Pirkka’s posterous

By now the arguments are familiar: Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We're facing a crisis, one that could very well corrode the way humans have communicated since we first evolved from apes. What we need, so say these proud Luddites, is to turn our backs on technology and embrace not the keyboard, but the pencil.

Such sentiments, in the opinion of Dennis Baron, are nostalgic, uninformed hogwash. A professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Baron seeks to provide the historical context that is often missing from debates about the way technology is transforming our lives in his new book, "A Better Pencil." His thesis is clear: Every communication advancement throughout human history, from the pencil to the typewriter to writing itself, has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing for the medium that's been displaced.

So Plato opposed writing, because it makes us dumber, "no need to remember things." Thoreau didn't like telegraph, because the speed doesn't actually help as people don't really have anything to say to each other. Morse disliked telephone as the discussions just vanish into air.

What I find fascinating is that this same story of new forms of communication melting our brain continues all the time, in bigger and smaller circles. Just think about internet: the same thinking applies here.

Blogs melt our brains, because all they offer is uninformated opinions that we can't separate from so called facts. This is the story that proud Luddites also known as journalists love to tell us.

Facebook really makes us all dumb. Even the most avid bloggers opposed (and some still do) this social networking site, as it only allows very shallow communication. What is point of telling other what you are doing right at this moment? It's unnecessary information that just adds up to information clutter.

Microblogging must be the worst brain melter of all. Short messages and constant sharing of links is pseudo communication, not adding up to anything nor even really building network! Total waste of time!

I can easily find both the Luddite and front-row admirer of new technology in me.

When opposing something new and thinking myself that it melts our brains, maybe I'm just scared because I don't get the fascination of it. I just fear that everyone else is getting smarter!

Thanks to @raesmaa for reading tip!

To that end, transparency would be a core element of our journalism. One example of many: Every print article would have an accompanying box called “Things We Don’t Know” — a list of questions our journalists couldn’t answer in their reporting. TV and radio stories would mention the key unknowns. Whatever the medium, the organization’s website would include an invitation to the audience to help fill in the holes, which exist in every story.

Journalism nowadays tries to create an illusion. Stories are put together so that they create a feeling of being in control, that they cover every important side to the story.

That's not of course true, and that's why I love the idea Dan Gillmore. Instead of just fact boxes we should have unknown facts -boxes. These are the things we don't know yet, maybe you could help us with them.

And that would make sense, because it's true. No article or story can cover all the things, so why not say it out loud?

The England football team's next World Cup qualifying game against the Ukraine could be streamed live on national newspapers' websites on a pay-per-view basis, with a potential audience of more than 20 million internet users - the first time a match of such magnitude has been broadcast exclusively over the internet.

Kentaro, the sports rights company, which owns the rights to England's away qualifier in the Ukraine on 10 October, is understood to have held talks with all UK national newspaper publishers except the Financial Times about the landmark online content deal.

All the media is finally starting to melt into one, online. Text, photo, video, audio, multimedia - just choose which ever means fits your purpose the best.

In Sweden the biggest newspaper companies have already for ages been big on online television. They're not just into short clip tv, as they also produce longer shows and even show sports events online.

I am positive that it's going to happen soon here in Finland too. My guess is that www.iltasanomat.fi, www.iltalehti.fi and www.hs.fi will soon also announce their first deals of sports online television coverage on some important sporting events.

We shouldn't really talking about newspapers online, we're talking about media companies taking web seriously. Not just trying to protect the old, but also creating new.

But while newspapers are trying to find new ways of delivering their content, they at the same time hit hard on broadcasters saying that at least the public broadcasters shouldn't be allowed to do the same.

I think that each media company that wants to flourish also in the future have to look for new possibilities online. Traditional newspapers have to be able to become online television companies, but tv companies have to be able to expand their horizon too.

Why should public broadcasters be any different?

Yes, I know that Facebook and other social networking platforms change the posting paradigm and render practices like forwarding a digital anachronism. Perhaps. The real issue here is not the act of forwarding or receiving forwards but the challenge of creative customization. To the extent that posting something on a Wall or a stream or a blog is undifferentiated "broadcasting" rather than a one-to-one exchange, something important is missing.

I love checking my friends' shared links in Facebook and stream in Twitter at least couple times of day. It is like jumping into collective stream of interesting topics right now - there are so many things I would have missed without my friends' activity.

But I do love it even more when someone posts a link right on my Facebook profile. I have to agree with Michael Schrage: these direct posts and forwards are special. They're not posts directed at everyone, they're just for me.

I think we all should think beyond mass forwarding of links, maybe even just once during a day. Don't just forward a link to everyone, but think which ones of your friends could find this topic interesting.

Post it straight on their Facebook profile, send it @them in Twitter and send it to your friend's Delicious inbox. Don't just broadcast, remember to narrowcast too!

A digital lifestyle expert may also assist or stand in for their clients in their Web endeavors — defining target digital profiles, building out a digital image or personal brand — as well as helping wired users achieve the digital status they aspire to. As such, key roles will include digital persona consultants and personal brand advisers.

The Gartner talk puts it into fancy words and startegic marketing talk, but I just understood that this is pretty much what I am working on right now.

Trying to help people to know what and how they can achieve in web and social media, to which sphere they ought to jump in and how to not just achieve digital status, but working relationship between communities and us at Finnish Broadcasting Company.

But one thing I am sure about: Many of our journalists wouldn't buy this stuff if I came in and said that I am digital persona consultant!

Kahdeksan maakuntalehteä on päättänyt tänään yhteisen ulkomaantoimituksen perustamisesta. Yhteistyöllä haetaan tehokkuutta ja kustannussäästöjä.

Uudessa toimituksessa on neljä toimittajaa. Toimittajat ovat Kalevasta, Keskisuomalaisesta, Turun Sanomista ja Etelä-Suomen Sanomista. He tekevät uutiset omissa toimituksissaan.

- Keskisuomalaisen ulkomaanuutiset on jo muutaman päivän ajan tehty tällä virtuaalitoimituksella. Tämä on uudenlainen toimintamalli, eikä se aiheuta henkilöstömuutoksia Keskisuomalaisessa, kertoo lehden päätoimittaja Pekka Mervola.

Mervolan mukaan Keskisuomalaisen ulkomaantoimitukseen oli muutenkin jäämässä vain yksi vakituinen toimittaja, joten yhteistoimitusmalli tuli lehdelle luontevasti.

Ulkomaan uutisten yhteistyössä ovat mukana myös Savon Sanomat ja Karjalainen. Ensi vuonna mukaan liittyvät Ilkka ja Pohjalainen.

Jäin vain miettimään, että perustetaanko tässä siis varjo-organisaatiota STT:lle, jonka omistajia nämäkin lehdet ovat?

Virtuaalitoimituksen logiikka on kyllä hyvä, mutta kehityksen suunta on jännää varsinkin siksi, että jo tällä hetkellä näillä lehdillä on virtuaalitoimitus Helsingin Albertinkadulla, josta ulkomaan uutisia tulee kaikkien käyttöön.

Elämme mielenkiintoisia aikoja.

Women are consummate content creators online. From technology mavens like Google’s Marissa Mayer to influential mommy bloggers, and even YouTube () stars like iJustine, females have played a significant role in shaping web trends.

That’s why we’re slightly surprised by a revealing study conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Their research found that only 13% of Wikipedia () contributors are women.

Wikipedia and whole wiki type of a collaboration is working side-by-side, concentrating on topic at hand.

I remember from my studies that women tend to prefer conversation face-to-face, while men like to socialize side-by-side, doing things together.*

So maybe it's not strange after all that Wikipedia is a male thing!

*I really can't recall whose theory or idea this is, have to try to google that!

Reading the latest figures from Hitwise it seems clear that Fox Interactive / News Corporation owned MySpace is losing ground badly in the UK. Paidcontent.org has compared MySpace with Twitter and reports that these two social media sites are nowadays tied when measuring visits. Twitter has grown impressively during the latest year.

That could also be a case here in Finland. The only possible comparable figures from Alexa indicate that in their figures Twitter has also passed MySpace. Twitter even tops Oikotie!

Of course the figures from Alexa are far from being The Official Truth, but I'd take this at least as some kind of indication. Is Twitter becoming mainstream even up here in the north?