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Rheingold Preaches Mob-Logging
drjparker writes "Howard Rheingold author of Smart Mobs and The Virtual Community among other works has an article in the Online Journalism Review in which he ponders the effects of video over cell phones and adding video to blogs on the future of journalism. The article is titled Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism."
Why am I reminded of Flash Crowds? (fp)
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I read about 3 paragraphs of this story before I felt like puking. Mob-logging? It's sad watching these old, insecure guys like Rheingold (and lately, Tim O'Reilly) try to stay relevant. Pathetic. OK, mod me flamebait, but it's true.
Slashdot is the future of news. We are doomed to see tubgirl and goatse. Trolls will dominate the newscape. Although the moderators will save us.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Kupost!
</Final Fantasy dork>
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Somehow I don't see mob-blogging as the 'new media' nor "Putting video cameras and high-speed Net connections in telephones, moves blogging into the streets."
I think that the media will remain the same, if not more powerful due to the vast quantity of information being provided to people; would you rather siphon through 100 people's random news (crap important to them but not you) vs. getting the quick and dirty (www.cnn.com, news.google.com) ?
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Moblogs: Complete with popups that will make you an offer you CAN'T refuse!
My journal has hot
I'm sorry but all I see is a new era/avenue in the world of porn. Now you can call the 1-800 #'s and view some skank(tm) showing you her goods in public. This could be true voyeurism. You could call a 1-800# and tell the skank(tm) what to do. I would tell the skank(tm) to undress and jump the first homeless guy she sees but make sure to keep the phone on the action.
1-800-phn-sknk
I'm sure the live phone cam upskirt cams are coming too. I bet they'll be tied to websites with a meta refresh of 2 seconds or less as an attempt to make it a poor man's video.
I wonder how advertisers will exploit this?
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Does this mean we'll soon have to watch video clips of the editors posting stories or chrisd pondering the next poll?
Better still, does this mean that we'll soon be able to immerse ourselves in 24/7, live CowboyNeal?
Posting as directed.
Let's not forget Mr. Rheingold's old classic about the origins of computer technology/culture.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
This is so tiny that it's like considering a single butterfly's wings when forecasting the weather. It's negligible.
So what if tianamen square does happen, won't everyone that owns a phone there get /.'ed?
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
It seems like a good thing without giving too much thought at the moment.
This is a good thing for places where media censorship occurs regularly. The SARS crisis could not be contained by the Chinese government because of people sending SMS's to others with tales of a disease spreading in certain areas. The news of course didn't cover it, and when China finally acknowledged it, the news down played it. But the SMS's continued, and it gave people a way to do first hand accounts of an event in progress.
If this can prevent media censorship, I'm all for it.
But then... who's to say some group won't stage some sort of event in the future and use/force people to blog this to mislead others...
Your like a real Mob lackey.
-- "Why would you quote your self?" -Me.
I for one can't wait for the Götterdammerung that will result from this one.
sulli
RTFJ.
Sure all these people will be bringing different perspectives to what's going on in the world, but along with it they may bring prejudices and narrow viewpoints along with it. These are things we try to avoid in accurate journalism. Not everyone is going to care about bringing every side of the story, they may just show their opinion (bias) in order to persuade others. This is already happening today and encouraging everyone, no matter if they lack experience, objectivity, proper reporting skills, to be a reporter may not be a good idea. So, the question is, is the future going to have news distribution in the hands of everyone, even considering how difficult it is at the moment to find accurate information on the internet? Everyone has the right to show their opinion, but I do not expect this type of journalism to become as revolutionary as the article implies.
I don't see this as a big revolution. There are allready millions of people who don't travel anywhere without their camcorder. For the sake of news worthiness video will still have to go through a review process to ensure authenticity, accuracy, whatever. Plus is the quality going to afford the images to be used for news events? Is the clarity and size even available from phones? If anything this will generate a whole boat-load of new short clips for the real-life-video shows that abound. Not that seeing people do stupid stuff isn't entertaining; there is just so much allready that I don't think another new media will make that much of a difference. -my $0.02
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs" - George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
In case you can't be bothered to click the link...
... Because the winners and losers of the era of mobile media aren't decided yet ... the uncertainty of the situation presents an opportunity: Informed action in the near future could influence the way this nascent media culture develops -- or fails to develop -- for decades to come."
... Putting video cameras and high-speed Net connections in telephones, however, moves blogging into the streets. By the time this book is published, I'm confident that street bloggers will have constructed a worldwide culture."
Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism
But futurist Howard Rheingold says the ultimate democratization of the media will not be about technological advances; rather, it will entail upholding old-fashioned standards to earn viewers' trust.
Howard Rheingold
Posted: 2003-07-09
Editor's Note: On July 5, a few dozen mobile bloggers -- Web publishers who post photos, video and text to the Web from cell phones and other mobile devices -- gathered in Tokyo for the First International Moblogging Conference. The event was particularly resonant for author Howard Rheingold, who predicted in his book "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" that advances in technology would soon give everyone the tools they need to publish independent reports of news events as they are happening directly to the Web and other platforms.
"The moblogging conference is evidence that the culture of street bloggers I anticipated has sprouted in the real world," Rheingold writes. "I love watching a preposterous prediction materialize with baffling swiftness, especially when I was the fool who put the forecast in writing in the first place."
We asked Rheingold to pull together his thoughts on moblogging and how it will change journalism: Does the nascent moblogging movement mean journalism will eventually become more democratized, or is moblogging a fad destined to only ever be chic among a geeky minority?
Will the next Tiananmen Square uprising, the next shuttle crash or Rodney King beating be broadcast from thousands of citizen reporters' phones? Will average citizens eventually be part of the media machine, regularly contributing to and creating their own news reports, instead of just consuming them?
Rheingold's prediction: The answer is being formed today, and moblogging "is one of the leading indicators to watch as the shape of the new mediasphere becomes visible
Smart Mobs Revisited
By Howard Rheingold
Although I could not be physically present at the First International Moblogging Conference, I was happy that it happened and delighted that it happened in Tokyo, if only because it vividly conjured the reality I had conjectured in "Smart Mobs" in October 2002: "What if smart mobs could empower entire populations to engage in peer-to-peer journalism? Imagine the power of the Rodney King video multiplied by the power of Napster.
I quoted Justin Hall in "Smart Mobs" regarding the scenario that became technically possible in 2001, when one of the first mobile videophones fell into our hands and we wandered Tokyo, wondering what, exactly to do with it.
Hall, who was one of the conference attendees, wrote in 2002: "With the technology in place, it's only a matter of time before an amateur news video is directly distributed to the Web, or to 10 friends in video mail in a news chain letter. When that happens, this new form of news distribution will become the news, and then, ultimately, it will be no big deal."
As I write this, the world is in transition from my prediction and Justin's -- a moment when it is obvious that a new social phenomenon is emerging but it is not yet clear whether we are seeing a fad that is destined to be assimilated, commoditized, and/or disinformated, or whether we are witnessing the emergence of a powerful new medium for collective action, like the literacy that was enabled by the printing press
"This is so tiny that it's like considering a single butterfly's wings when forecasting the weather. It's negligible."
Is the weather really better with the Butterfly?
Last time I saw the rainbow-winged dude (on TV, boiling rubber dog bones in the kitchen), he was not so tiny.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the real problem here is that none of these "mobloggers" is going to have the money to be free to just report news all day. it is the job of "real" reporters to just find news, all day, seven days a week. if you're busy driving to work and earning a buck, you aren't free to only produce news. who has time to check sources/etc.? i'm sure other slashdotters will mention the fact that since there is no real moderation on individual blogs, getting decent news from these sites will also be a time consuming, tedious task. i look forward to seeing solutions to these problems.
" So what if tianamen square does happen, won't everyone that owns a phone there get /.'ed?"
Hey, this is Red China you are talking about. When you get slashdotted there, a bullet is involved and it is followed by a disposal in an unmarked grave.
(This will soon be improved with cell phones modified to Beijing standards which include a lethal gas canister that can be controlled by the Red Chinese government in case unauthorized phone calls are made)
So Journalism becomes aggregated rumor and mobthought? Thanks but no thanks.
While there are certainly problems with current Journalism (see New York Times, and the rush for all networks to become like Fox News in the wake of Iraq) I still like knowing where my news comes from and having some entity to hold responsible for the coverage.
Individual testimonials and stories have their place too, but the people on the street have their own axes to grind as much as the media does and do not as frequently distinguish between fact and rumor. (How many idiots on the internet will scream "Bush is a Coke-Head" or "Clinton had people murdered!" like it's gospel)
Journalism is in enough trouble with corporate consolidation and deregulation, but this is too much.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Yup, thing just keep getting better... now we get to see pictures from peoples' monotonous lives as well as reading their whining. Don't the future sound grand?
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
"While there are certainly problems with current Journalism (see New York Times, and the rush for all networks to become like Fox News in the wake of Iraq)"
Improving standards to the level of Fox News is not a problem. Maybe places like the New York Times will start hiring on ability instead of race (see the Jayson case).
"Journalism is in enough trouble with corporate consolidation and deregulation, but this is too much."
There is no consolidation: media voices have been steadily increasing in number (check the national TV news outlets 30 years ago compared to now: they have more than doubled, with none being lost). Deregulation is not the problem, but regulation is. The fewer restrictions on the First Amendment, the better it is.
Maybe I'll finally get to see what that one girl that keeps sending me five or six emails a day looks like too...I think her name was BritannyXXX--HOT--XXXBritanny or something.
>> Rheingold Preaches Mob-Logging
Is he preacing Mob-Logging?
Or does he just want Mo-Blogging?
Slashdot is a real big success story. The moderation system makes sure I see only at least remotely relevant or funny stuff.
Now checkout tv.oneworld.net
that already does quite cool stuff with short videos uploaded by virtually anyone.If both are combined I could really imagine this to be useful. Imagine something like slashdot where editors select stories. Everybody would then sortof upload their clips that would get moderated. I dont see why this should not be possible.
Googlefight "Slashdot Troll" against "BSD is dying" 303:229. BSD thus cant die.
anyone else sees a connection?
maybe its the future, maybe someone just had a field day at the library..
"We have media conglomerates such as Clear Channel and others who want to own every outlet of media in the country while at the same time ignoring the demands of what people want."
The Clear Channel control thing is a myth: they control about 8% of radio stations in the country, and even in large markets, the stations owned by them are usually outnumbered by stations owned by someone else.
If things go their way and they double the number of stations then own, it would still be less than 20%.
Clear Channel gets big by giving the people what they want: sad as it is, a lot of people love bad pop. This is how they get such large listener shares.
I propose calling'em "phrakers".
Jesus, people, get a clue. The whole frickin' article is about the emergent problem of journalistic credibility vs. moblogging.
Blogs, RSS syndication, RSS aggregators, metablogs and reputation systems like Technorati and NewsMonster now offer a dynamic and rapidly evolving collective editorial filtering system.
His entire thesis is that the emerging moblogging culture will need to put safeguards into place, like reputation systems. He's not talking about aggregating rumor or mobthought, but the need for mechanisms to sift the wheat from the chaff so that you have rapidly emerging, true information without a paid editorial staff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds alot like Open Source Journalism, collectively written and peer-reviewed.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Blogs probably won't die anytime soon, but who really cares about reading whiny rants of nobodies?
There is no whitewashing of the media in the US, where the media free and uncontrolled. In England, you have the BBC which is government-controlled.
I worked for a company in the dot-com craze that hired some consultants from the company Rheingold works for, and I must say that what they produced what the biggest crap I've seen in my time as a software developer.
I think the term is moblogging ("moe-blogging") as in mobile weblogging. It's a little confusing in that it talks about mobs of people using mobile devices. You can follow the link to the origin of the word.
Wow! There's VIDEOS of Goatse.cx? Link Me!
Can you imagine using BitTorrent for the videos? It's perfectly suited for handling flash crowds. All Slashdot would really need to post is the control file. Maybe the video file, temporarily, just to kick it off if the author has gone offline while waiting for it to post.
See www.moblog.nl
Insert nifty comment here
Rheingold gives us more of his simplistic technological determinism and poorly researched and non-empirical ideas.
So what? A group of people read his work and then actually rush to be the first to wet their pants as he can name them as actually implementing his ideas!?! How lame is that?
Much more interesting would be a book that actually analysed how the media corporations will use this technology in embedding at a lower level than already shown in the Gulf War. This was perhaps the most potent demonstration of how technology allows us to see everything in real time, but as we are overwhelmed we don't critique, we don't listen and it becomes purely background entertainment.
For instance in the Gulf War lots was happening in Basra and on the Baghdad Rd, we knew that as there were so many Embeds. BUT what exactly were the US and Brits up to in Western Iraq and Northern Iraq where the Embeds were forbidden (or perhaps persuaded) not to go? We will never know as we were all so sick of footage from the 'media' bit of Iraq that we truly couldn't be bothered to find out...
That is the power of moblogs... Control through information overload... coming soon...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Maybe I'm alone, maybe I'm not, but I've never visited a blog on a regular basis, unless the blog is in front of something else that I want, I probably wouldn't ever see one. So, maybe you can help me out? Where do I even begin looking for useful/meaningful blogs?
To me, I hear all about blogs, but have never ever found an interesting or useful one. Come to think of it, I haven't even seen that many. So maybe there's an index I'm missing? Or maybe I need to get more saavy friends?! whatever.
It seems like blogs and their importance are all hype.
What in the hell is the point of this article? This guy spouts off about this conference that he didn't even attend. Big fucking deal. I probably know as much about the conference as this guy does. Want to hear what I have to say? No? Oh but this guy is a "futurist". Wow. Now that carries some weight with me. What does this self-proclaimed "futurist" have to say about some conference that he didn't attend? I'm also curious as to what he thought of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Anyone have a link to his expert opinion on that movie?
Indymedia has been doing this kind of stuff for years. Its a network of websites where people upload multimedia news content. It started off as an event based thing around protests (Seattle '99) but has grown into a network of over 100 sites worldwide, that try to provide community news coverage on an ongoing basis.
For most of the coverage is not done live, ie people take pictures, video, etc and then go back home or to a community media center and then upload it. There have been a wide variety of live wireless strategies used including:
- internet radio stream with live callins via cellphone (most popular)
- phone cams
- sms gateway
- onsite kiosk provided via 3G phone, for picture upload, live chat
- live 802.11b video streaming
Since Seattle '99 thousands of a/v clips, tens of thousands of photos and hundreds of thousands of text articles have been contributed to this collaborative news platform.
We've done some stuff with syndication of our content but the protocols don't exist yet to fully exchange multimedia content.
One thing that I think Indymedia has that blog culture doesn't is that its not "just a website". The websites function to allow anyone to participate but that's generally not thought to be sufficient. Each of the 100+ nodes in the network has a group of people that work to cultivate a liberated media space by doing things like provide training on how to do multimedia and reporting, holds film showings, provides technical support, publish newspapers, etc.
I work with DC Indymedia.
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO
As I have stated here before, to be considered "journalism", trust of the source is a required characteristic. Rheingold himself makes this point:
"Journalism, if it is to deserve the name, is not about the quality of the camera, but about the journalist's intuition, integrity, courage, inquisitiveness, analytic and expressive capabilities, and above all, the trust the journalist has earned among readers."
Whether we call it journalism or not, we all participate in communities of trusted information. We talk with our friends and family about politics, co-workers about innovations in technology, etc. Who we choose to believe or listen to within these groups is based upon how much we trust the other party. The so-called democratization of journalism is nothing more than the globalization of the chat around the water-cooler.
Improvements in technology will not improve the quality of the content (in fact, it will probably bias it towards the prurient and salacious), but it does increase the pool of potential reporters. While we will undoubtedly see the rise of individuals that draw a devoted gathering (ala Matt Drudge), the "traditional" media sources will continue to be important as reliable, trusted sources.
Widespread moblogging technology is still far off, but it's impossible to deny the impact of blogging on the world of journalism. I get news from the Progressive Review, Tom Tomorrow and Atrios' Eschaton. To round things off I go to right wing and libertarian blogs. And of course /. ; )
Interesting to note, South Korea has a citizen news networkThe key idea is establishing trust networks through filtering. Ultimately we will wind up with a more accurate system.
harmonious design
I for one can't wait for the Götterdammerung that will result from this one.
What the hell does Götterdammerung mean? Speak English, man! If the Romulans, Ferengi and Borg all speak English, is it really too much to ask that you speak it as well? Sheesh...
GMD
watch this
i came across this stuff on harvard professor's blog (which is extremely ironic). he basically hinted that once upon a time "content was precious". You had to pay the typesetter, the publisher and the author for it. Additionaly as a reader you also needed to purchase the content. but today "content is like sewage". now again, "what is sewage ?". sewage is not just some crap floating around. its just stuff in the wrong place. you got liquids, food, inorganic material, bacteria, fungi and a lot of other things. there is a concept of recycling. you take the useful stuff out of the sewage. by "useful" i mean stuff which society needs today. the usefulness is an abstract and personalized concept. much like the process of distillation of petroleum. every part has its use. if something doesn't have, it wont be long before someone finds a use. i was thinking about a software application which could be fine tuned to do the process of distillation from the sewage. sort of like "google" but independent, transparent , monitorable and incrementally finetuned by a group of people who dont know each other. i though "slashdot" was an excellent example of it, however group dynamics indicate that its too "leady". now I dont want to really rush it and say here's an application which will get you what you want (like a date on a saturday night whose blogs reflect a % similarity using some bayesian algorithm with yours). this really becomes too influential, since a textual representation of a person's life and creativity is different from what he is actually. probably such an application is already being built and I will find it. scientifically, i guess its not possible to produce intelligence, by just "googling" the web /building a common-sense database like mindpixel/using CBR or AI. Probably the barriers to what Iam envisioning are too many and something scientific is blocking my understanding.
However, I do feel that we are moving towards it day-in and day-out (an ad in maxim mag : " You know how to search. Do you know how to find ?").
One biggest barrier to this which is being overcome today, is society is being a lot more open, a lot more fearless than it used to be. MIT courseware is online, ARXVIV is a phenomenal database of cutting edge research. Think of all the things you can learn by
spending a trifling amount to surf this. Think of all the things you can discover about how
you are learning, what you are learning.
Once we have that understanding, Once we have the knowledge, the question which remains to be asked is "Can we transfer this learning to a computer ?". If so what is the
difference. Only time will tell.
On the contrary it's a breath of fresh air.
Bloggers are successfully challenging the accuracy and more critically the relevancy of print and broadcast journalisms. At present the audience/community base is small, but for those who participate the blogosphere is an excellent source of topical information, opinions, and ideas. Facts are checked, opinions are challenged and debated. Ideas evolve. The level of discussion is often quite high, and compares favorably to more traditionally structured public debate forums.
To take an example we all know, there can be little doubt that the discussions of the SCO/Linux dispute that take place on slashdot are more informative and broadly accurate than anything put out by rueters or hacks for the business wires. Broadly accurate. I mean that the distillations (esp. those that rise to +5 in the course of debate) take in a variety of perspectives and reflect a sophisticated grasp of the issues. +5 funny included. The nonconclusiveness of the message board format becomes a strength. The reader can examine opposing viewpoints fairly represented by their adherents, rather than reduced to soundbites or quotables. Biases are revealed and challenged. Points are followed up on and expanded as needed. It's wonderful.
Where Rheingold points to "a new species of literacy," he misses something crucial. The values he places on stories, "attention-getting, non-trivial and credible," are not the best reflection of the new media's capabilities. Especially the idea of getting attention rings a little oldschool. Blogging is a form in which ideas are easily revisited. That privileges robustness of thinking, insightfulness, and multifaceted understanding over the knack for grabbing eyeballs. "Engaging" perhaps is the word for it.
A real change is afoot. In some of the lefty bloggyzines I frequent, stories are selected for their unique and sound grasp of the issues of the day. Knowledge is more on display than writerly chops. Stories come from academics, scholars, activists, government professionals and others whose ideas are compelling, even when their writing style is unpolished.
Does that scare you? Should it?
awww shit, no m'man, you got that shit all wrong.
It's mo' blogs... hell cuz' we ain't got enuf 'blogs already, we need mo.
I don't find that it is all that dificult to find "accuracy on the Internet." Go to Google, run a few searches in tabs(tnx, safari) check out competing claims, and make your best judgement. Tell me, how do you judge accuracy in books. I generally go by the publisher, author, writing style, wealth of footnotes and a nice bibliography. The internet is not much different.
harmonious design
Hmm, weird, I thought that he had LIED to you in the State of the Union, or at least make a large enough 'honest mistake' that the result has been the deaths of hundreds of american kids for no real reason (and the number of times they've changed their story, "Supporting Terrorists!" "Oppressing the Iraqis!" "Developing WMDs!" "Supporting Terrorists!" "Developing WMDs!" "No, there were no WMDs, but they were Supporting Terrorists!" shows how much they were lying)
I also thought he willingly and knowingly sabotaged the USA's reputation throughout the world, covering it with a tarnish that will be felt for decades at least.
Apparently I was mistaken.
Random and weird software I've written.
Personally liked Valkyrie better than Rheingold. As for paying to watch internet video on a cell phone, basic cable costs $42 a month already, the picture is a lot better, and you can keep the footage for posterity.
Let me eplain it to you, what you call narcissism.
The President travels in a media bubble. He uses pool reporting, with reporters close to the President relaying information to reporters gathered at the periphery. The information flow is largely oneway. All of the reporters are focused on the President. This creates a kind of stage for him, a political theatre. The problem with this, in terms of accuracy and fairness and objectivity, is that the real newsworthy events may be occuring on the streets, and not inside the official bubble. Reporters often miss this because they aren't looking, structurally, attitudanally, practically.
If, as some hypothesize, reporters focus on the official stage because it makes good theatre, then it is logical to assume reporters would shift their focus to the streets if events in the streets were more theatrical. There you go. Puppet shows.
That does not describe a narcissistic mentality. Get out a little more.
No one's looking to make a living as a cellphone reporter, but what happens when the next Rodney King type situation occurs? Whatever happened to the guy who shot that footage? Does anyone care? He was in the right place at the right time with a bit of consumer-grade technology and he managed to change a city.
In one sense, he added a new system of checks and balances where none existed before.
Look for more of that.
I carry a big camera everywhere and because I do, I get shots that someone with no camera would obviously miss. Here in Tokyo, almost every cellphone has a camera. I doubt many shots will get missed in the future.
The technology has become ubiquitous and cheap - the real value will follow later as people get beyond the "Hi, this is me!" snapshots.
As for the value of blogs as a news source, keep in mind that most of these blog writers are used to having less than 10 readers, yet they still write. When they get something good, it gets noticed and passed around. Eventually it will end up on daypop or fark or one of the other aggregation sites and then you have your news/opinion article. Every day it's someone new, yet there is a steady stream of material.
Things like this work themselves out.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
The problem with this, in terms of accuracy and fairness and objectivity, is that the real newsworthy events may be occuring on the streets, and not inside the official bubble.
No. Real newsworthy events are not "occurring on the street". (They are, in some cases, like in Hong Kong and Iran today, or with the anti-war protests in the last year, but you can bet the leaders and are aware of those instances.)
If you think you and your stilt-walking buddies are "real newsworthy events" it's not me who needs to get out more.
"Hmm, weird, I thought that he had LIED to you in the State of the Union"
You thought wrong.
"has been the deaths of hundreds of american kids for no real reason"
There were and are plenty of good reasons.
"(and the number of times they've changed their story, "Supporting Terrorists!" "Oppressing the Iraqis!" "Developing WMDs!" "Supporting Terrorists!"
It is not a story change. It is a fact of many good reasons.
"...shows how much they were lying"
You haven't shown a single lie.
"I also thought he willingly and knowingly sabotaged the USA's reputation throughout the world, covering it with a tarnish that will be felt for decades at least."
He didn't. He improved the country's reputation. So what if he got a bunch of hatemongers a little angrier.
"How can you trust NBC when it is a subsidiary of GE"
The real reason you can't trust NBC is because of its left-wing ideology. At least it is not as bad as CBS, whose main news guy is fundraiser for leftists in his spare time.
"Granted, these institutions have broken many quality news items but what is left unsaid is truly staggering. They have a vested interest in controlling the future."
Which is why factual and balanced alternatives such as Fox News are all the more valuable.
" I get news from the Progressive Review"
That is the problem there. That is a neo-Stalinist journal that is pretty much 100% editorializing. They start with a bankrupt ideology, and only reports what fits it (or they twist things to fit a worldview that has nothing to do with the real world).
Check out the "up and coming" version of Pivot (GPL CMS System). It will have moblogging capabilities.
more info
Buzznet is back as a moblog, and it's community based. Right now there are a few locations that can be posted to, but any event/location can be community blogged to. http://www.buzznet.com
coming to you live on Network 23.
Video + Blogging = Max Headroom
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
That's right, no ideas. Just keep leeching off the old ones. Moblog? Ho hum.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
The problem with the camera phones and such, as they presently exist, is interception. The government already has the infrastructure to monitor your mobile phone's calls and messages. When something happens, it'll be very easy to see which subversive free-thinkers are sending pictures of the event. Forget about having anything like the Zapruder film next time something big happens. Accounts of the event will be instantly censored for quick coverup by big brother.
For blogging to be useful for any news more controversial than your pet's latest chew-toy, we need a mechanism for censorship resistance. Communications between phones and internet hosts should be strongly encrypted, and users should be able to choose anonymity for publishing sensitive material.
Freenet is nearly perfect for this. It's a little too bulky for the current generation of Java-capable phones, but in a year or two we should see handsets with very powerful JVMs. Freenet 'blogs, or flogs, will become increasingly important as awareness of government eavesdropping increases. Being able to update a flog and instantly add pictures, right from your phone at the scene of an event, will vastly improve the reporting of important news. At the moment this would require carrying a laptop, which is not only bulky, it's conspicuous.
Bloggers need to embrace Freenet en masse, to secure their right to uncensored, optionally anonymous publication and communication. If you could say anything at all, what would you publish? You can, please do.
Howard got lucky with The WELL, and now he thinks he's a "visionary".
Anyone else remember Electric Minds? The most over-hyped, under-valued message board system in the history of the Internet?
That was Howard's still-born baby.
I wonder if Softbank ever got their money back for "investing" in that disaster.
My mob is Rheingold, the smart mob!
by most definitions
;-)
though you did say "Where do I even begin looking for useful/meaningful blogs?"
As far as a blogging index, try technorati, daypop, blogdex or the blogrolls (links to other blogs) from kottke.org rebeccablood.net (or other blogging grandparents) or check out eatonweb.com and the original weblog portal.
sorry, no time to code links for you....
/. is going to do their typical whitewashing since Rheingold is reading..
While the panelists agreed that blogging and moblogging doesn't automatically qualify as journalism, they did say that it CAN be journalism if journalistic principles are applied.
One of the more interesting comments was from technology journalist David Akin, who said that experiments that enlist moblogging citizens with camera phones to send their photos to news sites may be cool and fun and interesting, but it's not news by longshot, mainly because they lack the professional journalistic skills to identify what qualifies as news.
>You haven't shown a single lie.
You haven't been reading.
"False" has been changed to "Dubious" to be politically correct for the Cheney-Rumsfeld regime.
>He improved the country's reputation.
Here's an improved reputation
>So what if he got a bunch of hatemongers a little angrier.
You give little credit to our patriotic politicians
Very truly yours,
W00t
Get Your War On 19
"t does, but pictures need captions, videos typically have stories. For instance video one (seen in USA: tons of peasants tearing down statue of Saddam) video two (seen elsewhere, about 50 peasants in the middle of an empty square, blocked off by US tanks,"
Where are you located? I saw the small-number-of-peasants shown and discussed all over in U.S. media for days.
" it's a shame that the major media outlets in the US are doing such a terrible job"
They didn't. You just did a terrible job seeing only what you wanted to see.
Do you have anything factual, other than cooked reports from obviously biased left-wing news sources?
It's your turn to cite some sources even
if they are biased toward the chump-in-charge.