SocialMedia-GoodBad&Ugly,The!

Twitter is a darling, let’s all agree. It is not anymore just a micro blogging site or just about staying regular in touch or exchanging the latest info. Ofcourse, its all that, but in the fewest words, for most its the new X-factor. I am talking about those people who got a sudden professional hitch (and those who got TV shows, book deals, movie deals etc) just by tweeting. So, all of you who underestimate Social Media, its go-grey time. Its a mini-democracy out there people!

And like in most democracies, there's all the over whelming talk about just everything in the entire wide world. Yeah, its a little bad but a lot better compared to some things that happen to those like Shamu,for whom it was end of career. Atleast from what I hear,they closed down Shamus Tweets as people who previously found Shamu a playful whale boy having fun sea life, suddenly feel Shamu's words and deeds are abusive and not so lively and funny, anymore!

Hmm, bottomline is-- Twitter is to stay, whether you stay or not.Just like the Universe! So, better not to tweet like a bird brain.

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Innovative Journalism

Got to watch this discussion on Social Media and Journalism, featuring Rachel Sterne and Robert Mackey - two successful new age leaders in American Journalism. They started as citizen journalists who streamed news from information available on weblogs about the various new incidents that happen across the globe. And, now they have even started syndicating content to big names in the newspaper industry(HuffPost and NYTimes respectively). GroundReport's information sourcecount goes up to 5000+ contributors worldwide who get paid based on ad revenue.

Watch them talk about how online networks help in news gathering and what can be done to ensure accuracy in reporting.

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Buzz's on Time!

Alright. So, Google is just determined to be the next Alexander. Buying out all potential competitors and integrating all services and feeding us at one place; now they are one more step ahead- by changing Gmail to Social Gmail. So, what if they had failed at first, with a lame "wave" that couldn't create many tides? The Buzz's here. And, like last time, it was not based on "invitations". They know better this time- that propogated elitism won't work anymore in the digital world where there are already a lot of more useful come one come all applications floating around. So, anyways, they just shoved the Buzz down everybody's throat yesterday. (everybody who opened their gmail inbox yesterday and thats a lot of people,if me and the stats are not wrong).

Aah,so, it seems like, little failures are still the big stepping stones to ultimate empire-dom. Is it? Lets see.

Update(Feb 18)-- Buzz is sued by Florida Resident for violating consumer protection laws. Many users had complained of loss of privacy. Buzz Settings initially automatically created profile and added friends based on most frequent emailed and chat contacts, sharing among them Picasa albums and Google Reader. Now, they had disabled it following a large number of complaints.

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