:: Future of Journalism

Guardian's Alan Rusbridger on open journalism, paywalls, and why they’re pre-planning more of the newspaper

Niemanlab :: Alan Rusbridger is a busy man on two sides of the Atlantic. The editor of the Guardian seems to be everywhere, writing, tweeting, and leading the paper’s ongoing coverage of the British phone hacking scandal that continues to pick off executives and editors of Rupert Murdoch’s News International. Meanwhile, on this side of the water, he’s directing the establishment of The Guardian’s New York-based operation, where they hope to claim a foothold in the US media market through an aggressive online-only play. I had a chance to talk with Rusbridger during a recent trip to the U.S.

The interview - Continue here Justin Ellis, www.niemanlab.org

HT: Mathew Ingram, here:

RT @NiemanLab: Guardian's @arusbridger on the 3 little pigs and why a paywall "would be a wrong turning" for the paper nie.mn/LaZDcH

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) May 29, 2012

Syrian filmmaker Bassel Shehadeh killed in Homs shelling

Jenny Houser | Storyful :: Syrian activists paid tribute to a young filmmaker from Damascus who was killed in Homs on Monday night. Bassel Shahade reportedly returned to Syria from his studies in America at the start of the Syrian protests last year to document the uprising.

HT: Mark Little, Storyful, here

Syrian filmmaker Bassel Shehadeh killed in Homs shelling stryfl.com/sla #RIPBassel #Syria #Homs

— mark little (@marklittlenews) May 29, 2012

A collection of videos, tweets and stories by Jenny Houser, storyful.com

Why Facebook won't just give advertisers like GM what they want

Forbes :: For a company with 900 million friends, Facebook is feeling awfully lonely these days. Depending on your point of view, its refusal to adulterate the user experience with aggressive advertising is either principled (putting its users’ interests first) or pragmatic (avoiding the mistakes of MySpace). Either way, it’s expensive, and likely to get more so.

Continue to read Jeff Bercovici, www.forbes.com

General Motors: Big spenders push ad line, but Facebook holds ground

AdAge :: In a now-notorious meeting between General Motors Global CMO Joel Ewanick and other top marketing brass and Facebook sales executives, the automaker's team asked whether it was possible to run bigger, higher-impact ad units than the current offering, according to people familiar with the discussion. Advertising on Facebook has always been subtle. But GM wanted to do something bigger. To GM, Facebook's audience was interesting; its ad formats were not.

Continue to read Cotton Delo, adage.com

Google touts its ad metrics as Facebook confronts hurdles

MediaFile | Reuters :: Google just put out a study touting metrics as a way to sell more advertising. But the most interesting part of the study is the timing. It comes on the heels of the Facebook advertising fiasco, when just days before its hotly anticipated IPO, General Motors said it would stop advertising on the social network, raising the question of the value of a Facebook ad.

Continue to read Jennifer Saba, blogs.reuters.com

Can an algorithm be wrong? #OccupyWallStreet and trending topics on Twitter

Limn :: Throughout the Occupy Wall Street protests, participants and supporters used Twitter (among other tools) to coordinate, debate, and publicize their efforts. But amidst the enthusiasm a concern surfaced: even as the protests were gaining strength and media coverage, and talk of the movement on Twitter was surging, the term was not “Trending.”

[Limn:] How do we know if we are where it’s at? Tarleton Gillespie explores the controversy over Twitter Trends and the algorithmic ‘censorship’ of #occupywallstreet.

HT: Niemanlab, here

Continue to read Tarleton Gillespie, limn.it

The sound of dialing a rotary telephone: Museum of Endangered Sounds

The Next Web :: Remember when Louis CK was ranting about how everything’s awesome and nobody’s happy? If you’re one of the people who can relate to how far we’ve come along in the past decade or two, you’re going to love the Museum of Endangered Sounds.

Reported by - Continue to read Nancy Messieh, thenextweb.com

Bradley Manning in good spirits ahead of court-martial in WikiLeaks case

Guardian :: Two years into his military confinement for allegedly being the source of the biggest leak of state secrets in US history, Bradley Manning is keeping himself in a relatively positive state of mind, buoyed by trust in his lawyers and the support of close family and backers from around the world. In an interview with the Guardian, Manning's aunt describes her nephew's life in jail – and how he's been able to stay optimistic.

Continue to read Ed Pilkington, www.guardian.co.uk

Doubleclick, Google: New industry metrics to help publishers chart their growth plan

DoubleClick Publishers blog :: As the display industry evolves, we're collectively discovering and analyzing trends that point towards promising opportunities and paths to growth. This is the year where we’re doubling down on publishers, giving you the tools you need to make the most from today’s digital media landscape. One of the ways we’re helping publishers navigate their way to success is by providing new sources of industry knowledge and benchmark data. So today we’re introducing a new report, “Display Business Trends: Publisher Edition (PDF direct download link)”.

HT: Drew Olanoff, The Next Web (discussed here)

Continue to read Jonathan Bellack, doubleclickpublishers.blogspot.de

'The Facebook Fallacy:' The Internet, really a better advertising medium?

Technology Review :: At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, valuation of around $100 billion, and the bulk of its business in traditional display advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of the fallacy.

[Michael Wolff:] For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web.

"The Facebook Fallacy" - Continue to read Michael Wolff, www.technologyreview.com

Discussed here "Dan Kennedy: How news executives can fend off the Wolff at their door" - Dan Kennedy, niemanlab.org

Sina Weibo's new credit system now live: An 'Orwellian gamification of social media'

Users start with initial 80 points. You can lose all your credit.

TechInAsia :: Sina Weibo’s new points-based ‘credit’ system is now live, representing a new sort of user contract in which microbloggers on the Twitter-like service will keep themselves in check by tweeting responsibly – that is to say, by not tweeting rumors or posting about sensitive political issues.

Steven Millward on Twitter

Must read - Continue here Steven Millward, www.techinasia.com

Karima Bawa, RIM's top lawyer joins parade of resignations

Reuters :: Karima Bawa, a top lawyer at Research In Motion Ltd has resigned and will soon leave the struggling BlackBerry maker, RIM said on Monday, joining a parade of long-time company executives to depart since Thorsten Heins took over as CEO earlier this year.

Continue to read Alastair Sharp, www.reuters.com

Sina Weibo is introducing new rules: Users permanently banned for talking politics?

AP | Business Insider :: Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging site is introducing new rules that could see users banned for posting about sensitive political topics.

Continue to read www.businessinsider.com

Guardian's Amelia Hill won't be prosecuted over phone hacking reporting

Reuters | Huffington Post :: UK prosecutors investigating a phone-hacking scandal at a Rupert Murdoch tabloid have decided not to charge a journalist for illegally obtaining information from the police to break the story. The Guardian's Amelia Hill, who helped reveal details of alleged widespread criminality at Murdoch's News of the World title, had been questioned by police over whether she received confidential information from a detective.

Continue to read www.huffingtonpost.com

Why Warren Buffett is buying newspapers

DailyFinance :: During the last decade, people have increasingly been getting their news from other sources, especially the Internet, which has caused a sharp decline in both the number of papers sold and the associated advertising revenues. The result is that the share prices of the quoted newspaper companies have generally plummeted. Shares in Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Daily Mirror and some 240 regional papers, are down by almost 94% over the last 10 years. Johnston Press, publisher of The Scotsman, has done even worse with a 98% fall.

So why is Warren Buffett buying newspapers, and should you follow him?

Continue to read Tony Luckett, The Motley Fool, www.dailyfinance.com