Zed Links 9/05/12

The Banter talk series comes over all ball-shaped with its Football Special featuring George Hamilton, Brian Kerr, Ger Gilroy and Miguel Delaney on May 31st.

BBC on the online participation changes it sees.

While we’re talking about participation, here’s a nifty project hosted by the NY Public Library. Collaborative transcription of old menus so that they are searchable. Via Gothamist.

Thowaway culture challenged, could this work in Ireland?

Lots to love about the fictional silence in Lucie and Simon’s Silent World project.

To Fans, From Joss.

 

May 9th, 2012 at 3:02 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Links


Jess Mills “A Forest”

Just a little obsessed with Mills’ cover of The Cure’s A Forest from the Lovefilm ad.

April 10th, 2012 at 4:03 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Culture


Zed Links 10/04/12

Kamori Studios is a space Klara and I are working on in nexus of tech and design. We’re working on some really interesting things. We’ll be blogging, making and sharing more about it on its blog. Follow us on Twitter along @kamoristudios. I might blog the odd sneak peak over here now and then. Self pimp done!

Damien sounds off on how RTE can reinvent its newsroom in the wake of the crippling contreversary its embroiled in.

Too many shiny posters in the Good Fucking Design Advice Store.

While we’re looking at wonderful posters, how about map woodcuts?

Tickets for Playful are on sale now.

“To” – On words and signs.

April 10th, 2012 at 11:50 am • Add Comment • Filed in Links


Zed Links 26/03/12

Nominations for this year’s Bord Gáis Social Media Awards close this Friday.

WordByStorm reminds us of FF’s ’97 bus shelter adverts.

Smithfield’s billion dollar house.

Demolition composites. This would be an excellent project to do in Dublin pre-vs-post boom.

Geologic map of Io.

March 26th, 2012 at 7:17 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Links


The Political Scene – New Yorker’s touch-attuned Election12 site

Should you have a spare 10 mins this lunchtime, you really should test drive the New Yorker’s newish politics subsite – The Political Scene.

Scrolling down through the page, it’s obvious that the site is designed for tablets. The scrolling between sections seems attuned to touch. Transitions between sections like Latest News and The Players appears to be almost physical, like folding a page. Hovering over the top striped bar, shows a heads-up banner of the main headlines. Interesting again.

March 8th, 2012 at 1:32 pm • Add Comment • Filed in Blogging, Design


Some thoughts on #tweetgate or They Shoot Tweets, Don’t They?

Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Damn you, you old media folks. Such a rucus across yesterday evening’s political wonk radio and telly coverage. Ho, you made me spill my glass of milk! Panels on last night’s Radio 1′s Late Debate and TV3′s Later with Ivan Yates attempted to pick apart the BAI’s decision to uphold Sean Gallagher’s complaint about that tweet on RTE’s Frontline right before the presidental election.

Lots has been said about the tweet – why wasn’t it checked/what was the timeline/how should it have been checked/what does this mean for old media trying to be relevant in a new media landscape and etc. The not so weird thing about the entire debate is how entirely Irish the whole undertaking has been. Really. Twitter wonks might go ape-shit over tweets emanating from new or untrusted voices, but just like Suzy has said over and over again on the whole Twitter/old media debate – the network of linked voices and old hands on Twitter tend to weed out the untrusted, unverified sources from real ones. On a flat communications landscape like Twitter, trust is usually earned and not given. The one caveat being that at election times, it’s not unusual and in some ways disgustingly human to see supporters astropitching on Twitter, setting up accounts to support their own or attack opponents. It’s not Twitter’s fault, it’s ours.

And that tweet sat out there like a reverberating bear trap while Frontline was broadcasting live. People on Twitter get excited. And of course, when they get excited, retweets are natual. Lots of crap gets retweeted on Twitter. All the time. Lies, insinuations, untruths. Tweets are subject to libel. While it may be illegal to tweet untruths, it’s a person at the end of the day that sends the tweet. To err, even knowingly, just like to astroturf, is human.

So far we have a cobweb of humanity joined together with 140 characters or less. An excitable bunch bouncing messages around and then someone on the Frontline team has a heady moment and hands Pat the tweet as part of a “reaction” segment and the rest is history.

RTE should have done their homework when for vetting the tweet. That’s totally undeniable. Lots of media organisations have fallen in love with the Twitter machine. Totally in love. Sometimes they are little too love with it, I think. Like a pink unicorn, Twitter has wafted into the media landscape offering old media a way to bootstrap themselves into a shared stream of conversation. A conversation that may contain lies, overexaggerations, allegations and astroturfing. Never! This is, unfortunately, something that they are learning the hard way.

That’s why I find it a little weird to see old media heads complain about the Twitter machine. If ever there was an industry that should be cynical about sources, it’s old media right? But then there’s other interesting thoughts that spring from that well:

March 8th, 2012 at 12:35 am • Add Comment • Filed in Brainstrobing, Geekery


next »