The "Weekly WassUp" is a brief weekly overview of what has been showing up in "the feeds" in the last week.
In this issue:
- Nov. 24 : YouTube goes wide
- Nov. 25 : Six Apart launches Typepad Connect
- Nov. 30 : The Facebook Connection
- Citizen journalism: for better and for worse
- Nov. 27 : The Big Ask
Nov. 24 : YouTube goes wide
First there was high-definition video, then there was live streaming, and now there is ... widescreen. Video sharing platform YouTube is rapidly changing to address some long-lasting concerns (video quality) and prepare for at least the MGM deal (bringing in full-length movies) and probably some more shots they've got up their sleeve. As from now, the video player has been changed to a 16:9 aspect ratio (for which they had to increase the YouTube layout to 960 pixels). Videos uploaded in 4:3 format will also be shown in the new player format, but will have black bars at the left and the right.
As an example, this is what the new edition of the immensely popular 'Where The Hell Is Matt?' viral video now looks like:
Nov. 25 : Six Apart launches Typepad Connect
Blogging platform Typepad announced a beta version of Typepad Connect, a new service that should make your blog "the center of the discussion". With Typepad Connect it is possible to easily add a (spam-free) comments section to your blog(s), track and manage all your comments centrally and read and reply via email. Or in short: manage your blog community. At the heart of it all, there is a personal profile page where you can enter some details about yourself and specify your avatar (a small icon representing you). A couple of these feature are already available from other parties like CoComment, Disqus and Gravatar. But even with its aggregated approach, Typepad is not first to the game: Yahoo! already has MyBlogLog, Automattic/WordPress is working on BuddyPress and Google/Blogger has its 'follow' feature. So there's going to be a though battle ahead to make it as the social blog platform. One point Typepad already scores is that Typepad Connect is 'open': you can of course use it on your Typepad blog, but also on Wordpress.org, Blogger, Moveable Type and Tumblr. And it even supports any other installation with a simple piece of javascript.
Nov. 30 : The Facebook Connection
And Typepad was not the only one opening up last week. Facebook also officially launched its 'Facebook Connect' service which was first announced last May. With Facebook connect, you can allow your website visitors to log in using their Facebook account. Your website then has access to some profile information (for a limited period of time), and any activity that occurs on the site (Twitters written, Digg stories voted on, etc.) can optionally flow back to the user's activity stream. For the sites, there's a clear win: easy sign in and access to Facebook profile data and even the friends list! For Facebook, it will certainly bring in new users and the extra data flowing in can of course later on be used for better targeted advertising.
Besides of having to look out for competitors MySpace ('Data Availability') and Google ('Friend Connect'), Facebook will have to watch out very closely not to get caught in any privacy trap as it did with its late Facebook Beacon advertising program...
In the next few weeks, a number of prominent Web sites will weave this
service into their pages, including those of the Discovery Channel and
The San Francisco Chronicle, the social news site Digg, the genealogy
network Geni and the online video hub Hulu.
Citizen journalism: for better and for worse
"The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional
journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the
global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check
media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog
or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from
the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog.
Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in
your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event
and post it on a site such as YouTube." (Mark Glasser, src: Wikipedia)
Last week showed us two great examples of citizen journalism and what it might lead up to: first there were the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. During the events, people relied heavily on services like Twitter and Flickr to bring coverage to the rest of the world. Within five seconds at 0748 GMT, 80 messages were posted to Twitter. Posts
included offers of help for the media and updates on the situation (src: Reuters). Pictures appeared on Flickr and were used by traditional media. When the phone lines got jammed, the Mumbai Help blog assisted by passing on messages.
Reportedly, the Mumbai police department would have asked to stop tweeting (= posting on Twitter) about Mumbai police and military operations. Maybe it had something to do with the terrorists also following the situation on their BlackBerrys...
The second citizen journalism story of last week is of a totally different order: Current Belgian minister of Defense, Pieter De Crem, was spotted in a New York bar by the dutch bartender Nathalie Lubbe Bakker, more or less ... well... waisted. Moreover, during a conversation with one of the politician's advisors, she would have been told that the meetings they were there for (on taxpayer's money) were in fact canceled because the UN was meeting in Geneva. The next day, baffled by what she'd heard, she put the story on her personal blog (dutch).
A couple days later however, Mrs. Lubbe Bakker got fired. First, Mr. De Crem denied having had any contact with her employer, later he admitted that one of his advisers went to see him, but claimed that he had nothing to do with her being fired.
Back in Belgium, Mr. De Crem defended himself before parliament and put the icing on the cake: "I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a
dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody
is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without
taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with
you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s
nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a
potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think
about this." dixit Mr. De Crem. Needless to say this caused quite some commotion in the Belgian blogosphere.
Clearly, citizen journalism is still in its infancy and everyone still will have to learn its exact mechanics. The rules of serious journalism (fact checking, ethics, ...) will also have to be mastered by people without a background in traditional journalism and people will have to take into account that everyone can be a reporter and learn to deal with it appropriately.
Nov. 27 : The Big Ask
On November 27, the 'The Big Ask' crowdsourcing campaign was launched in Belgian parliament. Belgian director Nic Balthazar and Friends of the Earth created a beautiful video clip about climate change, calling upon all people to urge politicians to adopt a climate law.
