Interesting stuff I saw online, May. 30 to May. 31
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from May. 30 through May. 31:
- Four observations about charging for news that are often overlooked – “Plenty has been written about the futility of erecting pay walls — much of which I agree with — but a few points are often overlooked.”
- 100 Amazing Free WordPress Themes for 2009 – “High quality free WordPress Themes have become harder and harder to find in the past year, with the influx of premium themes, more and more designers and developers are selling themes (and rightly so, they do amazing work). But, that aside, the quality is certainly there, and we are sure you will be impressed with this WordPress theme compilation for 2009.”
- Getting the mean out of comments – A group of citizens meeting on the evening of May 20 in Knoxville over sandwiches and sweet tea might be end up influencing how news sites across the country view and manage comments.
- Cyberbullying: What the research is telling us… – “Delivered to the Year of the Child summit, this talk surveys the current research on cyberbullying and online harassment, pulling in Pew Internet data as well as the work of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, Internet Solutions for Kids and other academics and scholars researching this topic.”
Interesting stuff I saw online, Feb. 26 to Mar. 3
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Feb. 26 through Mar. 3:
- Coverage Plan: The San Francisco Post-Chronicle – Fascinating. Via Journerdism.
- How The Globe and Mail uses social media to engage its audience – Mathew Ingram at the G&M: "That means I am trying to think of — and follow through on — as many different methods of creating, enhancing, fertilizing and connecting with communities of readers around various topics as I can."
- Digg Is Working On a Toolbar To Go After StumbleUpon, TinyURL, and All The Rest – From TechCrunch: "A super-secret Digg toolbar has been spotted in the wild. We tracked down a beta tester who gave us the skinny on its features. The toolbar lets you Digg or Bury the page you are on, and shows how many Diggs it has already received." Plus, it includes tinyurl-like functionality and a random feature like StumbleUpon.
- 15 Useful WordPress Tricks to Make Your Theme Even Better – From ForTheLose.org: "Here are only a few of the many great snippets of code that will take your current theme creation and make it that much better."
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.
Interesting stuff I saw online, Feb. 9 to Feb. 13
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Feb. 9 through Feb. 13:
- Gmail: 90 Tools And Tips To Make You A Gmail Pro – "The following article contains all the tools and tips needed to make you a Gmail pro. It contains the best Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey scripts, desktop tools as well as how tos and other tips that will increase the functionality of Gmail immensely."
- Screencast: How to use Twitter for reporting – Beatblogging.org: "This screencast goes over how I use Twitter for reporting. This is not a beginner video, but many newcomers to Twitter will be able to watch this and quickly understand what is going on."
- First Ever Permanent WordPress Tattoo – I like WordPress…but not this much. Lorelle on WordPress reports, "He’s putting a permanent tattoo on his body (forearm) because blogging with WordPress changed his life and he wants to honor it by adding to his tattoo body art collection."
- What’s in it for journalists on Twitter? – From Patrick Thornton: "Do I really want to find out what someone is eating for lunch? Won’t Twitter just increase the noise in my life? How can anything meaningful be said in 140 characters or less? These are all questions I’ve heard. My response: avoid Twitter at your own peril. Twitter and other social networks are helping to redefine beat reporting."
Interesting stuff I saw online, Jan. 27 to Jan. 31
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Jan. 27 through Jan. 31:
- Angela Foster: As the recession grows, publications serving Britain's ethnic communities are more relevant than ever – An item that I'll put in our Post-Dispatch blog, A Conversation about Race: "So is there still a need for the black press? Yes. There are still many issues affecting the black community that do not get covered in many mainstream papers – for instance, the disproportionate number of black people in mental health institutions and the high school exclusion rates for black boys." [via the Guardian]
- Editing comments does not make you legally liable | BeatBlogging.Org – This falsehood must stop now. It’s been used — knowingly and unknowingly — by news organizations for years as justification not to allow user comments. [via journalism.uk.org]
- Nieman Reports Article: When Journalists Blog: How It Changes What They Do – "In generating story ideas, blogging journalists don’t need someone to tell them who the readers are and what they want: They already know, because the readers are on their blogs, telling them who they are and what they’re curious about. In this new blogging relationship, editors are the middlemen being cut out." [via Journerdism]
- 10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress – Smashing Magazine: "The administration area of a Web application is a favorite target of hackers and thus particularly well protected. The same goes for WordPress: when creating a blog, the system creates an administrative user with a perfectly secure password and blocks public access to the settings area with a log-in page."
- Getting Crisis Communications Right: Miracle on the Hudson – Brief but interesting post: "A crisis is one of the trickiest things that companies, organizations and municipalities can be forced to deal with. That is why the majority has such a hard time doing it right. Why is that?" [via @VandiverGroup on Twitter]
Kurt's Tweets- 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.
- Realizing how woefully out of touch I have been with this part of the county. (@ Saint Louis Bread Company) http://4sq.com/5z5Bfh