Russian blogs on uprise on the eve of presidential elections
February 20, 2008
The Russian blogs are seemingly trying to outplay mainstream media, by harshly criticizing the main Presidential candidate, Medvedev, AP reports, quoted by editorandpublisher.com.
“The postings by Web commentators, professionals and amateurs alike,” the website reads, “are sometimes barbed, frequently satirical and always unfiltered — a marked contrast to most of Russia’s major media, where many reporters, editors and producers are wary of angering the Kremlin.”
Yet there are alleged and real limitations to Russia’s blogosphere watchdog effort. “There are also allegations the Kremlin has organized teams of its own bloggers to attack or rebut critics of the government through Web postings.” The natural limitation is access to Internet, which is scarce and slow, oftentimes.
Picture: Flickr
Full-fetched mobile networking might stand out as commodity
February 20, 2008
Christian Kreutz comes up with the natural question, “When is the collaborative mobile web coming?” on his crisscrossed.net blog.
“It is clear that the mobile will sooner or later bypass the personal computer by Internet usage,” he writes. But, “will it work? By this I mean that I can interact with all sorts of tools via my mobile phone — edit a wiki, build a mashup, writing a blog post, and finally network more effectively.”
Of course, Mr. Kreutz also sees other shortcomings of the mobile networking. “There are still many limitation to the phone: the screen, keyboard, connection. However this is just a matter of time, and recent devices already make a difference. I wonder why so little has been developed in order to interact and collaborate via the mobile phone in the social web.”
Place all the eggs in one basket: SDSN
February 20, 2008
It appears that the abundance of social networks gives headaches to busy guys. Several IT blokes from South Africa came up with a unified account, Simple Distributed Social Network (SDSN). “Their concept is simple,” whiteafrican.com reports, “create a standardized way for people to own their own profiles, so they’re not tied into (and recreated) on every social website (like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, etc…).”
The rationale behind the services is also simple. “If you think about it, the way we’re handling profiles online is a little crazy. Having my profile duplicated multiple locations, for each site, is neither efficient or a good long-term solution,” Whiteafrican reads.
Although the idea is not new, it has some important innovative features, the website writes. “To be honest, a couple other services are trying to tackle some of these same issues (OpenID, Microformats, Google’s OpenSocial, etc…). SDSN compliments these services, from what I can tell, and simplifies it for anyone who has their own website.”
Picture: whiteafrican.com
BusinessWeek might grab digital activism by the throat
February 20, 2008
Mary wonders on zapcoom.com about what implication for digital activists can have a story published in the “conservative BusinessWeek” magazine. “We go beyond signing up on an online petition,” says Mark Hanis, executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, quoted by BusinessWeek. “The Web is very much the gateway into taking substantive action,” he says referring to a Facebook group initiative to help Darfur.
“What does it mean when a conservative magazine like BusinessWeek writes a story about college kids using Facebook to organize against the carnage in Darfur?” Mary writes. “It means that they see the practice of digital activism (or ‘activism 2.0,’ as they call it) to be widespread and influential enough to be worthy of notice.”
Careful to take into account BusinessWeek’s profit-seeking intentions, Mary comments that the site sees “some commercial implications from this new user group.”
“If activism is another motivation for using an ad-driven online service like Facebook or YouTube, the owners of these services are right to pay attention to their demands. I would love it if the market tailored services to meet the needs of digital activists.”
Picture: Flickr
Olympic blogging gets greenish light
February 19, 2008
Sportsmen will be allowed to blog during the 2008 Summer Olympic games, to be held in China, as the International Olympic Committee overrules its earlier ban, Sam Bayam comments on a Citizen Media Law Project blog. Yet, the guidelines are restrictive, he writes.
“Most notably, athletes will not be permitted to report on the overall competition,” Bayam writes, “or relay information from third parties; instead, the guidelines require that they focus on their own personal experiences. This is because, in the IOC’s view, blogging is ‘a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism’”
Mine Your Own Business lists eight restrictions on Olympic blogging. “Doesn’t leave much to write about, does it?” the poster, Mike Buckley, wonders. “Here’s the strange part. You would think that this restrictive list came from the Communist Chinese Government. But it doesn’t. These are the rules of the International Olympic Committee. Go figure,” the website reads.
Picture: Flickr
Broadband policy wanted in online politics
February 19, 2008
Drew Clark maintains on the Technology Liberation Front that America’s need for a National Broadband strategy is on everyone’s lips.
“Seriously, it is amazing how much consensus there seems to have developed on this simple point,” Clark writes. “From the Bell carriers to Googlers, from public interest groups to local legislators, from Democratic activists critical of anything and everything done by the Bush administration to rural Republicans who finally want the Universal Service Fund to cover high-speed Internet services: they all want a National Broadband Strategy.”
Clark expects the beginning of the debate to have started on the upcoming 2008 Politics Online Conference.
Picture: Flickr
Moroccan Facebook user faces prison for fake royalty profile
February 19, 2008
Today, February 19, many Moroccan bloggers are on strike, protesting against the imprisonment of a Moroccon Facebook user who created a fake profile.
Sami Ben Gharbia writes on a Global Voices Online blog about a case of imprisonment of an IT engineer who created a fake Facebook profile of a Morocco royalty, Prince Moulay Rachid.
Fouad Mourtada confessed he created the fake profile as a joke, following the example of many other Facebook users who create fake accounts of celebrities.
According to the blog, “Fouad Mourtada could face five years in prison “for having done what thousands of people throughout the world do everyday: Create a profile of a celebrity or a star on Facebook,” his lawyer Ali Ammar said, adding: “This is a cultural problem. This is the first time that a Moroccan poses as a very important personality on the Internet (…) This is already a common practice in Europe and the United States.”
“This frivolous gesture earned him a terrifying response from the Moroccan state, as he tells in his own words on a website set up by his family,” writes eatbees on a Talking Points Memo blog. “Happily, Fouad has found support in the Moroccan blogosphere,” the author also writes.
Picture: Global Voices Online
China’s great firewall 2007 stats
February 12, 2008
Somebody Think of the Children website reveals statistics about China’s Internet banning toll. According to the site, 44,000 websites were shut down by Chinese authorities in 2007.
Chinese regulations require that all websites and bloggers receive approval of the government to register. The website quotes Daily Tech “200,000 sites were registered last year and 14,000 were refused approval. Independent sources say the real number of rejected applicants is much higher.”
Businesses expected to work around China’s recent online video restrictions
January 31, 2008
China – the world’s next to largest online population – gives a faster spin to country’s restrictions of Internet content, starting on Thursday, Associated Press reports. The authorities have ruled against non-state-owned video services in country’s cyberspace, which is in line with China’s restrictions on media ownership.
“The rules are aimed at expanding a Chinese censorship system that tries to block Internet use to spread dissent while promoting it for business and education,” the story reads.
Critics wonder about the fate of user-generated video content. “It seems to be that political content is the foremost concern,” said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China Ltd., a research firm in Beijing, quoted by AP.
Yet, private companies are expected to find a work around. Kaiser Kuo estimates on his DigitalWatch Ogilvy blog a continuation of operations, without having Chinese businesses crossing legal limits. “There’s definitely precedent for operating in a regulatory gray area until things sort themselves out, and as long as no one crosses major lines – pornography, politically sensitive content – my instincts tell me that none of these regulatory bodies are going to sink a major video sharing or P2P player, as ominous as this bit about limiting online video […] sounds,” the blogger writes.
Picture: Flickr
Traditional tools in non-traditional online campaigning
January 21, 2008
Amids the US e-campaigning hype, E.politics quotes Josh McConaha, DNC Internet Director, in channeling the vast online campaigning instruments into three major tool categories. Surprisingly, the big three are the traditional online advertising mechanisms: email, website and outreach.
Email and a central campaign website are the most readily visible options for an experimented online advertiser, be it for chewing gum or political platform. At the same time, outreach moves deeper into the Web 2.0. realm combined with face-to-face interaction, involving a direct relationship with the blogger writing about the candidate.
Mr. McConaha identified the social networks and online video as the most logical next step for online political campaigning.