Sunday 28 November 2010

The Weekend Links Post: No. 31

Welcome, again, to another entirely subjective selection of 15 links, humanely culled from my week's online reading and roughly collated under the seven broad categories seen below:

Selected Highlights from Guardian Technology (Because otherwise I just don't get around to reading it now it's no longer in the print edition).

The internet's cyber radicals: Aleks Krotoski begins a new fortnightly column on how the internet is changing our world (reader contributions to each column are invited at the link).

Facebook 'one of several threats' to the principles of the web, says Tim Berners-Lee.

'Cloud gaming' services enabling users to play games beyond the spec of their own machines.

Earth as Art: an online gallery of US Geological Survey satellite images.

Has the Times increased profits with its paywall? The latest figures tell us nothing, says Cory Doctorow.

Social Media

Serendipity and human connections: the new sites following in the wake of Chatroulette.

The Viral Spiral: 'the most shared video ads from each of the years 2006-2010.'

Books, Writing & Storytelling

Three book industry experiments with online crowdsourced funding.

Lulu Titlescorer: find out whether your novel has the title to become a bestseller.

Useful Apps, Utilities & Downloads

Feather: Aviary's superb suite of online design tools now includes an embeddable photo editor, thanks to HTML5.

Music

Spotify still planning US expansion - with or without major labels - despite £16.6m losses in 2009.

Games & Other Distractions

Entries to the latest jayisgames.com Casual Gameplay Design Competition are now available to play online.

Miscellaneous

Lessons learned by The New York Times's David Pogue in his 10 years of writing about technology.

The US embassy cables: what Washington thinks of the rest of the world, as divulged in 'the biggest intelligence leak in history'.

Bad publicity can get you top ranked in a Google search, but is it a long-term business model?

Sunday 21 November 2010

The Weekend Links Post: No. 30

Welcome, again, to another entirely subjective selection of 15 links, humanely culled from my week's online reading and roughly collated under the seven broad categories seen below:

Selected Highlights from Guardian Technology (Because otherwise I just don't get around to reading it now it's no longer in the print edition).

Author Steven Johnson on: innovation and where good ideas come from.

The latest hype, facts and general speculation about Facebook's omni-connected uber-messaging thing.

Google Maps error leads to border dispute in Central America. (Possible consequences of Google's move into fashion as yet unknown).

Alan Rusbridger on: why media organisations shouldn't ignore Twitter (extracted from his lecture 'The splintering of the fourth estate').

Apple and Murdoch to publish new daily newspaper exclusively on tablet computers.

Social Media

Twitter begins inviting selected users to its official Analytics offering, and apologising to third-party developers.

'Facebook Messages? Erm, good luck with that', says experienced email developer.

Books, Writing & Storytelling

A year in digital publishing: The Literary Platform asks publishers for their digital highlights from 2010 and predictions for 2011.

Lifehacker rounds up some handy online tools for language geeks.

Useful Apps, Utilities & Downloads

Quick tip: if your hard disk seems to be unexpectedly full, it might be worth checking that BBC iPlayer Desktop has been correctly deleting downloaded programmes from its repository. Another fix for the problem can be found here.

Music

All Day - Girl Talk: the latest release from mash-up specialist Gregg Gillis, free to download.

Games & Other Distractions

The Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast hosts a round-table discussion on storytelling in game design.

Miscellaneous

You Thought We Wouldn't Notice
: a blog helping to expose art and design plagiarism.

'20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web': Google's new showcase of what we can expect from the web (and Google Chrome) post-HTML5.

What does Google know about you?

Sunday 14 November 2010

The Weekend Links Post: No. 29

Welcome, again, to another entirely subjective selection of 15 links, humanely culled from my week's online reading and roughly collated under the seven broad categories seen below:

Selected Highlights from Guardian Technology (Because otherwise I just don't get around to reading it now it's no longer in the print edition).

BT and TalkTalk force judicial review of the Digital Economy Act.

Google blocks Facebook from GMail contacts import data, admonishes Facebook for restrictive attitude to user data.

Major online travel firms unite against potential Google travel search monopoly.

Newsweek magazine to merge with The Daily Beast website. (See also: the Daily Beast's official announcement).

The trouble with tweets: the arrested Tory councillor; the cricketer suing for libel; a verdict in the Twitter bomb joke trial appeal; and "I am Spartacus", the protest.

Social Media

From Zadie Smith's excellent New York Review of Books essay analysing The Social Network, Facebook and Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto:

"Perhaps Generation Facebook have built their virtual mansions in good faith, in order to house the People 2.0 they genuinely are, and if I feel uncomfortable within them it is because I am stuck at Person 1.0. Then again, the more time I spend with the tail end of Generation Facebook (in the shape of my students) the more convinced I become that some of the software currently shaping their generation is unworthy of them. They are more interesting than it is. They deserve better."

Facebook to launch a competitor for GMail (but it'll have to be a vast improvement on Facebook's current mail system, if it's going to get anywhere).

Books, Writing & Storytelling

Spike Magazine: The Book - a free PDF download of the online books-and-culture magazine's "finest interviews, features and reviews."

More detail on what they're up to at Electric Literature. (See also: Weekend Links No. 28).

Useful Apps, Utilities & Downloads

RockMelt: the Facebook-friendly social browser (that isn't Flock); currently in beta.

Music

Silver Lines - Anna Rose Carter: a beautiful, mesmerising EP of solo piano compositions (free to stream at the link; or a more than reasonable £4 to download). More details and tracks at her Myspace page.

Games & Other Distractions

Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge: Alan Partridge returns to our (monitor) screens, in a new series of made-for-the-web videos.

Miscellaneous

The New York Times begins a new column rounding up the best new made-for-the-web "TV" series and movies.

Your brain on ads: the not-yet-quite-as-troubling-or-futuristic-as-it-sounds science of neuromarketing.

"[T]he online newsletter of the Tories": Clay Shirky takes a look at The Times behind its paywall. (See also: a round-up of the online responses).