https://twitter.com/moftasa/status/34577746201939968
I am surprised I missed this as the time: Tweets from Tahrir. Its a compilation of tweets from Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring uprisings, edited by Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns. During the protests I suggested that the protestors in ‘the world’s biggest think-tank’ publish their hopes for the future of Egypt and that new technologies could help them do it very quickly. Idle and Nunns appear to have got this precise project published within a month.
This book obviously owes something to James Bridle’s TweetBook. It is also a companion to books like We Are Iran and Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution, two collections drawn from blogs and activists, and supported by English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme.
Category: Diary (Page 80 of 301)
Things that happen to me, or things I do
Just look at all the people on the Embankment at New Year, videoing the fireworks with their camera-phones. Continue reading
For the record: I kept my New Year’s Resolution. I have been happily practising the Inbox Zero technique for the past year and feel much more in control of my e-mail. Coupled with the awesome Follow Up Then tool I’ve been far more ‘Bit Literate‘ in 2013.
Now to sort out my cluttered RSS reader. And maybe even get a handle on the actual paperwork and filing sitting on desks at home and work.
Over at the Nieman Lab, Jason Kottke declares that ‘The Blog Is Dead’.
He notes that much of the sharing work that was in the past done by blogs is now handled by proprietary systems like Facebooks, Instagram and Tumblr, and that while newspapers might appear ‘blog-like’ the breaking news functions they perform are really something different.
I think Jason is ever-so-slightly pessimistic. To my mind, part of the rise of blogs happened because there were no alternative platforms, and systems like WordPress were just so damned easy to use. Now we have much more specialised ways to integrate content.
However, I think the blog is still the best format for specialists to track niche issues that cannot be covered in the same depth by the mainstream media. For example, in the free expression field, specialised law blogs like Jack of Kent, Head of Legal, Inforrm and the UK Human Rights Blog are doing essential work, and the blog format (with many linked posts tracking the evolution of a case or issue) feels just right.
As Jay Rosen keeps saying, “the sources go direct“. When the experts self-publish, they blog. So I think we’re observing a retreat of the blog, not its death. This site will be staying put in 2014, I hope.
Thinking more about the Impress initiative, I think the main issue with the idea of a ‘Leveson compliant’ regulator is that Sir Brian’s principles might not be the most appropriate way to solve the problems which prompted his Inquiry in the first place. Continue reading