Twittering the Iran Election

I've been spending much of the last day or so online watching the Iran election and Twittering about it. My previous resistance to using Twitter seems to have dissipated, especially because I found a gadget that allowed me to put it onto my iGoogle homepage as well as automatically update it to my Facebook and Blog. Very easy to use on a whim, and it goes out to a wide range of people.

The Iranian elections have been carried almost entirely online, with mainstream media sources being limited by both logistics as well as Iranian government authorities prohibiting coverage. Instead of my television, people have been using Web proxies to use online services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more.

It's interesting to see how each event like this seems to have these social media sources rapidly outpacing the mainstream news. Part of this is because of the limitations upon journalists to avoid publishing hearsay, but CNN and the BBC seem to be falling further behind each time.

This is particularly true for events that affect broad range of people and have significant duration. Previous examples are the attacks in Mumbai, or even the original RNC convention that put Twitter on the map. At this point the mainstream media is putting out information that is hours out of date and is therefore pretty worthless. The signal to noise ratio is definitely lower, but the sheer amount of output and self-correction is making for some incredible coverage.

For example, Iranian students like this one have been providing live coverage during brutal attacks upon the student dorms by Iranian Hezbollah. A very different, visceral kind of journalism.

Additionally, major blogs and news agencies are beginning to really incorporate this kind of social media into their reporting. Places like the Huffington Post are following trending topics like #IranElection in order to collate good information and collective it, while larger news agencies such as CNN International are contacting popular Twitter users in order to gather first-person sources.

It's a changing world. Of course, there's no money in it either.

The Oregonian Triages Eugene Area

Looks like the mainstay Oregon newspaper, The Oregonian, is pulling up its roots in Eugene and Springfield, and is to stop delivering dailies in order to save money on printing costs. I first heard about this from Newspaper Deathwatch, the reaper-like website that has been watching the fall of the industry of 'black, white and read all over'. As a journalism-major this is all a little less than reassuring.

The news came from my mother in a phone call.

Had I seen The Oregonian's letter announcing the end of daily delivery? Seems rising newsprint and distribution costs make it too expensive for The Oregonian to bring its papers to home or retail outlets in Eugene-Springfield on a daily basis, apart from Sunday.

My own letter from The Oregonian's circulation director lay in the unopened mail pile. Another busy day of leaving early and getting home late. I'd managed to start off right by reading the Register-Guard and Oregonian before leaving my house at 6:00 a.m., but hadn't opened the mail after rushing home that night.

The letter was kind. A model of strength-based reassurance. The Oregonian knows its decision to stop visiting my house every morning is a loss, for me and for each and every one of the readers. While the newspaper won't be found in retail outlets in Oregon's second largest metropolitan area, it will arrive on Sunday and web content is available 24/7.

Now all I want for Christmas is for The Oregonian to keep landing somewhere in my yard by 6:00 a.m.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2008/12/waking_up_to_a_morning_without.html

San Francisco Protests

Thanks to the power of the Internet, here is local amateur coverage of the protests in San Francisco earlier today. It doesn't get any better than this (or jerkier and un-narrated).

Dice Warz

I am newly addicted to an online flash game. Forget the Defense of the Ancients knock offs, the myriad zombie shooters or even the various 'realistic' physics games where you guide a poor snowboarder down treacherous mountains: I'm talking about Dice Wars.

This game isn't particularly new, I've heard word of it percolating around the internet for some time, but I only checked it out recently. My verdict - it cannot be put down.

Dice Wars was made popular in Japan before it crossed the language gap and launched into the larger English-speaking casual gaming market (which is huge). Many people have compared its game play to Risk, but I think there are some elements of Go as well. Players fight to control territory using semi-random dice rolls, with successful territory captures yielding a player more power but opening them up to reprisal.

But don't let me convince you, go check it out yourself.

Journal Entry IX

Journal Entry 9: Online Newsgathering

I am consistently astonished about the ways people get their media. The sheer number of different methods available is incredible, as is the variety in the quality of the information. I’ve held down a system for getting news pretty well over the last five years or so: I get local news off the Oregon Daily Emerald and the Eugene Weekly, but I probably only get three or four of those a week. I also listen to Oregon Public Radio (including NPR, PRI, BBC) for a variety of news, especially regional and national. For most national and international news I go online to the BBC World Edition, which is also fed to my Google homepage along with AP, Reuters, and other major news outlets.

But all of this tends to just be top news, meaning that it is usually covered only somewhat satisfactorily. Due to this, I also get my news off a variety of in-depth online sources that combine news articles along with independent and open commentary. These sources tend to give better coverage because you can end up being linked to five to 10 sources, each with their own perspective and information. For example, I get a lot of my technology news off Slashdot, which is a technology compblog. I might see a dozen different stories, each with their own links to media and commentary, as well as an option to add my own voice. I get news trivia off BoingBoing, Internet news off Digg and General/Political news off Something Awful.

Of course, this might seem like a veritable onslaught of media, and perhaps it is, but I manage to deal with it pretty quickly each morning.