How Google has invaded my life in just 11 years
Yesterday’s Gmail outage inspired a stunning tidal wave of Twitter activity, demonstrating how thoroughly Google’s e-mail service has wedged its way into people’s lives. It reminded me of a post I’ve pondered for awhile: How many times does Google touch my life in a day?
Ultimately, I decided not to write it that way. Google touches my life too many times in a day. It would be a pretty boring narrative to describe a day in the life of Google and me. But I am still compelled by the idea of how many ways Google has become entwined with my life. Just 11 years ago (to the month), Google was incorporated. We’d never heard of it. It was just another search engine. And now, I can’t imagine getting along without it. Read more
The interesting stuff I saw online, Aug. 19
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Aug. 19 from 7:46 pm to 8:37 pm:
- Let It Be 26True. Beatles And iTunes Come Together Again In Rumors – I'm gonna have to buy all these Beatles CDs again, for the third time.
- You’re Doing It Wrong Part 348: Complete And Utter PR FAIL – Great post. I was hit by this PR firm spam blizzard today and didn't get a chance to blog about it myself. Thanks, TechCrunch, for taking care of it for me.
- The Limits of Control – "With journalists and their employers increasingly active on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, news organizations are struggling to respond to a host of new ethics challenges."
- MediaShift . Journalism Students Need to Develop Their Personal Brand | PBS – "As a journalism professor, I have found there is one thing guaranteed to set off a flurry of frenzied activity in the classroom. It has nothing to do with exams or story deadlines. Rather, it is prompted by a simple question to students: How many own your name as a domain name?"
- Lost Remote: The Business of Journalism – "When a source told WCCO-TV’s Mark Rosen that Brett Favre would join the Minnesota Vikings, he sent out a tweet. Moments later, other reporters re-tweeted the news, and it was piped out to Facebook. Soon, WCCO was one of the top three trending topics on Twitter, reports MinnPost, sending a big traffic burst to WCCO.com. The tweet beat WCCO’s TV coverage, but not by much."
Interesting stuff I saw online, Feb. 21 to Feb. 24
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Feb. 21 through Feb. 24:
- Debate: The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and online media – While I really, really wish "traditional" media would evolve faster, it has and always will evolve. There doesn't need to be an "us vs. them" mentality — especially if news is a conversation and we're all part of it. "Both the old and new media have their own wisdom," Salina Christmas, former newspaper journalist turned web editor, tells Journalism.co.uk.
- Another Way To Look At Terms Of Service Agreements: Wordle Visualizations – TechCrunch says: "Pointless? Very. Cool? Definitely…..This is what you get when you use a slick tool like Wordle (try it!) to run all the words used to make up the Terms of Service agreements of seven notable internet companies: cool visualizations that somewhat capture the essence of their content."
- WordPress Plugin List – Below is a list of WorPress Plugins that can come in handy when building your site.
- How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility – Interesting post about imposters on Twitter, though I think its headline doesn't do it justice.
The interesting stuff I saw online, Feb. 17
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet on Feb. 17 from 8:27 am to 8:59 am:
- Trekkies Guide To Twitter – From TrekMovie.com: "A few big Trek celebrities are tweeting. The King of all Trek Twitter is @wilw (Wil Wheaton) who with around 90,000 is ranked 15th in total followers. Other Trek Twitterers in the top 200 are @LeVarburton (LeVar Burton) and @BrentSpiner (Brent Spiner). Rounding out the Trek celeb list are @georgetakei (George Takei), @WilliamShatner (William Shatner), @leonardnimoy (Leonard Nimoy), and @jj_abrams (JJ Abrams)."
- Get The Most From Google Analytics – Bless you, GrokDotCom: "Here’s a great list of Analytics tutorials, including topics like linking your AdWords and Analytics together, setting up goal tracking, creating profiles, etc." (via NewsTechzilla)
- The “new newsroom” is being created one reporter at a time – Nieman Journalism Lab: "PR whiz Steve Rubel says he looks a lot like Peter Abraham, who is not some vaporware demo from 2015, but a flesh-and-blood reporter covering the Yankees spring training camp in Florida right now."
- Zuckerberg On Who Owns User Data On Facebook: It’s Complicated – More on Facebook from TechCrunch: "Zuckerberg is saying, “Trust us.” But it is difficult to trust a company that is stripping users of rights they’ve become accustomed to, even if hardly any of them ever actually asserted those rights in practice."
- Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Their Information – NYTimes.com: "Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, said in a blog post on Monday that the philosophy 'that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant.' Despite the complaints, he did not indicate the language would be revised."
Interesting stuff I saw online, Jan. 6 to Jan. 8
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Jan. 6 through Jan. 8:
- Corporate Blogging 101: What To Do With Comments – Blog – Standing Partnership – "Once clients get past all the discussion on this topic (and it is sometimes a long, drawn-out discussion) and decide, as we hope all clients will, to allow comments to be published, then clients want to know, 'How come there are no comments on our blog posts?'"
- Model Sues Google Over Snarky Blogger Remarks – Section 230, anyone? "The defamation suit, filed in Manhattan, seeks a court order compelling Google and its Blogger service to identify the anonymous blogger."
- Top Marketing Trends for 2009: Execs ‘Sick’ of Web 2.0 – A little scary: "Twice as many marketers are 'sick' of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as 'blogs' and 'social networking' compared with last year’s survey. However, marketers still admit they don’t know enough about it. This was evident in results from a November 2008 MENG social media study showing 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes."
- How the newspaper industry tried to invent the Web but failed – Slate Magazine – "Newspapers deserve bragging rights for having homesteaded the Web long before most government agencies and major corporations knew what a URL was. …One would expect to find plenty in the way of innovations and spinoffs. But … newspapers sought to invent the Web in their own image by repurposing the copy, values, and temperament found in their ink-and-paper editions."
Kurt's Tweets- Why is this not a national story? Maybe I missed it. Appalling. Disabled woman was tortured and held as a sex slave http://ow.ly/2CiAq
- Bravo. RT @pwthornton: "Banning unsigned online comments undermines the media’s role as a forum for debate.” http://bit.ly/bmZsOn
- I would like to just take the two steps forward and skip the one step back. How about that? Would that be OK?
- Still seeking talented journalists to run #Patch sites in two south St. Louis County communities. Know anyone? http://ow.ly/2Axnv
- Waiting for a listings collector to give her more #Patch marketing cards. The work never stops.