January 2012
59 posts
“That the world’s most powerful country—whose scientists have made a vast contribution to climate science—was reduced to playing a bit-part in negotiations over the future of the world’s climate was more than unimpressive. It was demeaning. And next time America demands that China, India or Brazil take bold steps for the global good, on trade or security, it will no doubt be remembered.”
—In the early hours of December 11th, after three days and nights of exhausting, often ill-tempered, final negotiations, the UN’s two-week-long climate-change summit ended in Durban with an agreement. America has reason to be glad of the outcome—yet its negotiators showed little enthusiasm for almost any part of the international process. (via theeconomist)
“Imagine that you are French. You are walking along a busy pavement in Paris and another pedestrian is approaching from the opposite direction. A collision will occur unless you each move out of the other’s way. Which way do you step?”
—Understanding and modelling how pedestrians behave is a youngish field for researchers. Anticipating pedestrian flows makes crowd events smoother and safer, and accounting for the peculiar propensities of different nationalities is key to getting it right. (via theeconomist)
December 2011
44 posts
The FJP: Apple Designer Knighted by Queen of England (Again) →
futurejournalismproject.org
This year’s Knighthoods are in, and the list is small. Two in fact.
Via the BBC
Raised in Chingford [UK], Mr Ive began working for Apple in 1992 and since then has been the brains behind many of its products…
From the age of 14, he said, he knew he was interested in drawing and…
Is the Golden Age of Tech Blogging Dead? →
web-strategist.com
Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst with the Altimeter Group, believes innovative tech blogging is done with.
He identifies four trends that include corporate acquisitions that stymie innovation (eg., AOL’s takeover of Techcrunch and Engadget), talent turnover of the major tech blogs (eg., people are growing up and moving on from the Mashables of the world), audience desire for smaller and shorter analysis (eg., why read a blog when you can interact on Twitter, G+ and hello, Tumblr), and the simple fact that the medium has matured with not many able to make a living through blogging alone.
The post is interesting and includes commentary from stalwarts like Ben Parr and Ben Metcalfe. Owyang also links out to related, anecdotal articles from ReadWriteWeb, Techcrunch and Poynter.
What’s interesting above and beyond tech blogging though is that you could apply this across most any vertical. Blogging rose to prominence in the early 2000s and dedicated, talented first movers laid claim to rich content areas. As they gained success, those verticals became saturated.
The idea appears to be trending, with Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis recently telling ReadWriteWeb that blogging as a whole “is largely dead.”
Now the stampede is to stake out territory in the social web, and here again we enter something of another golden age.
