Saturday, August 18, 2007

latimes.com still has head up butt re: the internets

The stupid Times editorial:

>>>
It's not journalism
Google's latest effort highlights the difference between what it does and what newspapers and magazines do.

August 17, 2007

Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden.

Among those who have taken particular offense at Google are some current and aspiring newspaper publishers, including Sam Zell (who's in the process of buying Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times), who once famously asked, "If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?"

continued @

the Times


And a great point by point rebuttal of the Times' paranoid ignorance:

>>>>

The L.A. Times tells its readers: 'Shut up'

Commentary: A Times editorial attacks the concept of reader comments on news stories, declaring Google a greater threat "than Osama bin Laden."

By Robert Niles
Posted: 2007-08-17

The Los Angeles Times this morning insulted its readers in a stunning editorial that compared Google with Osama bin Laden and showed why Times editors simply do not understand the medium that is growing to dominate the news publishing industry. A point by point rebuttal follows:

Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden.

Who are these publishers, exactly? The Times' David Hiller? Ignore the straw man here and the reader is still left with The Times' belief that a search engine company which has helped millions of people around the world more effectively find the information they need, and that has paid publishers billions of dollars to create original content (full disclosure: including OJR and me, personally) is a greater threat to journalism and Western capitalism than a murderer who killed 3,000
Americans on 9/11.

Wow.

After The Times lit its credibility on fire with that statement, one shouldn't need to dissect the rest of its ridiculous editorial.

But I will. ;-)

more @

Online Journalism Review

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The email that gives Jews the 'Heebie Jeebies'

An anti-Semitic Web site is first on Google when you search for 'Jew,' and alarmist e-mail about the phenom is making the rounds again.

Two people here at JewishJournal.com got the email last week and both asked me what was up. I told them not to worry, it was old news, not to get the Heebie Jeebies.

The Heebie Jeebies -- 1932 -- the Boswell Sisters

But it was new to them, so I thought some of you guys might want to learn more as well.

Here's some background from the Anti-Defamation League and the response from Google.

The gist: We know about it, and we're working on it, please stand by.

The hate site everyone writes about is only the tip of the iceberg. The Web is filled with everything imaginable (both good and bad), and some things unimaginable. Sometimes it seems to me there are people (robots?) who do nothing but post hate and propaganda to message boards all day long, all week.

The hate on the venerable Yahoo! News message boards caused Y! (disclosure: I once worked there) to close down their message boards entirely.

The videos I see every night when I comb YouTube (search for "Jew") are a cesspool of bigotry.

What to do?

I can't speak for everyone else at JewishJournal.com, but my response is to "represent!"

That's the reason I started our JewishJournal.com YouTube Channel. Positive, fun, interesting videos. Rabbis, rockers, rebels. No hate. No anti-anything. Just the wild wonderful world of Jews, Judios, and Yahudim.

Tell your friends.

-- Dennis Wilen

Friday, August 3, 2007

The love you take, by0tch

I always want my sites to be more than ON the Web -- they need to be OF the Web as well.

This means linking out.

Linking out's rewards are manifold and glorious, a packet-protocol potlatch of publicity, and they even have their own theme song:

o/` The love you take is equal to the love you make o/`