CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-19 13:33:50 (33 comments, 183 reshares, 231 +1s)

This may be the best response ever to an idiotic takedown notice.

2013-06-18 20:30:32 (31 comments, 18 reshares, 61 +1s)

Note to tech companies based in the United States: I realize the federal government has put you in a tough spot. But you helped create the problem. If you want more trust from your customers/users, you can win it back this way:

1) Stop collecting vast amounts of data on us. 2) Do end-to-end encryption wherever possible. 3) Encrypt our cloud data so even you can't read it.

I realize these are not always trivial to do, and may conflict with your current business models. But if you want my trust -- never mind the countless millions of users outside the US and the clued-in ones here -- it's the bottom line.

2013-06-18 13:26:29 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

UK's rush toward censoring the Internet accelerates, in the name (of course) of "protecting children".

2013-06-16 16:41:20 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Belly-laugh for the day: Dick Cheney says Obama has no credibility. (He's right, but geez...)

2013-06-16 16:06:38 (6 comments, 8 reshares, 34 +1s)

The NY Times' unconscionable delay in revealing Bush-era illegalities comes home to roost, as the paper's Public Editor (sort of) explains in a piece about why Edward Snowden didn't come to the Times with his blockbuster story.

2013-06-16 16:05:20 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 16 +1s)

Wall Street wrecked the global economy and stole countless billions; and nothing changed. In other words, they're poised to do it again.

2013-06-15 02:15:02 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 101 +1s)

Costco before the crowds arrive...

2013-06-14 17:31:26 (8 comments, 6 reshares, 41 +1s)

Here's one thing that happens when the federal government stores records of all your phone calls.

2013-06-14 16:13:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

My new post on my site, PressThink, is about two kinds of commitment in political journalism and some lessons for the press in the leak of  the NSA story to columnist Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.

The two kinds are "see? we have no commitments! so trust us!" which I call in this piece politics: none vs. "here's what's happening and here are my convictions" which I call politics:some. My purpose is not to denounce one or praise the other but merely to make the point that both are valid, effective, "traditional," and professional.

Is the distinction helpful? It's supposed to be.

A small window into this issue was provided by Greenwald when he posted the email exchange between a New York Times reporter seeking comment on Greenwald and blogger Andrew Sullivan, who knows Glenn. As you can see by going here http://goo.gl/geJ6S ther... more »

2013-06-13 16:25:06 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Today we dive deep into this vitally important topic with +Dan Gillmor and others at +Reinventors Network. Come check it out at 11am Pacific. 

2013-06-12 15:05:30 (21 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Linux folks -- is there any way to encrypt an existing partition without overwriting the data, either with built-in tools or add-ons?

2013-06-11 03:45:49 (17 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Columnists often stay on the job long after they have anything original or even interesting to say. A classic example is the "liberal" Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, who has become a caricature.

Here's one of his most bizarre columns ever, and the bar was so low that he had to slither underneath it this time.

2013-06-10 21:41:55 (13 comments, 6 reshares, 23 +1s)

Hitler finds out about surveillance leaks. Do we invoke Godwin's Law or just laugh/weep? 

2013-06-10 21:29:17 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

John Yoo's latest assault on liberty. UC Berkeley continues to employ him as a law professor, to its discredit.

2013-06-10 17:08:27 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Why is it that you can go to many metropolitan areas in America and find an opera company that's thriving but a newspaper that's collapsing? One possible answer: subsidies. This roundtable takes on the important question about what's still essential for journalists to do in our new information age. What functions of our society and economy still need the attention of professional journalists because they can't or won't be done any other way? We'll then look hard at possible models for how that work can be financially supported - starting with subsidies, but looking at other big ideas for reinvention as well.

2013-06-10 16:02:58 (5 comments, 11 reshares, 54 +1s)

If the 4th Amendment was proposed today as a law, the White House and most members of Congress would oppose it. That's what we've come to.

2013-06-10 15:21:14 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

2013-06-09 18:38:42 (17 comments, 13 reshares, 47 +1s)

Meet the brave young man who blew the whistle on (at least some of) Obama administration's scandalous operations. 

2013-06-09 17:48:54 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Anyone know what Yahoo's main law firm is?

2013-06-08 23:14:48 (21 comments, 1 reshares, 24 +1s)

Why do people think a picture is better/interesting because it's taken from Google Glass? Wish I could block #throughglass from this feed...

2013-06-07 01:15:52 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

+Arizona State University and the +Walter Cronkite School of Journalism are now on Google+. 

2013-06-06 21:34:40 (8 comments, 11 reshares, 57 +1s)

The definition of hypocrisy: Republicans complaining about civil liberties abuses after defending them when Bush was president; and Democrats complaining back then and defending them now. 

2013-06-04 18:45:15 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Odd, G+ just reset itself in 2-column mode. I'd set it for a single column. Anyone else? (Update: Now it's back to one...)

2013-06-04 17:12:16 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

LibreOffice version 4 has been quite unstable. Repeated crashes in Ubuntu Linux. Wondering if I can revert back to version 3.6, which wasn't nearly as problematic...

2013-06-04 02:11:17 (24 comments, 16 reshares, 35 +1s)

Amazingly, this video insanity from the Wall Street Journal editorial page is not satire. The Onion couldn't have done it better, though.

2013-06-04 01:55:43 (4 comments, 4 reshares, 22 +1s)

You really should listen to Planet Money's takedown of the patent system. One especially noteworthy element of the report is its shredding of the contemptible "we're not trolls" pretense of Nathan Myhrvold's "Intellectual Ventures."

But the bigger scandal, which the report should have spent more time reporting, is the US Patent and Trademark Office: an agency that grants totally crappy patents as a matter of routine and lets the ever-richer legal system (and the trolls) extract so much money from the economy. The cost to innovation is surely enormous, and growing.

2013-06-02 20:43:18 (5 comments, 11 reshares, 29 +1s)

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has raised money to pay for a court stenographer to create a transcript of the Bradley Manning trial. You will be unsurprised to learn that the government is doing everything possible to thwart it. 

Some media org should perform a public service and give up its  Manning trial seat in favor of the stenographer. 

2013-06-01 20:20:12 (39 comments, 2 reshares, 22 +1s)

The answer to the question is yes. Another Obama promise broken.

2013-06-01 18:01:02 (0 comments, 17 reshares, 35 +1s)

NPR's Planet Money revisits the patent trolling scene, and it's worse than ever. Brilliant journalism.

The patent system is a disaster for our economy, and this will help you understand why.

2013-05-30 22:18:05 (5 comments, 12 reshares, 23 +1s)

Podcasting -- a key form of democratized media -- is in jeopardy from a patent troll. You can help save it. 

2013-05-29 20:12:04 (11 comments, 4 reshares, 17 +1s)

My latest column analyzes the FBI affidavit used to seize full email messages in a gmail account belonging a Fox News reporter.

2013-05-29 20:11:33 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

There's no stable CyanogenMod ROM for the Sprint version of Samsung's Galaxy Note II. Does anyone have a ROM they'd recommend? 

I rarely use the pen input, so that's not at the top of my must-have list for a replacement ROM.

2013-05-27 16:58:37 (19 comments, 3 reshares, 19 +1s)

Can you imagine a profile of male White House lawyer that leads with his collection of shoes? I can't, either.

2013-05-26 01:19:42 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

If you like thrillers, you've probably heard of (and maybe read) Barry Eisler's terrific books, many featuring John Rain. Now the Kindle versions are on sale, for three days, for a buck (minus a penny) each. This is an amazing deal...

2013-05-26 18:48:59 (16 comments, 11 reshares, 73 +1s)

Asus is selling a superslim notebook preloaded with Ubuntu Linux for $300.

(corrected misspelling...yike)

2013-05-23 19:07:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

About half a dozen very interesting people have signed up for Think-Know Tools, which runs June 19 - July 26. I need another half dozen to make up a viable cohort, and registration caps at thirty. Here is the syllabus and information about price, schedule -- everything you'll need to know to decide. If you want to join us, please email me howard@rheingold.com 
http://socialmediaclassroom.com/host/think2/

2013-05-22 04:20:52 (50 comments, 6 reshares, 51 +1s)

American taxpayers have been wonderful for Apple. But that's basically a one-way street, says Harvard Business Review.

2013-05-21 01:28:17 (24 comments, 144 reshares, 154 +1s)

The Copyright Cartel has sent fraudulent takedown notices to Google, in what appears to be an attempt to stop you from finding a brilliant film about the movie studios' often-slimy campaign against the Pirate Bay. Here's my small effort to help everyone find what they want to hide. 

I rarely ask you to do this, but I'd appreciate it if you'd share this widely.

For more on the cartel's tactics, here's a short explainer from BoingBoing: http://boingboing.net/2013/05/20/movie-studios-send-fraudulent.html

2013-05-20 15:16:43 (7 comments, 4 reshares, 26 +1s)

I'm a huge admirer of what Matt Mullenweg and his team at WordPress have accomplished in the 10 years they've been working on this essential -- that is a carefully chosen word -- platform. My Guardian column this week, in the wake of Yahoo's buyout of Tumblr, explains why WordPress is so important to the Internet's future.

2013-05-18 18:31:01 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I have an #Ingress  invite. While the game looks very intriguing to me, I'm profoundly concerned about sharing my location with strangers, and if I can't be anonymous, I won't be playing the game.

If you're playing it now, would you mind sharing a little bit (spoiler free, if there are potential spoilers) about your experience? 

2013-05-16 18:45:55 (4 comments, 14 reshares, 46 +1s)

Here's why network neutrality should absolutely apply to mobile carriers, too.

2013-05-16 18:43:29 (1 comments, 8 reshares, 31 +1s)

Yet another reason to do business with Newegg.

Patent trolls have got to go.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/newegg-nukes-corporate-troll-alcatel-in-third-patent-appeal-win-this-year/

2013-05-16 15:42:24 (16 comments, 7 reshares, 16 +1s)

The Obama administration's outrageous raid on the phone records of the Associated Press prompted me to renew the call for journalists to take security more seriously, for the sake of their sources, themselves, and the rest of us who need to know what the rich and powerful are doing. In Slate:

2013-05-16 15:40:53 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

My latest Guardian column admires Google's amazing capabilities and achievements, and hopes that hubris won't overtake the deserved self-confidence and create major trouble down the road.

2013-05-16 15:38:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

This week I started releasing a cycle of work that began 14 years ago when I read my first article about "open source journalism." I thought then, and still believe, that the craft of beat reporting would be changed by the discovery that, as Dan Gillmor put it in 1999, "my readers know more than I do." That, plus the frictionless ease by which information and expertise from knowledgable users could flow in would make possible a different kind of beat coverage. 

A lot has happened since I came to that conclusion 14 years ago: The rise of blogging after 2000, which changed the READ ONLY web into Read/Write. The rise of social after 2007, which changed the web into read/writer/share. The routine use of networked methods in journalism, as with finding sources over Twitter or Facebook. 

But we still haven't seen the networked beat emerge in full form yet, and thati... more »

2013-05-16 00:49:53 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

Very impressed with auto-enhance in the updated G+...

2013-05-16 00:46:54 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 54 +1s)

Fog approaches San Francisco...

2013-05-15 22:52:00 (30 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

When you pick single-column view, shouldn't the column be wider than it was it was one of two columns? 

2013-05-15 22:20:12 (51 comments, 1 reshares, 35 +1s)

I prefer the old Google+.

2013-05-15 14:35:16 (16 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

ABC reporter acknowledges he didn't read the original emails on which he based a "bombshell" story that made Obama look terrible.