links for 2011-03-22

"As the fame-hungry Californian teen feels the full force of a cyber hate campaign, you can't help but wonder how using social media became such a haven for bullies – children and adults."

New whizzy interactive timeline thingy on @guardian website. Described by at least one person as being like Guitar Hero. Or "Qatar Hero".

"What is clear is that journalists - both print and broadcast - now have the outpourings of non-journalists as a resource of information. And it is important that there are ethical guidelines about how to use that information. We believe at the PCC that we are able to provide them."

"Many believe the basic principles and guidelines that are applicable in the design of Web sites should still apply when designing for mobile platforms. After all, Web design has evolved from basic, text-based HTML pages into today’s Web standards. So, we might expect that mobile sites that follow the same guidelines could easily reach the same level of success with users that desktop Web sites have achieved". Many are IMHO, wrong, as this article goes on to explain

"I recently picked up a physical newspaper and read it cover to cover for the first time in about a year. Upon seeing an article I disagreed with, I instinctively scanned the page for the comments box. There wasn’t one of course, but my instinct shows how natural it has become to expect an instant right to reply to any form of media."

Great headlines of our time...

"Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it."

I absolutely *heart* people using an open comment thread on the Guardian website to say how pointless people expressing their opinion on the web is...

True, but then it was also pretty cheap to implement the "paywall". A decent cost/benefit analysis would have said go down the CSS route, because a dedicated tech savvy audience will always make a workaround, and no news organisation has ever previously tried to fight hard against niche revenue-depriving activities like ad-blocking extensions or registration avoidance like "bugmenot"

"Sad to hear that Guardian journalist, Peter Lennon, has died at the age of 81."