GETTING IT RIGHT

"Farther-reaching, faster ignorance thanks to Web," is the headline on an article written by a librarian named Greg Hill for the Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner and it is prophetic.

The column appeared on the newspaper's web site so Hill's opinions on the weaknesses of blogs and Wikipedia can spread far and wide and so can the fact that he misspelled two of the names of people he cited (Dan Gillmour instead of Dan Gillmor and Dave Berry instead of Dave Barry), and got the name of Gillmor's book wrong.

File it all under Oops, I guess.

SOURCE: DAN GILLMOR'S E-JOURNAL.
7:19:43 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

ALWAYS-ON SEARCHING

PubSub is search turned on its head: you give them the keywords you're looking for, and the service sends you notification whenever new information appears on the internet (or at least part of the internet) as they appear. (In a bit of overstatement, PubSub calls it "searching the future.")

Right now, the service monitors weblogs, SEC filings, press releases and even FCC flight advisories, a total of 6.6 million sources according to the PubSub web site. As it scans, it looks for matches with "subscriptions" that users have filed (for free). When there's a hit, the details are sent to you by RSS or through toolbars that can be added to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers.

This seems like a great tool for journalists, particularly those covering a beat who need to stay on top of the flow of information, whether it's breaking news or developing trends.

SOURCE: OnlineJournalism.com.
6:47:45 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

WIRELESS AND SPORTS

Some interesting tidbits from the Sports Media and Technology Conference about the intersection of wireless applications and sports.

The smattering of reports touch on everything from wireless access in baseball stadiums (note: you'll get kicked out of SF Giant games if you're using the free wireless connection to surf for porn), to "enhancing tailgate parties," to offering real-time access to stats, bios and even the ability to email the coach during a game.

One interesting quote:

Watch younger people as they divide their time into ever smaller bits and rapidly shift between an iPod, a dozen instant messages, TV and e-mail; anything less and they're bored. Does this have implications for future wireless applications for sports fans? Oh, yeah.

As well as the brief reports from the conference, there are links to articles that examine the Giants' in-stadium wireless service and Purdue University's experiments.
6:20:45 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

BEING PLAGIARIZED

Issues tied to intellectual rights are a hot topic, and Malcolm Gladwell has a New Yorker article, Something Borrowed, that examines what happens when your work is used by others.

In this case, the plagiarized work was a 1997 article Gladwell wrote that wound up, in fairly large chunks, in a well-received Broadway play. He uses the story to plumb a number of different aspects of copying, including the use of the work of others in creating art.

Gladwell's reaction to the events is surprising: his article suggests that he not only understands what happened, he supports it. Along the way he dishes up a number of interesting thoughts, including this one:

The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the the level of the sentence.