"... a new way of measuring the actual attention of readers, as part of a move to get publishers and advertisers to stop focusing only on clicks and pageviews... Unlike pageviews, which simply measure whether a page has loaded, or even unique visitors ... metrics like “active exposure time,” ... can determine how much time a reader spent with a s…

If you care about EU democracy you need to care about European media, particularly as the upcoming US media invasion gets underway. They'll be pushing on an open door when they get to Brussels.

"The Guardian has a new setup for its liveblogs that aims to fix some of their eternal problems — chief among them that they’re great for in-the-moment following along, but cryptic and unnavigable after the fact" - The Guardian has a new format for liveblogs to make them more readable » Nieman Journalism Lab

""How to stop trolling online?” is the question of the moment. From [Quora's] inception, its efforts have been geared towards “making quality scale,” ... also meant keep making the application a safe place for users to write... It has introduced a new anti-harassment feature, where users are prompted to flag any comment or post ... Quora moderat…

"I can only assume that they were naïve about what taking venture capital would mean for a project like this. Which, to put it bluntly, is the nail in its coffin.... When you take venture capital, it is not a matter of if you’re going to sell your users, you already have... In the myopic and upside-down world of venture capital, exits precede the…

One thing I'm not hearing is whether website owners will be able to use Atlas data to customise their user experience. "Atlas will allow marketers to tap its detailed knowledge of its users to direct ads to those people on thousands of other websites and mobile apps.... Facebook has deep, deep data on its users. You can slice and dice markets, l…

"Ello..., may be forced to renege on its promises... received $435,000 in seed funding from Vermont-based VC firm Fresh Track Capital. ... none of its financial responsibility is disclosed on the site.... Freemiums is how Ello plans to make its money, charging users for premium services. "

"“The best way to preserve editorially independent, high quality journalism is to preserve the business model. And I think the idea of branded content that shares a form factor with editorial is a great first step.”" - Going native at the Times | Capital New York

The last is the best: "14... One sure way to trigger writer's block when blogging is to think, "I have to capture all my thoughts on this idea and write it about it definitively once and for all."" I definitely fell into that trap, and also definitely found that I could: "... work around the edges of an idea over days and weeks and months and re…

"If you’re thinking of organizing an AMA for yourself or your company, here are some suggestions for making it a good one. "

Just substitute 'governments' for 'businesses' and 'brands', 'citizens' for 'customers', and 'policy' for 'product' in this excellent HBR post: "Businesses need to take Ello and its manifesto as a wake-up call to rethink the way they use social networks to reach customers... That means stepping back from the relentless quest for followers, click…

The seminal launch 538 launch post: "... while the first two steps of the process (collecting and organizing information in the form of news stories) are thought to fall within the province of “objective” journalism, explanatory journalism is sometimes placed in the category of “opinion journalism.” ... [which] doesn’t seem to abide by the standa…

"Over the past 18 months, Mashable — helped along by a $14 million infusion of capital — has doubled in size ... announced its first international expansion... [and] opened a Los Angeles office Mashable chose London because it’s a prime market for advertising" - Mashable, too, heads to Europe | Poynter.

"Roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use Facebook, and half of those users get news there — amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube is the next biggest social news pathway ... users who arrive via Facebook spend far less time and consume far fewer pages than those who arrive directly. The same is true of users arriving by search..…

"Facebook executives met with a group of drag queens from San Francisco to discuss the social network’s infamous “real names” policy... Facebook apparently had no intention of negotiating because the policy was crafted for the sale of targeted ads not for the safety of human beings with complex identities.... Facebook appears like a school bully…

Mashable hedges its bets: ""We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment... Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life. You are not a product."" - What's Up With Ello, the Anti-Facebook Social Network?

"But for those searching for what's next, Ello is not it. There have been a few versions of this virtuous social network before—from Diaspora (forgotten), App.net (oof), and even Path (oy) ... [Diaspora] was intended less as an imitation of Facebook than as an escape route from it... New York magazine wrote almost four years ago to the day."

A useful look at how user-centricity has leapt out of the web department and into the business strategy: "... Quartz ... Gawker, BuzzFeed and Tumblr... are increasingly thinking about what they do as providing a service, not just as a business that generates content and then delivers it to people.... you have to experiment, and iterate rapidly, …

"Today, we have seen the proliferation of new news ventures thanks to some fortuitous changes in the funding environment, such as venture capitalists, tech philanthropists, and big companies willing to take a chance on actual content produced by journalists as opposed to funding platforms or aggregators. And they all have mission statements speaki…

"This is a Big Deal for a lot of people right now, because the software companies that support our social lives have become so evil and pervasive and controlling in recent years." - What Does Ethical Social Networking Software Look Like? — The Message — Medium

Last year I decided to get Information Overload under control, setting up a GTD system with a DoIt-driven morning routine and Pocket, Diigo and IFTTT to queue, store and share useful stuff. I was all set. For what, I wasn't sure. But I was sure as hell organised. And then, a couple of days ago, an article on Aeon - What good is information? -…

"What's fascinating about Longform isn't its success... but how it went from a fairly simple website to an ambitious world-changing platform by nothing more than user feedback. No abstract theories... Just the simple power of going iteratively from MVP to a product people want... the new Longform app allows you to follow individual writers' wor…

"A good social media manager doesn’t have to have experience in the subject matter; they know how to do their research, build personas, adapt and be creative... Not understanding target demographics is like playing darts without a bull’s eye." - The Psychology That Informs Social Media | Social Media Today

"The New York Times today introduced “Watching,” a major new feature on the NYTimes.com homepage on desktop and on the mobile website. Watching is a stream of developing and noteworthy news designed to amplify the scope and urgency of The Times’s digital report. Watching offers a tailored feed of the news of the moment, such as early outlines of …

"the botched roll-out of Obamacare involved 55 uncoordinated IT vendors... barely 3 percent of the $800 billion stimulus plan went to rebuild transportation infrastructure... federal pensions are processed by hand in a deep cave in Pennsylvania.... over the last few decades, law has gotten ever more granular. But all that regulatory detail, like …

"The trouble is that information doesn’t nourish us... it turns out to be boring.... if there is an antidote to boredom, it is not information but meaning... Information is ... an undifferentiated stream of sense and nonsense ... the journey from information to meaning involves more than simply filtering the signal from the noise. It is an alchem…

As commented on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/New-Narrative-Europe-closing-event-4203563.S.5916497700450234368), a poll with an interesting set of options to choose from: "Do you: a) Love Europe as a state of mind? b) Love Europe as a solution to the challenges we face together? c) Love Europe for its victory over the barriers which o…

Great piece on corporate journalism from the FT. "The Richmond Standard is one of the more polished sites to emerge in the age of hyper-local digital news brands such as Patch and DNAinfo.com... it is run and funded by Chevron, the $240bn oil group which owns the Richmond refinery that in August 2012 caught fire... sending more than 15,000 reside…

"think-tanks, the semi-academic institutions that come up with ideas for politicians [are] increasingly doing journalism—not just blogging and tweeting but foreign reporting, too. Deskbound journalists, meanwhile, are embracing data and spreadsheets." Really? Think tanks are basically glorified PR firms for political movements/parties, so this mo…

"Corporations are tempted to take over journalism with increasingly better contents. ... dangers and hopes for new revenue streams." Interesting figures on the decline in journalists and the rise of PR specialists, cause by 2 trends: "while the journalistic staffing is shrinking dramatically ... the public relation crowd is rising in a spectacul…