Here’s a great essay from Nicholas Carr on social media’s effect on the US presidential campaign, and much more.  It explores how social media is different from previous media – not necessarily better or worse, but different – and how that requires a different approach: “The message, as always, has to fit the medium.” Reflecting […]

Messy, unwieldy, noisy, and yet … Kurt Harden hits on the unique delight in reading an actual, paper, newspaper. I love reading the Economist or (London) Times on my iPad, but real paper is different. You see different things, the format allows for greater serendipity.  It’s more tactile, too. And, of course, paper is lower […]

Ad-blocking software has been big news over the last couple of weeks.  This week, even The Times devoted a leader to it (Ad Armageddon, firewalled, though it should be accessible via my Tweet). That increasing numbers of people now choose to avoid intrusive, irrelevant and increasingly annoying ads is no surprise.  I research a wide […]

Sage advice from Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, amongst other books: “I thought I might be able to start publishing long books of computer-generated gibberish and then use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to pay Third World readers to scroll through the pages at a pace that would register each page as having been read. If I […]

This just sounds idyllic, Kurt Harden’s Analog Sunday: “Brisket on the smoker.  Pink Floyd on the stereo.  Not a thing on the television or computer.  Unplugged …” The rest, here.

Two interesting posts… In The Medium is the Moral, Nicholas Carr debates the extent to which we surrender our morality to technology. In Is Google Making the Web Stupid? Seth Godin reflects on the unintended consequences of our reliance on a search algorithm that must be purposed to driving revenue. Both remind me of a […]

Another jagged insight from Nicholas Bate: “The digital interrupt is relentless, often trivial, sometimes insufferable, cunningly finding new channels…” The rest, here.

Great observation by Seth Godin: “Most people would never to choose to read it. Except the people who are stuck and confused, which is precisely the group you write instructions for. When in doubt, write it down. By all means, you still need pictures, even video. But there’s nothing to replace the specificity that comes from […]

“Let us go forward as with other matters and other measures similar in aim and effect – let us go forward in malice to none and good will to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people’s provinces or lands or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future […]

A great article on the BBC News site based on a new book, London: The Information Capital  by Dr James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti. The book presents a new collection of data maps of London that demonstrate the power of spatial data.  Some, like the map showing daily commutes, are new great surprise (though beautifully […]