by Mark Glaser, Host and Editor, MediaShift, PBS.org
You’ve probably heard how much the microblogging service Twitter can help your business, or that being on social-networking site Facebook can boost your company’s profile. But what you might not have considered is the potential danger in over-relying on these start-ups that could go out of business, get bought out, or close your account if you aren’t familiar with their Terms of Service.
Barack Obama’s inauguration was clearly historic as the United States celebrated its first black president, but the coverage and experience of the inauguration also broke new ground. For the first time, digital satellite images showed the millions of people who braved the cold to see the inauguration.
CNN’s live streaming of the inauguration next to a feed from Facebook is a powerful demonstration of how television can use social media and an equally powerful demonstration of what Facebook can do for various Web sites.
by Marisa Taylor, Blogger, Digits, The Wall Street Journal
With inauguration excitement hitting a fever pitch inside the Beltway, news outlets are calling on the Average Joes (and maybe a few Joe Plumbers) attending the festivities to seize the moment and capture the Obama revelry for the rest of the world to see.
As the first president-elect with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, Barack Obama is poised to use the Internet to communicate directly with Americans in a way unknown to previous presidents. Judging by Obama’s savvy use of social-networking sites during his campaign and the interactive nature of his transition team’s Web site, Americans can expect a president who bypasses the traditional media’s filters while reaching out to citizens for input, observers say.
Days after a wave of phishing attacks fooled thousands of Twitter users, it appears that another security hole has been found by…someone. Obama’s account, unused since election day, sent out an affiliate link to a survey with a gas card prize, Fox News said that “Bill O’Reily is gay” (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and Britney Spears made a lewd post about her anatomy.
by Robert McMillan, Senior Writer, IDG News Service
The Internet attack took Yahoo engineers by surprise. It came so fast and with such intensity that Yahoo, then the Web’s second most-popular destination, was knocked offline for about three hours.
That was on the morning of Feb. 7, 2000. A few months later, 15-year-old Michael Calce was watching “Goodfellas” at a friend’s house in the suburbs of Montreal when he got a 3 a.m. call on his cellphone.
This morning a rumor about Steve Jobs having a heart attack started circulating. The person who started the rumor submitted it to MacRumors using an anonymous proxy IP address. I saw the report right when it was submitted and after some brief research dismissed it.
Just three years ago, she was one of “three chicks with credit cards” trying to form a consortium of female bloggers.
Now, former CNN journalist Lisa Stone is championing a network of 2,200 blogs in a fresh strategic partnership with iVillage …
Since CNN embraced the citizen journalist movement back in August 2006 with the launch of its iReport initiative, the news organization has received nearly 100,000 news-related photos and videos from viewers, including nearly 10,000 this past January alone. Yet less than 10% of those submissions have appeared on CNN.com or the cable channel. That’s all about to change. Time Warner’s CNN this week will enter YouTube territory with the launch of iReport.com, a new Web site built entirely on user-produced news.
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