A lot of headline ink has been spilled on the issue of Foxconn building iPads for Apple in China. Some believe the workers are exploited, making $14/day, while others argue the working conditions and pay is much better than anywhere else.
Here is a quick video I stumbled upon today that offers a look inside the factory. Pretty interesting stuff:
I’m a fan of Sarah Lacy and what she is building at PandoDaily. Funded by $2.5M, Lacy aims to cover the startup world and be the “site-of-record for the startup root-system and everything that springs up from it…”
She delivers great tech journalism and covers startups well, and PandoDaily’s original voice and analysis is refreshing.
I wanted to share a quick clip of Lacy’s interview with Howard Kurtz, where she and Howard discussed tech journalism, her business and the startup world.
One of the discussion points in this interview focuses on Randi Zuckerberg’s decision to co-produce a show called Silicon Valley, a “reality show” that will air on Bravo. The show claims it will be all about San Fran’s tech scene. If you have been following Lacy, you know she is not a fan. At all. And of course, Zuckerberg defends the show.
Lacy offers some great perspective on the state of tech journalism and how TV shows like this can undermine a real journalist’s job in flushing out the stories behind startups.
My company issued this press release today:
Digital Journal today published a list of the 20 most active contributors on its network in March. The Top 20 list is published each month to report how Digital Journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists interact in an online media network.
“Gamification is going to be a pillar in the future for media organizations,” said Digital Journal CEO, Chris Hogg. “Having and using data in conjunction with a media offering positions a company like Digital Journal to be able to do things that have never before been possible. We can measure, track and report very granular data that has never before been accessible, and we are proud to be able to use that data to show off some of most talented media people in the world.”
Digital Journal publishes a Top 20 list in recognition of top performers from the company’s massive gamification project that tracks and reports activity of contributors across the Digital Journal network. Recording actions such as quantity of articles published, frequency of visit and how engaged members are, Digital Journal rewards points and badges to individual contributors based on the amount of their activity. The members who stay the most active in the month are then rewarded with a “Power Users” badge.
In addition to creating incentive for contributors to participate in the social news network, Digital Journal aims to showcase talent and create a level of transparency that gives an open look at how people interact with a news organization and how user-generated content is valuable in the wider news ecosystem.
“Digital Journal is seeing continued growth from contributors making their mark in social news media,” said David Silverberg, Managing Editor of Digital Journal. “Our focus on gamification has produced another excellent crop of informative journalism gaining attention with readers and publishers across the world.”
In no particular order, Digital Journal’s March 2012 Power Users include:
Digital Journal compiles data on a monthly basis and resets the points at the beginning of each month when a new competition begins. More info on Digital Journal’s gamification project can be found here.
Digital Journal today published a list of the 20 most active contributors on its network. The Top 20 list is published each month to report how Digital Journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists interact in an online media network.
In Q4 of 2011, Digital Journal launched a massive gamification project that tracks and reports activity of contributors on Digital Journal. Recording actions such as quantity of articles published, frequency of visit and how engaged members are, Digital Journal rewards points and badges to individual contributors based on the amount of their activity. The members who stay the most active in the month are then rewarded with a “Power Users” badge.
In addition to creating incentive for contributors to participate in the social news network, Digital Journal aims to showcase talent and create a level of transparency that gives an open look at how people interact with a news organization and how user-generated content is valuable in the wider news ecosystem.”
Digital Journal‘s gamification project has completely changed how people view media across our network, and how everyday people contribute,” said Chris Hogg, CEO, Digital Journal. “Month over month we have seen increases in unique visitors and pageviews. The launch of our gamification platform has given back in spades, and everyone across the board is benefiting by complete transparency and in-depth reporting of data.”
In no particular order, Digital Journal’s January 2012 Power Users include:
• Elizabeth Batt
• Arthur Weinreb
• Amanda Payne
• Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins
• Tim Sandle
• Lynn Curwin
• Leigh Goessl
• Andrew Moran
• Alexander Baron
• Paul Wallis
• Katerina Nikolas
• Ernest Dempsey
• Paul Bradbury
• JohnThomas Didymus
• Marcus Hondro
• Lynn Herrmann
• Nancy Houser
• Samuel Okocha
• Igor I. Solar
• Kim I. Hartman
Digital Journal compiles data on a monthly basis and resets the points at the beginning of each month when a new competition begins. More info on Digital Journal’s gamification project can be found here.
As someone who runs a user-generated website, I think SOPA is a very bad idea. But I think it’s bad not just because it would inhibit my business, but because it would stifle innovation across the Internet as a whole.
For those of you who may not be familiar with SOPA, I’m providing a definition here (courtesy of the user-generated site Wikipedia):
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a law (bill) of the United States proposed in 2011 to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected, and concern has been expressed that they may be shut down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation would enable law enforcement to remove an entire domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing that an entire online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority. In a 1998 law, copyright owners are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this “safe harbor” provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself.
Lobbyists for companies that rely heavily on revenue from intellectual property copyright state it protects the market and corresponding industry, jobs, and revenue. The US president and legislators suggest it may kill innovation. Representatives of the American Library Association state the changes could encourage criminal prosecution of libraries. Other opponents state that requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented censorship of the Web and violates the First Amendment.
On January 18, 2012, several high-profile sites including Wikipedia went “dark” in protest of SOPA, and prominent Canadians like Michael Geist illustrated how an American legal issue would also affect those living outside of Uncle Sam’s reach.
I am against SOPA for many of the same reasons that others have spoken about publicly. It’s ill-conceived, destructive and it would stifle the innovation, open discussion and progress we have come to love of the Internet.
One particular voice in this discussion caught my attention and I wanted to share that with you here today. Clay Shirky gave a TED talk on SOPA and it says everything I would and provides great context on a complicated yet important issue. If you have 15 minutes to spare, I strongly encourage you to take the time to watch this talk:
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