Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education

Twittering Bhutto's assassination

Twitter was used for information and responses around Benazir Bhutto's assassination this week.  There's a classic mix of journalism sites using Twitter (Breaking News) with individuals tweeting to point towards more information, confirm reports, or react.

Dennis Howlett argues that the tweet cycle is faster than the blog one, with implications for business.  I'm with Doc Searls on this, who sees it as "proving useful for getting some live information out to some people.".

(via Doc Searls)

Blogs versus New York Times, 2002-2007: neither wins

In 2002 a bet was placed: five years hence, in 2007, the top Google search results on selected topics will either be blog posts or New York Times articles.  This week one blogger determined a winner. Roger Caidenhead calculated that blogs nudged out the NYT in the majority of 5 cases, 3-2.  Victory, blogosphere!

However.
1. Neither Gray Lady nor Blogistani Republics lead the results.  The Wikipedia, which emerged over the long bet's lifetime, came in far ahead of both.  Heh:

our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.

As another blogger writes: "Watch out for secondary characters with more interesting stories than your protagonist."

2. Mainstream media articles from sources other than the NYT led blog posts.

3. The blogosphere has emerged more as a source of commentary and linking, than as reportage.  Dave Winer sees this.

4. Those leading blogs aren't individual amateurs, but corporate-owned groups, often enough.

5. The New York Times' opening of archives should boost their results, as Jason Kottke and others note.

Ten years of bloggery

The blogosphere is ten years old today, if we start from Jorn Barger's use of the term, says the BBC.

A generation of virtual worlds and episodes of tv

Pop culture and virtual worlds: Aaron Delwiche explores the long arc from MUDs to CSI.  It's a rare perspective, and a handy summary of one internet history arc.

24 from 1994

This is very clever, and a fun shot of history: 24, as if filmed in 1997.

(via MetaFilter)

World of Warcraft beats farming for Americans

More Americans play World of Warcraft than farm their lands, apparently.  Which does make for an interesting historical moment in a few ways.  For one, it points to the continued dwindling of farming in the US.  For another, it should remind folks just how widespread social gaming is.

Evan Williams in Technology Review

Evan Williams, cofounder of Blogger, Odeo, and now Twitter, is profiled in Tech Review this week.

It would be fun to bear this article in mind while reading Dreaming in Code, in order to think about different emergent strands of the modern Web.

A history of modern mashups

"Remix Culture: The Early Years" samples a series of mashups and related art from the past few years.  A useful blitz history - and with a copyright argument at the end.

(via Brian Lamb via his del.icio.us)

Emoticon prehistory: Language Log looks back before 1982

Following up on the announcement of the smiley emoticon's 25th birthday is an exploration of its prehistory.  LanguageLog delves into earlier typographical shapes for emotions, touching on PLATO-era emoticons, a 1967 Reader's Digest letter, and even Ambrose Bierce.  Not to mention Vladimir Nabokov:

Nabokov: I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.

(via Cranky Professor)

The internet in 1993, via the New York Times

This John Markoff New York Times article surveys the internet scene in 1993.  It's a treat to read now, starting from its contrast of Delphia and Prodigy with this other thing:

In sharp contrast is the Internet, a collection of computer networks that does a little of what a national data highway would do and that already has hundreds of thousands of computer users.

Hundreds of thousands of users!  What might they do?

A number of easy-to-use programs permit rapid searches and retrieval of software and data from the remote corners of the eletronic universe. Archie, for example, written by programmers at McGill University in Montreal, will almost instantly search more than a thousand computers and two million software packages for a particular program and display where it can be found. Archie is available through services like the Well.

Several hundred libraries in dozens of countries have already placed their catalogues on the Internet, and vast full-text data bases are likely to emerge in the future, which would allow users to receive books through the system...

(via BoingBoing)