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The Algorithmic Newsroom

I just came back from News Foo, an un-conference for technologists, academics and journalists in Phoenix on the future of news. The following post details my thoughts, heavily inspired by the conversations and sessions I had the privilege to be a part of.

There are a growing number of algorithms that are deciding what topics people’s attention [...]

#Sidibouzid Twitter Hashtag: an analysis of the people spreading the news

There have been numerous articles and discussions on the role Twitter played during the recent Tunisia uprising. An excellent Techcrunch post by Alexia Tsotsis analyzed Twitter traffic over time (using data provided by backtype. According to their report, Tunisia related Twitter traffic peaked at 28 tweets per second, at 21:27:56 Tunisian time, a couple hours [...]

Understanding Information Flows: the True Power of Social Media

With all the excitement about Tunisia and the numerous debates on whether this was/is another “Twitter Revolution”, it was the perfect time to dig into Clay Shirky’s recently published piece ‘The Political Power of Social Media’ in the Journal for Foreign Affairs. I actually like the journal and usually buy a copy, but sadly there’s [...]

War is not just a Military Campaign, but a Parable

Towards the end of Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, there’s a detailed description of an hour long meeting that the author had with President Obama at the oval office. He recounts the scene with such detail, that I felt as if I was there in the room. The body language, attitude, charisma and humor.
At the end [...]

The Repercussions of Eden Abergil's Actions: a country's worst nightmare

Imagine a reality where for a day, Snookie from Jersey Shore becomes the single most visible representative of American military and foreign agenda around the world. A world where whatever she says, is taken as representative of an organization that she is not even remotely a part of. As frightening as that thought may be, [...]

Israeli-Palestinian bridging and Facebook

We often experience the clash of contexts that happen on social media sites. We all have a different perception of what is funny or what is considered true. We are used to dealing separately with each of our friend groups. However, with many social media services, all [...]

From Pages to Streams

Thought provoking article on Techcrunch about the shift from dedicated web pages to real-time streams.

“The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness.”

This real-time stream has been building for a while. It began with RSS, but is now so much stronger and swifter, encompassing not just periodic news and musings [...]

Journalism Will Not Only Survive, It Will Thrive

On May 6th, Arianna Huffington presented the opening remarks for the Senate Subcommittee on Cummunications, Technology and the Internet’s Hearing on “The Future of Journalism”. She began with a clear statement: Journalism Will Not Only Survie, It Will Thrive! She added that we are actually in the midst of a Golden Age for news consumers, [...]

Israeli IDF Soldiers Testimonials Taken Out of Context

Several weeks after the Israeli operation in Gaza, Danny Zamir, director of the Yitzhak Rabin military preparatory academy at Oranim College, organized a meeting of his graduates. There they chatted behind closed doors and shared their experience from the operation. A transcript of their conversation was initially published in the College paper, but was picked [...]

Analog Blogging

In Monrovia, Liberia a unique form of journalism exists where the news is written out daily on a chalk board for everyone to read as they pass by. Alfred Sirleaf established his chalkboard news service called “Daily Talk” in May of 2000, when he saw a need for direct, free and accessible reporting. Because of [...]