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HURRICANE SANDY BY THE SOCIAL MEDIA NUMBERS

By Natt Garun — October 30, 2012

Twitter was one of the largest go-to sources of the most recent updates by city officials, public transit authorities, and news outlets on top of the average tweeter sending in their perspectives of what was happening in their neighborhoods. The site also set up its own #Sandy hashtag page for news relating to the event, complete with top tweets of the most shared news links and photos. Twitter users were also able to search hyperlocal tags to check out what was happening in their neighborhood, such as #ConeyIsland, to see how the historic area managed on Brooklyn’s southern coast.

Some companies also used Twitter to clarify rumors that virally spread over the Web. Take for example Con Edison, who took to its official account to shoot down false information about workers trapped in a building post-explosion at its 14th street power plant. New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) also used Twitter to update commuters with damage notices to certain train stations, and estimate when services may be restored.

Surges of tweets relating to Sandy spiked between 7 to 11 p.m. eastern time, right around when the hurricane made landfall in the tri-state area. Although Twitter feeds were flooded with Sandy-related tweets, more fake rumors and pictures were also being virally shared. In particular, a photo of the Statue of Liberty with an ominous cloud swirling behind her was one of the more infamous shares, while plenty other users who spotted the photo were quick to note that the picture looked way too Photoshopped to be real. That’s the thing about Twitter; as easy as it is for someone to spread false information, it’s just as easy for thousands to call them out for it. Also, if you see any photos of sharks in the flood water, you can be absolutely sure those photos are, in fact, fake.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/hurricane-sandy-by-social-media-numbers/#ixzz2KzeIkquF
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fascinating document

Read the article below and find and read Dorner's manifesto for discussion on Wednesday.

An Accused Killer Seeks An Audience With Everyone

by GENE DEMBY

February 09, 201310:27 AM

Enlarge image

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck speaks at a press conference on the manhunt for Christopher Dorner.

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

From: Christopher Jordan Dorner

To: America

That's the header on a 14-page letter attributed to Christopher Dorner. The former Los Angeles police officer is the focus of a massive manhunt spanning California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico after he allegedly shot and killed three people — including a police officer — and wounded several others during a shooting spree.

The letter is a fascinating document, full of grievances and digressions. It's not really a call to arms, not really a manifesto. It's more like an open letter, that staple of the aggrieved and indignant, especially in the Internet age.

In it, Dorner says that he was blacklisted and pushed from his job on the force after reporting an incident of police brutality, and he claims that the Los Angeles Police Department is run through with racists.

Dorner addresses the letter to "America," but seems to want to talk to each and every person in it: white cops, black cops, lesbian cops, Asian-American cops, the assistant principal of his high school, his knee surgeon, the director of The Hangover, and countless others. He tells New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie he's a fan and tells Michelle Obama he loves her bangs. And in a moment of dark irony, he calls out National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, lamenting that military-style firearms are widely available to the public. Dorner name-checkseveryone. But to each group of police officers he names, he reserves an ominous distinction: "You are a high-value target."

How do you handle a letter like this?

Start with people like me, journalists and others in the news media, even this very moment calling your attention to Dorner's missive. We're one of Dorner's main constituencies — he specifically asks us to fact-check him. CNN's Anderson Cooper tweeted that Dorner sent him a package in the mail.

This makes publicizing his message problematic: "It seems he created this manifesto with an eye to having it published," says Eric Deggans, a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times. "I'm worried that it might encourage him."

But Deggans and other journalists said that even if news outlets wanted to ignore messages like these, they can't do so anymore. The media landscape has changed too much.

Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, says that outlets that ignore Dorner's letter run the risk of becoming "irrelevant."

"I think that it's very different now than it used to be," she says. "He created the megaphone. I know it seems like he's talking directly to the media but I don't think it works that way anymore." Multiple news outlets have reported that Dorner initially posted the letter to Facebook.

McBride says she worries that journalists run the risk of becoming overly sympathetic to the LAPD and won't verify the claims that Dorner makes in his manifesto. (She praised CNN, in particular, for digging into and disproving an assertion about an incident Dorner makes in the letter.)

"They should think about not telling the story from the perspective of the LAPD, but telling the story from lots of perspectives," she says.

Dorner was also hoping to get the attention of his former colleagues in the police department. His letter is studded with police jargon; the beginning reads like an incident report. Are police officials likely to take seriously his charges of wanton brutality and wrongdoing even though he allegedly killed three people and wounded several others?

They could, says Officer Eisenman, an LAPD spokesperson. (She declined to give her first name.) She said that while she couldn't comment specifically on the ongoing Dorner case, it was "common sense that [those claims] will probably be looked at."

"It doesn't annul the fact of what he's stating," Eisenman says. If there's going to be an investigation of his allegations, it won't be until he's captured, she says.

Even after all the people Dorner directly names, there are still some audiences left implicit. Charges of police brutality and racism have long been a point of serious friction between local cops and Angelenos. What happens when a letter championing an issue you care deeply about becomes associated with a grisly spree killing?

It's an open letter to everyone in America, and versions of it — both redacted and unedited — can be easily found all over the Internet.

Do you seek it out? Do you read it? How do you handle a letter like this?

One Second Every Day

Ebooks and Public Libraries

by PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Libraries have loaned out physical books or documents for hundreds of years. Electronic books (ebooks) are going to be the transformative force that changes the very defintion of libraries in our society. It will most likely take a very long time for ebooks to replace physical books as the media of choice for reading literature, but the change is definitely underway.

Ebook sales are skyrocketing and the use of ebooks is becoming more and more prominent with a greater variety of books available electronically and better ereaders becoming available. Libraries are already including ebooks as part of their offerings and we can only expect the trend to continue.

Less Than Half

Study shows that over half of all children have never read an ebook

by PUBLIC LIBRARIES on JANUARY 14, 2013

Good news for librarians.  A majority of children age 6-17 have never read an ebook.  Scholastic today released their biannual Kids & Family Reading Report and it showed that only 46 percent of kids had read an electronic version of a book before.

Of course, librarians are never happy to hear about kids that haven’t read a book before.  They would love nothing more than to get the entire world embracing voracious reading at a young age.  However, the format that people are reading is definitely something librarians do care about.

The transition to ebooks from print books has been extremely challenging for libraries.  Most libraries have a very limited selection of ebooks compared to print books.  For example, the New York Public Library has roughly 35,000 ebook titles available for patrons to borrow.  By comparison, they have over 20 million print books in their collections.

The core problem with ebooks for libraries has to do with the publishers.  The book publishers have not figured out a business model for lending ebooks at libraries.  Only two of the Big Six publishers allow libraries to loan out all of their ebooks as if they were print books.  The other publishers have imposed crippling restrictions such as higher prices, limited selections and ebooks that expire.

So for now, librarians are happy to hear that the majority of kids still haven’t read an ebook – as long as they are still reading print books.

Mini Tablet Impact on eBooks

Mini tablets will bring mega wait times for ebooks at libraries

by PUBLIC LIBRARIES on NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Here we are on the eve of Thanksgiving about to celebrate the time honored holiday by doing what Americans do best…stuffing our faces and shopping.

After the food induced coma wears off, eager shoppers will head to the retailers to try and score some great deals on electronics and toys. On the top of the wish lists this year are tablets from Apple, Amazon and Google. The big change from last year is that there are now a wide variety of mini tablets available.

Barnes & Noble was the first company to gain traction in the mini tablet market with their Nook tablet in 2011. Amazon saw how successful the Barnes & Noble was so they decided to launch their own mini tablet late last year. Amazon’s Kindle Fire became the first real threat to Apple and their market dominating iPad. The Kindle Fire did so well last holiday season that it inspired Google, Microsoft and even Apple to launch their own mini tablets this year.

So this is the first holiday season where all the major players in the tablet market have a mini tablet being sold. This means that there is going to be a huge increase in the demand for ebooks in general and at libraries.

Mini tablets are the perfect size for reading ebooks. They are lighter and more portable than their full size brethren. They are very similar to dedicated ereaders as far as size and weight are concerned. But the similarities with ereaders end there.

Try out one of the new mini tablets and it’s amazing what they can do. You can do pretty much everything that you can on a full size tablet. The user experience for browsing, email, movies and apps are almost identical on either tablet. Everything is fast and easy to navigate. There are a some places where the full size tablet shines, but overall the mini tablet holds its own pretty well.

The biggest advantage the mini tablet has over a full size one is portability. The minis are small enough that you could easily take them with you everywhere you go. They fit in purses, bags, backpacks and glove boxes very easily. Full size tablets are portable. Mini tablets are extremely portable.

This improvement in portability is exceptionally noticeable when reading an ebook. If you’ve ever read ebooks on an iPad the first thing you notice is that the iPad is really big and really heavy. Read the same ebook on a mini iPad or mini tablet and you’ll find that it’s a drastically better experience.

Reading ebooks on mini tablets is very similar to reading ebooks on dedicated ereaders. The form factor is comfortable and the weight makes it easy to hold for hours on end. The biggest difference is that the mini tablets have resolutions that are not as good as on dedicated ereaders and they are also backlit.

Add it all up and you can expect to see ebook sales grow even faster than they are now. And that means you will see a lot more library patrons wanting to borrow ebooks from their local library.

So you think waiting lists for ebooks at libraries are long now? Just wait until the holidays are over and millions of people have unwrapped their shiny new mini tablet that is perfect for reading ebooks.

Got to Talk About This

Game Changing Devices