Iran Protests Highlight Power of Citizen Journalism

While the major 24-hour news networks were showing a speech by President Obama, the internet was on fire with reports, videos and first-hand accounts of the protests occuring in Iran following what appears to be a rigged election.

As CNN talked healthcare, Twitter was lighting up with of-the-second reports of the first gunfire from security forces and the arrival of Mousavi at the protests.

Videos are flooding YouTube and images are all over Flickr as the world reports on what is happening.

This is another landmark moment for the changing winds of news and journalism.  Sure, the newspapers will be a great place to read about what happened but the internet is where it is happening right this second.

Mashable has a very useful overview of using the net to stay on top of these events as they happen:

This guide breaks down the best new media sources for real-time information, photos, and videos of the Iran situation, as well as ways to organize and share it with others.   LINK

Daily Show Nails New York Times for “Aged News”

There have been lots of posts about The Daily Show’s Jason Jones and his takedown on The New York Times on Wednesday night’s show.

For me, the deadliest moment came when Jason asked about the “aged news” in the paper.  He challenged an editor to show him anything in the paper that had happened today.  Clearly, he was unable to do this.

The point, however, is not that large news organizations are a dying breed but that the physical newspapers they continue to insist are their core business are basically obsolete.

Instead of worrying about how to charge for content online, newspaper companies should be wholly focused on how to get the hell out of the printing and distribution business.

HBO, Facing Obsolesence, Tries Threatening Inaugural Ball ‘Tubers

HBO, which has a completely obsolete business model at the moment, took a shot at relevance by securing the exclusive rights to film and air Barack Obama’s Inaugural Ball.

Now, via TechDirt, comes word that HBO is attempting to force the takedown of personal videos posted on YouTube that were shot by regular folks lucky enough to be in attendance last night.

The majority of these videos seem to be short clips shot on cellphones and it is pretty hard to imagine how their presence online could harm HBO’s “exclusive” rights.  Nobody is going to watch those videos as a replacement for HBO’s professionally shot and produced video nor will anyone mistake those videos for the work of HBO.

Not only is it just plain mean to attempt to stop folks from sharing their personal looks into a major historical moment but it makes HBO look bad.  Considering how few reasons there are to pay for HBO, you’ve got to wonder why they would risk web backlash…unless they were blind and ignorant when it comes to New Media.

Nah…

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Forcing Obama to be a Luddite

There has been a lot of talk this week about how much Barack Obama uses his Blackberry and that, once he becomes President, that will have to end.

“For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive.”

The internet has become is an essential tool for staying informed and in touch – two things that would be good for a president to do, no?  To further deprive him of email and texts simply because of security concerns seems like a cop-out.  It might have been ok 8 years ago when Bush gave up personal email, but times have changed and taking away email today would be like telling a president 50 years ago that the phone was simply not secure so don’t use it.  Ever.

Hopefully, Obama can talk some sense into his security team and find a way to keep his Blackberry securely fastened to his belt – a clear sign that our leader is actually part of the modern world and not some sheltered Luddite being babysat by his handlers.

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FunnyOrDie Gets Some Cash From HBO – HBO Get Will Ferrill Cheap

At first glance, one might wonder why HBO would give an obviously struggling video website $10 million, that is until you read on and discover that Will Ferrill, FoD co-founder, is going to provide HBO with original content for their TV network.

Considering that Ferrill gets at least $15-20 million per movie, this is a virtual bargain for HBO.

Even more curious is that this is considered a 10% stake for HBO which means that the entire site is valued at an utterly insane $100 million.  Give me a break!   This site gets less than 500,000 viewers a month.  So, that means someone thinks views are worth more than $16 each!

HA!

(via Vallywag)

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