Friday linkage, some fun and some deep, and lots to think about. Happy Veteran’s Day, and it’s also 11/11/11, which means something – I’m not sure.

First, this was the tempest in a teapot this week from Poynter: Romenesko resigns after 12 years at Poynter. Poynter has been hammered in the comments. I’ll leave it to you to decide the merits of whatever it was that caused his abrupt departure. But someone on Twitter had the audacity to call him journalism’s Joe Paterno. Someone needs to get a grip, a clue and some perspective.

Mixel for iPad: A social art collage app. Free, and one of the authors is Koi Vihn, whose design ideas I’ve appreciated.

Smart is the new sexy (NAA): This is an ad campaign by the Newspaper Association of America. I suppose it’s trying to make newspapers “hip” or something through the use of pastels and sans serif fonts. Maybe I’m just too old to see the effectiveness.

What is Photojournalism (Ed Kashi): “Ed was asked recently by Whitney Johnson at the New Yorker magazine how he defined photojournalism today. Below is his response, illustrated with examples that highlight the 3 distinct parts of Ed’s definition.”

Ten technical Twitter tips for journalists (journalism.co.uk): For those new to the platform, or some tips for the longtime user.

We Are Journalists (tumblr): “We are journalists. We are proud of what we do. We are tired of bad press about the press. We are trying to be “team players.” We are terrified of more layoffs and paycuts. We would like to produce quality work without ‘obamasux99’ posting some non-sequitur rant at the end of it. We complain because we want things to be better. We would like some respect, plz. We are journalists.”

Cameras Everywhere: The Promise and Peril for Human Rights (MediaShift): It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

The Social Graph is neither (Pinboard blog): “Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.”

A Brief Rant On The Future of Interaction Design (Bret Victor): This is worth reading for its contrarian take on the future of interface design, and this paragraph: “Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every Vision Of The Future.” is pure gold.

Print Friendly

YouTube has really been pushing socially interactive storytelling lately. The image above is from (obviously) Project Imagination. Check out the submitted photographs.

It’s Friday, time for some more light reading for your weekend. Since this is the weekend Daylight Savings Time begins for most of the U.S., don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour.

New AP guidelines endorse misuse of Twitter (Daily Dot): The AP proves the adage that companies don’t understand social media – again.

ESPN’s new social media strategy prohibits talent and reporters from breaking news on Twitter (Interchange Project): See above.

Is Google helping journalists, or co-opting them? (GigaOm): Google seems intent on messing up its core product, which is search. Mathew Ingram explores some of the pitfalls of the company’s new integration of Google+ profiles with news search results.

Yahoo! Debuts a More Personal Web With Its Fall Collection of Mobile and Social Products (Yahoo!): I have enough “personal news” apps on my devices, but Yahoo! jumps on the bandwagon with another one.

32 Ways Of Looking At Unemployment, In One Chart (NPR Planet Money): Nifty chart from Jacob Goldstein, Alyson Hurt and Jess Jiang that lets you compare U.S. unemployment rates across the demographic spectrum.

Less Is More: Using Social Media to Inspire Concise Writing (NYT): “How can online media like Twitter posts, Facebook status updates and text messages be harnessed to inspire and guide concise writing? In this lesson, students read, respond to and write brief fiction and nonfiction stories, and reflect on the benefits and drawbacks of “writing short.””

Print Friendly

Students Beware, Facebook Changes and Privacy: Karl Hughes digs into some of the changes to the new Facebook interface. I’m curious if students will really notice how much of their privacy is being given away by the new features, or if they’ll care?

The Ultimate WordPress Cheat Sheet: This is for the guts of WordPress programming, not CSS or HTML.

Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality: “I fundamentally think this digital dualism is a fallacy. Instead, I want to argue that the digital and physical are increasingly meshed, and want to call this opposite perspective that implodes atoms and bits rather than holding them conceptually separate augmented reality.”

Figment (Found via someone on Twitter): “Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you’re into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.”

Google introduces “Infinite Digital Bootcase,” acts as virtual librarian: “Google introduced the newest form of bookcase to your browsers today — what it calls an “Infinite Digital Bookcase,” and damn does it look cool.” Certainly an interesting move as more publishers move into the tablet market. More info on the official Google blog.

Hollywood unions, networks and studios mount anti-piracy offensive: “A broad coalition of film studios, TV networks and entertainment industry labor groups has launched an education campaign to teach the public about the evils of piracy and prod their employees and union members to support an anti-piracy bill in Washington.

“Through internal videos, newsletters, emails and booths set up in company commissaries , media giants such as NBCUniversal, CBS, Viacom, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. are encouraging their employees to join a newly formed group called Creative America, a grass-roots organization launched this summer to muster support in the creative community for tougher anti-piracy legislation.”

I wish people would stop using the word “grass-roots” to describe industry-backed efforts to influence policy. Also, the PROTECT IP Act will have some impact on students if its passed, so might be something to write about.

Internet links not libel, top court rules (CBC): Via @Hermida on Twitter, what should be obvious is recognized by the Canadian Supreme Court.

Print Friendly

Since Adele has cancelled part of her North American tour, another selection from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. Just because.

SkillShare: This is probably a site that’s been around for a while, but a good source of both free and paid opportunities to learn new skill sets.

Creating a web literate planet (summary): Along the same lines, Mark Surman explains some of the efforts he’s helping to lead with Mozilla to train people to better use and make web-based tools. Lots of information.

Newsrooms Beta: Now Open to Everyone: Digg has just opened the doors of their new Newsrooms features to the world. I’m not a big Digg user, but I’m sure some of you will be interested in this development.

We’re hiring: Code in the public interest, make your mother proud: The Chicago Tribune is looking for people who can wrangle code.

Can a tweet be defamatory: Bob Tarantino takes up a topic which I suspect will be popping up quite a bit over the next few years, and one we discussed recently with Frank LoMonte of the SPLC.

Five steps to better TV stories: Take what you can from this to make better web video stories, as well.

How Technology Made Occupy Wall Street Both Irrelevant and Ubiquitous: I don’t think “irrelevant” is the word I’d use, but Mims’ thesis is provocative, and worth a look. I suspect there will be a lot of similar “What It All Means” articles about the recent Occupy protests happening in the U.S. I’d venture that about 1 in 10 will be right.

5 Things Blogging Taught Me About Tweeting: This is helpful if you’ve ever been a blogger. But the tips are also helpful for anyone who wants to start or better understand Twitter. via @buffer on Twitter.

The Facebook Follow: Facebook wants to follow you everywhere around the Internet.

Tool of the Day: Animoto Animoto has been around a while. It’s a service that automatically generates a video out of photos and music that you upload to the service. It’s free to try out, but if you want more features, you’ll need to upgrade to a pro account, or – if you’re an educator – register for the educational license, which will give you and your students some of the features of the pro account.

Print Friendly