From here. More in the next post…

1. Send in Your Stories About the World’s Worst Roommate
2. Here’s a Young Jon Stewart, Moshing at a Dead Kennedys Show (Update: Probably Not)
3. How Old Does Google Think You Are?
4. Yes, This Is a Picture of Terry Richardson Fucking (Someone Who Looks Like Juliette Lewis) [Update]
5. That’s Not Juliette Lewis Getting Boned by Terry Richardson, Juliette Lewis’s Publicist Says
6. Video: L.A. Cops Shoot a Guy Point-Blank Outside a Carl’s Jr.
7. This Is a Picture of Miley Cyrus Eating a Penis Cake
8. What if Posters for Oscar-Nominated Movies Told the Truth?
9. Here Is the Creepiest Thing You Will See All Year
10. The Drug That Hospitalized Demi Moore: Whip-Its
11. It Turns Out Seal Was Kind Of A Dick To Heidi Klum
12. Behold, the Most Obnoxious Christmas Letter Ever
13. The Harrowing Before-and-After Photos of Two Years in Solitary
14. A Hedge Fund Manager’s Bizarre, Lengthy Response to a Declined Second Date
15. Swimming in a Kiddie Pool of Vomit and Semen’: Life as a Dartmouth ‘Whale Shit’
16. Boyfriend to Gaga: ‘Be Normal’
17. I Can’t Stop Looking At This Weird Chinese Boat
18. All the Dirty Rumors About Demi Moore’s Wild Whip-It Partying and Hospitalization
19. Gawker Will Be Conducting An Experiment, Please Enjoy Your Free Cute Cats Singing And Sideboobs
20. The Beautiful Decay of a Theater Hidden Above a New York Bodega
21. I Can’t Stop Staring at Cyber Woman With Corn
22. These Two Awesome Videos Have Gone Viral, According To People Who Make Awesome Videos Go Viral
23. Which Rapper Shared Some Women with Another Celebrity in Sundance?
24. I Can’t Stop Looking at This Weird Chinese Goat
25. All the Absolutely Insane Things Former SNL Tea Party Lunatic Victoria Jackson Has to Say
26. Kevin Federline, Ex-Husband Of Britney Spears, Hospitalized Due To Chest Pains Caused By Fatness
27. The Most Adorable Cat Video You’ll See All Afternoon
28. Teen Calls Cops On Mom For Having Sex Too Loudly
29. Pat Sajak: I Was Drunk on Wheel of Fortune So Many Times
30. Courtney Sheber Is America’s Hottest College Girl: A Review
31. This Is What the Voice of the Honey Badger Video Looks Like
32. This Is the Profile I Use to Cruise for Sex
33. The 65 Hottest Pics Of Heidi Klum: A Review
34. Little Girl Slaps Mom with Piece of Pizza, Saves Life
35. Poor Reality Show Star’s Bathing Suit Top Becomes Unfastened, Top Of Nipple Partially Visible, Paper Says
36. A Hilarious Impersonation of Kim Richards Talking About the Oscars
37. Demi Moore’s Drug Problem: Adderall?
38. I Can’t Stop Looking At This Sexy Australian Photo Shoot
39. L.A. Quasi-Cop Who Made Uniformed Porno Wants His Job Back
40. Sex Punching Not for Everyone, Sex Writer Reports
41. Tim Gunn Needs To Shut Up About Not Having Sex in Almost 30 Years
42. Here Is the Best Video of Chinese Soldiers Playing ‘Hot Potato’ With a Live Grenade You Will Ever See
43. Idiot Cop Takes Photo of Teens, Guns, Bullet-Ridden Obama T-Shirt
44. Could Demi Moore’s Decade-Long Red Bull ‘Addiction’ Have Contributed to Her Collapse?
45. James O’Keefe Asked Me to Help Him Sue Liberal Media Outlets
46. Fox News Anchor and Son of NYPD Commissioner Accused of Rape
47. Crazed Butt Injector Brawls with Victims on Daytime TV
48. Tracy Morgan Collapses At Sundance Festival But Not Because Of Drugs, Alcohol Or Kevin Federline’s Fatness
49. Intrepid Blogger Determines Ice Cube’s ‘Good Day’: January 20, 1992
50. 50 Cent Will Tweet a Picture of His Penis if the Giants Lose the Super Bowl
51. Boy Sues School Newspaper for Illustrating STD Article with His Face
52. Mitt Romney Made $45 Million Over the Last Two Years Doing Literally Nothing at All
53. Colorado Teen Girl Recalls Train Accident: “I was watching my legs get crushed by coal cars.”
54. How Much Money Is NBC News Wasting In Our Office Right Now?
55. Armed Forces Return to DEFCON Five as Blow Job Movie Gets New Feminist Icon
56. Brian Williams Talked as Much as Ron Paul at Last Night’s Debate
57. Joseph Gordon-Levitt Sure Looks Cute Playing ‘Hey Jude’ at Sundance
58. The Paranoid Conspiracy Theory of a T.A. Who Says Yale Is a ‘Freemason’ ‘Sea-Monster’
59. Third Hangover Movie Imminent
60. Hero Rhodes-Declining Yale QB Withdrew Over Sex Assault Claims, Not Harvard Game
61. Watch the Vile Muslim-Hating Film the NYPD Used to Train Its Officers
62. Is This Baby Aardvark Cute, Or Is It a Hideous Mole Monster?
63. The Top Nine Videos Of Babies Farting And/Or Laughing With Kittens
64. Company That Owns Costa Concordia Offers Customers 30 Percent Off Their Next Non-Sinking Cruise
65. Click Here to See Rick Santorum’s Cock Shot
66. An Article About Literacy Is the Worst Place to Misspell ‘Literate’ (Updated)
67. Penguin Shits on Senate Floor
68. Bizarre Slave-Ship Spot Is an Early Contender for Best/Worst Campaign Ad of 2012
69. Prepare To Get Starbombed On Starbooze: Some Starbucks Locations Will Begin Selling Wine And Beer
70. Mitt Romney Music Video Has Gone Viral, Too
71. Julian Assange’s Transformation Into a Fameball Is Now Complete
72. If Joe Paterno Is Your Enemy, Fred Phelps Still Can’t Be Your Friend

PHP Freelancer

This is a shorter version of an article appearing on the Wardman Wire.

Plagiarism is an interesting game.

You can either rewrite the piece, find a bit more information, leave other bits out, and – if you’re the Daily Mail – reduce the reading age by a year or three.

Or you can acknowledge that the story came from somewhere else, and give a hat-tip for a nugget, or a small fee for an article.

Or you can try and ride both horses and end up sitting on your backside in the middle.

So, we have Exhibit A, from Dizzy Thinks:

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a dedicated civil servant working on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012? Not particular shocking really, but there is an oddity.

According to an FoI release, one of the roles of this civil servant is the development of equalities impact assessment for the Queen’s celebratory bash. Why does a celebration for one person need an equalities impact assessment?

Mind you, as an eagle-eyed reader put to to me. Perhaps it’s because she’s (a) a woman, (b) a pensioner, (c) dependent on state benefits, and (d) married to an immigrant?

and Exhibit B, from the Daily Mail:

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a dedicated civil servant working on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. One of the roles of the civil servant is the development of an ‘equalities impact assessment’. Why does a ­celebration for one person need an equalities impact assessment? Is it because she’s a woman, a pensioner, relies on the state for handouts — and is married to a foreigner?

The two are nearly the same, and it’s only an item in a Diary column, for heaven’s sake. A tip would cost about twenty pounds or a gift voucher, and an acknowledgement would cost nothing.

(Hat-tip: Dizzy).
[Update: re-edited]

PHP Freelancer

I wrote this some time ago (the plan was to do it properly in Javascript or Flash) and rediscovered it while clearing out my office. It’s just a bit of Friday fun:

Quiz: Are you a networked journalist?

Are you powering down the Information Superhighway, fueled by Google Juice bought with Social Capital? Or are you stuck in the News Cycle Lane pedalling the Penny Farthing of journalism?

Are you among the widows of journalism past – or the orphans of journalism future?*

Do you know your tweets from your twats? Your friends from your Friendster? In just 7 questions this quiz will determine – once and for all time, eternally – your value as an professional journalist in the networked economy**. Go ahead.

Question 1: You witness a car crash involving a Premiership footballer. Do you:

a) Whip out your iPhone and take photos that go straight onto Flickr and Twitpic. Then create a new venue on Foursquare: ‘scene of car crash’ – of which you are now mayor.

b) Phone into the office to ask them to send a photographer, then whip out your notebook and try to get a quote

c) Phone an ambulance, then rush over to help him

Question 2: The Prime Minister calls a press conference. As you rush off to attend do you:

a) Ask people on your blog to suggest what questions you should put to the PM

b) Ask people in your office what big issues you should raise

c) Ask your partner if your flies are undone

Question 3: When you arrive at the press conference do you:

a) Look for a wifi signal

b) Look for someone to interview

c) Look for the toilets

Question 4: A major international story breaks while you’re in the office. Do you:

a) Start scouring Twitter, Tweepsearch and Twitterfall to see if you can track down someone tweeting from the scene

b) Pick up the phone and call a relevant international agency for their 30th official quote of the hour

c) Turn on the TV

Question 5: You’re about to go home when the editor asks you for an 800 word background feature on an ongoing issue in your field. Do you:

a) Open up your Delicious account and look through all your bookmarks under the relevant tags – and those of your network. Then check LinkedIn for contacts.

b) Flick through your contacts book. Then search Google.

c) Say no – you have to pick up your kids from school

Question 6: The newsroom post contains a vaguely interesting press release. Do you:

a) Spend 10 seconds googling to see if it’s online, then bookmarking it on Delicious with a key passage, which is then automatically republished with a link to the source on your Twitter stream, blog, and 24 different social networks.

b) Spend 10 minutes rewriting it for a potential filler for the next day’s paper

c) Read something else

Question 7: A notorious local dies, suddenly. Do you:

a) Shamelessly lift a picture from their Facebook profile, and aggregate everything under the #deadlocal hashtag

b) Go through the cuttings files to pull together an obituary

c) Send a card

Are you a social journalist? Check your results:

Mostly a)

Congratulations: you’re a social journalist. You are permanently connected to the online world of your readers and contacts. Permanently.

Mostly b)

You’re an old school journalist. Your equipment doesn’t need a battery and a wifi signal. But occasionally a pen will leak all over your jacket’s inside pocket.

Mostly c)

You’re a human being. Expect a P45 any day now.

A mix of the above

What do you think this is? A Mensa test? OK, so you’re complicated. Do us all a favour and find a pigeonhole to sit in for once.

*Sub editing joke.

**Because you need external validation from someone you’ve never met before, obviously.

PS: You may want to add your own questions – this would be welcome.

PHP Freelancer

Background;

Transcript:

Nestle staffer 1: “Greenpeace have done a viral video attacking our sourcing policy. I do so hope people don’t pass it on and it becomes a huge viral hit.”

Nestle staffer 2: “Yes. I know what will stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit: get YouTube to take it down for alleged copyright infringement.”

Nestle staffer 1: “Yes, that will definitely stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit. That is a good idea and I hope you get all the credit for that.”

PHP Freelancer

Here’s a bit of fun for a Friday. Here are 9 types of Twitter user that I reckon exist – you might be able to think of more. I’ve not included spammers and bots because, not existing, they won’t be reading this. So… which one are you?

The Conversationalist

You follow a couple dozen people who mostly follow you back. Most of your tweets start with @. Twitter is the new Facebook to you.

The Polymath

You follow a few thousand people. Twitter is just one big pool of potentially interesting stuff to you, and you’re followed largely by people who feel the same way. Most of your tweets start with RT. Twitter is the new Google Reader to you.

The Networker

You follow a few hundred people, most of whom work in your industry or you know professionally. You try to keep track of most of what they’re saying and your tweets are a mix of replies, retweets and remarks. Twitter is the new LinkedIn for you.

The Broadcaster

You follow half a dozen people who either work with you, or are actually you on another Twitter account. Most of your tweets come from Twitterfeed and end with three dots and a URL. The @ sign never appears in your Twitter stream. Twitter is the new blog for you. With comments disabled.

The Fan

You follow a couple dozen people, mostly DJs and TV personalities, who all ignore your @ messages. You found out about Twitter on the radio and although you talk to your friends about it, you don’t talk to your friends on it. Twitter is the new gossip magazine for you.

The Experimenter

You probably plugged your plant into Twitter or something. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

The Marketer

You follow a few thousand people but never read anything that they say. Your biography includes WORDS IN CAPITALS and reads like you vomited up a pile of business cards. A few hundred people have followed you back by mistake. To you, Twitter is the new email newsletter.

The Misanthrope

Your updates are protected. You never let anyone see your updates. Actually, you never post any updates but no one knows that. Your Twitter account exists purely to annoy people – to you, it’s the new ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.

The Dabbler

You heard about Twitter on TV, signed up to the site, posted one tweet and wondered why nothing happened. You’ve since forgotten all about it but in 9 months time one of your friends will start following you and it will all make sense. Twitter is the new Friends Reunited to you.

What kind of Twitterer are you?(online surveys)

PHP Freelancer

Great post at Boing Boing (which AP could learn a thing or two about new business models from) on AP’s recent announcement “that they had spent millions of dollars on a DRM system for news that would limit how you could paste the text you copied from your browser window”. Ed Felten did some digging:

“Unfortunately for AP, the hNews spec bears little resemblance to AP’s claims about it. hNews is a handy way of annotating news stories with information about the author, dateline, and so on. But it doesn’t “encapsulate” anything in a “wrapper”, nor does it do much of anything to facilitate metering, monitoring, or paywalls.

“AP also says that hNews ” includes a digital permissions framework that lets publishers specify how their content is to be used online”. This may sound like a restrictive DRM scheme, aimed at clawing back the rights copyright grants to users. But read the fine print. hNews does include a “rights” field that can be attached to an article, but the rights field uses ccREL, the Creative Commons Rights Expression Language, whose definition states unequivocally that it does not limit users’ rights already granted by copyright and can only convey further rights to the user.”

FROM THE COMMENTS: Matthew Somerville points to Yoz Grahame’s excellent post on the subject, which suggests some rather more intelligent ideas and also looks at the Media Standards Trust’s Value-Added News project.

ALSO FROM THE COMMENTS: Steve Yelvington gives a good backgrounder (thanks Martin Stabe).

UPDATE: Via @Quinparker, here’s a much funnier version of AP’s little diagram:

PHP Freelancer

Hope you enjoy this. Concept by Paul Bradshaw, drawings by the wonderful Alex Hughes:

Here are some Twitter avatar-size versions too:

.

PHP Freelancer

To mark 1000 posts on this blog, I thought I’d reflect on what I’ve learned since post #1.

UPDATE: Now available in German, Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese.

UPDATE 2: I’ll be posting further ’1000 things’ via Twitter – you can find them with this search or this RSS feed.

1. Blogging is not ‘writing a blog’. Blogging is linking and commenting. Any writing is a bonus.
2. Regular posting is important…
3. But quality posting is even more important. Spending a week or more on a single post can be one of the most important things you ever do.
4. First knowledge, then analysis, then ideas.
5. A picture is worth a thousand words. More importantly, a picture is worth a thousand words in two hundred countries. The fact that readers don’t need to speak English to understand what you’re communicating can make a word-free post – or at least one with a good image – your most successful one.
6. For similar reasons, video works. It may not be search engine-friendly, but if people can embed it the word is more likely to spread.
7. When video meets conversation, good stuff can happen.
8. Everyone looks ugly on video. Get over it.
9. Online video is not online TV
10. Podcasts work better when there’s more than one of you
11. It takes time. Sometimes years. Persistence counts.
12. Being early matters
13. A big idea travels far
14. Pingback/trackback is a wonderful thing, a form of distribution news websites are still struggling to match. What can be more interesting than someone who is interested in you?
15. Cliques and old boys’ networks exist in the blogosphere too
16. We are too fucking Anglo-American
17. Language is a massive barrier (but having multilingual friends helps – see updates at top of post)
    
18. BASIC principles matter
19. Social bookmarking makes researching a post much easier
20. The best reason to blog is not to show everyone else what you know, but to find out what everyone else knows
21. RSS is one of the most undervalued technologies in the world. Once you understand what to do with it, you can bring the world to your desktop, your mobile, and your blog, and vice versa.
22. A blog doesn’t open doors for you, it just gives you the idea to try knocking.
23. When people Google you, it saves a lot of time explaining things.
24. Blogs are just one part of a social media ecology. Half the stuff that used to go on this blog now goes on Twitter; more goes on Delicious; and some on Flickr and on Seesmic.
25. Don’t get me started on FriendFeed, Plurk, Jaiku, etc.
26. Humour is effective, but not everyone will get it
27. I seem to like linking on verbs
28. Streaming live video from your mobile is a pretty amazing thing when you think about it
29. Streaming live video from your mobile uses up your battery quickly
30. Web browsing on your mobile also uses up your battery quickly
31. If you’re moblogging an event, bring a power lead, an extension lead – and a spare phone
32. The N95 kicks iPhone‘s ass
33. (But I’m prepared to be persuaded otherwise)
34. WordPress plugins are addictive
35. Firefox extensions are addictive
36. Signing up for beta web services is addictive
37. I don’t really care about Twitterspam
38. A simple, fun idea can be around the world in minutes
39. If you want to campaign against something, you already have the technology
40. If you want a service, create it yourself
41. Google is the biggest popularity contest in the world
42. When you realise you don’t have a readership – you have a community – then you also realise you can mobilise, and get things done.
43. Technology is easy; community is hard
44. Meeting in person is important: I read blogs by people I’ve met much more often than those I haven’t
45. Geography still matters
46. Birmingham has a lot of bloggers
47. Liveblogging and Twitter-blogging are not the same thing
48. Privacy is a fluid concept: just because it’s in the public domain doesn’t mean it’s not private
49. WordPress.com is better than Blogger
50. WordPress.org is better than WordPress.com (see Thing 34)
51. Content is not king.
52. Conversation is king.
53. Conversation is the kingdom.
54. We shouldn’t try to be the media
55. If someone is sending you a press release about something, you shouldn’t blog about it
56. As a journalist, blogging is a good way to rediscover the joy of journalism
57. Blogging is also a great way to rediscover how great having a good editor can be
58. Do what you do best and link to the rest
59. Blogs aren’t worth dying for. That’s what family is for.
60. Setting yourself a maximum number of posts per day is a good idea
61. Setting yourself a set time to look at your RSS subs every day is also a good idea
62. If you rely on third party services, prepare for the rug to be pulled from under your feet
63. If you publish the comments widget high up on your blog, more people comment
64. A blog without a comments facility is broken
65. A site that has comments, but edits or buries them, is not just broken, it’s malevolent.
66. Leave posts open ended if you want people to comment
67. Leave a post at the top of your site for more than a day if you want people to comment
68. Being transparent about your sources is not only good journalism, it’s good distribution.
69. The search engine optimisation industry is the new snake oil. I can tell you all you need to know about SEO in five minutes
70. Although it might take me another five hours to answer the resulting questions
71. If you expect to make lots of money from blogging, you are either naive, stupid, or Robert Scoble.
72. If you expect to make lots of money from blogging, don’t expect to make it through advertising
73. Being read by a few, key, people can be worth more, professionally, than having lots of visitors
74. Being frequently linked to can be worth more, commercially, than having lots of visitors
75. Beware advertisers bearing text-based gifts, or generous offerings of ‘free’ articles. Understand linkspam
76. Be aware that you have an ego
77. Be aware that everyone else has an ego
78. Unconferences are great
79. There’s only so much talking you can do. Sometimes you have to do something.
80. There should be more money available to do something
81. Ideas aren’t a problem. Knowing which ones to pursue is
82. Only 10% of Americans read blogs
83. But 26% of Americans write blogs
84. How does that work?
85. Blogs are far more ethnically representative than mainstream media
86. People may not trust the print and broadcast media, but they trust online news even less
87. The 1-9-90 rule
88. Rushing off a blog entry just before bed is a bad idea
89. Rushing off a blog entry hours before your wife goes into labour is not a good idea either
90. Some news travels faster than an aftershock
91. People don’t need managers to organise them – just connections
92. When I can record a video comment straight from my mobile phone, I’ll be a happy man
93. Don’t underestimate the power of corporatisation
94. Don’t underestimate the power of big corporations
95. Don’t underestimate the power of governments
96. If, after all this, we have to go back to living in caves and eating rats, it’ll be a real shame
97. Lists have become the biggest cliche in blogging and the most shameless tactic for getting to the top of delicious/digg/reddit.
98. But people still read them.
99. Have you bookmarked this yet, by the way?

1000. I can’t count.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

PHP Freelancer

To those who haven’t been caught up in the fuss, Plurk is a new microblogging service and rival to Twitter. Users are invited to post about what they’re doing using one of 15 verb prefixes, including ‘loves’, ‘is’, ‘thinks’ and ‘shares’. Indeed, it has found itself so successful among disenchanted Twitterati that Plurk has decided to introduce 15 new verb options. These are:

1. smokes - e.g. “ryanlim smokes another wimpy rollup”. In an attempt to generate revenue, users will be charged a 15% tax on every smoke-Plurk. However, due to health and safety regulations they will not be able to smoke-Plurk indoors.
2. shouts - for users who accidentally leave caps lock on. e.g. “ryanlim shouts GOING HOME NOW”.
3. lies - for double-bluffing Plurk users.
4. lurks - for users who are only there to read other Plurks. Lurk-Plurks are invisible.
5. waffles - for users who, even with a 140 character limit, still manage to talk too much.
6. dies - for users who smoke-Plurk 60 times a day.
7. rhymes - for hip hop artists, poets and drunkards.
8. impersonates - for identity thieves.
9. mutters - for users who really don’t want to be heard. mutter-Plurks disappear after two seconds.
10. reincarnates - depending on a user’s karma score, they may be reincarnated as follows:
    • 0.00 to 21.00: a bee
    • 21.00 to 41.00: a big bee
    • 41.00 to 61.00: a wasp
    • 61.00 to 81.00: a small mammal
    • 81.00 to 100.00: a drummer in a tribute band
11. steals - Plurk “warns users that valuables are left on Plurk at their own risk”.
12. denies - for users who have been accused of steal-Plurking and Plurk-lying.
13. shags - Plurk-porn is a further business model being considered by the founders, who promise shag-Plurks will be done tastefully and with great lighting.
14. gloats - for users with inordinately high karma scores
15. leaves - for Plurkers who have decided one Twitter service is enough.

Paul Bradshaw

PHP Freelancer

Following my post on the Seven psychological complaints of bloggers and social media addicts, it appears there have been more syndromes identified. Here they are:

Meme Orphanism

Identified by KerryJ, sufferers exhibit intense feelings of alienation after missing out on viral ‘event’, e.g. Twitter Cartoon Day. See also: FOOcamp anxiety.

Wit Anxiety Gloom Syndrome (WAGS)

Identified by Sarah Hartley: “The sufferer feels what they have to add to the world is so humourous it must be shared – but only after every one of the 140 characters has been considered in depth. Stems from a deep-rooted phobia of “comment shame”.”

Community Disconnection Attack

Patient experiences disorientation upon becoming stranded from social media ‘anchors’ such as Facebook groups, Twitter, blog community etc. Triggers include: service outage; power or battery failure; loss of wifi signal.

User Account Phantasm

Patient is haunted by the ghosts of user accounts created but never used, or long since abandoned. Symptoms include random friend invites from imaginary MySpace users; emails from Plaxo; and Pownce files from the ghostly Dave Winer.

PHP Freelancer