Luckily for lazy journalists, there is a permissible way to "crowdsource" the hard work of reporting to the Twitter masses. But there are many more wrong ways to slack. After the jump, a collection of microblogging "don't"s.
Twitter is offering a new way to quote other people's tweets. The new "re-tweet" feature is both less useful and more confusing than the ad-hoc system that preceded it. But that's OK, because it bolsters rich celebrities and dot-com millionaires.
Andrew Keen has gone insane. The author, who has railed against the Internet for destroying our culture, now says we all must become self-promoting, Facebook-friending, constantly Twittering monkeys like unemployed videoblogger Robert Scoble.
Cube-dwelling funny pages favorite "Dilbert" from Scott Adams has a redesigned website, sporting the now-ubiquitous "beta" label, offering widgets and buying into the user-generated content fad — you can now create "mashups" and work out your own corporate-minion frustrations within the confines of speech bubbles. […
eMarketer predicts the number of people who create so-called "user-generated" content will rise from 77 million in 2007 to 108 million in 2012. More baffling yet, the ranks of people who consume this content will only rise from 94 million in 2007 to 130 million by 2012. Why don't we just junk our computers, attach…
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen worries about graphic rape clips on YouTube. But not enough to do something about it, because he thinks it is important for uploaded videos to be available for immediate viewing. Also, given that 10 hours of content is uploaded every minute, it would be impossible to screen each video…
We asked which man most deserves Pownce founder Leah Culver's attentions: Googler Andy Smith or Flickr's Cal Henderson? In a late rally, Smith advocates won out. His 48.4 percent of the vote displaced the early leader, none-of-the-above option "cupcakes to face for both," at 43.5 percent. Now a pair of tipsters…
"I have often said that the real value of blogs lies in the intelligence embedded in the comments." — Om Malik, on blog-comments software maker Disqus's new round of venture capital. True enough for GigaOm, I suppose. [GigaOm]
With ICQ lending its name to an Israeli toothpaste manufacturer and Google trucking branded ice cream bars to its Mountain View headquarters, no wonder Jimmy Wales is thinking about how Wikipedia can cash in on brand licensing. The only problem: Wales's marketing ideas are as dull as his sexual fantasies. Board games?…
Almost every digital camera captures both pictures and movies. This reality has seemed lost on Flickr for four years. Cofounder Stewart Butterfield reportedly told attendees at a fourth-birthday party last night that Flickr, now owned by Yahoo, will introduce video uploads next month. At this point, Yahoo might as…
People who talk about 'building community' should go be architects. Because people are not bricks.
— Pixish cofounder Derek Powazek, on the art of cajoling users to contribute content, "The Weird Turn Pro: Crowdsourcing for Creatives,"
So much for the notion of cheap, user-generated content. Current Media, the operator of the Current TV cable channel and Current.com, hopes to raise $100 million in an IPO. Last year, the company, cofounded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, had revenues of $63.8 million and lost $17.1 million. Current's website isn't…
Barely a year after its launch, MTV is shutting down Flux TV. The U.K. channel was the network's attempt to bring social media to the telly. Users determined which music videos the channel would broadcast, as well as upload their own media. But alas, the audience, used to sitting back and being fed entertainment,…
Yes, there's some truly bad man's-inhumanity-to-man stuff going down in Kenya. No, Robert Scoble and his echo chamber are not morally obliged to figure out some tech angle and post about it. The fallacy made by political correctards is that if Robert Scoble doesn't blog about something, he either doesn't know or…
