I encounter a lot of interesting stuff over the course of a day, and find myself leaving all kinds of tabs open and notes unfinished for posts that, alas, may never get written (especially after one of those periodic reboots that Firefox seems to want every now and then). So, even though I am not a big fan of the quick link approach to blogging, I’ve decided that it’s better to point than to say nothing at all when I encounter something that I want to remember and share with others. Here goes:
-The Red Firewall of China: Two of my favorite bloggers, Ethan Zuckerman and David Weinberger, both have fascinating write-ups of the visit of Chinese blogger Michael Anti to the Berkman Center. Zuckerman does one of his trademark write-ups, with an emphasis on how Chinese are using chatrooms and email to get around pervasive government censorship of the internet. One reason why: blogs depend on central servers, that are easier to shut down en masse than chat rooms. Weinberger gives us the rough Q&A, with this counterintuitive gem: ?If Congress banned Google from doing business with China, what would happen to gmail? If Microsoft left China, what about Messenger? For Congress, it’s easy to be black and white. But the Chinese people depend on these tools to communicate about freedom and rights.”
-The People’s Democratic Republic of Britney: Ethan Z also proposes to compare worldwide news coverage of countries vs celebrities. “If Britney were a nation, she’d be the 60th most reported nation in the world, between Jamaica and Uganda. Lindsay Lohan is receiving far less media attention right now, ranking just below #130, Mozambique. Paris Hilton is marginally less interesting than #90, Ethiopia, though Tom Cruise is just a hair more newsworthy, challenging Yemen for #89.” I want the data!
-GiveWell Releases Reviews of Non-Profit Organizations on the Web. Allan Benamer is on the story. There’s also a British site doing this, only I’m having a premature senior moment and can’t remember it’s name!
-Proto-Neo-Techno-Journalism on the rise. That is, those funky interactive data-heavy chart-type things that you can only get on the web, that tell a story unlike anything you can find in a print product. Like the WPost’s Issues Tracker or the NYTimes’ Analyzer. I’d add techPresident’s charts to the mix.
-Jurgen Habermas blows off the internet and the networked public sphere. Howard Rheingold offers a seminal critique.