dijous, 19 d’agost del 2010
dimarts, 7 de juliol del 2009
How can YouTube survive?
The Independent
July 7, 2009
It's wildly popular - and thought to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Now questions are being asked about the future of YouTube. Rhodri Marsden investigates a mystery of digital-age 'freeconomics'
It must surely rank as the most mundane business launch in history. Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, shuffles timidly in front of a video camera while standing in front of a group of elephants at San Diego zoo, with precious little idea of what he was starting. "The cool thing about these guys," he says, nervously gesturing behind him, "is that they have really long trunks. And that's pretty much all there is to say."
This 19-second video clip, uploaded to the brand-new website later later that day, 23 April 2005, may have been insubstantial, but it certainly wasn't inconsequential. Within 18 months, Karim and his partners Steve Chen and Chad Hurley had sold YouTube to Google for $1.76bn, and in doing so became one of a select band of online entrepreneurs who managed to grab our attention – and keep it.
Innumerable jaded web entrepreneurs will tell you how easy it is to get thousands of people to glance at a site, but how tortuous it is to get people to stick around or even come back again the following day. Not only do you have to fulfil a desire that people didn't even realise that they had, but it has to be done with such style and panache that your service becomes indispensable. While the internet may have dismantled many of the traditional barriers to reaching us, the general public, if your idea is anything less than sensational, we will flatly ignore it.
But YouTube was sensational. Prior to its launch, creating a videoclip for someone else to watch online was an arcane and deeply frustrating procedure of digitisation, encoding and embedding that was way more trouble than it was worth – not least because incompatible technologies meant that many people wouldn't be able to watch it. But from humble beginnings in a room above a pizzeria in San Mateo, California, Hurley, Chen and Karim made the process simple, they made it relatively quick, and above all else, they made it free.
By mid-2006, the site was fizzing with activity as we started using our YouTube channel as a jukebox, a blogging service, a promotional tool for our bands, a home video vault, a repository of famous film and television moments – sometimes with the blessing of the copyright owners, more often without it – and just occasionally, it provided an unexpected route to stardom. YouTube entered the lexicon and became synonymous with online video; the former Secretary of State for Local Government, Hazel Blears, dropped the phrase "YouTube if you want to" into an attack on Gordon Brown's style of Government.
Blears making a feeble joke about YouTube is just one small measure of its phenomenal success. But while its staggering popularity is without question – some 345 million visitors worldwide descend upon the website every month – it is heamorrrhaging cash. The question of exactly how unprofitable it is continues to be the source of fierce debate online; back in April, analysts at Credit Suisse estimated that its operating losses for this year would reach $470m, while San Francisco-based IT consultants RampRate were more optimistic, but still put the figure at just over $174m. Google aren't rushing to put an end to speculation over the scale of the debt. One thing is abundantly clear from both studies: Google isn't making money by letting everyone and their aunt share videos with each other for free. And the news last week that founder Steve Chen was leaving YouTube to work on other projects at Google kicked off another flurry of rumours as to its possible fate.
***
Music, television, sport, gaming: the flow of free entertainment to our computer screens seems almost the result of a magical process, and there's been little need for us to consider the costs that might have been incurred by those making it all happen. It's broadly accepted that YouTube will receive around $240m of revenue from advertising this year, but that sum doesn't even cover their general overheads and the cost of acquiring premium video content (such as TV shows) from copyright holders. In addition, there are the huge fixed costs from the supply side – data centres, hardware, software and bandwidth – that have to cope with the 20 hours of video clips that we upload to YouTube every minute of every day. Again, no-one knows the true total of these costs – the Credit Suisse and RampRate reports put it between $83m and $380m this year – but Google's Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Pichette, would only reveal one thing: "We know our cost position, but nobody else does." Or, in other words, we're not telling you.
This typifies the slightly secretive but ultimately sanguine position of Google even as phrases like "financial folly" are bandied about to describe the YouTube business model. With Google's overall profits reaching some $1.42bn for the first quarter of this year alone, the king of online search is certainly a position to support a loss-making venture that also happens to be the third-most-popular website on the internet. (Google, naturally, is the first.) But Keith McMahon, senior analyst for the Telco 2.0 Initiative, a research group that studies business models in the digital economy, believes that YouTube is not the albatross around Google's neck that it's widely imagined to be. He sees the search company as deriving massive indirect benefits from operating YouTube and believes that estimates of its losses obscure the true picture.
"There are many urban myths surrounding the way that companies extract value from the internet," he says. "Google's spin-off benefits from owning YouTube include the accumulation of our data and strengthening of their network design – and the more time people spend watching online video, the more advertisers will pour into marketing on the internet as a whole. There's no doubt that Google can afford YouTube."
McMahon also believes that by keeping quiet about YouTube's hidden benefits and by allowing the misconception of it as a deeply unprofitable business to circulate, things work very nicely in Google's favour when it comes to negotiating with copyright holders in the world of TV, movies and music. Copyright holders can't demand money that isn't there, and it would certainly take no more than a hint of profitability at YouTube for lawyers to descend, threatening court cases and demanding higher royalties. In the new, topsy-turvy world of online economics, it seems astonishing that losses on paper have actually made YouTube a more powerful online force.
But while Google's pockets may be deep enough to operate a phenomenally popular online service at no cost to its users, what about the countless other internet startups whose operations scarcely extend across a dingy office, let alone several continents? With the free model slowly establishing itself, how can businesses sustain their activities? Sadly, the most common answer is: they can't. The traditional way to generate revenue and offset losses has been to sell some form of advertising space on the website. But an increasing number of industry commentators believe that the internet advertising model is broken – and what better proof than YouTube itself, whose advertising revenues don't even cover their overheads, and who might be dead in the water if it wasn't for their multinational sugar daddy?
In a piece this year for the insider's technology blog, TechCrunch, entitled "Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet", Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the way that we're using the internet has shattered the whole concept of advertising. We need no encouragement to share our opinions online regarding products and services and offer them star ratings; as a result, we're much more likely to look for personal recommendations from other customers than wait for a gaudy advert to beckon us wildly in the direction of a company website or online store. He claims we don't trust online advertising, we don't need online advertising, but above all we don't want online advertising.
There's certainly a huge weight of evidence to support the latter theory; extensions for web browsers that block advertisements from displaying on the screen have proved to be incredibly popular, and we seem increasingly resentful of attempts by companies to compromise our free online experience by pushing marketing messages in our direction. Spotify, the online jukebox launched this year, has won countless plaudits for its innovative, free and legal approach to online music, but you don't need to look far online before finding users who bitterly complain about the brief audio adverts that play every 20 minutes, interrupting the flow of the new Kasabian album. One comment on a story about the possible expansion of YouTube's advertising is typical: "If advertising is made one iota more intrusive, I shall use other video sites instead."
Small wonder that YouTube only dare feature advertising in less than 5 per cent of the videos on the website, along with a few subtle ads in the sidebar of their search results. But while Google continues to finesse its YouTube model, with click-to-buy links and sponsored competitions, it's contended by Professor Clemons that no matter how innovative the advertising industry might become, "commercial messages, pushed through whatever medium, in order to reach a potential customer who is in the middle of doing something else, will fail".
If this is true, it obviously has implications for Google, even though they're sitting very pretty at the moment as the overwhelmingly dominant force in online advertising. But other companies dependent on ad revenue aren't so fortunate. Joost, another ad-funded online video service, announced last week that it would be reinventing itself as a provider of white-label – generic – video for other businesses, and would be cutting jobs in the process.
"In these tough economic times," said its chairman Mike Volpi, "it's been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform."
But even taking the effects of the recession into account, Keith McMahon is unsurprised. "All those startups have burned through their initial venture capital money, and they've seen that the business model that they were originally planning for – this landgrab for advertising – just isn't there any more." As a leader in The Economist entitled "The end of the free lunch" put it earlier this year, "Reality is asserting itself once more ... Silicon Valley seems to be entering another 'nuclear winter'."
***
We are uninterested, verging on contemptuous, of the marketing strategies that were supposed to pay for us to enjoy online services for free. We've become totally unwilling to pay for them directly, either; we simply figure that someone, somehow, will pick up the tab. Rupert Murdoch recently announced plans to "fix" the current newspaper business model by charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper web sites, stating that "the current days of the internet will soon be over", but Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine, spends 288 pages in his new book "Free: The Future Of A Radical Price" explaining why this is ultimately impossible. He contends that information wants to be free, and that there's an unstoppable downward pressure on the price of anything "made of ideas", adding that the most worrying long-term problem for internet businesses is that the Google Generation are now growing up simply assuming that everything digital is free. They've internalised the economics of the free model "in the same way that we internalise Newtonian mechanics when we learn to catch a ball".
In other words, the fact that most people over the age of 30 doubt that online businesses can survive by offering free services is irrelevant, because most people under the age of 30 are demanding them. On messageboards and forums across the internet you can see them calling for record companies, film studios, newspapers and television channels to come up with a solution that will extend their entertainment utopia, and quick; if they don't, well, they'll find a way around it. And while many see this as a selfish, unrealistic attitude, the onus is on businesses to get themselves out of this mess because the digital medium exercises unstoppable power. However much Rupert Murdoch and others may wish to control it, it's Anderson's contention that the beast is way, way too slippery.
Anderson, along with other digital visionaries, tends to display a sunny optimism that new business models will inevitably step into the breach, while leaving speculation about what those models might actually be to others. But while Anderson says it's "head spinning – and exhilarating – to watch an industry reinvent itself in the face of a new medium", those working in the online economy aren't quite so thrilled. The news regarding YouTube's losses have caused such consternation because people simply can't believe that the third-most-popular website on the web is unable to stand alone and turn a profit. And suddenly, the magical web, whose supposed capacity to revolutionise business has attracted and continues to attract waves of ambitious entrepreneurs, may slowly be revealing itself as an arena in which only a few large companies can survive.
This was illustrated by a tale recounted by the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, James Moroney, who recently told the US Congress about Amazon's proposal for licensing his newspaper's content to be read on Amazon's e-reading device, the Kindle: he was informed that 70 per cent of revenue would go to Amazon, with only 30 per cent to the Morning News for providing the content. It seems both unhealthy and deeply disappointing that Amazon, Microsoft, Google and the like are beginning to wield so much power; it's even something over which even Google CEO Eric Schmidt has expressed concern.
But Keith McMahon says that we shouldn't be surprised. "Remember in the 1980s when the home computer boom started? The country was full of young kids coding games and selling them on cassette," he says. "But from that rose a gaming industry that's controlled by a small number of very wealthy organisations. Cottage industries that can't survive on their own will either fail, or get swallowed up."
McMahon's message to online businesses is essentially one that's remained the same ever since humans first started making transactions: business is business. For all the cries of foul by entrepreneurs or copyright holders in the face of "unfair" behaviour by multinational corporations or websites such as The Pirate Bay, if you can't find the money to make your business work, that's the end of your business. Because ultimately, the market can't be fought.
YouTube's lack of profitability other than as part of a colossal global multinational may signal the end of a dream that has somehow managed to extend past the bursting of the dotcom bubble back in 2001, and the options for new online ventures seem to be as follows: either produce something that people are willing to pay for, or come up with an idea for a free service that's so ingenious that a benevolent multinational is willing to take it off your hands. But remember: that trick of making a home video of yourself in front of a few elephants has already been done.
July 7, 2009
It's wildly popular - and thought to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Now questions are being asked about the future of YouTube. Rhodri Marsden investigates a mystery of digital-age 'freeconomics'
It must surely rank as the most mundane business launch in history. Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, shuffles timidly in front of a video camera while standing in front of a group of elephants at San Diego zoo, with precious little idea of what he was starting. "The cool thing about these guys," he says, nervously gesturing behind him, "is that they have really long trunks. And that's pretty much all there is to say."
This 19-second video clip, uploaded to the brand-new website later later that day, 23 April 2005, may have been insubstantial, but it certainly wasn't inconsequential. Within 18 months, Karim and his partners Steve Chen and Chad Hurley had sold YouTube to Google for $1.76bn, and in doing so became one of a select band of online entrepreneurs who managed to grab our attention – and keep it.
Innumerable jaded web entrepreneurs will tell you how easy it is to get thousands of people to glance at a site, but how tortuous it is to get people to stick around or even come back again the following day. Not only do you have to fulfil a desire that people didn't even realise that they had, but it has to be done with such style and panache that your service becomes indispensable. While the internet may have dismantled many of the traditional barriers to reaching us, the general public, if your idea is anything less than sensational, we will flatly ignore it.
But YouTube was sensational. Prior to its launch, creating a videoclip for someone else to watch online was an arcane and deeply frustrating procedure of digitisation, encoding and embedding that was way more trouble than it was worth – not least because incompatible technologies meant that many people wouldn't be able to watch it. But from humble beginnings in a room above a pizzeria in San Mateo, California, Hurley, Chen and Karim made the process simple, they made it relatively quick, and above all else, they made it free.
By mid-2006, the site was fizzing with activity as we started using our YouTube channel as a jukebox, a blogging service, a promotional tool for our bands, a home video vault, a repository of famous film and television moments – sometimes with the blessing of the copyright owners, more often without it – and just occasionally, it provided an unexpected route to stardom. YouTube entered the lexicon and became synonymous with online video; the former Secretary of State for Local Government, Hazel Blears, dropped the phrase "YouTube if you want to" into an attack on Gordon Brown's style of Government.
Blears making a feeble joke about YouTube is just one small measure of its phenomenal success. But while its staggering popularity is without question – some 345 million visitors worldwide descend upon the website every month – it is heamorrrhaging cash. The question of exactly how unprofitable it is continues to be the source of fierce debate online; back in April, analysts at Credit Suisse estimated that its operating losses for this year would reach $470m, while San Francisco-based IT consultants RampRate were more optimistic, but still put the figure at just over $174m. Google aren't rushing to put an end to speculation over the scale of the debt. One thing is abundantly clear from both studies: Google isn't making money by letting everyone and their aunt share videos with each other for free. And the news last week that founder Steve Chen was leaving YouTube to work on other projects at Google kicked off another flurry of rumours as to its possible fate.
***
Music, television, sport, gaming: the flow of free entertainment to our computer screens seems almost the result of a magical process, and there's been little need for us to consider the costs that might have been incurred by those making it all happen. It's broadly accepted that YouTube will receive around $240m of revenue from advertising this year, but that sum doesn't even cover their general overheads and the cost of acquiring premium video content (such as TV shows) from copyright holders. In addition, there are the huge fixed costs from the supply side – data centres, hardware, software and bandwidth – that have to cope with the 20 hours of video clips that we upload to YouTube every minute of every day. Again, no-one knows the true total of these costs – the Credit Suisse and RampRate reports put it between $83m and $380m this year – but Google's Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Pichette, would only reveal one thing: "We know our cost position, but nobody else does." Or, in other words, we're not telling you.
This typifies the slightly secretive but ultimately sanguine position of Google even as phrases like "financial folly" are bandied about to describe the YouTube business model. With Google's overall profits reaching some $1.42bn for the first quarter of this year alone, the king of online search is certainly a position to support a loss-making venture that also happens to be the third-most-popular website on the internet. (Google, naturally, is the first.) But Keith McMahon, senior analyst for the Telco 2.0 Initiative, a research group that studies business models in the digital economy, believes that YouTube is not the albatross around Google's neck that it's widely imagined to be. He sees the search company as deriving massive indirect benefits from operating YouTube and believes that estimates of its losses obscure the true picture.
"There are many urban myths surrounding the way that companies extract value from the internet," he says. "Google's spin-off benefits from owning YouTube include the accumulation of our data and strengthening of their network design – and the more time people spend watching online video, the more advertisers will pour into marketing on the internet as a whole. There's no doubt that Google can afford YouTube."
McMahon also believes that by keeping quiet about YouTube's hidden benefits and by allowing the misconception of it as a deeply unprofitable business to circulate, things work very nicely in Google's favour when it comes to negotiating with copyright holders in the world of TV, movies and music. Copyright holders can't demand money that isn't there, and it would certainly take no more than a hint of profitability at YouTube for lawyers to descend, threatening court cases and demanding higher royalties. In the new, topsy-turvy world of online economics, it seems astonishing that losses on paper have actually made YouTube a more powerful online force.
But while Google's pockets may be deep enough to operate a phenomenally popular online service at no cost to its users, what about the countless other internet startups whose operations scarcely extend across a dingy office, let alone several continents? With the free model slowly establishing itself, how can businesses sustain their activities? Sadly, the most common answer is: they can't. The traditional way to generate revenue and offset losses has been to sell some form of advertising space on the website. But an increasing number of industry commentators believe that the internet advertising model is broken – and what better proof than YouTube itself, whose advertising revenues don't even cover their overheads, and who might be dead in the water if it wasn't for their multinational sugar daddy?
In a piece this year for the insider's technology blog, TechCrunch, entitled "Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet", Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the way that we're using the internet has shattered the whole concept of advertising. We need no encouragement to share our opinions online regarding products and services and offer them star ratings; as a result, we're much more likely to look for personal recommendations from other customers than wait for a gaudy advert to beckon us wildly in the direction of a company website or online store. He claims we don't trust online advertising, we don't need online advertising, but above all we don't want online advertising.
There's certainly a huge weight of evidence to support the latter theory; extensions for web browsers that block advertisements from displaying on the screen have proved to be incredibly popular, and we seem increasingly resentful of attempts by companies to compromise our free online experience by pushing marketing messages in our direction. Spotify, the online jukebox launched this year, has won countless plaudits for its innovative, free and legal approach to online music, but you don't need to look far online before finding users who bitterly complain about the brief audio adverts that play every 20 minutes, interrupting the flow of the new Kasabian album. One comment on a story about the possible expansion of YouTube's advertising is typical: "If advertising is made one iota more intrusive, I shall use other video sites instead."
Small wonder that YouTube only dare feature advertising in less than 5 per cent of the videos on the website, along with a few subtle ads in the sidebar of their search results. But while Google continues to finesse its YouTube model, with click-to-buy links and sponsored competitions, it's contended by Professor Clemons that no matter how innovative the advertising industry might become, "commercial messages, pushed through whatever medium, in order to reach a potential customer who is in the middle of doing something else, will fail".
If this is true, it obviously has implications for Google, even though they're sitting very pretty at the moment as the overwhelmingly dominant force in online advertising. But other companies dependent on ad revenue aren't so fortunate. Joost, another ad-funded online video service, announced last week that it would be reinventing itself as a provider of white-label – generic – video for other businesses, and would be cutting jobs in the process.
"In these tough economic times," said its chairman Mike Volpi, "it's been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform."
But even taking the effects of the recession into account, Keith McMahon is unsurprised. "All those startups have burned through their initial venture capital money, and they've seen that the business model that they were originally planning for – this landgrab for advertising – just isn't there any more." As a leader in The Economist entitled "The end of the free lunch" put it earlier this year, "Reality is asserting itself once more ... Silicon Valley seems to be entering another 'nuclear winter'."
***
We are uninterested, verging on contemptuous, of the marketing strategies that were supposed to pay for us to enjoy online services for free. We've become totally unwilling to pay for them directly, either; we simply figure that someone, somehow, will pick up the tab. Rupert Murdoch recently announced plans to "fix" the current newspaper business model by charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper web sites, stating that "the current days of the internet will soon be over", but Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine, spends 288 pages in his new book "Free: The Future Of A Radical Price" explaining why this is ultimately impossible. He contends that information wants to be free, and that there's an unstoppable downward pressure on the price of anything "made of ideas", adding that the most worrying long-term problem for internet businesses is that the Google Generation are now growing up simply assuming that everything digital is free. They've internalised the economics of the free model "in the same way that we internalise Newtonian mechanics when we learn to catch a ball".
In other words, the fact that most people over the age of 30 doubt that online businesses can survive by offering free services is irrelevant, because most people under the age of 30 are demanding them. On messageboards and forums across the internet you can see them calling for record companies, film studios, newspapers and television channels to come up with a solution that will extend their entertainment utopia, and quick; if they don't, well, they'll find a way around it. And while many see this as a selfish, unrealistic attitude, the onus is on businesses to get themselves out of this mess because the digital medium exercises unstoppable power. However much Rupert Murdoch and others may wish to control it, it's Anderson's contention that the beast is way, way too slippery.
Anderson, along with other digital visionaries, tends to display a sunny optimism that new business models will inevitably step into the breach, while leaving speculation about what those models might actually be to others. But while Anderson says it's "head spinning – and exhilarating – to watch an industry reinvent itself in the face of a new medium", those working in the online economy aren't quite so thrilled. The news regarding YouTube's losses have caused such consternation because people simply can't believe that the third-most-popular website on the web is unable to stand alone and turn a profit. And suddenly, the magical web, whose supposed capacity to revolutionise business has attracted and continues to attract waves of ambitious entrepreneurs, may slowly be revealing itself as an arena in which only a few large companies can survive.
This was illustrated by a tale recounted by the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, James Moroney, who recently told the US Congress about Amazon's proposal for licensing his newspaper's content to be read on Amazon's e-reading device, the Kindle: he was informed that 70 per cent of revenue would go to Amazon, with only 30 per cent to the Morning News for providing the content. It seems both unhealthy and deeply disappointing that Amazon, Microsoft, Google and the like are beginning to wield so much power; it's even something over which even Google CEO Eric Schmidt has expressed concern.
But Keith McMahon says that we shouldn't be surprised. "Remember in the 1980s when the home computer boom started? The country was full of young kids coding games and selling them on cassette," he says. "But from that rose a gaming industry that's controlled by a small number of very wealthy organisations. Cottage industries that can't survive on their own will either fail, or get swallowed up."
McMahon's message to online businesses is essentially one that's remained the same ever since humans first started making transactions: business is business. For all the cries of foul by entrepreneurs or copyright holders in the face of "unfair" behaviour by multinational corporations or websites such as The Pirate Bay, if you can't find the money to make your business work, that's the end of your business. Because ultimately, the market can't be fought.
YouTube's lack of profitability other than as part of a colossal global multinational may signal the end of a dream that has somehow managed to extend past the bursting of the dotcom bubble back in 2001, and the options for new online ventures seem to be as follows: either produce something that people are willing to pay for, or come up with an idea for a free service that's so ingenious that a benevolent multinational is willing to take it off your hands. But remember: that trick of making a home video of yourself in front of a few elephants has already been done.
dimecres, 1 de juliol del 2009
Internet para indecisos
Una 'web' estadounidense resuelve a los usuarios todo tipo de dilemas cotidianos
DAVID ALANDETE - Washington
EL PAÍS - Pantallas - 29-06-2009
Desde su nacimiento oficial, hace más de una década, Internet ha facilitado la vida de mucha gente. Ha simplificado la comunicación interpersonal. Ha acumulado, organizado y distribuido una ingente cantidad de información. Ha cambiado hábitos de compra, viaje y lectura. Ahora, por fin, puede incluso evitar el tener que pensar y tomar decisiones.Para aquellas personas para las que decidirse es una tortura, para los que nunca saben cuál será la mejor opción, para todos los dubitativos del mundo: ha llegado Hunch.com, una página web que toma las decisiones por el internauta. Con menos de diez preguntas, puede ayudar en miles de situaciones críticas en la vida como qué carrera estudiar, qué comer para cenar o a qué país mudarse. En su base de datos hay decisiones sobre 2.400 asuntos.
"Hunch funciona con una serie de algoritmos que seleccionan preguntas que llevan a las respuestas más acertadas; otros que seleccionan las respuestas sobre la base de lo que el sistema ya conoce, y una última clase que determina qué nivel y qué tipo de gustos deberían condicionar cada resultado a partir de la información que el usuario le da al sitio web", explica la creadora de este sitio, Caterina Fake, fundadora del sitio de alojamiento fotográfico Flickr, en un correo electrónico.
En efecto, no se trata de un portal de esoterismo o simple azar. La página web aprende de los gustos del usuario. Y en cada situación, hace una serie de preguntas simples pero precisas para poder llegar a una conclusión lógica. Por ejemplo, partiendo de la pregunta: ¿debería ir al gimnasio?, la página web requiere una serie de datos, como: ¿está usted lesionado?, ¿quiere perder peso?, o ¿está cansado? A partir de la información proporcionada, alcanza una conclusión basada en el sentido común de los programadores.
Otras preguntas pueden ser más complicadas. Por ejemplo, y por si a alguien tiene alguna duda: ¿De qué sexo soy? Las cuestiones que plantea para llegar a una conclusión son más bien tópicos planos como: ¿sufre usted migrañas?, ¿le gusta hablar de ordenadores?, o ¿qué valora más, el poder, la amistad o el amor? De todos modos, para otro tipo de preguntas, menos filosóficas -por ejemplo: ¿sigo enamorado?, o ¿me está poniendo los cuernos mi pareja?-, Hunch puede ser una forma de ahorrar cientos de dólares en psiquiatras.
Hunch no es el único ejemplo de páginas a las que separa una línea muy fina del mundo del absurdo:
- Fuck My Life (fmylife.com). Miles de personas utilizan esta página como breviario personal. Envían pequeños relatos supuestamente verídicos, de no más de 300 letras, explicando por qué su vida es un calvario, justificado o injustificado. Todos empiezan con la palabra "hoy" y acaban con "mi vida está jodida". Por ejemplo: "hoy, mi marido ha encontrado la caja de la píldora del día después. Le hicieron una vasectomía hace 10 años. Mi vida está jodida". Los internautas pueden votar si la persona simplemente tiene mala suerte o si se merecía lo que le ha pasado. En Francia tienen su propia versión: VieDeMerde.fr.
- Urban Dictionary (urbandictionary.com). Esta página web es un verdadero diccionario de la real academia de la calle. Contiene todas las palabras, expresiones y acrónimos con los que sobrevivir en las ciudades de Estados Unidos. Los internautas aportan sus palabras, actualizando las tendencias lingüísticas en tiempo real. Imprescindible para saber que bing significa cárcel, bada es un insulto y LOL, una risotada online.
- 'The Onion' (theonion.com). La página web del diario The Onion informa puntualmente sobre un universo paralelo: el del absurdo. El diario satírico nació en Wisconsin en 1988 y hoy en día pervive en diversas ediciones en EE UU y en la Red. Es todo un imperio del humor, con vídeos, grabaciones radiofónicas y noticias que harían las delicias de los hermanos Marx. Entre ellas: "toro estadounidense sueña con fugarse a España para correr en San Fermín", "un nuevo corazón mecánico le permite a Dick Cheney experimentar el amor" o "un hombre negro consigue el peor trabajo de América", en referencia a la victoria de Barack Obama.
DAVID ALANDETE - Washington
EL PAÍS - Pantallas - 29-06-2009
Desde su nacimiento oficial, hace más de una década, Internet ha facilitado la vida de mucha gente. Ha simplificado la comunicación interpersonal. Ha acumulado, organizado y distribuido una ingente cantidad de información. Ha cambiado hábitos de compra, viaje y lectura. Ahora, por fin, puede incluso evitar el tener que pensar y tomar decisiones.Para aquellas personas para las que decidirse es una tortura, para los que nunca saben cuál será la mejor opción, para todos los dubitativos del mundo: ha llegado Hunch.com, una página web que toma las decisiones por el internauta. Con menos de diez preguntas, puede ayudar en miles de situaciones críticas en la vida como qué carrera estudiar, qué comer para cenar o a qué país mudarse. En su base de datos hay decisiones sobre 2.400 asuntos.
"Hunch funciona con una serie de algoritmos que seleccionan preguntas que llevan a las respuestas más acertadas; otros que seleccionan las respuestas sobre la base de lo que el sistema ya conoce, y una última clase que determina qué nivel y qué tipo de gustos deberían condicionar cada resultado a partir de la información que el usuario le da al sitio web", explica la creadora de este sitio, Caterina Fake, fundadora del sitio de alojamiento fotográfico Flickr, en un correo electrónico.
En efecto, no se trata de un portal de esoterismo o simple azar. La página web aprende de los gustos del usuario. Y en cada situación, hace una serie de preguntas simples pero precisas para poder llegar a una conclusión lógica. Por ejemplo, partiendo de la pregunta: ¿debería ir al gimnasio?, la página web requiere una serie de datos, como: ¿está usted lesionado?, ¿quiere perder peso?, o ¿está cansado? A partir de la información proporcionada, alcanza una conclusión basada en el sentido común de los programadores.
Otras preguntas pueden ser más complicadas. Por ejemplo, y por si a alguien tiene alguna duda: ¿De qué sexo soy? Las cuestiones que plantea para llegar a una conclusión son más bien tópicos planos como: ¿sufre usted migrañas?, ¿le gusta hablar de ordenadores?, o ¿qué valora más, el poder, la amistad o el amor? De todos modos, para otro tipo de preguntas, menos filosóficas -por ejemplo: ¿sigo enamorado?, o ¿me está poniendo los cuernos mi pareja?-, Hunch puede ser una forma de ahorrar cientos de dólares en psiquiatras.
Hunch no es el único ejemplo de páginas a las que separa una línea muy fina del mundo del absurdo:
- Fuck My Life (fmylife.com). Miles de personas utilizan esta página como breviario personal. Envían pequeños relatos supuestamente verídicos, de no más de 300 letras, explicando por qué su vida es un calvario, justificado o injustificado. Todos empiezan con la palabra "hoy" y acaban con "mi vida está jodida". Por ejemplo: "hoy, mi marido ha encontrado la caja de la píldora del día después. Le hicieron una vasectomía hace 10 años. Mi vida está jodida". Los internautas pueden votar si la persona simplemente tiene mala suerte o si se merecía lo que le ha pasado. En Francia tienen su propia versión: VieDeMerde.fr.
- Urban Dictionary (urbandictionary.com). Esta página web es un verdadero diccionario de la real academia de la calle. Contiene todas las palabras, expresiones y acrónimos con los que sobrevivir en las ciudades de Estados Unidos. Los internautas aportan sus palabras, actualizando las tendencias lingüísticas en tiempo real. Imprescindible para saber que bing significa cárcel, bada es un insulto y LOL, una risotada online.
- 'The Onion' (theonion.com). La página web del diario The Onion informa puntualmente sobre un universo paralelo: el del absurdo. El diario satírico nació en Wisconsin en 1988 y hoy en día pervive en diversas ediciones en EE UU y en la Red. Es todo un imperio del humor, con vídeos, grabaciones radiofónicas y noticias que harían las delicias de los hermanos Marx. Entre ellas: "toro estadounidense sueña con fugarse a España para correr en San Fermín", "un nuevo corazón mecánico le permite a Dick Cheney experimentar el amor" o "un hombre negro consigue el peor trabajo de América", en referencia a la victoria de Barack Obama.
dimarts, 23 de juny del 2009
Intel crée un détecteur de billevesées sur Internet
Le numéro un des microprocesseurs, Intel, a annoncé le lancement d'un logiciel capable de rechercher sur le Net des versions contredisant les affirmations des sites en ligne. Dispute Finder, concocté par les équipes de recherche d'Intel pour le navigateur Web Firefox, alerte les internautes lorsque des faits présentés sur les sites qu'ils consultent font l'objet de versions contradictoires sur d'autres sites.
divendres, 19 de juny del 2009
Microcotilleo, la otra pandemia global
MARÍA OVELAR
EL PAÍS - 19-06-2009
Estados unidos: insultos y disculpas
Según la página web Twitterholic, el actor Ashton Kutcher lidera el ranking. Curioso cuando muchos lo conocen como “el marido de”. Célebre es la historia de cómo arrancó el perdón de su mujer, Demi Moore: Kutcher colgó una foto de la actriz planchando en bragas, Moore se pilló un buen cabreo y, para solucionarlo, el actor solicitó a sus seguidores que mandaran disculpas a su mujer a través de Twitter. 3.600 “I love you” bastaron para la reconciliación. Rizando el rizo, Perez Hilton —fundador del homónimo blog de chismorreos– es otro de los más seguidos. A principios de mes, Hilton preguntaba en su perfil: “¿Estarán quedando Demi Lovato [la estrella de Disney] y Tracey Cyrus [hermano de Miley Hannah Montana Cyrus]?”. A continuación, se desató un vendaval en medio planeta. Otro aliciente del medio es que los famosos no se cansan de regalar escándalos. El rapero Snoop Dogg, por ejemplo, subió unos vídeos vía Twitter donde fumaba algo que se parecía a un porro. Y Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yoko Ono o Britney Spears también se muestran bastante adictos al formato. Como la lista es larga, el neoyorquino Ian Corbin ha creado Celebrity Twitter, una aplicación que simplifica la labor de seguir a 200 famosos. “Los internautas se emocionan cuando encuentran a sus ídolos en Twitter. Pensé que sería bueno juntarlos a todos y abrir una revista online con sus actualizaciones”, razona al teléfono. Y cuenta uno de sus hitos: la cantante Erykah Badu contó por Twitter el nacimiento de su hija. Desde: “Hola, estoy de parto”, hasta: “Veo la cabeza… ¡Tiene pelo!”.
Reino Unido: sensacionalismo ‘online’
El país de la prensa amarilla exprime Twitter al máximo. Uno de los perfiles más célebres es el de Sarah Brown (SaraBrown10), la esposa del primer ministro Gordon. Poco importa que su marido esté en medio de un vendaval por el uso del dinero público o que pierda las elecciones europeas; su esposa escribe mensajes como: “Hoy hace un día maravilloso, los pimientos y los tomates están brotando” o “El Zoo de Londres es precioso, sobre todo los chorros de agua de la zona splash, perfecta para niños en un día caluroso”. El humor inglés es un género exportado a todos los rincones del planeta. No es de extrañar que cómicos como John Cleese (Monty Python), presentadores como Jonathan Ross o actores como Stephen Fry (Los amigos de Peter) congreguen hordas de seguidores. Claro que el pop, otro de los productos más apreciados en el exterior, tampoco se queda corto: Coldplay, Liam Gallagher (cantante de Oasis) o Jamie Cullum arrasan. Aunque la más compulsiva es Lily Allen, con sus casi 700.000 seguidores y una lengua viperina. Hace cosa de un mes, no dudó en poner verde a Susan Boyle, el fenómeno de Britain’s got talent. Escribió: “Va a destiempo con el ritmo de la canción. Y tampoco sabe controlar su voz, que no es tan asombrosa”. A Allen, por su parte, también le llueven los insultos de otro ilustre british lenguaraz: a Pete Doherty le encanta poner a la diva a caldo: “Mira, guapa, al menos yo no fui a un colegio de pijas como tú” o “Tengo una petición del pueblo inglés: no vuelvas, quédate en Australia” son algunas de las perlas que le dedica.
España: política, no escándalo
Los famosos españoles no han abrazado todavía Twitter. “EE UU siempre nos ha llevado ventaja en cuanto a modelos de consumo, comunicación y creación de marcas. Y las celebrities son marcas capaces de vender muchos millones de euros”, opina Santiago de Mollinedo, de Personality Media. El ranking de Twitter de Alianzo –el único elaborado por una compañía española– tiene dos semanas. En sus tops organizados por países, los famosos españoles no están arriba. Blogueros como Enrique Dans o Nacho Escolar copan los primeros puestos. Las únicas caras conocidas: políticos y presentadores de tele. Según Alianzo, Javier Capitán ocupa el puesto 26, y el lehandakari, Patxi López, el 163. Buenafuente no se queda corto: le siguen casi 3.000 fans. El de Enjuto Mojamuto, de Muchachada Nui, bien merece una visita.
Así ‘twittea’ el resto del globo En Asia, casi no se nota la presencia de la herramienta (muchos se decantan por Plurk, una aplicación parecida a Twitter, pero que facilita escribir con caracteres chinos, por ejemplo). Pero en el resto del mundo hay algunos casos extravagantes. Como el del escritor brasileño Paulo Coelho (en el número 83 del ranking mundial). Aunque no esperen nada filosófico, su cuenta es un recorrido de su rutina trufado de banalidades. Tampoco podían faltar clásicos como la islandesa Björk –que aprovecha el filón para movilizar al planeta contra el cambio climático– o el actor australiano Hugh Jackman, que convirtió la Red en una “gala benéfica”. ¿Cómo? Prometiendo una millonada: “Donaré 100.000 dólares a la ONG favorita de un usuario de Twitter. Por supuesto, debe convencerme en menos de 140 caracteres”.
Evan Williams, fundador de Blogger, es de algún modo el inventor de las bitácoras online. Cuando su página fue adquirida por Google, se lanzó a un nuevo invento: Twitter, el servició de microblogging que en tres años ha revolucionado la comunicación en las redes sociales. A saber, un híbrido entre el SMS (los textos no pueden superar los 140 caracteres), el chat y el e-mail (se puede seguir en el móvil o en el ordenador a tiempo real) con casi 10 millones de usuarios. Su planteamiento invita a responder constantemente a la pregunta “¿qué estás haciendo?”, un concepto que ha enganchado a cientos de estrellas exhibicionistas.
Urxi Jaureguibertia, experto en redes sociales de la empresa española Alianzo, así lo entiende: “Es un arma comercial gratuita. Los famosos crean la imagen de sí mismos que quieren”. Santiago de Mollinedo, director de la agencia Personality Media, opina que, por encima del narcisismo yoísta, lo que convence a estos personajes es la conversación directa sin pasar por la prensa: “Es el sueño de toda celebridad: permite soltar unas pocas palabras y salir corriendo. Construye una personalidad que casi nunca coincide con la real”. Una tecnología breve, sencilla y rápida, con un diseño encantador (un pajarito que simboliza el verbo to twitter, gorjear), que muchos emplean para esconderse bajo una fachada. Es más, esa imagen no siempre la construyen las propias estrellas, y muchas lo admiten: Barack Obama, el rapero 50 Cent o Britney Spears han reconocido haber contratado a asistentes para gestionar sus cuentas en Twitter. Basta echar un vistazo a la lista de estrellas con más seguidores para darse cuenta de que casi todas son anglosajonas: el actor estadounidense Ashton Kutcher (el marido de Demi Moore) y el británico Stephen Fray son de los más populares. Kutcher suma más de dos millones de seguidores; Fray, casi 600.000. Según los expertos, es cuestión de tiempo que este fenómeno exhibicionista se consolide en el resto de Europa. Ya crece a más velocidad que Facebook. Según datos de Nielsen Online, en 12 meses los visitantes de Twitter pasaron de 475.000 a 7 millones. ¿Y por qué esta fiebre twittera? “A todos nos gusta el cuchicheo”, responde Jaureguibertia. Twitter se ha convertido en una pantalla de televisión, y muchos usuarios, más que generar contenido, lo que hacen es zapping. Extremo que un reciente estudio de la Universidad de Harvard confirma: más del 90% del contenido lo genera únicamente el 10% de sus usuarios. El resto se dedica a mirar.Estados unidos: insultos y disculpas
Según la página web Twitterholic, el actor Ashton Kutcher lidera el ranking. Curioso cuando muchos lo conocen como “el marido de”. Célebre es la historia de cómo arrancó el perdón de su mujer, Demi Moore: Kutcher colgó una foto de la actriz planchando en bragas, Moore se pilló un buen cabreo y, para solucionarlo, el actor solicitó a sus seguidores que mandaran disculpas a su mujer a través de Twitter. 3.600 “I love you” bastaron para la reconciliación. Rizando el rizo, Perez Hilton —fundador del homónimo blog de chismorreos– es otro de los más seguidos. A principios de mes, Hilton preguntaba en su perfil: “¿Estarán quedando Demi Lovato [la estrella de Disney] y Tracey Cyrus [hermano de Miley Hannah Montana Cyrus]?”. A continuación, se desató un vendaval en medio planeta. Otro aliciente del medio es que los famosos no se cansan de regalar escándalos. El rapero Snoop Dogg, por ejemplo, subió unos vídeos vía Twitter donde fumaba algo que se parecía a un porro. Y Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yoko Ono o Britney Spears también se muestran bastante adictos al formato. Como la lista es larga, el neoyorquino Ian Corbin ha creado Celebrity Twitter, una aplicación que simplifica la labor de seguir a 200 famosos. “Los internautas se emocionan cuando encuentran a sus ídolos en Twitter. Pensé que sería bueno juntarlos a todos y abrir una revista online con sus actualizaciones”, razona al teléfono. Y cuenta uno de sus hitos: la cantante Erykah Badu contó por Twitter el nacimiento de su hija. Desde: “Hola, estoy de parto”, hasta: “Veo la cabeza… ¡Tiene pelo!”.
Reino Unido: sensacionalismo ‘online’
El país de la prensa amarilla exprime Twitter al máximo. Uno de los perfiles más célebres es el de Sarah Brown (SaraBrown10), la esposa del primer ministro Gordon. Poco importa que su marido esté en medio de un vendaval por el uso del dinero público o que pierda las elecciones europeas; su esposa escribe mensajes como: “Hoy hace un día maravilloso, los pimientos y los tomates están brotando” o “El Zoo de Londres es precioso, sobre todo los chorros de agua de la zona splash, perfecta para niños en un día caluroso”. El humor inglés es un género exportado a todos los rincones del planeta. No es de extrañar que cómicos como John Cleese (Monty Python), presentadores como Jonathan Ross o actores como Stephen Fry (Los amigos de Peter) congreguen hordas de seguidores. Claro que el pop, otro de los productos más apreciados en el exterior, tampoco se queda corto: Coldplay, Liam Gallagher (cantante de Oasis) o Jamie Cullum arrasan. Aunque la más compulsiva es Lily Allen, con sus casi 700.000 seguidores y una lengua viperina. Hace cosa de un mes, no dudó en poner verde a Susan Boyle, el fenómeno de Britain’s got talent. Escribió: “Va a destiempo con el ritmo de la canción. Y tampoco sabe controlar su voz, que no es tan asombrosa”. A Allen, por su parte, también le llueven los insultos de otro ilustre british lenguaraz: a Pete Doherty le encanta poner a la diva a caldo: “Mira, guapa, al menos yo no fui a un colegio de pijas como tú” o “Tengo una petición del pueblo inglés: no vuelvas, quédate en Australia” son algunas de las perlas que le dedica.
España: política, no escándalo
Los famosos españoles no han abrazado todavía Twitter. “EE UU siempre nos ha llevado ventaja en cuanto a modelos de consumo, comunicación y creación de marcas. Y las celebrities son marcas capaces de vender muchos millones de euros”, opina Santiago de Mollinedo, de Personality Media. El ranking de Twitter de Alianzo –el único elaborado por una compañía española– tiene dos semanas. En sus tops organizados por países, los famosos españoles no están arriba. Blogueros como Enrique Dans o Nacho Escolar copan los primeros puestos. Las únicas caras conocidas: políticos y presentadores de tele. Según Alianzo, Javier Capitán ocupa el puesto 26, y el lehandakari, Patxi López, el 163. Buenafuente no se queda corto: le siguen casi 3.000 fans. El de Enjuto Mojamuto, de Muchachada Nui, bien merece una visita.
Así ‘twittea’ el resto del globo En Asia, casi no se nota la presencia de la herramienta (muchos se decantan por Plurk, una aplicación parecida a Twitter, pero que facilita escribir con caracteres chinos, por ejemplo). Pero en el resto del mundo hay algunos casos extravagantes. Como el del escritor brasileño Paulo Coelho (en el número 83 del ranking mundial). Aunque no esperen nada filosófico, su cuenta es un recorrido de su rutina trufado de banalidades. Tampoco podían faltar clásicos como la islandesa Björk –que aprovecha el filón para movilizar al planeta contra el cambio climático– o el actor australiano Hugh Jackman, que convirtió la Red en una “gala benéfica”. ¿Cómo? Prometiendo una millonada: “Donaré 100.000 dólares a la ONG favorita de un usuario de Twitter. Por supuesto, debe convencerme en menos de 140 caracteres”.
Google Street View sous la surveillance des Etats
L'extension en Europe de Street View, l'application de Google lancée en 2007 aux Etats-Unis, suscite des résistances. En Grande-Bretagne, des protestations ont eu lieu après la diffusion d'images jugées embarrassantes. En Grèce, les autorités ont interdit début mai à Google de filmer les rues pour alimenter son service. Le gouvernement allemand, pour sa part, a obtenu du géant américain des concessions, au nom du respect de la vie privée. Google a accepté de flouter sur demande les visages, les maisons et les plaques d'immatriculation des véhicules avant même leur diffusion sur Internet et sur l'ensemble des "données brutes", c'est-à-dire les photos prises par Street View. Google a également promis de "permettre aux utilisateurs de supprimer totalement du produit, selon leurs souhaits, les photos d'eux-mêmes, de leurs enfants, de leur voiture ou de leur maison, même s'ils ont déjà été rendus non identifiables".
dimarts, 16 de juny del 2009
Iran, la révolution est-elle twitterisée?
La tentative de prise de contrôle d’Ali Khamenei, avec une élection qui semble manifestement faussée, a produit une vague de protestations majeure. Cette vague, elle est largement le fait de la nouvelle génération, des “millenials”, qui utilisent beaucoup le web comme moyen de médiatisation et de mobilisation.
A ce stade, ayant suivi partiellement les événements post-élection en Iran ce week-end, je ne peux vraiment rendre compte de manière fine. Ceci-dit, il se passe quelque chose, et quelques indices montrent que nous sommes face à un coup d’Etat du 21ème siècle. Il oppose un pouvoir qui tente de prendre le contrôle, et de maitriser notamment l’information, tant interne au pays qu’externe, et un peuple qui s’est largement, dans les dernière semaines avant l’élection, mobilisé et auto-organisé par la biais du web.
Le régime a tenté de contrôler. Coupure des media, renvoi des journalistes étrangers, coupure des réseaux téléphoniques et web, fermeture des réseaux sociaux qu’utilisent les opposants pour s’organiser. Mais ce black-out ne fonctionne pas. La première raison, c’est que le peuple est là, et a anticipé ce mouvement, le contourne en permanence. Les grands networks américains ont eu du mal à diffuser des images, leurs journalistes souvent foutus dehors. Youtube et Facebook ont été bloqués, comme de nombreux réseaux sociaux.
C’est en grande partie par twitter que l’information a circulé, avec un formidable relais des blogueurs et webcitizens américains, de ces organismes en réseau, animés par la même génération qu’en Iran (où 60% de la population a moins de 30 ans). Une critique des media, et de la faible couverture des événements par CNN notamment, s’est développée de manière ultra massive.
CNN s’est en effet trouvée débordée par une foule de nouveaux acteurs de la couverture d’information, traitant en temps réel des événements. Des travaux exceptionnels, expérimentaux, ont été menés, sur le Huffpo, évidemment, mais aussi par des figures reconnues de ce paysage de l’information en ligne, pionniers du blogging américain, comme Kevin Drum ou Andrew Sullivan. Une information dans le dialogue et l’échange permanent avec une opinion hyper active. Une couverture en direct, évolutive, profitant du réseau de citoyens vigilants, d’iraniens agissant comme des sources en direct, le tout de manière publique.
On a beaucoup parlé de la couverture des attentats de Bombay, via twitter, avec les erreurs qui avaient pu être commises. Des erreurs, il y en aura sûrement, mais elles font partie de l’exercice qui a lieu, en direct, d’information et échange autour d’événements graves. Cette connexion internationale de citoyens vigilants, celle qui s’incarne dans le web depuis des années, autour de projets comme Global Voices, est proprement fascinante, et transforme radicalement l’information autour des grands événements qui touchent à la démocratie. Geeks de tous les pays, unissez-vous. Ce week-end, on a vu ctete maxime en action, plus que jamais.
Le principal, cela reste cette émergence d’une génération en Iran qui détourne le blocage qu’essaie de lui imposer un régime. Et c’est surtout le succès, ou pas, de ce coup d’état, qui compte in fine…
Source: http://www.meilcour.fr/general/iran-la-rvolution-est-elle-twitterise.html
A ce stade, ayant suivi partiellement les événements post-élection en Iran ce week-end, je ne peux vraiment rendre compte de manière fine. Ceci-dit, il se passe quelque chose, et quelques indices montrent que nous sommes face à un coup d’Etat du 21ème siècle. Il oppose un pouvoir qui tente de prendre le contrôle, et de maitriser notamment l’information, tant interne au pays qu’externe, et un peuple qui s’est largement, dans les dernière semaines avant l’élection, mobilisé et auto-organisé par la biais du web.
Le régime a tenté de contrôler. Coupure des media, renvoi des journalistes étrangers, coupure des réseaux téléphoniques et web, fermeture des réseaux sociaux qu’utilisent les opposants pour s’organiser. Mais ce black-out ne fonctionne pas. La première raison, c’est que le peuple est là, et a anticipé ce mouvement, le contourne en permanence. Les grands networks américains ont eu du mal à diffuser des images, leurs journalistes souvent foutus dehors. Youtube et Facebook ont été bloqués, comme de nombreux réseaux sociaux.
C’est en grande partie par twitter que l’information a circulé, avec un formidable relais des blogueurs et webcitizens américains, de ces organismes en réseau, animés par la même génération qu’en Iran (où 60% de la population a moins de 30 ans). Une critique des media, et de la faible couverture des événements par CNN notamment, s’est développée de manière ultra massive.
CNN s’est en effet trouvée débordée par une foule de nouveaux acteurs de la couverture d’information, traitant en temps réel des événements. Des travaux exceptionnels, expérimentaux, ont été menés, sur le Huffpo, évidemment, mais aussi par des figures reconnues de ce paysage de l’information en ligne, pionniers du blogging américain, comme Kevin Drum ou Andrew Sullivan. Une information dans le dialogue et l’échange permanent avec une opinion hyper active. Une couverture en direct, évolutive, profitant du réseau de citoyens vigilants, d’iraniens agissant comme des sources en direct, le tout de manière publique.
On a beaucoup parlé de la couverture des attentats de Bombay, via twitter, avec les erreurs qui avaient pu être commises. Des erreurs, il y en aura sûrement, mais elles font partie de l’exercice qui a lieu, en direct, d’information et échange autour d’événements graves. Cette connexion internationale de citoyens vigilants, celle qui s’incarne dans le web depuis des années, autour de projets comme Global Voices, est proprement fascinante, et transforme radicalement l’information autour des grands événements qui touchent à la démocratie. Geeks de tous les pays, unissez-vous. Ce week-end, on a vu ctete maxime en action, plus que jamais.
Le principal, cela reste cette émergence d’une génération en Iran qui détourne le blocage qu’essaie de lui imposer un régime. Et c’est surtout le succès, ou pas, de ce coup d’état, qui compte in fine…
Source: http://www.meilcour.fr/general/iran-la-rvolution-est-elle-twitterise.html
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