Imagine highlighting and commenting on specific parts of news stories - points that may lack credibility or that provoke deeper consideration of issues
Soon after President Obama’s inauguration a word cloud with a graphical-semiotic representation of his 21-minute speech appeared on the web. The three most common words were nation, America and people. His predecessor’s had been freedom, America and liberty. Abraham Lincoln had majored on war, God and offence. The technique has a utility beyond identifying themes. Social-networking sites let users “tag” pages and images with words describing the content. The terms displayed in a “tag cloud” are links that will bring up a list of the related content.
Citizens utilized crowdsourced information for timely data about news that would directly impact their lives and could lead to the development of a more effective response system based on this time-based information.
Members will pay a fixed fee to access web content; monthly subscription is spread amongst sites based on the number of clicks from each user. "Share money and content."
I was serving on a grant proposal committee, and I watched as a fellow judge asked his Twitter followers if a certain project had been tried before. In 15 seconds, his followers replied with Web links to the information he needed. No e-mail message, phone call or Web site could have achieved the same effect.
Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source — whatever. There are no rules, or at least none that apply equally well to everyone.
A less quantifiable statistic that may also have impacted the rise of mobile social networking to the point where it has surpassed desktop-based social networking is the fact that it's an activity that taps into how people - normal, everyday people - go about their lives.
computer-mediated communication use and research are proliferating rapidly, findings offer contrasting images regarding the interpersonal character of this technology.
This story is an example of how journalism can bring stories to light that otherwise would be lost in anonymity, prompt discussion, enlist help for disadvantaged persons, and possibly even trigger policy change.