5/16 Digital Inspiration - Technology Blog

Please add updates@feedmyinbox.com to your address book to make sure you receive these messages in the future. Digital Inspiration - Technology Blog Timeline: How Our News Sources Changed in the Last 200+ Years May 15, 2009 at 2:49 pm Our primary sources of information in the last 200 years - Timeline In the early 19th century, the only way to get news was face-to-face communication but that started to change with the advent of printed newspapers and magazines in the 1900s. Then came radio, followed by Television which still dominate the medium but people are quickly moving away from traditional media as Internet websites and social networks are fast becoming our primary sources of news and information. This shift in the way we consume information has been brilliantly captured in these graphs by Thomas Baekdal who also predicts that traditional media reporting on newspapers, Television & Radio will disappear by 2020 to be replaced by social news. The traditional journalistic reporting is by now completely replaced getting information directly from the source. Everyone is a potential reporter, but new advances in targeting will eliminate most of the noise. The journalists will turn into editors who, instead of reporting the news, bring it together [from citizen journalists or live sources like Twitter] to give us a bigger picture.  You can download a bigger version of this graph from the author’s website, or get the white or black version for your desktop backgrounds. Timeline: How Our News Sources Changed in the Last 200+ Years - Published at Digital Inspiration (RSS) How China Censors the Internet - Video May 15, 2009 at 7:58 am An employee of Baidu, the Google of China, has leaked a document folder that suggests in detail how authorities in China censor the Internet. Video - Internet Censorship in China These internal documents contain information about internet monitoring policies of China, how censors can search web pages for sensitive keywords and the unique point system that is used by government to reward the "more efficient" Internet police staff. Related: Know if your site is blocked in China? List of Words Banned in China Here’s a quick list of blacklisted topics and sensitive keyword phrases that are blocked on the Chinese Internet. These include: Chinese Communist Party, Ruling government Puppet government, One-party system Dictatorship, tyranny Human rights in China & Freedom of expression Gao Zhisheng (Chinese lawyer and activist) Falun Gong (Banned cult in China founded by Li Hongzhi) Keywords related to Military, Gambling, Brainwashing & Sex Kidney harvesting from live people, Organ Sale Tiananmen Square Massacre Tibet, Taiwan Independence Cheating in Examinations, Fake Diploma courses How to make bombs, counterfeit money and so on. In addition to keywords, these documents also include a long list of web addresses that have been deleted from the Chinese web. The full leaked folder with all the keywords and other Baidu documents is available for download here. Related: How to Access Blocked Sites in China How China Censors the Internet - Video - Published at Digital Inspiration (RSS) Add a Recommendation Engine to your Site - Let Readers Decide Your Best Content May 15, 2009 at 5:42 am A recommendation engine is a simple mechanism to learn about stories that other people may have enjoyed reading on your site. The list of recommended items (or web pages) is often published on the site so that new visitors can quickly discover popular stuff without having to dig the archives. Stories recommended by Digg members Items recommended by Amazon Customers Popular sites likes Digg, Amazon, List.fm etc. too have “automated” recommendation systems in place to help audience discover new stories or products that may be related to the item that they are currently browsing. For instance, every Amazon page has a section called “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” that displays related items and accessories. Add a Recommendation Engine to your Blog Google has recently added a new recommendation gadget to Google Friend Connect that makes it easy for bloggers and website owners to know about content that readers find useful and also share it with other visitors. You can place a small “Recommend It” (customizable) button beneath your articles and readers who enjoyed reading that story can click the button to share their appreciation. All these recommended articles will then appear in the public recommendation list on your site (see screenshot on the right) and pages that get the maximum ‘votes’ will surface to the top of the list. Unlike the star rating widgets, the recommendation system provides a single option - “I loved this content” - to the visitors so its not about rating the quality of blog posts. If they like something, they say yes, otherwise they ignore the widget. The best part is that if a visitor recommending any web page is logged into his or her Google Account, their Google Profile get attached to the recommendation and I won’t be surprised if, going forward, all these recommendations also turn up in the public Google Profile. Related: More useful Add-ons for Blogger Add a Recommendation Engine to your Site - Let Readers Decide Your Best Content - Published at Digital Inspiration (RSS) Common Craft Website Gets a Makeover May 15, 2009 at 2:50 am Common Craft, a popular educational video site that is especially known for explaining technical stuff like Twitter, Blogs, Lifestreaming, Wikis, etc. in plain English, has just been revamped. Other than design changes, you can now watch high quality HD videos directly on the Common Craft site using their new widescreen FLV player. These carry a watermark but you can still embed Common Craft videos on your own site as before using their YouTube channel. Since their launch in 2007, the Common Craft team has created around 30 video clips that have been viewed over 10 million times online.  And text transcripts of these videos are now available for reading Amazon Kindle (including Kindle’s iPhone App) as well though for a fee. Common Craft Website Gets a Makeover - Published at Digital Inspiration (RSS)   This email was sent to xfeedr@gmail.com.  Create Your Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here.