits, l'éditeur Claude Durand, «l'Express» et son directeur Denis Jeambar".
A publicação de excertos deste "La face cachée du Monde - Du contre-pouvoir aux abus" no L'Express ajudou ao sucesso.
É suficientemente francês mas bastante incisivo para nos questionarmos sobre o panorama nacional. Alguém quer atirar o primeiro capítulo?
ECO-TERROR
The Biggest Threat To Peace: Which country really poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? [Total Votes Cast: 589206]
North Korea: 5.7%
Iraq: 6.7%
The United States: 87.6%
25 Fevereiro 2003
ECO-TERROR
Talking About War Becomes Profitable Business for Speakers: corporate executives are booking politicians and political activists and thinkers to speak to their companies at an unprecedented rate.
VITAMEDIAS
PT confirma extinção da Lusomundo.net, trabalhadores temem desemprego
Sindicato dos Jornalistas acusa PT de despedimento colectivo camuflado
Equipa da Lusomundo.net Receia Desemprego
[Nem o DN nem o JN fizeram qualquer referência nas edições de hoje sobre o assunto... O DN tem no Última Hora que Jornalistas da Lusomundo.net recebem amanhã propostas de rescisão de contrato
VITAMEDIAS
Blogging comes to Harvard: America's oldest university has hopped on the Internet's hottest new trend, hiring software developer Dave Winer to help get students and faculty blogging.
Q - What impact has the blog had on the way information is shared, particularly with respect to journalism?
A - In some areas, like tech reporting, the Web logs have largely replaced the professionals.
Q - Hey, wait a minute.
A - News.com might be the exception. Think about what the landscape looked like five or 10 years ago, with just a handful of publications instead of a whole industry. People now get the information from each other and for each other using Web logs. There are still professional journalists writing, but a lot less. Web logs are journalism. Have they had a big impact? Absolutely. When a big story hits, I don't necessarily trust the professional journalists to tell me what's going on. If I can get the Web logs from the people who were actually involved, I'll take that.
A really remarkable thing came out from the BBC, where they asked amateur photographers to send them pictures. So they're jumping onto the trend that's going to grow and grow and grow. With the Columbia disaster, where did the pictures come from? Not from professional journalists.
Q - So you're saying that professional journalists don't provide any value, any context, any background that helps make sense of the news?
A - The typical news article consists of quotes from interviews and a little bit of connective stuff and some facts, or whatever. Mostly it's quotes from people. If I can get the quotes with no middleman in between--what exactly did CNN add to all the pictures? Maybe they earned their salaries a little bit, but Web logs have become journalism, and it's much richer. Journalism is a high calling, but it's really no more than points of view on what's taking place. I think the pros are going to use this tech, and they are doing it more and more.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Stop, Thief! Music and film execs obsess about our evil file-sharing ways, but demonizing the public they so desperately need won’t stop the free fall in the value of content.
ECO-TERROR
Blair talks war with MTV generation: The prime minister has decided to appear on music channel MTV as part of his latest offensive to win over the doubters about a possible war in Iraq.
The hour-long show, which will go out on Friday March 7, will take the form of a direct question and answer session with an audience of 16 to 24-year-olds.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Napster gets a new lease of life: Napster, the pioneering online music file swapping service, will be relaunched by the end of the year by its new owner as a legal subscription service.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Fears of Terror a Complication for Art Exhibits: Since 9/11, European institutions have become reluctant to lend their prize works of art to New York museums without new assurances of beefed-up security and increased terrorism insurance.
.DE!
Raised Middle Finger Is Ancient Gesture: Experts who have studied the history of the raised middle finger - and there are a few out there - have found written references to it as far back as ancient Greek and Roman times. The gesture's sexual meaning has always been roughly the same, and it has always been considered rude.
Those findings, the experts say, debunk a common legend that "flipping the bird" got its start at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. As that story goes, the victorious British supposedly raised their middle fingers after the French threatened to chop off the middle digits of captured English soldiers. But experts say there is no written proof of the story.
ECO-TERROR
Bush Cited Report That Doesn't Exist: There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.
Bush and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer went out of their way Thursday to cite a new survey by "Blue-Chip economists" that the economy would grow 3.3 percent this year if the president's tax cut proposal becomes law.
That was news to the editor who assembles the economic forecast. "I don't know what he was citing," said Randell E. Moore, editor of the monthly Blue Chip Economic Forecast, a newsletter that surveys 53 of the nation's top economists each month.
VITAMEDIAS
Esta vem direitinha do Jornalismo e Comunicação e vale a pena ler: é sobre O pedo-filão da pedofilia (escrito por Rui Paulo da Cruz, jornalista em Lisboa e um dos fundadores do Observatório da Imprensa de Portugal):
Enaltecem alguns o papel da imprensa neste processo. E muitos jornalistas vangloriam-se, a pretexto deste caso, das virtudes do jornalismo de investigação. A minha opinião, para grande pesar de mim próprio, não podia ser mais oposta. Não vejo nas páginas dos jornais, nem nas matérias dos telejornais, nada que se pareça com investigação. E vejo muito pouco jornalismo.
Jornalistas e barões da mídia estão querendo passar para o exterior a idéia de uma grande investigação jornalística que não existiu. Tudo começou com uma reportagem de antecipação à prisão do primeiro suspeito, matéria que resultou de informações recebidas (e não investigadas) por uma jornalista de um membro da polícia que lhe é muito próximo. Excessivamente próximo, para o meu gosto, e para o que a ética aconselha...
[Era bom que explicitasse sobre essas "informações recebidas (e não investigadas) por uma jornalista de um membro da polícia que lhe é muito próximo"...]
24 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
A Lei da Oferta e da Procura aplicada à Indústria dos Media
CONCLUSÃO
Este texto concretiza de uma forma sucinta alguns itens da Economia dos Mass Media.
Apesar da maioria dos exemplos se referirem a situações nos EUA ou na Inglaterra, esta análise também se verifica em Portugal, quer no desporto (a transferencia de Jardel para o Sporting) ou nos meios de comunicação social: na rádio com a mudança de José Carlos Malato e de Ana Lamy da Rádio Comercial para a Antena 3; ou na TV, com a mudança de Júlia Pinheiro (uma das mais proeminentes figuras da SIC) para a RTP e depois para a TVI.
A escassez de ‘talento’ no mercado associada à dificuldade em encontrar substitutos, faz com estes profissionais sejam raros e que os seus serviços sejam prestados mediante um valor substancialmente elevado que os seus pares. Quer por um prestígio já acumulado em experiências profissionais anteriores, quer por outras razões que os/as tornam escassos, estes indivíduos são peças fundamentais na indústria dos meios de comunicação social de hoje.
[É uma questão discutível. Tal como sucedia com o Herman José, que de alguma forma "fechava" a entrada a novos valores no humor televisivo, o mesmo se pode passar nos locais onde estes "talentos" estão inseridos. Estou errado?]
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Hollyblog: Are movie bloggers part of weblogging's natural evolution, or just a sign that another cool Net thing has been co-opted?
Blogger Peter Merholz, who has also been online at PeterMe.com since 1999, takes a more purist perspective. "It sounds to me like Hollywood trying to co-opt what those kids are doing," he said. "And we all point and laugh because they don't get it."
So what kind of weblog can come out of an industry notorious for controlling, packaging and airbrushing every ounce of information fed to the public? By definition, weblogs are immediate, honest and unfiltered. The question is: Can Hollywood blog?
VITAMEDIAS
O papel do provedor: A principal missão do provedor consiste em «atender as reclamações, dúvidas e sugestões dos leitores e proceder à análise regular do jornal, formulando críticas e recomendações». O provedor exerce, ainda, «uma crítica do funcionamento e do discurso dos media». A sua intervenção processa-se «sempre a posteriori» e antes de se pronunciar sobre textos assinados por jornalistas, deve solicitar «o esclarecimento do respectivo autor ou, na ausência deste, do editor da secção». [...]
O primeiro provedor data de 1809, na Suécia, e foi nomeado para atender as queixas dos cidadãos contra o Governo. [...] Em Portugal, o Diário de Notícias foi o primeiro diário de referência a nomear um provedor dos leitores, em 1997.
VITAMEDIAS
Cada canal seu ministro: Durão Barroso foi o ministro que em 2002 ocupou mais tempo na informação da SIC, enquanto Paulo Portas foi o preferido da TVI e Manuela Ferreira Leite teve mais «tempo de antena» na RTP2
Quanto ao Canal 1 as preferências são divididas entre Bagão Félix e Morais Sarmento.
[Leituras políticas possíveis? Durão na SIC do companheiro de partido, Paulo Portas com a ex-colega de partido Manuela Moura Guedes, Morais Sarmento porque é quem "manda" na RTP. Mas então, porquê Ferreira Leite na RTP2? Não há leituras possíveis...]
VITAMEDIAS
Technology, convergence mean opportunity: Blockbuster media mergers grab headlines, but opportunities provided by technology and partnerships with other media are brightest for small and medium newspapers
VITAMEDIAS
Danger: media at work: Five hundred journalists are due to join US troops. Their safety is paramount
There are a few cynics who think it is a short walk from "embedding" to "in bed with" and it would be a foolhardy news executive who simply rubs his hands with glee at the prospect of great action footage from the frontlines. There are so many other issues to overcome. Censorship. Balance. And, crucially, the dangers to which our journalists are potentially exposing themselves.
Hustling to the Front: Roughly 200 reporters recently participated in combat-training boot camps
For the first time since Vietnam, in fact, journalists will mingle with combat troops and support units to cover the action, some from the front lines. MTV, which used air time for videos like “Give Peace a Chance” during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, has 24-year-old Gideon Yago positioned in Kuwait. Since November the network has been airing daily news packages on Iraq, answering questions such as “Who is Saddam?” and gauging the mood of young GIs who are being sent to the Middle East. It seems as if the Pentagon is taking MTV’s war coverage seriously. It offered the network frontline access to action in Iraq, but MTV has so far declined.
VITAMEDIAS
Is Google too powerful? Perhaps the time has come to recognise this dominant search engine for what it is - a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest.
Google Village
[act.:] Smoogle: The Smart Googler's News, Views and Tools about online search
ECO-TERROR
1000 amendments to first treaty articles: The 13-member body putting together the articles for a future EU constitution has been inundated with over 1000 amendments to the first 16 draft articles.
Presented to Convention members two weeks ago, delegates are continuing to submit proposals for changes even after the deadline of last Monday evening.
VITAMEDIAS
Ratings Agency Says It Erred in Measuring Web Site Use: Web ratings services have faced questions about accuracy since they began trying to estimate audiences by projecting the behavior of a panel of presumably representative users. Despite their limits, ComScore's ratings, and those of its main competitor, Nielsen/NetRatings, are widely used by advertisers, investors, journalists and the Web sites themselves.
The biggest differences in ComScore's ratings, announced last week, come in its estimates of Web use at the workplace, always the most difficult to measure. Big companies in particular do not want employees to install the software that the ratings companies use to track Web site usage. When ComScore adjusted its formulas to account for the underrepresentation at big companies, its audience projections increased, in some cases sharply.
VITAMEDIAS
Press institute buys research site: US media resource web site The Journalists Toolbox (www.journaliststoolbox.com) has been purchased by the American Press Institute (API).
Founded in 1996 by former Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Reilley, the Toolbox lists more than 18,000 useful web sites for journalists. It will be incorporated with other online information and training services produced by the Institute's media centre division, which focuses on digital, online and new media.
VITAMEDIAS
US public turns to Europe for news: The threat of war in Iraq is driving increasing numbers of Americans to British and international news web sites in search of the broader picture.
CONTAMINANTES
More Than One Piece of Debris Hit Shuttle at Liftoff: During Columbia's liftoff, not one but three chunks of debris flew off the 15-story external fuel tank and hit the shuttle's left wing, according to a document NASA made public yesterday. Previously, the public inquiry into what caused the craft to break up on re-entry focused only on the largest chunk.
ECO-TERROR
How the Protesters Mobilized: Organizing a protest is fundamentally about logistics: where do people meet, how do they get on a bus, who will order portable toilets. Obviously, the Internet, like fax machines and copiers, has made the tasks easier. Before last weekend's protests, for example, people registered online for buses to New York. And a mass e-mail notice was sent out to New York protesters, informing them about public bathrooms in Midtown Manhattan and giving them a number to call in case of arrest.
But the Internet has become more than a mere organizing tool; it has changed protests in a more fundamental way, by allowing mobilization to emerge from free-wheeling amorphous groups, rather than top-down hierarchical ones.
21 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Blog addiction: You are addicted to blogging if you answer "yes" to at least 3 of the following questions:
Do you think about everything in terms of whether it will make a good blog entry?
Do you keep your computer in standby mode beside your bed and wake up at 2am to blog?
Do you skip lunch and blog instead?
Do you accept speaking engagements or make travel decisions based on whether they will make good blog material?
Do you have your RSS newsreader open during meetings and keep hitting "refresh"?
Do you sit around trying to figure out how you can redesign your job so you can blog more?
Do you think blogs will suddenly cause an emergent democracy and save the world?
CONTAMINANTES
[British] Government urges under-16s to experiment with oral sex, as part of a drive to cut rates of teenage pregnancy.
Family campaigners believe that the course, called A Pause, is having the reverse effect by exciting the sexual interest of children.
ECO-TERROR
Roll Call - Who's for war, who's against it, and why
Just shut up: Nobody gives a shit what anti-war or pro-war writers think. Really. So shut up. That goes double for poets. Shut the hell up, poets. Everybody just shut up.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
La culture, une habitude qui se prend jeune... et qui augmente avec le niveau de diplômes et le milieu socioculturel des parents.
VITAMEDIAS
Journalists at Australia's News LTD Overworked: A survey has found News Ltd (ASX:NCP) failed to provide a healthy work environment with nearly half of its journalists saying heavy workloads and poor resourcing were damaging their health.
The survey by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) covered all of News Ltd's metropolitan newspapers and comes in the wake of a three-year staff freeze.
MEAA federal secretary Chris Warren said the findings were indicative of what was happening in media organisations all over the world.
"The result is indicative of a general cutback in resources being experienced everywhere," Mr Warren said.
VITAMEDIAS
Pentagon's Recipe For Propaganda: The plan to "embed' reporters within military units is designed to restrict press coverage of the war, not encourage it.
CONTAMINANTES
Marijuana, Gateways and Circuses: A recent study has been misinterpreted to suggest that cannabis causes hard drug use. A close look tells a very different story.
20 Fevereiro 2003
ECO-TERROR
"Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage", by Philip Taubman
This book is the chronicle of these pioneers and their work, including the groundbreaking science and backbreaking failures that marked the swift passage of America’s aerial espionage from the lower atmosphere to the stratosphere to outer space during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. [...]
As the United States struggles today to overcome the new threats to its security, and to devise new methods of watching its enemies, it may find useful guideposts in the Eisenhower years. The ambition of Dwight Eisenhower’s espionage endeavors was exceedingly high -- to overcome a terrifying blindness that left the nation vulnerable to surprise attack and to defeat an acute fear of the unknown that threatened to disfigure American society. He succeeded.
CONTAMINANTES
Firms Offer Ways to Foil Drug Tests: Type "beat the drug test" into an Internet search engine, and you come up with more than 100 Web sites devoted to helping foil workplace drug screening.
It's part of a technology race, or as Barry Sample, director of science and technology at Quest Diagnostics Inc.'s Corporate Health and Wellness division, puts it, a marathon, pitting those who would defeat the screening against those who conduct it.
VITAMEDIAS
Accidental Privacy Spills: Musings on Privacy, Democracy, and the Internet
A journalist attends the World Economic Forum and writes her friends an email about the experience. Two weeks later, that email is on the Web, people she's never met are correcting her spelling, and the journalist is vowing to go back to longhand.
Welcome to the world of accidental privacy spills. Compared with the problem of keeping personal email private, copyright and spam are easy.
CONTAMINANTES
Comunicado do Conselho de Ministros: Isentam-se os prestadores intermediários de serviços de uma obrigação geral de vigilância sobre as informações que transmitem ou armazenam, ou da investigação de eventuais ilícitos praticados no seu âmbito. [O que faz todo o sentido...]
[A]firma-se que o envio de comunicações publicitárias, cuja recepção seja independente da intervenção do destinatário, ou por correio electrónico, carece de consentimento prévio do destinatário. [Adeus "spam"? E o que acontece a quem o fizer, nomeadamente fora do espaço europeu?]
VITAMEDIAS
L.A. Times Adds Web Feature with Fangs: While some media sites have tried blogs for columnists or reporters, the Los Angeles Times decided to start online Q&A with its critics. Ostensibly it's to help readers understand some of the finer points in a particular movie or music CD, but it's really an open window to the personality of critics that's just screaming to get out.
VITAMEDIAS
How "USN&WR" Will "Go To War" - If The U.S. Goes To War
"We will divide the magazine in two, with the front-of-the-book coverage on the war," says [U.S. News & World Report publisher Bill Holiber]. "Then, inside, we will do a second cover - with the logo - and a second table of contents to showcase and separate our 'News You Can Use' and other features. This gives advertisers a clear option to be in with 'non-war news,' but we're concerned that we are going to lose some anyway."
CONTAMINANTES
Taking the 'lug' out of luggage changed everything: Think of the icons of American culture that were utterly unknown three decades ago: The cell phone. The CD. Britney Spears.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
Add another to the list: the rollerboard.
The what? That's luggage industry jargon for the carry-on black-bag-on-wheels that has taken over our airports - if not our planet.
"It's as big an invention as the home delivery of pizza," says Joanne Hayes-Rines, editor of Inventors' Digest.
But the familiar, 22-inch rolling black bag wasn't the brainstorm of a big luggage maker. It was concocted just 15 years ago by then-Northwest Airlines pilot Robert Plath for himself.
VITAMEDIAS
Now Bloggers Can Hit the Road: The meteoric rise of weblogging is one of the most unexpected technology stories of the past year, and much like the commentary that populates these ever-changing digital diaries, the story of blogging keeps evolving.
One recent trend is "moblogging," or mobile weblogging.
Blogging By Wireless: While most of the world will continue to post their weblog entries from a desktop PC, a new outfit based in Dublin, Ireland, called NewBay Software has designed a service called FoneBlog that could eventually let wireless customers create a blog using only a mobile phone.
Google Goes Blog-Crazy: Get ready for the third wave of blogging.
With its acquisition of Pyra Labs, Web-search juggernaut Google.com apparently sees dollar signs in the business of letting anyone easily publish their comments and thoughts on the Web.
19 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Microsoft Tests the Blogging-Tool Waters: With Google buying Blogger creator Pyra Labs over the weekend, many are wondering when and if Microsoft will take a similar plunge into the Weblog-tools world.
It will come as a surprise to many that, with little fanfare, Microsoft officially entered the blogging-tool space last week. At the VSLive! developer conference, Microsoft unveiled five new sample applications built on top of its ASP.Net scripting environment. One of these five - the ASP.Net Community Starter Kit - is a blog builder.
"You could use this (Kit) to build a Weblog," confirms Microsoft developer division product manager Shawn Nandi.
VITAMEDIAS
BlogStreet: Visual Neighborhood helps you to see the inter-connectedness between blogs and is a way to map the social network of blogs. [Ferramenta com potencial mas não entendi as ligações apresentadas - sugestões?]
VITAMEDIAS
The Media: Terrorist Tool? Terrorists and the U.S. government are both using the media to achieve propaganda goals, according to Hafez Al Mirazi, bureau chief of the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network. "If CNN or Fox or others are not going to have breaking news flashing on their screens if Palestinians are killed, but only if Israelis are killed, then [terrorists] will go out and kill an Israeli," he said.
VITAMEDIAS
Shift magazine publishes its last issue: After several near-deaths and consequent re-births, Shift magazine, the financially troubled but influential tech culture magazine, may have given up the ghost for good.
The board of directors of St. Joseph Media, which controls Shift's publishing company, Multi-Vision Publishing Inc., yesterday announced that the magazine's upcoming March issue, already printed, would be its last.[...]
MacNeil said that he acquired the magazine "when everyone else had given up on it."
At the time, he said, he thought only that the tech sector was going through a rough patch that would last months, not years.
He said that in the magazine's history, only the 10th anniversary issue, released last fall, had been profitable.
.DE!
Years of fries, nary a burger flipped: Clare Kimmerle is 79. She's worked at the same McDonald's in Southampton, Bucks County, for nearly 33 years - since the day it opened.
She has resisted promotion to management - that would mean nights and weekends. She's happy to fill orders at the front counter or make fries - her forte. She is a lean, not-mean, fry machine.
She has never, in 32 years and 10 months of employment, flipped a burger. Never eaten a Big Mac. (Too filling.) Never worked the drive-through or worn a headset. "It would give me a headache," she says.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Mona Lisa smile secrets revealed: The smile on the face of the Mona Lisa is so enigmatic that it disappears when it is looked at directly, says a US scientist.
Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University said the smile only became apparent when the viewer looked at other parts of the painting. [...]
The smile disappeared when it was looked at because of the way the human eye processes visual information, said Prof Livingstone.
[Não funciona comigo, continuo a ver o sorriso quando olho para ele...]
.DE!
Jewel Thieves Pull Off 'Impossible' Heist: Only the robbers know how many stones were stolen, yet local newspapers are already calling it the biggest heist ever in the diamond-cutting capital of the world.
Thieves cleared out 123 of the 160 vaults in the maximum-security cellars of Antwerp's Diamond Center over the weekend, but the robbery was only discovered Monday.
Tuesday, police were still grappling to quantify the loss. But a decade ago, when only five vaults were robbed in the cellar where cutters and dealers traditionally store their wares, the heist was estimated at 4.25 million euros (US$4.55 million).
"We should not extrapolate but it is sure that the total will be much larger now," said Youri Steverlynck, a spokesman for the city's High Diamond Council. "We are certainly talking about many millions."
.DE!
Dumb thieves misspell name on forged check: Two would-be thieves would be $500 wealthier if only they paid more attention to spelling.
Police say two men tried to pass a $498 counterfeit payroll check bearing the name, "Boryhill Furmiture" last week, but they were turned away by a grocery store office assistant who noticed the misspellings. The company's correct name is Broyhill Furniture.
VITAMEDIAS
Reuters to Buy Multex: News and financial data provider Reuters Group, looking for new revenues amid a downturn in financial markets, is acquiring Web-based research distribution company Multex in a deal valued at about $195 million (121 million British pounds) in cash.
The announcement came as Reuters announced a loss of $630 million (394 million pounds) for 2002 and said it would cut 3,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its staff, by 2005 as it copes with lower sales from financial services customers. [...]
Multex is considered one of a group of Silicon Alley companies that went public during the dot-com boom and only one of a handful that survived the downturn in financial markets that began in 2000. It offers financial information and distributes research, via Web platforms, on over 25,000 companies around the world.
VITAMEDIAS
Quand la publicité avance masquée: Les publireportages se multiplient dans la presse
A l'ombre des pubs classiques, dont on conteste de plus en plus les slogans qui sonnent comme des ordres (tel «Just do it»), les «publis» pullulent. En 2002, se défiant de la récession, ils se sont envolés de 7 % !, soit 90,4 millions d'euros claqués par des annonceurs. Un vrai créneau qui représente aujourd'hui 4 à 5 % des investissements publicitaires dans les magazines, en premier lieu les féminins.
VITAMEDIAS
Best of the Net: Top Online Publishers
Business and Finance: CBS.MarketWatch.com
Computing and Technology: CNET.com
Entertainment: eUniverse.com
General News: CNN.com
Men's & Sports: ESPN.com
Newspaper Sites: NYTimes.com
Portals: Yahoo.com
Search Engines: Google.com
Travel: Expedia.com
Women's, Family & Health: iVillage.com
VITAMEDIAS
In-Stat/MDR names 'media mega players' and 'influencers': its report, ‘Top Dozen Worldwide Media Mega Companies Plus Four Influencers’, In-Stat/MDR names the companies that it maintains have achieved a critical mass and an economy of scale with which to lead market developments on a global basis. Many have recently made vociferous attempts to consolidate their assets and acquire local creative content companies.
According to In-Stat/MDR and reported by Daniel Jennet, AOL Time-Warner currently accounts for a massive 22.4 per cent of the group's value. Disney, Viacom, and Vivendi Universal account for around 10 per cent each and Sony, News Corporation, Cox Enterprises, and Bertelsmann each pull in about 5 per cent. The relevant players with less than 5 per cent of the group's value are though by In-Stat/MDR to occupy important niche markets, and are Lagardère SCA, GE/NBC, Grupo Televisa SA, and Liberty Media.
VITAMEDIAS
Web news sites now often seek personal data: More Internet news sites are demanding that readers pony up personal information - such as age, ZIP code and hobbies - for online content.
Media companies once feared that if they required registration, people would keep surfing. However, companies are finding that traffic doesn't drop significantly. The upside is that registration produces demographic data advertisers like.
18 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Ministro Morais Sarmento apresentou queixa contra "Semanário", por uma manchete que, na última edição, o implicava no escândalo de pedofilia.
A queixa por abuso de liberdade de imprensa foi apresentada ontem e o advogado do ministro é o bastonário da Ordem dos Advogados, José Miguel Júdice.
Suspeitas de escuta telefónica a bastonário da Ordem dos Advogados vão ser investigadas: Ontem, o bastonário da Ordem dos Advogados enviou um comunicado aos jornalistas a indicar que tinha sido contactado pela provedora da Casa Pia sobre "se estaria correcto o procedimento de um advogado no que se refere ao facto de tendo ele, na sua opinião, acesso a depoimentos diversos, colaborar com a defesa de um dos arguidos".
José Miguel Júdice contactou por sua vez o Presidente do Conselho de Deontologia de Lisboa, já que a questão colocada por Catalina Pestana lhe era dirigida enquanto bastonário. [...]
José Miguel Júdice pediu ao procurador-geral da República para averiguar o caso e à direcção do jornal que o questionou para autorizar que sejam reveladas as suas fontes, identificadas como "próximas da provedora" da Casa Pia de Lisboa.
VITAMEDIAS
Spinning the Web: The Realities of Online Reputation Management: "Online reputation management" is reminiscent of the political term "spin control." But the Internet is not traditional media, and opportunities for controlling one's reputation are quite different - in theory unlimited, but in practice limited by an almost inherent lack of focus, and the countervailing weight of mainstream media.
[Um interessante contexto sobre a fiabilidade das fontes e a Web:]
A blogger may suffer deadline frenzy, but a blogger is not exactly tuned to the concept of publishing nonsense simply because it comes from a government source.
VITAMEDIAS
Their master's voice: Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq in an interview this week. Which might explain why his 175 editors around the world are backing it too
How lucky can Murdoch get! He hires 175 editors and, by remarkable coincidence, they all seem to love the nation which their boss has chosen as his own. The papers he owns in the country of his birth, Australia, are noticeably more muted than the New York Post and the Sun. But it doesn't require a semiologist to see that the leader-writers are attempting to break down stubborn public opinion: some 39% of Australians oppose a war, even with UN backing, while 76% oppose a war unless there is full-hearted international support.
VITAMEDIAS
You put Blogger in my Google! You put Google in my Blogger! Here's an early peek at what Blogger could look like now that Google has its multicolored mitts on it
Google goes public: Google doesn't release its financial figures--private companies are not required to--but according to industry insiders, the search company has surpassed break-even status and edged into profitability. Estimates for Google's revenue in 2003 are as high as $400 million, with gross margins in the range of 70 to 80 percent. That's just shy of the Internet's other star, eBay, which regularly posts gross margins of 80 to 90 percent.
[E, só porque fala do CF&A... :-)] Um milhão de weblogs em casa do Google
[act.:] Já repararam que, se forem ao endereço google.blogger.com apontado pelo Kottke, vai mesmo dar ao Blogger?!?!
VITAMEDIAS
CNN leaves 750 words out of Blix transcript: How in the world do you trust a 'news' organiztion like CNN, when they offer what purports to be a full transcript of Hans Blix' address to the UN Security Council but they leave out nearly 800 words - and those words just happen to be the ones where Blix refutes Colin Powell's 'smoking gun' presentation from earlier this week?
NOTE: Since the original publication of this article, CNN has added the missing text to their web page.
VITAMEDIAS
Is the End Near for Salon.com? Why can't Salon.com make it on ad dollars? Editor David Talbot says on the site: "... consider this stark fact: Approximately 80 percent of the ad dollars on the Web are funneled to the top 20 sites, all of which are run by corporate giants. The result is there's not much left over for independent publishers like Salon."
VITAMEDIAS
Les graffitis n'ont pas bonne presse: C'est de fait, un joli pavé dans la mare que l'histoire du magazine Worldsigns, exclu du jeu des aides à la presse, privé du fameux numéro de commission paritaire qui permet aux journaux de bénéficier d'une moindre TVA et d'un allégement des tarifs postaux. A condition qu'ils aient une périodicité au minimum trimestrielle, n'aient pas une diffusion gratuite et ne dépassent pas un certain volume de publicité. Alors pourquoi ce rejet de Worldsigns, trimestriel consacré à l'art du graffiti, vendu 4,90 euros et a priori peu susceptible d'attirer des cargaisons d'annonceurs ? Motif : incitation à tagger.
CONTAMINANTES
A Special Issue on Digital Reference: Digital Reference refers to a network of expertise, human intermediation and resources placed at the disposal of users in an online environment. It employs automated tools wherever possible, allowing human experts to concentrate on "hard questions". But human expertise is expensive and hard to find. Automated tools are less expensive to incorporate into online services and sites, allowing digital libraries to use tools that were, until recently, the province of a small cadre of people.
For decades, professional searchers, information brokers and reference librarians have had access to powerful and precise search engines and other tools. Information professionals learned well how to wield these tools, but average web users have not had the benefit of similar training. In short, the Web has brought to the general public many tools, but not much of the expertise required to use them.
CONTAMINANTES
As polémicas são o prato forte da ciência para os portugueses: Do que é que os portugueses ouvem falar quando lhes falam de ciência? Não é tanto das grandes descobertas mas antes da que é usada para fundamentar decisões políticas e administrativas.
17 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
'I lit the match': "What would Mohammed think? He would probably have chosen a wife from one of them." Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel's words about the Miss World contestants provoked religious riots in her country that left more than 200 dead - and a fatwa calling for her execution. Now, for the first time, she explains the events that changed her life forever
VITAMEDIAS
Spin caught in a web trap: Truth may be the first casualty of war but now in the age of instant news and views at the click of a mouse it's a hostile world for propaganda too
The most obvious thing that the web provides is access to a greater diversity of viewpoints and a more international viewpoint. Although you have to remember that people gravitate towards sites that reflect their own views, there's no doubt that there's the potential to access a wider diversity of opinion
VITAMEDIAS
audblog: a service that provides bloggers with the ability to post audio to their blogs from any phone.
CONTAMINANTES
Entering the Era of Genetic Testing and Surveillance: DNA is the ultimate biometric - you don't leave home without it.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Here You Hear It, There You Don't: Imagine standing in the frozen-food aisle of your supermarket, staring at a tub of your favorite double-fudge brownie ice cream. Suddenly, a voice comes out of nowhere to tell you there's a two-for-one sale on that very treat. But only you hear the message. In fact, the guy studying the cookie-dough choices 2 feet away is listening to a different ad - which you can't hear. [...]
inventor, Elwood G. "Woody" Norris, believes it could be used in everything from military communications systems to home electronics. "What if you could watch TV in bed at 1 a.m.," he muses, "and aim the audio just at yourself, so your sleeping spouse hears nothing?"
VITAMEDIAS
Cartoonista Vilhena em tribunal: O processo foi movido devido à utilização de uma imagem de Margarida Marante na revista de José Vilhena, apesar deste ter referido tratar-se de uma fotomontagem.
VITAMEDIAS
Google buys Pyra in big boost for blogging: Just 3 1/2 years old, Pyra's Blogger software has 1.1 million registered users, [Evan Williams, founder of Pyra] said. He estimated that about 200,000 of them are actively running weblogs. [...]
Google is known best for its search capabilities, but the Pyra buyout isn't the company's first foray into creating or buying Internet content. Two years ago, Google bought Deja. com, a company that had collected and continued to update Usenet newsgroups, Internet discussion forums. More recently, it created Google News, a site that gauges the collective thoughts of more than 4,000 news sites on the Net.
[Motor de busca líder + comunidade blog líder = ?...]
Bloogleplications: So yes, I sold the company I've poured the last four years of my life into. Everything is suddenly different. Well, not as sudden as it seems. This has been in the works for almost four months. Much of it, in excruciating uncertainly. But now I can talk about it! That doesn't mean I know much. For example, about the question: What happens now?
Gbloogle: what it all (may) mean: If the new Gbloogle of a year or two from now is able to treat all blogs as first-class citizens, this is the best news ever for blogdom.
Google buy Pyra: They've got one-to-one connections. Links. Now they've realised - like Ted Nelson - that the fundamental unit of the web isn't the link, but the trail. And the only place that's online is... weblogs. [...]
So, the GOOGLE TOOLBAR tracks everything you do on the web, giving you low-level anonymous trails tying the web together. These are analagous to the strings of physics, or the rows and columns of Excel. This is 1, what you see.
Now there's the semantics, the meaning extracted from these, and that's done with the human mind. This is 2, what you do. What you choose to elevate. Now these trails are the basic units.
The combination of the two is startling.
CONTAMINANTES
Congestion charging: A congestion charge for motorists driving into central London was introduced on February 17th. It is politically dangerous, but experience elsewhere in the world shows that it can be made to work
[Portugal com pouco menos de 35 minutos de média diária gastos em transporte na ida e volta do emprego, a Itália com menos de 25 e a líder Grã-Bretanha com mais de 45 minutos]
VITAMEDIAS
AOL Zaps AOLTV After 3-Year Run: AOL Time Warner has quietly tuned out AOLTV, the interactive television initiative it launched three years ago with enough hype to sink a ship.
[A]n executive at AOL Time Warner said the initiative is "basically dead and forgotten.
"I think AOL saw Microsoft making early inroads into the space, and felt compelled to compete," the executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
[Isto faz lembrar a posição do ministro Morais Sarmento quando afirmava no congresso da APDC que a RTP devia apostar no lado interactivo, alguém a questioná-lo de que tudo isso estava a ser abandonado em vários países e ele a retorquir que eram opiniões e não discutia opiniões...]
VITAMEDIAS
Quality Falls at Big TV Stations: Report Says TV Stations Owned by Bigger Companies Tend to Produce Lower-Quality Newscasts
VITAMEDIAS
[Como as anedotas que circulam pela Internet chegam aos jornais...] Uma anedota contra a guerra
VITAMEDIAS
Desemprego de jornalistas triplicou em dois anos: A Caixa de Previdência e Abono de Família dos Jornalistas registou em 2002 259 inscrições para pedidos de subsídios de desemprego - num universo de 4500 beneficiários. [...]
O Sindicato dos Jornalistas, que está a ultimar um relatório sobre o desemprego no sector, estima em 500 o número de jornalistas que, em 2002, ficaram sem trabalho. A televisão foi o meio responsável pelo maior volume de despedimentos, seguida pelas publicações "on-line", mas o fenómeno foi em todas as vertentes transversal: todos os meios, todas as idades, ambos os sexos foram profundamente afectados.
15 Fevereiro 2003
A ContraFactos & Argumentos comemora um aninho. Nasceu como "newsletter" por email - porque havia factos nesse tempo de argumentos - e já é blog. Experimenta o meio e, infelizmente, não vai acabar como a Salon porque não pode... Prendas? Um grande Animatrix para todos!
14 Fevereiro 2003
CONTAMINANTES [de S. Valentim :-)]
N.C. town has most Love in country: Love is in the air in Cabarrus County. It's also in the phone book - many, many times.
Cabarrus has the nation's highest concentration of people named Love -- eight times more per capita than the national average -- according to a Valentine's-week study by a San Diego marketing research firm.
Surfing for Love: Many Internet users are trying to "click" with someone online, as looking for love becomes a popular Web activity - and big business too. Growing traffic to various dating and Valentine's Day-related Web sites is translating into millions of dollars in paid content and consumer spending.
Has Cupid Met Its Match? Addictive Online Fantasy Game Brings Relationship Turmoil
Who'd have thought technology would ruin Valentine's Day?
Software tries to make love connection: On Valentine's Day 2003, it's apparent that in the art of romance, Xs and Os have been replaced by ones and zeros.
Take Dating 1.0, an application for handhelds that keeps track of a lot more than hand-holding.
"The purpose of the dating menu,'' the Dating 1.0 welcome screen says, "is to keep track of the people you date and rank them on their potential.''
PHOTO-GRAFIA
Clic-clac, bravo les photographes!: Eric Grigorian, le lauréat [...] a remporté vendredi à Amsterdam le World Press Photo 2003
CONTAMINANTES
Happy Birthday, Dear Double Helix: Fifty years ago, a birdwatcher and a physicist discovered the secret to life: the double helix structure of DNA.
VITAMEDIAS
Two New Alerts for Web Searches: Googlert and SearchAlert.net are two new free services that offer email alerts when new search engine results are available
VITAMEDIAS
NYTimes.com gears ads to surfers' habits: New York Times Digital, in a new test, is letting advertisers reach visitors with demonstrated interests, in what could be a new dawn of personalized advertising on the Web.
The company, the online arm of The New York Times, this month started selling advertisers on a new pitch: reach customers who show interest in health, entertainment, technology, sports or finance on any news page of the site. Called "Wide Angle Targeting," the program gives advertisers the inside track on people who've displayed desirable preferences that play into what they're selling.
VITAMEDIAS
Red Herring Founder Unveils 'Super-Blog' for Business Geeks: "The impact of the Internet on the media business will be in forcing it to become more participatory," says Perkins. So this time he has completely foregone print—the company is only online. And he sees in the burgeoning blogging movement, in which everyone has a voice, the seeds of the next media revolution: "The bloggers have shown us the value of truly participatory media sites, so we’re just going to bundle it up and polish it and commercialize it." [...]
"This is the eBay-ization of media," says Perkins. "We’ve created the arena, like eBay did. We organize the world, then invite members to come in and play." He calls the site a "super-blog," comparing it to Slashdot.org, a phenomenally successful site for serious technophiles that now claims over two million members. "While Slashdot is for techie geeks, AlwaysOn is for business geeks," he says. He will impose editorial order by continuing to fine-tune topic areas, recruiting appropriate bloggers, and contributing heavily himself.
VITAMEDIAS
Let's Iraq 'n' roll: Despite the danger, TV news executives say they have no shortage for takers for an assignment in the war zone.
"Almost everyone has volunteered," said Chuck Lustig, director of foreign news coverage for ABC. "They're all professional journalists - they want to be part of the coverage of this story."
U.S. Military Document Outlines War Coverage: The U.S. military plans to take extraordinary steps to provide the media access to combat zones in Iraq, but only after making reporters agree to a series of strict prohibitions
Wanted: BBC war reporter (MMS phone required): [T]he BBC website is offering its readers the chance to become bona-fide reporters at this weekend’s anti-war demonstrations - and all they need to take with them is an MMS phone.
ECO-TERROR
Globalisation cited as threat to US security: The heads of the main US intelligence agencies warned on Tuesday that globalisation, which has been the driving force behind the expansion of the world economy, has become a serious threat to US security.
In a bleak assessment of the threats facing the US, the Senate intelligence committee was told that nuclear proliferation, failing economies, rising anti-Americanism and terrorist recruiting pose grave dangers.
"Under the right conditions, globalisation can be a very positive force, providing the political, economic and social context for sustained progress," said Vice-Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency.
"But in those areas unable to exploit these advantages, it can leave large numbers of people seemingly worse off, exacerbate local and regional tensions, increase the prospects and capabilities for conflict and empower those who would do us harm."
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Exhibition attendances in 2002: The busiest shows are rarely the most enjoyable
VITAMEDIAS
Poucos Leitores, Muitos Jornais: Portugal tem a segunda mais baixa taxa de leitura e compra de jornais da União Europeia e apenas 19 por cento dos portugueses afirmam ler jornais diariamente. Destes leitores, somente 60 por cento declaram, segundo dados do Observatório da Comunicação, ler ou folhear títulos de imprensa regional. Por isso, uma das medidas urgentes é a criação de subsídios para campanhas de promoção da leitura, embora falte ainda fazer uma caracterização do perfil do leitor português por regiões.
No Instituto da Comunicação Social, encontram-se registados quase 4300 títulos - entre nacionais, regionais, confessionais e de especialidade -, 900 dos quais de imprensa regional. Isto faz de Portugal, segundo Feliciano Barreiras Duarte, o país União com maior taxa de títulos por mil habitantes, mas com menos leitores.
Os 900 jornais regionais existentes em Portugal empregam directamente cerca de 2600 trabalhadores, ao passo que as 300 rádios locais existentes dão emprego a perto de 5600.
ECO-TERROR
Lawsuit Challenges Bush Authority on Iraq: A group of U.S. soldiers, parents of soldiers and six U.S. House members filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday seeking to stop the president from launching a war against Iraq without a declaration of war from Congress.
The lawsuit seeks an immediate injunction against Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to prevent them from launching an invasion of Iraq.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Music Industry Targets Workplace Downloaders: The recording industry directed its anti-piracy campaign at large companies in the United States, Europe and Asia on Thursday, warning them that employees are illegally downloading music on company time.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a global trade group representing the major music labels, said it had begun issuing brochures to thousands of companies spelling out the legal and technological dangers of giving employees access to online file-sharing networks.
13 Fevereiro 2003
.DE!
390,000 Jedis There Are: Seven people in every thousand in England and Wales gave their religion as 'Jedi' in the 2001 Census.
VITAMEDIAS
Why Reality TV Is Good For Us: Stop whining about how prime time's hottest genre is destroying America, and enjoy some great television
Indeed, for all the talk about "humiliation TV," what's striking about most reality shows is how good humored and resilient most of the participants are: the American Idol rejectees stubbornly convinced of their own talent, the Fear Factor players walking away from vats of insects like Olympic champions. What finally bothers their detractors is, perhaps, not that these people are humiliated but that they are not. Embarrassment, these shows demonstrate, is survivable, even ignorable, and ignoring embarrassment is a skill we all could use. It is what you risk - like injury in a sport - in order to triumph. "What people are really responding to on these shows is people pursuing their dreams," says American Candidate producer R.J. Cutler. A reality show with all humiliation and no triumph would be boring.
Viewers love reality: Another word for these shows is "humilitainment", where viewers cheer and jeer at participants who become freak-show stars.
"This kind of entertainment is nothing new," says film scholar Lester Friedman.
"There were the Romans and the Coliseum. In the Elizabethan period, hangings and various other forms of execution were public spectacles.
"And there's a long tradition of carnivals and sideshows showcasing unfortunate people performing bizarre acts."
But participation in the past was largely involuntary. These days, humilitainment is big business (and cheap to produce) and people are lining up for their chance of 15 minutes of fame.
[15 minutos para eles, uma eternidade nas programações, que prometem continuar nesta senda?
Um dos "humilitainment" citados - "Strip Search (a raunchy version of Popstars)" - já foi alegadamente adquirido por um canal português. Como me explicaram, "é uma coisa tipo casting pelo país de stripers, evidentemente masculinos, para ensinar 6 deles a cantar, dançar e "stripar". O concurso teve um sucesso enorme na Nova Zelândia.
Tipo os "Excesso" mas com strip... O apresentador anda pelo país em audições com os potenciais candidatos às eliminatórias do concurso. No final sobram 6 jovens robustos que na Nova Zelândia fizeram shows pelo país já depois do final do programa. Uma coisa linda..."
Sem dúvida, "uma coisa linda"... ]
[act.:] 'Are You Hot?' struts its stuff: Skin, sex appeal: Exteriors are all that matter in ABC's new stripped-down reality contest, Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, a swimsuit competition where the only talent needed to win $50,000 is the ability to turn around.
VITAMEDIAS
'Nano publishing' pushing the boundaries of journalism: Welcome to the world of "nano publishing'' - an emerging brand of Internet-based journalism that is helping shape the future of news.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Nodal point: William Gibson talks about how his new present-day novel, "Pattern Recognition," processes the apocalyptic mind-set of a post-9/11 world.
WG - I was about 100 pages into the book on Sept 10th. Then I got up on Sept. 11th and whoa - nodal point!
ECO-TERROR
U.S. Tries E-Mail to Charm Iraqis: A campaign to reach out and touch the Iraqi people through e-mail apparently hasn't been as successful as the United States had hoped, because the Iraqi government censors all e-mail coming into the country.
Over the past month, the U.S. military has periodically sent e-mail to Iraqi military and government officials urging them to protect their families by helping U.N. inspectors and turning away from Saddam Hussein.
U.S. government officials won't comment on the campaign, but according to sources in Iraq and Iraqis living in the United States, each time the e-mails are sent, Internet access all over Iraq soon suffers a "service outage." Service resumes after the U.S. military missives have been purged from inboxes.
ECO-TERROR
Les mathématiques s'attaquent au terrorisme: En fouillant bien, on aurait pu détecter dans les statistiques l'imminence d'un gros attentat terroriste vers la fin 2001. Todd Sandler, professeur à l'Ecole de relations internationales de USC (University of Southern California, Los Angeles), n'avait évidemment pas prévu les attaques du 11 septembre, mais quel ques mois auparavant, il avait publié, avec son collègue Walter Enders (Université d'Alabama), une étude mettant en évidence un cycle de deux ans dans l'activité du terrorisme international. Le dernier gros épisode datait de la fin 1999...
VITAMEDIAS
All the search that's fit to print? Journalism ethics experts caution that commercial search on news and information sites can blur the lines between editorial and advertising. While most of the publishers that are currently running paid searches mark their listings with terms like "sponsored" in accordance with urging from the Federal Trade Commission, some ethics experts say that doesn't go far enough.
VITAMEDIAS
Times story was out to lunch: The New York Times illustrated a story about the supposed decline of power-lunching the other day with a photo of a near-empty restaurant - but the picture was actually taken at 3:30 p.m.
CONTAMINANTES
Most people kiss the right way: For the past two and a half years, neuroscientist Onur Güntürkün has hung around airports, railway stations, parks and beaches, watching people kiss. "After two years, I could feel when people were approaching to kiss," he says.
His motives were scientific.
Study: Couples Love Kissing Right: A German researcher has found that your kissing partner is twice as likely to turn his head to the right than to the left for smooching.
12 Fevereiro 2003
ECO-TERROR
UK news agency sent second Bin Laden tape: A media bidding war has broken out for a second audio tape, allegedly freshly recorded by Osama Bin Laden, obtained yesterday (11 February 2003) by the Birmingham-based online news agency, Al-Ansaar.
In the new recording, Bin Laden is said to predict his own death in an act of 'martyrdom' later this year.
[Notável coincidência e "timing" nestas aparições de Laden...]
VITAMEDIAS
Online news eclipses print media: Opinion pieces in both The Guardian and Newsday.com this week claimed that the web is becoming a more popular news source than print. [Mas não será uma opinião mais generalizada nos jornalistas do que nos leitores em geral?...]
.DE!
Did the Swiss build Stonehenge? Stonehenge, the renowned and mysterious ancient monument seen as a symbol of Britain, may actually be a marvel of Swiss - or even German - engineering.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Digital Entertainment Jumps the Border: Popular culture has become one of America's biggest exports. Every year the U.S. sells more than $60 billion worth of music, books, movies, television programs and computer software to consumers abroad. And this estimate does not even include the revenues made by illegal copying and other forms of piracy. In Europe or Canada, one need only flick on the television, buy a compact disc or browse the entertainment section of a newspaper to see the ubiquity of American culture.
Pirates & Paranoids: Recording Restricted: "Disney has no asset more valuable than the film The Lion King," says Preston Padden, a Disney executive vice president. "We have presented, and would like to present again, The Lion King free over the air on Sunday night on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney. But if doing so means that perfect digital copies will be posted to file-sharing sites on the Internet, then we would have to seriously reconsider putting it on ABC."
But the fact is, consumers expect high-quality recording to be available.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Whose Song Is That, Anyway? A new system designed to track the distribution of music downloads is being described by analysts and industry representatives as a positive step for sites that sell digital music on the Internet, but how these electronic tags will affect file-trading on peer-to-peer networks remains uncertain.
11 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Kodachrome Moment: How William Eggleston's revolutionary exhibition changed everything.
The show was a milestone, an annunciation of the coming of color; thereafter, black and white would come to seem slightly quaint and precious - evocative, as it is in, say, Cindy Sherman's film stills, of a distant past. New art photography would be almost all chromatic: Nan Goldin, Mitch Epstein, Richard Prince, and Andreas Gursky all owe the ready acceptance of their work - though not their work itself - to Eggleston's breakthrough.
Now, I'll ask you to guess what year all this happened - and bear in mind that color movies became common in the '30s and color television was first broadcast in 1955. So the first one-man show of color photographs at the high temple of modern vanguard photography was…?
1976.
CONTAMINANTES
How will genetics change our lives? TIME invited a panel of scientists and science writers to close their eyes and imagine the world 50 years from now. This is what they see
CULTURAS IN VITRO
The CD Price-Fixing Settlement Explained or How Oligopolies Invest
- Amount Fed Trade Commision accuses industry of overpricing during period in question (WSJ 5 Feb 2003): $480,000,000
- Sum of Cash and Non-Cash Industry Payments: $143,075,000
- Return ($): $336,925,000
- Return (%): 235%
Conclusion: Not a bad investment!!!
CULTURAS IN VITRO
75th Academy Awards Nominees - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
VITAMEDIAS
Elsevier Announces New Procedures for Retracting Online Articles: Elsevier Science announced new procedures last week for handling journal articles in its databases that are the product of plagiarism or other research misconduct. Librarians and scholars have complained that the Anglo-Dutch publisher was jeopardizing the integrity of scholarship by removing articles from its databases with little explanation.
.DE!
Burglar found asleep in store he robbed: A man was arrested Saturday morning when he was found taking a nap after breaking into a store owned by the wife of the county district attorney, police said.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Amigos: In a documentary to appear on HBO, Oliver Stone profiles his new friend Fidel Castro - and proceeds to whitewash the Cuban despot's brutal reign [sic...]
.DE!
Charges Filed After Man Confesses in Ad: Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against a man who took out a full-page newspaper advertisement to confess his guilt in a deadly automobile accident.
In the ad in the Jan. 26 edition of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Regino Salinas confessed he was talking on his cell phone and drove through a red light, causing the Jan. 11 collision that killed two people. "I allowed myself to be distracted and I didn't give my driving all the attention it deserved," he wrote, urging other drivers not to make the same mistake.
A man and his 68-year-old father died in the crash. The man's mother was injured.
10 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Museums and the Web 2003: The international conference about museums and the Web!
VITAMEDIAS
Weblogs: el último “boom” de Internet desembarca en los medios argentinos
Ahora, la sección “Extras” de Clarín.com tiene el suyo, para opinar y debatir sobre tecnología y tendencias.
VITAMEDIAS
Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality: A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list, a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world. This complaint follows a common pattern we've seen with MUDs, BBSes, and online communities like Echo and the WELL. A new social system starts, and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems. Then, as the new system grows, problems of scale set in. Not everyone can participate in every conversation. Not everyone gets to be heard. Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us, and so on.
Prior to recent theoretical work on social networks, the usual explanations invoked individual behaviors: some members of the community had sold out, the spirit of the early days was being diluted by the newcomers, et cetera. We now know that these explanations are wrong, or at least beside the point. What matters is this: Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality.
In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution.
Weblogs and power laws: Many systems and phenomena are distributed according to a power law distribution. A power law applies to a system when large is rare and small is common. The distribution of individual wealth is a good example of this: there are a very few rich men and lots & lots of poor folks. A familiar way to think about power laws is the 80/20 rule: 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population.
It's been shown that the distribution of links on the web scales according to a power law, so it comes as no surprise that the distribution of links to weblogs does as well.
.DE!
Azerbaijani Expert: Shuttle Columbia Crushed By UFO: The shuttle crashed because they met with “creatures” that are not accepted by world community yet, an expert says. Chief of space seismological department of Azerbaijan’s National Aero cosmic Agency Fuad Gasimov considers that the above mentioned version is reasonable referring to some certain facts.
"Articles on this version are already being published in the press of Russia and other many countries. It is said Columbia has come across with the wrath of UFOs," Gasimov told to Olaylar news agency. According to the scientist, in 1947 the USA signed an agreement among high civilizations. According to this agreement, super state must not used from space orbit against the earth. Thus, the USA shuttles must not only conduct scientific- researches in the orbit and must not think about the attack other states from space. [sic]
Experts say NASA may never know exactly what doomed Columbia: "I don't think they're going to get a lot of information from the debris. Chances are it's going to be very badly burned and damaged," said Jerry Grey, director of science and technology policy for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. "We may just have to draw logical probability conclusions as to what happened. That's my guess as to what we'll end up doing."
ECO-TERROR
British dossier on Iraq copied academic paper: A British government dossier intended to show how Iraq is obstructing of UN weapons inspectors via an "infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation" has been revealed to have lifted significant sections from academic papers.
VITAMEDIAS
Read all about it! (on the internet first)
The good news is that the traditional press can no longer pretend that the internet doesn't exist. The Mirror was recently forced to admit they'd "borrowed" a Photoshopped image of the Argentinian football team clutching handbags from a user of B3ta.com, and the hundreds of emails we've received from Heat readers in the past week show that people do notice when a story already been broken online is claimed as an "exclusive" in print. The fact that many people now turn to the internet to check the facts behind stories they read in newspapers or see on TV means that online magazines can no longer be considered the black sheep of the media family.
VITAMEDIAS
Les «unes»: les flops et les tops: Les couvertures de magazine consacrées «au fric, à la violence et au sexe» ne font plus vendre. Au contraire de l'indémodable «spécial immobilier».
Mais alors, que veut leur moi, qui fait parfois varier les ventes du simple ou double ? Au top du top des ventes 2002, bien sûr, le second tour de la présidentielle, mais aussi les «spécial vins», l'Egypte, et encore et surtout l'immobilier!
CONTAMINANTES
The U.S. Military Needs Its Speed: Dextro-amphetamine, aka speed, has been banned on college campuses and locker rooms. Why, then, does the military threaten to ground pilots who refuse to take the drug?
VITAMEDIAS
RTP «escolhe» sociedade civil em Abril: o director de programas da estação, Luís Andrade, [...] está a avaliar mais de 400 propostas, devendo a nova grelha estrear em Setembro.
[400 propostas?!? E não havia sociedade civil...]
08 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
"Visão" Afasta Clara Pinto Correia [CPC] depois de ter descoberto que a escritora plagiou as suas duas últimas crónicas. Os seus dois últimos textos, publicados na rubrica "A Deriva dos Continentes", foram copiados - um praticamente por inteiro, outro apenas metade - de outros dois artigos que saíram recentemente na conceituada revista "The New Yorker". A revista portuguesa não aceitou as explicações dadas pela cronista e professora universitária. [...]
O plágio (a utilização por uma pessoa de um texto, ou parte dele, de outro autor, mas apresentando-o como seu) não está consignado na lei com tal designação. De acordo com o Código do Direito de Autor, aquilo a que vulgarmente se chama plágio configura um crime de contrafacção e é punível, pela lei portuguesa, com pena de prisão até três anos e multa de 150 a 250 dias.
CPC: Só me resta pedir desculpa
DN - Como explica as coincidências entre os seus textos e os que foram publicados na revista New Yorker?
CPC - Uma crónica não é um trabalho científico, nem um trabalho académico. É uma opinião. Essa é, pelo menos, a minha sensibilidade. Se atribuísse todas as frases que uso nas minhas crónicas, contrariaria aquilo que eu penso que é o espírito de uma crónica.
Outras crónicas, no espírito de CPC:
1a - Público (Julho 2002): Mais de 300 campos nos Estados Unidos estão a produzir biofarmacêuticos transgénicos, denunciou uma coligação de associações ambientalistas e de consumidores numa carta enviada este semana ao Departamento americano de Agricultura, que ainda não reagiu. Argumentando que estas práticas podem ameaçar a cadeia alimentar, os activistas pedem a total proibição destas plantações.
Estas novas culturas incluem plantas que produzem um químico que induz o aborto, hormonas de crescimento, coagulantes e tripsina, uma enzima alergénica. A coligação propôs que se permitisse apenas o cultivo de plantas não alimentares sob as mesmas condições controladas que são obrigatórias para a indústria farmacêutica.
"Basta um erro por parte de um empresa de biotecnologia e nós acabamos a comer medicamentos nos nossos 'corn flakes'", disse Larry Bohlen, director do Programa de Ambiente e Saúde da associação Friends of the Earth, num comunicado à imprensa. [...]
1b - ENS (Julho 2002): Experimental plants engineered to produce pharmaceuticals are being grown at over 300 secret locations nationwide, a new report has revealed. Biotechnology firms are conducting experiments with corn, soy, rice and tobacco that are genetically manipulated to produce drugs designed to act as vaccines, contraceptives, induce abortions, generate growth hormones, create blood clots, produce industrial enzymes and propagate allergenic enzymes.
"Just one mistake by a biotech company and we'll be eating other people's prescription drugs in our corn flakes," said Larry Bohlen, director of health and environment programs at Friends of the Earth, a member of a coalition of consumer and environmental groups that produced the report, released late last week. [...]
2a - Expresso (Agosto 2002): Desmistificar a realidade científica, transformando-a num objecto simplesmente estético, é a função da Bioarte que, à falta de espaço nas galerias, descobriu na Internet o local ideal para uma exposição permanente. Mas a polémica não se fez esperar, com cientistas e teóricos a acusarem esta nova forma de expressão de descredibilizar uma realidade que se quer rigorosa e não especulativa. Aparentemente, não gostaram de ver os recém-criados coelhos fluorescentes numa exposição de fotografia ou embriões de ratos, vítimas de um inclemente rigor que tudo submete, emoldurados.
Quem admira uma obra deste género normalmente deixa-se cativar pela luminosidade das representações, pelo menos até descobrirem do que verdadeiramente se trata. «Quando alguém lhes explica que uma obra pode ser, por exemplo, uma fotografia do vírus Ébola, rapidamente, afastam a cabeça e dão um passo atrás», descreve Hunter O'Reilly, professora universitária na Universidade de Wisconsin e uma das mais conceituadas artistas de Bioarte. «A reacção tem a ver com o facto de as pessoas apreciarem algo muito belo que, do ponto de vista intelectual, é, ao mesmo tempo, horrível», sublinha a criadora. [...]
2b - Wired (Agosto 2002): Spectators are usually charmed by the luminescent, brightly colored forms arranged on a backlit wall by artist Hunter O'Reilly - at least until they find out what they really are.
Some have said they look pretty, or like candy. But when O'Reilly tells them they are images of such killers as ebola, HIV and rabies, they jump back.
"It's a photo, but it's not like I have a test tube of it," O'Reilly said. "They still have that instant reaction. It makes people think of the paradox of something being beautiful but intellectually horrifying." [...]
3a - Lusa (Outubro 2002): Piratas informáticos do grupo terrorista Al-Qaida, de Usama bin Laden, estão a penetrar regularmente em páginas de Internet para aí deixarem mensagens secretas destinadas a outros membros da organização, alertaram peritos.
Um exemplo desta prática, denominada esteganografia, foi conhecido no início de Outubro quando uma mensagem atribuída a bin Laden, presumível responsável pelos atentados terroristas do 11 de Setembro, foi encontrada no site cenobite.com, uma página criada por um admirador do escritor de ficção científica Clive Barker.
Segundo Andrew Weisburd, um perito que acompanha a actividade de grupos terroristas através da Internet, a Al-Qaida recorre a este modo de operação desde que deixou de poder utilizar o site alneda.com, suspeito de ligação à rede terrorista. [...]
3b - Agence France-Presse (Outubro 2002): The al-Qaeda terror network has begun using hackers who break into websites to create secret pages that send messages to its followers, internet specialists say.
An example came earlier this month when a message purportedly from al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden appeared on cenobite.com, a website started by a fan of science fiction writer Clive Barker.
Andrew Weisburd, an online activist who tracks terrorist groups, said he believes al-Qaeda began using this technique to communicate after the rights expired to alneda.com, a website often linked to al-Qaeda. [...]
VITAMEDIAS
PTM quer extinguir Lusomundo.net: A PTM quer extinguir a empresa que assegura o site Lusomundo.net. A decisão foi já comunicada às duas dezenas de trabalhadores da empresa, no decorrer de uma reunião do Conselho de Redacção da TSF-Online, que contou com a presença do director da TSF, Carlos Andrade, e do director-geral da Lusomundo.net, Canais Rodrigues.
No decorrer da reunião, que se efectuou há cerca de 15 dias, a PTM justificou a sua decisão, invocando a necessidade de proceder à redução de custos, comprometendo-se, contudo, a tentar integrar os trabalhadores da Lusomundo.net nos quadros da TSF e a manter os serviços a que está obrigada por via dos contratos já estabelecidos.
VITAMEDIAS
Duped by journalist, website retracts story: In a bizarre case of one journalist deceiving another, an Internet news site published - then retracted - a story that claimed a radical Islamic group was behind a virus-like attack that clogged the Internet.
Journalist perpetrates online terror hoax
Web Magazine Retracts Virus Hoax Story
Why I created the Harkat Hoax
VITAMEDIAS
Web Site Changes Name After Newspaper Co Complains: A favorite Web site for media cognoscenti said on Thursday it has agreed to change its name, after a privately held newspaper publisher accused it of trademark infringement.
Jim Romenesko's MediaNews said on its Web site that it will change its name to "Romenesko" in response to complaints by MediaNews Group Inc., which owns some 50 newspapers including the Denver Post and the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Web site is the brainchild of lifelong journalist Romenesko, who scours hundreds of Web sites daily and posts links to stories on the media business - one of the first and most successful "blogs," or Web logs, which have become a thriving online resource for news of all sorts.
The site, which Romenesko started and originally ran independently, is now operated by the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
07 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Music in advertising: The death of the jingle
Advertisers don't want fake pop. They want the real thing
CULTURAS IN VITRO
The Year The Music Dies: Record labels are under attack from all sides - file sharers and performers, even equipment manufacturers and good old-fashioned customers - and it's killing them. A moment of silence, please.
VITAMEDIAS
Cell Phones that Surf for News: On a cell phone someday soon, you'll be able to instruct a personal news-gatherer to scour a dozen media sites for headlines within minutes after they are posted.
Are you a football, baseball or soccer fan? A new technology will dish up a playback of your favorite team's winning goal.
The technology turns cell phones into computers that can download and execute programs just like PCs.
06 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
[Jack] Valenti's Views: The MPAA president and former LBJ aide opens up on a range of topics
JV: What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.
Right now, any professor can show a complete movie in his classroom without paying a dime - that's fair use. What is not fair use is making a copy of an encrypted DVD, because once you're able to break the encryption, you've undermined the encryption itself.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
First notes for 639-year composition: The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday.
The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible.
Composed by late avant-garde composer John Cage, the performance has already been going for 17 months - although all that has been heard so far is the sound of the organ's bellows being inflated.
VITAMEDIAS
Marketing budgets continue the shift to new media: Marketing budgets will be shifted away from traditional media and into direct marketing campaigns harnessing new media this year, according to research.
In a survey by Jaywing, the communication management agency, 40% of firms were planning to increase their budgets on direct marketing campaigns using email and SMS, as well as digital television in 2003.
VITAMEDIAS
Early deadlines leave magazines vulnerable to disaster [o desastre do Columbia e histórias paginadas]
VITAMEDIAS
New White Paper from Online Publishers Association Identifies, Examines and Characterizes Internet Dayparts: Audience Share and Demographics of Internet Content Sites Vary by Time of Day; Internet Utilities Such as Search and E-mail Do Not
ECO-TERROR
A national state of confusion: The Bush propaganda machine has convinced Americans that Saddam and the no-longer-mentioned Osama are the same person - and the polls prove it.
VITAMEDIAS
CNN Lies: Chronicling the steady stream of lies and propaganda pouring out of CNN
ECO-TERROR
'A Policy of Evasion and Deception': full text of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations on Iraq
«Where's the proof, Colin»: Pour de nombreux quotidiens européens, les «preuves» présentées par Powell n'ont pas convaincu.
Portugal e Irlanda concordam com "importância" do relatório Powell sobre Iraque: As declarações de Powell "confirmam que não tem havido cooperação por parte do regime iraquiano" e "mostram violação material de resoluções da ONU, nomeadamente da 1.441", disse Durão Barroso
05 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
"Putin Has Come To Sue You, Dobby": According to a Russian newspaper, a major Moscow law firm is preparing to sue the moviemakers for alleged misuse of Putin's image. (Oddly, it is not clear from the coverage to what extent Putin himself is behind the suit.) The firm reportedly plans to allege that Dobby's creators intentionally based the house elf's appearance on Putin's.
ECO-TERROR
Behind the Homefront: A daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's right to know.
VITAMEDIAS
Cops accused of spying on journalists: Denver police intelligence bureau officers may have conducted background checks for private companies and spied on journalists, a lawyer charged Monday.
The allegations were raised in federal court by an attorney for the American Friends Service Committee, one of several groups and individuals who are part of a lawsuit against Denver that contends the city's police department violated their free speech rights when its officers gathered intelligence at peaceful demonstrations.
VITAMEDIAS
Chain e-mail fires up ABC Online poll: A chain e-mail initiated yesterday sparked an overwhelming response to an ABC online poll about Australian involvement in a possible war against Iraq.
The brief message contained a link to the poll, which asked the simple question: "Should Australia take part in a war against Iraq?"
By yesterday afternoon, 57,000 votes had been registered, with 90 percent of respondents answering "no".
But Anita Pugliese, a senior research director with polling giant Gallup, says that although the number of respondents is nothing short of massive, the result isn’t necessarily representative of the views of the whole community, or even the online community.
"We need to be cautious when looking at Web polls. Even with large samples they may not be representative of the wider population," she said.
CONTAMINANTES
Empresas falham aposta na inovação: A inovação em Portugal pode tornar-se na «borbulha do champanhe numa festa decadente». A afirmação pertence a Lino Fernandes, ex-presidente da Agência para a Inovação (AI). Durante um colóquio organizado pelo IST e pelo DN, pertencente ao ciclo «Conversas cruzadas à segunda-feira», Lino Fernandes mostrou-se avesso ao «consenso mole» que existe no País em redor da necessidade de mais investigação, desenvolvimento e inovação. Porque, segundo a mesma fonte, «a verdade é que muitos empresários enriqueceram sem precisar disto para nada». E este facto «não cria uma envolvente favorável à inovação». «Se o indivíduo que tem sucesso não paga impostos e não investe, para que é que eu hei-de estar preocupado com tecnologia, criação de marcas próprias ou design?», pergunta Lino Fernandes.
VITAMEDIAS
«Chronic'art» étale sa censure: «Censuré», en lettres rouges, barre les pages 18 et 19 du dernier numéro du bimensuel culturel Chronic'art. Une décision judiciaire ? Pas du tout. Aucun tribunal n'a exigé la suppression de ces deux pages. C'est le propriétaire du magazine, l'éditeur Léo Scheer, qui a demandé qu'un article déplaisant, à son goût soit supprimé. Comme il était trop tard pour annuler la double page, déjà envoyée à l'imprimerie, il a obtenu, en accord avec la direction du journal, qu'elle soit rendue floue et recouverte de cette mention : «censuré».
04 Fevereiro 2003
VITAMEDIAS
Post-Game Super Bowl Scores: More than 1 million unique visitors logged on to SuperBowl.com on Super Bowl Sunday, representing a 266 percent increase in traffic from the Saturday before, according to measurements from Nielsen//NetRatings. [...]
Some of those households could have been fans of commercials, rather than game fans. Research from Knowledge Networks indicates that 20 percent of Super Bowl viewers (ages 18-49) thought the ads were more interesting than the game - that's a 7 percent increase over last year's interest in the commercials. Additionally, 50 percent of the 2002 respondents said that the Super Bowl game was more interesting than the ads shown during the game, compared to 35 percent in 2003.
VITAMEDIAS
TV Nets, Advertisers Pull Some Swithces: Television networks and advertisers quickly yanked material from the air to avoid appearing insensitive after Saturday's disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia.
They included a commercial for the Hewlett-Packard Co. bragging about its ability to get astronauts home safely, and a 1998 Bruce Willis movie that depicts a space shuttle being destroyed by an asteroid.
The HP ad depicts astronauts dressed for flight, and included the line, "HP computers and servers help NASA in making sure our astronauts come home safely."
The computer company tried to get all of the ads pulled from the air immediately after the accident, but one was missed and ran inadvertently Sunday during CNN's coverage of the accident, said Rebeca Robboy, HP spokeswoman, on Monday.
VITAMEDIAS
TV ads 'a waste of money': Advertisers who spend millions of pounds on TV commercials could be wasting their money according to a study from the London Business School, which claims few of us actually watch the ads.
The study found people who watched television with family or friends were far more likely to talk to each other during the commercial breaks than to focus on the ads.
This, it claimed, meant advertisers were misguidedly spending money on placing their commercials in popular programmes rather than in less-watched shows, where lone viewers were likely to be concentrating on the ads.
VITAMEDIAS
Help Build a Searchers' Swiki: "What the heck is a swiki?" It's simply a set of tools that makes it easy for anyone to set up and maintain a collaborative web site. Swikis are like group weblogs, since they make it easy for anyone without technical knowledge to publish to the web.
They're also somewhat like newsgroups, in that anyone can participate. Perhaps the most notable feature of swiki's is that pages are automatically created and linked to each other.
ECO-TERROR
A work of budgetary fiction: President George W. Bush's com-pendious US federal budget for 2004 went on sale in government bookstores yesterday. Too bad they do not have a fiction department to put it in.
The budget, which Congress will consider over the next few months, is disingenuous in its explanations of how the US went from record surplus to record deficit on Mr Bush's watch, dishonest in its claims about how the administration's tax plans will affect the economy and irresponsible in shuffling off to Congress the job of finding new spending restraints.
The president himself sets the tone, right at the outset in the foreword. "A recession and a war we did not choose have led to the return of deficits," he says. Well, up to a point.
.DE!
Rent My Chest!: I know I'm not the hottest guy on Earth, but I believe that I have the perfect chest for your message. So, if you PayPal me $20.00, I'll paint your note on my pecs with a black, purple, brown, green, red, or blue marker.
ECO-TERROR
Guernica Reproduction Covered at UN: The "Guernica" work by Pablo Picasso at the entrance of the Security Council of the United Nations has been covered with a curtain. The reason for covering this work is that this is the place where diplomats make statements to the press and have this work as the background. The Picasso work features the horrors of war.
03 Fevereiro 2003
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Pirates copy Oscar judges' DVDs: Pirated copies of the latest Lord of the Rings DVD are flooding into the UK after they were made from a disc sent to Oscar judges.
Voters for the Academy Awards are sent copies of all the films in the running, but it is under the strict condition that they are not copied in any way.
More than 10,000 illegal reproductions of the fantasy film have already been seized in Britain, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) said.
VITAMEDIAS
How blogging changed journalism - almost: Bloggers tend to form online cliques and pat one another on the back. Few of them have been able to keep up the same level of quality for long periods of time: If a thousand flowers bloom in the blogosphere, many wilt fairly quickly. And though bloggers don't claim to be objective, their personal obsessions can still become grating. For example, there's a large swath of the conservative blogosphere that seems almost entirely devoted to attacking The New York Times and especially columnist Paul Krugman, as if no other major newspaper or columnist deserved reproach.
Finally, there's the simple fact that while bloggers can be highly substantive and demonstrate considerable expertise - some of the best are career journalists or professors - they're very rarely thorough. Bloggers tend to specialize in putting a deft touch on pre-existing information rather than in generating completely new findings; there's no such thing as a blogging investigative report or feature story.
All of which suggests the complementary, rather than alternative, role of blogging with respect to mainstream media. The central virtue of blogging, I've decided, is that in the proverbial agora, or online marketplace of ideas, bloggers are like Socrates on speed.
They're constantly interrogating arguments and points of view, noting flaws, advancing more sound positions, and shifting the focus to new questions. The mainstream media are being watched more closely because of bloggers - and kept more honest - and that can't be a bad thing.
And it's fascinating to think of new directions that blogging may take. [...]
Finally, then, blogging is a modest revolution, one that we can now view with some perspective but that has not yet fully run its course.
The smartest words on the phenomenon, it seems to me, came from the USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro, a frequent blog reader. Shapiro was asked to comment on bloggers' Trent Lott triumph by the Boston Globe, and he had this to say: "Like every revolution, 'blogging' is overhyped on the way up, overscorned on the way down, and settles into the middle realm of reality."
ECO-TERROR
United We Stand By Jose Maria Aznar, Jose-Manuel Durao Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Vaclav Havel, Peter Medgyessy, Leszek Miller And Anders Fogh Rasmussen
A scoop that raises questions: So, the instant question became: Had the [WSJ] paper orchestrated a declaration of support for a Bush administration policy its own editorial page has unstintingly supported, and then reported the event as news?
"It reminds one of the old adage: If you don't like the news, go out and make some yourself," said Orville Schell, dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "It's a little funny that it's such a Bushy paper and this turned out to be such a nice little coup for the Bush administration. The Journal's editorial page, which is so demonstrably pro-Bush, must be highly gratified by their own instrumentality in this matter."
Conversations with Paul E. Steiger, the Journal's managing editor, and Paul A. Gigot, its editorial page editor, revealed that what occurred Thursday was one of those unforeseen collisions between journalistic enterprise and good fortune.
A Carta dos Oito "Foi Um Acto de Seguidismo Que Veio Enfraquecer as Posições Europeias": Entrevista com Mário Soares
VITAMEDIAS
Newspapers Focus More on Registration Than Paid Content: Several larger newspaper companies are committing to online registration as "training wheels" for a paid and premium future, including Tribune, Belo, McClatchy and The Washington Post. But even as registration gains momentum, most of the 300+ newspaper executives attending the Newspaper Association of America's annual Connections conference in Orlando last week expressed reluctance to put their content behind a paid firewall because they'd lose readers and jeopardize higher revenues from advertising.
VITAMEDIAS
Living in the Googleplex: Five years after its founding by two Stanford grad students, Google dominates the space with tens of millions of Internet searches each day that are rewiring the culture. How so? By every second connecting the nerve-like data points beneath the information glut. Google is fast, free and out-of-control – a technological triumph that makes the notion of Internet privacy look like a gas street lamp in Las Vegas. Google’s IPO, needless to say, is anxiously awaited.
VITAMEDIAS
New York Times' Web Site Plans Print-Like Ad Format: The New York Times' Web site will begin displaying half-page magazine-style ads adjacent to its articles, making its online pages appear more similar to their print counterparts.
ECO-TERROR
The New Global Job Shift: The next round of globalization is sending upscale jobs offshore. They include basic research, chip design, engineering--even financial analysis. Can America lose these jobs and still prosper? Who wins? Who loses?
The truth is, the rise of the global knowledge industry is so recent that most economists haven't begun to fathom the implications. For developing nations, the big beneficiaries will be those offering the speediest and cheapest telecom links, investor-friendly policies, and ample college grads. In the West, it's far less clear who will be the big winners and losers. But we'll soon find out.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
BigChampagne: "What Nielsen is to TV ratings, BigChampagne is to the increasingly important measurement of what people are downloading on the Internet."
VITAMEDIAS
Shaping the Future of the Newspaper: The Distribution Revolution: A distribution revolution is upon us, with new technologies and processes such as digital printing, personalised newspapers and mobile devices multiplying the ways people can receive their news.
VITAMEDIAS
America's Reality-TV Addiction: Shows like Survivor and Joe Millionaire have hooked networks and captivated viewers, but withdrawal promises to be painful
For the TV industry, the obsession with all things real adds up to easy advertising lucre in a disastrous climate, where margins are getting squeezed harder and harder. Still, something far more sickening is going on than any episode of Fear Factor. Masses in both the blue and the red states seem more passionate about this stuff than the latest dispatches from Hans Blix, substituting an obsession with a contrived reality for attention to the all-too-scary global one.
North Korea continues amassing a nuclear cache. The country is on the verge of war. That's reality. But it's not spiking the ratings on prime time.
ECO-TERROR
The first 'e-war': The threat of so-called cyberwarfare may be overhyped.
[A]t the same time that al-Qaida was plotting its successful suicide hijackings, the top U.S. spooks were busy fretting about the dire threat of Fidel Castro hacking our computers. In February 2001, Adm. Tom Wilson, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned Congress: Castro's armed forces could initiate an "information warfare or computer network attack" that could "disrupt our military."
We're still waiting.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
L'audiovisuel a peur pour ses quotas: A Paris, 35 pays se préparent à une possible ouverture du marché européen.
Fin mars, l'Union européenne doit répondre aux nouvelles demandes de libéralisation qui lui ont été soumises l'an dernier dans le cadre des négociations bilatérales de l'OMC (Organisation mondiale du commerce). Et les marchés audiovisuels, particulièrement le cinéma, sont concernés.
VITAMEDIAS
Lynch Moblogs: News travels faster than ever - and that includes news about your company. First came the Internet, with its seething chat rooms and mailing lists. Then came blogging, which made it easy for loudmouths to publish commentary on the Web. Now get ready for moblogging - shorthand for "mobile weblogging" - which can turn any street corner, checkout line, or supermarket aisle into a multimedia complaint hotline.
CONTAMINANTES
The Water Barons: A Handful of Corporations Seek to Privatize the World’s Water
The privatization of public water systems around the world, driven by a handful of European corporations and the World Bank, is dramatically increasing despite sometimes tragic results, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity.
The report, by the Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, shows that the world’s three largest private water utility companies have since 1990 expanded into nearly every region of the world, raising concerns that a handful of private companies could soon control a large chunk of the world’s most vital resource.
While private companies still run only about 5 percent of the world’s waterworks, their growth over the last 12 years has been enormous. The report tracked the operations of the six most globally active water companies and found that operations had grown nearly five-fold.
CONTAMINANTES
Lost: Space Shuttle Columbia: Shuttle disintegrates, 7 astronauts dead
Columbia Loss FAQ v1.0: a basic information source for those seeking news on the loss of the Space Shuttle "Columbia" and its crew on 2/1/03
Online Space Shuttle Columbia Crash Coverage: cover snapshots from a sampling of national, Florida and Texas sites taken Feb. 1, about 12 hours after crash
Photos show odd images near shuttle: A San Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area has captured five strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn Saturday.
Images of shuttle in sky tell television viewers what happened before officials: The arresting image of a white streak flashing across the sky then breaking into several pieces -- repeated over and over -- told television viewers what happened to the space shuttle Columbia before any official government word.
Space Shuttle Tragedy photos
The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped: It's costly, outmoded, impractical and, as we've learned again, deadly
Moon missions: Here are some points of view you won't get from television coverage of the Columbia disaster.
Bush to Propose Budget Increase for NASA: President Bush will propose a nearly $470 million boost in NASA's budget for fiscal 2004, an administration official said on Sunday, promising investigators would look into whether past cutbacks played any part in the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
Iraqis Call Shuttle Disaster God's Vengeance: Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew - including the first Israeli in space - was that it was God's retribution. "We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.
[April 1980] Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty: 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Goodbye, Columbia
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