Archive for July 2nd, 2008
Blogged.com Launches Human-Powered News Tracker
In the ongoing internet battle between human editors and mechanized algorithms, there has been no clear victor. But competition in the space is heating up, and Blogged.com is betting on the humans. Well, their humans.
Blogged.com, a site that started off as a ratings-powered blog directory has branched out into new territory this morning. It’s now compiling the hottest news headlines by hand. Competing news tracking services like TechMeme, Google News, and BlogRunner use automated systems or a slight mix of automation and editorial choice to categorize news as it happens. Blogged’s will be entirely human-driven.
The move is a bit of a gamble to get people in the door. Once a user is looking at a story, they can dig into Blogged’s directory and check out its rating, hopefully coming back later to add their own. There’s also a new search tool that will let you search both blog listings and individual posts based on topic.
I got to ask founders Kenneth Yeh and Gladys Kong about the people behind these story selections. Apparently the team of feeders is the same group who’s behind the blog ratings. Believe it or not, that means they’re getting paid to sit around and read blog content in over a dozen different categories. “Our editors have pretty good taste,” Yeh said. Not to mention a job (Yeh says they’re hiring).
That same taste is what determines which stories get front page placement, even if someone else breaks the news first. The company is hoping quality will rule over velocity, although Yeh expects them to have approximate speed to the competitors.
Still on the horizon are additional ratings for writers, and a way to comb news using those ratings. “We are still working on that piece, as much as ratings,” said Yeh.
Tags: Technology | search | internet | news | Site | Website | HUMAN | POWERED | aggregated | Tech & Biz | blogged.com
Old vs. Gold: Denim Gets Decadent
Everybody loves getting crazy with their denim. I have a vague recollection of an early 90s grunge-inspired style of jeans that came pre-blasted with double barrel shotgun holes and sold for about $500.
Sound silly?
Well, how about paying an exorbitant price for new jeans that are not just sandblasted to ‘feel old’ but actually are old. As in worn. By someone. Before being sold to you. For too much money.
French clothing company APC has come out with new jeans that are either innovative or ridiculous depending on your point of view. The “Butler Worn Out” series are weathered, not by the traditional sandpaper method but rather by humans wearing them. This unconventional and time consuming method produces the desirable marks and soft feel of old jeans. To anyone considering these buying these (probably really expensive) pants, I have a suggestion: try a used clothing shop, lots of human pre-worn jeans there.
Sound silly?
Well, how about paying an exorbitant price for a pair of jeans dipped in gold? No, really. Hey, at least you’ll be getting your money’s worth. But it might be a little hard to find a washer/dryer set with a ‘precious metals’ setting. Good luck cleaning ‘em.[q url=" target="_blank"http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/goldplated-jeans-kohzo-denim-disco-pants"]It’s time to get your gold jeans!
Bronze denim is all the rage for both sexes; however, although designs are available for everyone, it’s not anyone that can pull them off.
Featured in this article are the Goldplated Jeans by Kohzo Denim. What’s most surprising about the shiny, straight-legged pants is that they are actually made of an organic cotton-blend.
“They are rock-washed and distressed before they get the gilded treatment with an 18K yellow gold painted finish,” Vivre Notes adds.[/q]
Tags: Fashion | Style | company | gold | CLOTHING | pants | traditional | jeans | Wearing | apc | method | gilded | Pre-Worn | sandpaper | kohzo
Facebook Blocked in China
This doesn’t bode well for 08.08.08 and beyond: just a few weeks after launching its service in China, Facebook has been blocked.
As of 4:26pm EST, are any NowPublic members in China able to access it?
Danwei readers in Beijing reported earlier today that Facebook seemed to be blocked. It was accessible in Shanghai this afternoon, but now seems to be blocked nationwide.
There’s more about this in a post by Sky Canaves on the Wall Street Journal blog.
Tags: China | Culture | Shanghai | Beijing | internet | Network | Website | Social | TIANJIN | facebook | blocked | access | culturite
‘Public Intellectuals 2.0′: Democratizing Free Speech?
OpenDemocracy has a great post today by Evgeny Morozov on the recent Citizen Media Summit (organized by our citizen-media internet neighbours Global Voices), which was held this past weekend in Budapest. The post and the summit raise important questions about the nature of free speech and democratized media, at a time when citizen-driven, or crowd-powered, media have facilitated the proliferation of blogging and citizen reporting around the world.
As Morozov accurately notes, not only has the exponential growth of the blogosphere led to ever-more online, micro-celebrity news feeding frenzies, it has also enabled a new generation of “public intellectuals” to emerge and establish themselves as a vital part of the global news media. And yet, just as these new voices emerge, many oppressive government regimes are cracking down on dissidents with ever-incresing ferocity.
Should bloggers be granted the same freedoms, rights and protections afforded to traditional journalists and reporters? If we are to acknowledge the critical role that citizen media play in redefining the news as we have known it, then we must endeavour to protect the ability for these emergent, global voices to be heard, disseminated and, most importantly, protected.
Many of the bloggers who gathered on 27-28 June 2008 in Budapest, Hungary for a Citizen Media Summit organised by Global Voices Online had at first glance an unlikely appearance. These representatives of a growing worldwide network of citizen journalists and digital activists looked rather studious, a touch morose, even – to many bloggers themselves a key marker of social distinction – uncool.
Moreover, these idealistic people did not talk much about gadgets, fashion, or campaign-financing; nor rush to praise or scorn Barack Obama or John McCain; nor fret over the latest celebrity-hunt or political trick in the style of Gawker or the Huffington Post. Instead, they got into heated discussions (often in heavily accented English) over a different set of topics: internet filtering, human-rights violations, and the future of freedom of expression.
This, then, was a different kind of blogger and a different order of reality. The background of many of the participants told the story: for in their countries of origin many at the Budapest gathering sustain their blogs in face of the threat or reality of arrest, intimidation and beating from the authorities. Their enemies are real, not imaginary. Their blogs are exercises in courage.
Some of the Global Voices bloggers based in the middle east, for example, were not able to travel to the conference because of their previous association with the organisation; others might face trouble on their return home. Yet they are willing – even eager – to take the risk of putting the problems of their countries and communities on the global agenda.
The sheer diversity of countries represented at the Budapest summit – with bloggers from places as diverse as Mauritania, Colombia, Bangladesh and Tajikistan – suggests that the phenomenon they represent is indeed genuinely global. Even in places with low internet penetration, blogs can still have a significant impact in creating channels to voice dissent and influence wider media networks. Kenyan bloggers, for example, have built synergistic relationships with the country’s radio journalists, who have come to rely on blogs for materials for their programmes, thus making blogs accessible (albeit indirectly) to virtually anyone in the country.
The Budapest gathering represents one of the major benefits of today’s internet revolution: the radical democratisation of the global flow of ideas. The technology, the ideas and the processes that have made possible blogs, social networks, and collaborative projects like Wikipedia also give many unconventional thinkers previously consigned to the margins of public life a platform that enables them to be heard by a dedicated (if often tiny) audience. The academic, blogger and pundit Daniel W Drezner has called this new generation – free from the usual constraints of the academia, self-employed, and armed with Google search – “Public Intellectuals 2.0″.
Today, the greatest threat to freedom of expression online is not web censorship but mistreatment of bloggers. This trend again connects bloggers both with their antecedents in the communist-era dissident movements and their fellow-citizens living under authoritarian rule. In facing the threat, many bloggers share the same complex of emotions and reactions (including fears, doubts, and the self-censorship that often follows) that haunts other citizens. This reality was reflected in a recurrent theme of the Budapest conference: “bloggers are not aliens”.
Amid the clear and present danger to bloggers’ civil and human rights, the need to defend their voice and the phenomenon of open-access media they personify is vital. The Citizen Media Summit raised the idea that the equivalent of the Reporters without Borders group – a “Bloggers without Borders” – might be created to lobby for bloggers’ release from jail and right to speak freely. But would bloggers get the same protection as journalists and political prisoners; could traditional groups expand their role and make such a new organisation unnecessary? Such are the questions that western governments and many traditional human-rights organisations – as well as bloggers themselves – must answer as soon as possible.
Tags: Culture | Technology | Blog | Activist | democracy | Blogger | internet | journalists | colombia | Media | speech | freedom | Web | Network | Citizen | Digital | Summit | Bangladesh | budapest | hungary | MAURITANIA | TAJIKISTAN | Global Voices | culturite | Morozov | Evgeny
