Email Era Over?

"Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over." So begins a column by Jessica Vascellaro in today's WSJ. We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether ...

Killing Presidents

Related controversies roiling the blogosphere today point to the dark side of American politics. First, NewsMax ran an article by a John L. Perry titled "Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention.’" It has apparently been removed from the site (it's now directing to the home page and isn't showing along with the author's other pieces) but the excerpt says "There ...

3 Ways to Avoid Drowing in Information

Steve Rubel offers "Three Tips for Managing the Stream Before it Manages You." Between email, blog feeds, Twitter, Facebook, and various other applications out there, we've all got too much information to contend with. Those of us in the information business are even more overwhelmed because we both need to follow more things and figure out ...

Sextortion in High School

GQ has a rather weird piece about something that may or may not be a trend:  High school kids using the Internet to extort sexual favors.  This one has a twist, which I'll lot Conor Friedersdorf summarize: Tony Stancl, an 18 year old high school senior who created a fake female identity on Facebook, flirted with male classmates by Internet chat, ...

Blogs ARE Social Media

Copyblogger's Brian Clark has noticed a distinction developing between blogs on the one hand and "social media" on the other.  He rightly notes that "blogs were the first modern form of social media" and thus the distinction is artificial. My sense is that, blogs are indeed social media, they’re definitely of a different piece than Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and whatnot. ...

Information Deficit Disorder

Via Twitter, James Poulos passes along an interesting piece by Conor Friedersdorf titled "Iran, Twitter, and The American Information Elite."  Basically, he noticed over the weekend that all of his blogger/journalist friends were intensely aware of what was happening in Iran whereas other well educated people he encountered hadn't the slightest clue. I can't help noticing that information elites are able ...

Gen. Odierno Using Facebook

In half a day after mentioning his Facebook page on CNN this morning, US General Ray Odierno's supporters have increased by an order of magnitude: It did not take long for Facebook users to respond to U.S. General Ray Odierno’s Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. In less than seven hours, Odierno has increased the number of “supporters” connected to ...

Screwing Off Increases Productivity!

Firms spend millions and go through a lot to keep their workers from goofing off on the Internet.  That may not be such a good idea: Caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? It'll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity. The University of Melbourne study showed ...

Will Twitter Kill the Blogging Star?

Rand Fishking and Darren Rowse have noted a remarkable decline in the social nature of blogs, most notably the culture of inter-linking, and think Twitter and other social media outlets may be partly to blame. In 2006, a popular blog post or piece of content would generate a remarkable amount of blogging activity. It wasn't uncommon for a few hundred small ...

Twitter Etiquette: Are Tweets Fair Game?

TAP's Adam Serwer and TPM's David Kurtz independently report that ABC's Jake Tapper has blocked them from following his Twitter feed. They note the irony that a journalist who expects politicians to be transparent is doing this. I happen to follow Tapper -- and am apparently not important enough to block -- and see that he has unblocked TPM and that ...

Favreau Gropes Clinton (Cardboard Cutout)

Jon Favreau, the 27-year-old speechwriter to Barack Obama, was photographed with his hand on the, er, lower shoulder of a cardboard cutout of Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton.  Dee Dee Myers, for one, is not amused. My friends from college and in the years just beyond can testify that I did some things then that I wouldn’t want to see on ...

Twitter Revolution Will Not be Televised

Kathleen Parker seems vaguely annoyed by the Twitter phenomenon. Shorter than a blog posting, a "tweet" consists of a concise sentence or two and essentially answers the question: What are you doing? [...] On Planet Facebook, nothing in one's life is not worth mentioning. To what end, one can only surmise. I am, therefore I am, therefore I am. But what are friends ...

Congress Banning Social Media?

As if to prove Robert Heinlein correct, the House Administration Committee is, apparently with honorable intent, considering effectively banning the use of popular social media sites, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook by Members. Soren Dayton couches this in partisan terms: "In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation." In fact, though, it appears ...

Brian Beutler Shot in DC Mugging

Blogger Brian Beutler was shot in DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood Monday night, Greg Sargent reports for TPM. Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C. One bullet damaged Beutler's spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at the Washington Hospital Center. He's expected to make a "pre-trauma" recovery, ...

Presidents and Computer Literacy

Jane Hamsher wants to know, "If You Can’t Use a Computer, How Can You Be President?" I chuckled when I saw the story at memeorandum since, after all, it's unlikely that any president before Bill Clinton could "use" a computer in any meaningful sense. (Maybe Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer in a past life, could, too, but proficiency ...