links for 2011-01-20

Interesting open thread on CiF yesterday on the impact online comments have had on politics and the media

Great post about sign in flows from Harry, and good stuff in the comments too

I love the club, but dislike the business

"I love the internet. I love all the new material and sources it produces. I love its democracy. But I do worry about the impact of having far fewer journalists left on the frontline, knocking on doors and gathering news". Another great guest article on TheMediaBriefing

"How can we continue to progress as a cultural society when even the controllers of that culture are acknowleding the lack of value in the stuff they're putting out? Perhaps forcing listeners to experience stuff that's completely alien to them is overkill. But there has to be some middle ground."

"A lot of people ask me whether design fits into the lean startup process. They're concerned that if they do any research or design up front that they will end up in a waterfall environment. This is simply not true. Even the leanest of startups can benefit from design and user research" [via @pigsaw]

"For the first time in many years, ownership of news has become a live issue. Is your exclusive work still yours once you have published it? Of course it is. But it's an uphill struggle: many people in the British media are convinced they can use anything they like from the internet because it's 'in the public domain.' They're wrong. Using metadata wouldn't change the way British newspapers work. But it would make proof of ownership easy and ensure the right person got paid".

Spot on.

"In large part, it's media pressure; news outlets have been guilty of conflating a range of different technologies together under a buzzword banner. That leads to a sort of general consensus that if everyone else is using a term, then it must become the right term."