July 29, 2009
Needing to Know Everything about Everything May Be Good For You but It Sucks for Me - The night I read Le Figaro in Google Translation
The death of Michael Jackson on TMZ, a new paradigm of info?
Où étiez-vous, jeudi dernier, lorsque vous avez appris la mort de Michael Jackson ? Where were you last Thursday, when you've learned the death of Michael Jackson? Devant votre téléviseur , sur Twitter , sur les deux en essayant de démêler le vrai du faux ? Front of your TV, Twitter, both trying to untangle truth from fiction?
Pendant tout ce temps, Michael Jackson était "mort sur Internet et vivant à la télévision" , note le New York Times . Throughout this time, Michael Jackson was "death on the Internet and live television," notes the New York Times. La palme du grand écart médiatique va à Time Warner , qui contrôle TMZ (via AOL), et qui a laissé une autre filiale, la chaîne d'info continue CNN , faire durer le suspense ! The palm of the large gap media goes to Time Warner, which controls TMZ (via AOL), and left another subsidiary, the chain continues CNN news, to sustain the suspense!
Les médias établis ont voulu être prudent et vérfier l'information. C'est très bien : les elkabbacheries , on s'en méfie dans ces maisons où ne peut pas faire des "edit" en deux clics et effacer une info erronnée comme si elle n'avait jamais été annoncée. The established media have tried to be careful and vérfier information. It's very well: the elkabbacheries, it will be wary in these homes can not do "edit" in two clicks and erase a wrong info as if it had never been announced. Mais n'ont-ils pas péché par excès de méfiance ? But did not they err on the side of distrust? Fait preuve de présomption d'inexactitude vis-à-vis du Web ? Proved inaccurate presumption vis-à-vis the Web? (comme d'autres patrons de presse qui parlent de " tout à l'égoût de la démocratie "...) (like other bosses press talk of "all the drainage of democracy "...)
A moins que l'ancien monde médiatique ait, par son retard à l'allumage, s'implement cautionné un nouveau paradigme de l'information : Unless the old media world has, by its delay in the ignition, backed sets a new paradigm of information:
TMZ "n'est pas une grosse machine à profits. Ils se concentrent sur une seule chose : sortir l'info, et c'est tout - et ils semblent le faire plutôt correctement.(...) Les agents de Hollywood et les structures du pouvoir ne leur prêtent pas beaucoup d'attention. D'une certaine manière c'est une bénédiction, ils n'ont pas besoin d'aller faire de la lèche aux agents et échanger des faveurs pour avoir de l'accès " , analyse Keith Kelly, chroniqueur du New York Post, dans The Guardian . TMZ is not a big machine profits. They focus on one thing: the info out, and that's all - and they do not appear correctly .(...) agents and Hollywood power structures do not lend them much attention. In some ways it is a blessing, they did not need to go do the shopping agents and exchange favors for in access " analysis Keith Kelly, columnist for the New York Post, in The Guardian.
Autrement dit, n'ayant besoin ni d'interviews de patrons ou de stars ou d'avoir des DVD en avant-première pour les chroniquer et autres " exclusivités magazine ", les sites cracheurs de scoops comme TMZ sont libres de sortir toutes les informations qu'ils souhaitent. Contrairement aux grands supports, contraints de respecter certaines règles de bienséance pour pouvoir étoffer les pages d'exclusivités, d'avant-premières, de reportages nécessitant d'obtenir un accès officiel... In other words, did not need interviews with stars or bosses or having DVD preview for chronic and other "exclusive magazine, sites eaters like TMZ scoops are free to leave any information they want. Unlike larger carriers, obliged to respect certain rules of decorum to develop exclusive pages of previews, features need to get official access ...
Une vision qui inverserait radicalement les a prioris actuels d'un Internet poubelle pour mieux inaugurer l'ère du Web, source d'infos et des médias anciens, canaux d'exclusivités (négociées). A vision that radically reverse the current a priori an Internet trash can to better inaugurate the era of Web information source and old media, channels exclusivities (traded).
Insolite : un robot Toyota qui marche... bien - PC INpact
Insolite : un robot Toyota qui marche... bien - PC INpact
Toyota vient de présenter un robot capable de courir à 7 km/h, soit un de mieux que son fameux Asimo. Ce robot tient parfaitement l’équilibre et peut être poussé sans prendre une gamelle. De ses 1M30 et 50Kg, ce prototype possède des jambes avec 7 degrés de liberté, de quoi lui permettre de rester en l’air durant 100ms pendant son pas de course.
Government releases 20-page guide to using Twitter | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Government releases 20-page guide to using Twitter | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Screen grab of Gordon Brown's Twitter site. Photograph: Public Domain
Even its author admits that a 20-page strategy paper for government departments on how to use Twitter might be regarded as "a bit of over the top" for a microblogging tool with a limit of 140 characters a message.
Indeed, the 5,382-word official "template",which translates into 36,215 characters and spaces, would need roughly 259 separate tweets to put the word around Whitehall using Twitter.
But its author, Neil Williams, who describes himself as head of corporate digital channels at Lord Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, admits that when he sat down to write a proper plan for his department's corporate Twitter account, "I was surprised by just how much there was to say ‑ and quite how worth saying it is."
Whitehall's official use of Twitter was pioneered by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Communities and Local Government department.
Their low-profile experiments have grown into a regular feature of their official digital output.
Now Williams, a self-confessed web geek, has turned his template into an official Whitehall Twitter guide and posted it on the Cabinet Office's digital engagement blog.
He suggests that nothing too onerous is involved. Each department's "digital media team" should only need to spend less than an hour a day running their Twitter streams. A quick discussion of potential tweets at the morning press cuttings meetings should be followed by emails to minister's private offices to gather more material, and any incoming messages should be replied to.
However, the idea of official government use of a tool that provides a confidential and confessional glimpse into somebody's personal life and views appears at first sight to be something of an oxymoron.
The official guide seems to acknowledge this when it recommends that exclusive content such as "insights from ministers" and "updates on their movements" in a light or humanised style will be needed for the Twitter stream beyond the "business as usual" content of daily press releases and announcements.
It also concedes there is a problem with one of the basic Twitter features, the ability to "follow" any other users. It admits that if government departments start following individual users on Twitter uninvited, this may well be interpreted as "interfering 'Big Brother'-like behaviour".
However, once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be "followed back" on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done ‑ and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.
In urging his fellow Whitehall civil servants to use Twitter, Williams sets out several grounds rules for the kind of content that needs to make it work:
• Human: He warns that Twitter users can be hostile to the "over-use of automation" - such as RSS feeds – and to the regurgitation of press release headlines: "While corporate in message, the tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be informal spoken English, human-edited and for the most part written/paraphrased for the channel."
• Frequent: a minimum of two and maximum of 10 tweets per working day, with a minimum gap of 30 minutes between tweets to avoid flooding followers' Twitter streams. (Not counting @replies or live coverage of a crisis/event.) Downing Street spends 20 minutes on its Twitter stream with two-three tweets a day plus a few replies, five-six tweets a day in total.
• Timely: in keeping with the "zeitgeist" feel of Twitter, official tweets should be about issues of relevance today or events coming soon.
• Credible: while tweets may occasionally be "fun", their relationship to departmental objectives must be defensible.
Alongside the promised tweetable content of minsters' thoughts and reflections following key meetings and events is something rather more sinister sounding called "thought leadership". Also known as "linked blogging", the idea is that by highlighting relevant research, events, awards and other action elsewhere on the web, the department's Twitter feed gets a reputation as a reliable filter of high quality content.
It even holds out the promise of "crisis content" in which the Twitter feed becomes a primary channel alongside the official website for up to the minute guidance and advice in the event of a major incident.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block is that in true Whitehall tradition everything that goes out has to be approved and cleared first. So news releases are to be cleared for use only if they have first been paraphrased for Twitter. All other tweets have to be cleared by staff at information officer grade in the digital media team and colleagues in ministers' private offices and communications units have to be consulted as well.
The guidelines recommend that "light-touch controls" will also be needed to prevent "inappropriate content" being published in error such as embargoed news releases, information about the location of ministers that could put their security at risk, or other commercially or politically sensitive content. Steps are also to be taken to avoid hacking or vandalism of content.
But it is perhaps the "tone of voice" that is most troubling about the idea of Whitehall twitter stream. "Though the account will be anonymous (ie, no named officials will be running it) it is helpful to define a hypothetical 'voice' so that tweets from multiple sources are presented in a consistent tone (including consistent use of pronouns)," recommends the official template.
"The department's Twitter voice will be that of the digital media team, positioning the channel as an extension of the main department website ‑ effectively an 'outpost' where new digital content is signposted throughout the day. This will be implicit, unless directly asked about by our followers," it advises.
Williams, the author of this template, launched the first ever blog by a British cabinet minister. He admits he once ran a comedy website called idiotica.co.uk but the Cabinet Office confirm that his Twitter guidelines are genuine.
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