Technology

Facebook and journalism

First it was Friendster, then it was MySpace; now Facebook seems to be the center of every other conversation on the Internet. Several of the writers at Poynter Online (a resource that puports to be "Everything you need to be a better journalist") have recently been focusing on the possibilities for Facebook in terms of the news business.

In one article Pat Walters reports on how he created the Facebook group, Journalists and Facebook as a sort of experiment. What better way to report on Facebook, than to use Facebook? We invited about 25 journalists to join the group, posted a few questions to the discussion board and waited.

Seemed to make perfect sense.

By the time we posted this story on Poynter Online, the group had mushroomed to more than 800 members, journalists and non-journalists from all over the world. At this moment there are almost 1,800 members, but only 57 wall posts, and 22 discussion threads. In his article, Walters points out that this limited participation in the group isn't unusual and he references an article by Jakob Nielsen to illustrate this phenomena. In his article, Nielsen predicts that only one percent of any given group will create most of the content, and after a cursory glance at the Journalists and Facebook group that estimate appears to be roughly on target.

A PTA for the 21st Century

Over the past several years I have watched in dismay as the budgetary consequences of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) force schools to adopt zero-tolerance policies toward education. I have seen in my own neighborhood a "successful" school reduce its science instruction down to 20 minutes a week for 1st-3rd graders because of fears that a single child's lack of performance on a standardized test might result in a budgetary take-down. Mr. Holland's Opus was a poignant and sadly prescient story of a bureaucracy that had its sites set far too low when it came to … Read more

Work, Life, Vacation. When worlds collide.

The (parent.thesis) blog is coming to you this week from the lakeside woods of Northern Michigan. Family vacations used to mean getting away to what felt like an alternate universe, a place that seemed to materialize only in the summer, and disappeared from consciousness the rest of the year. We used to feel cut off from the rest of the world up here. There was no TV, and if we didn't get the newspaper we could miss out on a whole week of news.

But now the online world has bridged these two universes. I checked the upcoming week's vacation weather from home, before we left. Using the Microsoft Virtual Earth map on Weather.com, I zoomed in down to the level where I could see my family's house. I know we've probably all done search on own houses at some point, but to see the vacation house from home gave me a true though-the-looking-glass-feeling.

We're still not exactly high tech up here. We don't have an internet connection in the house, but we are allowed to connect to the house next door's network. So I am sitting in the woods, on a plastic chair, blogging on my laptop. This experience crystallizes the best and worst of remote connection for me. … Read more

What does MySpace news about removing 29,000 sex offenders mean for parents?

MySpace has quadrupled its estimated number of registered sex offenders posting profiles on the site, from its May estimate of 7,000 to a current tally of 29,000. The pages of identified offenders have been deleted. What does this news mean for parents? How do we assess risk and keep it in perspective, and what best practices should be implemented on family, corporate and societal levels to keep kids safe?… Read more

I'm off to a rough start with my iPhone

The iPhone has landed in the real world and at my house it's been more of a thud than a revelation. Will iPhone be an indispensable tool or a special-occasion gimmick? Find out how everyone's tech fantasy is squaring with one busy family's reality.… Read more

Minisodes: For those who find 30-minute sitcoms too deep and drawn out

The average half hour sitcom runs about 22 minutes, but for some people that's simply too long. Most successful web videos average between 2 and 5 minutes, and the folks at Sony Pictures Television have found a new way to deliver classic television to this shortened-attention-span set. As highlighted in a recent story by CNN, The The Minisode Network is presented on Myspace and offers a swath of retro television episodes that have been carefully edited down to five minutes in an effort to update the old shows for the post millennium web format.

The network offers a variety of programming from Dilbert to Diff'rent Strokes, but is something lost in translation as the video editors slice and dice everything from the original that is considered not essential? Are these mostly ancient sitcoms even worth watching today in either form? While I can't be certain whether it's a result of the hack jobs or the dated material, most of the mini-episodes I watched felt incomplete and not really worth watching. The editing was clean and seamless, but the stories lacked any real development (something that's already a problem with the sitcom genre). The jokes were still there and the punchlines were also kept intact, but the timing was wrong and the humor was all but lost on me.

Moms, just say no to babysitting Webkinz

Now I have heard everything. On top of all the duties that moms are supposed to do, some are now babysitting their kids' Webkinz online pets while the children are away at summer camp.

In the world of overintensive parenting and martyred moms, can we all agree that spending a half hour to an hour a day caring for pretend critters is a good place to draw the line at ridiculous demands that are made of our time? (Of course there is no mention of dads being asked to take over this ridiculous "duty.")

Webkinz never die but … Read more

Legal end of an era

My grandparents lived very long lives. My mother's father was born in 1893, grew up on a sheep ranch in Australia, fought for the British in World War I, suffered numerous life-threatening calamities and collisions as a semi-professional adventurer, and lived 86 years. My father's parents both lived to the age of 96. And my mother's mother lived to be more than 100 years old. She was a professional musician who played in the big bands, backing movies like Abbott and Costello's Here Come the Co-eds and played most famously in Phil Spitalny's Hour of Charm All Girl Orchestra, chronicled in the book Swing Shift. (Sadly that book was written after the memories of most of the sources had begun to degrade.)… Read more

Presidential hopefuls to debate with the aid of CNN and YouTube

When I first heard that CNN had partnered with YouTube for two upcoming presedential debates I was intrigued. For the first time in history, on July 23 at 4:00 p.m. (PDT), the general public will have a chance to ask a question to the man (or woman) who might become the next president of the United States.

But what does this approach really mean to the future of U.S. politics? As a recent article on CNN points out, while the questions may come from the public, the news agency is still making the choice of which questions will actually be asked. Does this approach really democratize the debates or is it simply a chance for a few lucky individuals to have a chance to be on national television? According to Joshua Levy at TechPresident.com, "There are two parts to opening up a platform like these debates to the community: 1) Let individuals participate in unprecedented ways, (and) 2) Give up control of the voting to the community."

Moms get personal and political online

When you think of a parenting and technology blog, you might expect lots of posts about new gadgets for kids. But I have found that the biggest impact that technology has had on my "parenting" life isn't in my relationship with my child, it's in my identity as a mother. And rather than being about gadgets, for me technology is primarily about relationships and sharing information.… Read more