Media Bits and Bytes - No Place to Hide Edition - October 9,
2012

Published by Portside

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How Cell Phones Have Changed Your Budget

By Martha V. Shelton

October 5, 2012
Investopia

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1012/how-cell-phones-have-changed-your-budget.aspx

As technology has advanced throughout the 21st century,
mobile phones have morphed from functional devices used
solely for voice into sophisticated portable computers.
Smartphone users are now capable of texting, video
conferencing, surfing the Internet, and playing music and
video on their handheld devices. With this evolution in
technology has come a meaningful increase in the amount of
money devoted towards mobile phone services. Perhaps you have
noticed that you are paying much more for your cellular
service now than you were 10 years ago. You are not alone-
Here's a look at how cell phones have evolved into an
increasingly indispensable and expensive component of most
people's budgets.

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The real power of Facebook lies in controlling connected
identity

By Om Malik

October 4, 2012
Gigaom

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/04/the-real-power-of-facebook-lies-in-controlling-connected-identity/

In 2008, when Facebook introduced Facebook Connect to use
Facebook credentials for other websites and services, it was
pretty obvious Mark Zuckerberg's long term goal was
controlling the identity infrastructure of the web. Today,
with Facebook signing up a billion users, this real value of
Facebook is clear - we can use our Facebook identity to sign-
up for apps, e-commerce website and even gadgets. If there
were any doubts, Mark lays them to rest in this Businessweek
interview: What services can get built based on getting
access to everyone's friends? We've already seen some of
that in games and media, but I think there's about to be a
big push in commerce.

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One-third of adults under 30 get news on social networks now

By Jeff Sonderman

September 27, 2012
Pew

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/189776/one-third-of-adults-under-30-get-news-on-social-networks-now/

For American adults under 30, social media has far surpassed
newspapers and has equaled TV as a primary source of daily
news, according to a new study of news consumption trends by
the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press. The study
found 33 percent of those young adults got news from social
networks the day before, while 34 percent watched TV news and
just 13 percent read print or digital newspaper content.
Overall, the study says, the major trends driving the growth
and change of digital news are social media, as well as the
rapid adoption of mobile Internet devices.

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Social Media Now a Must-Have in the Political Campaign
Toolbox

By Amanda Falcone

September 24, 2012
The Hartford Courant

http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-social-media-0922-20120921,0,4854099.story

U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon's campaign tweets
regularly, interacts with supporters on Facebook and even
uses new social media site Pinterest to highlight things that
she likes, such as the cookies she wants to bake for her
grandchildren.

McMahon is not the only political candidate using social
media to get a message out, particularly to young voters. The
phenomenon began in 2008 when President Barack Obama got
people's attention by mobilizing supporters through social
media. He continues to use social media platforms to reach
people from the White House, and now candidates across the
country - from those running for president to those vying for
a state legislative seat - are adding social media to their
list of campaign tools.

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CALCULATING CAMPAIGNS

By James Surowiecki

September 24, 2012
New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/09/24/120924ta_talk_surowiecki

The most important struggle between the Presidential
campaigns is taking place in the hands-on, door-to-door fight
for votes, called the "ground game." And, as Sasha Issenberg
shows in his enlightening new book, "The Victory Lab," the
ground game has been revolutionized in recent years by
technological innovation and clever experimentation.

Political parties have become adept at micro-targeting, using
data on shopping habits, leisure activities, voting
histories, charity donations, and so on, to pinpoint likely
supporters and the type of appeal most likely to win them
over, for example when the G.O.P. bought ads on the Golf
Channel, because Karl Rove's data told him that golfers were
more likely to support Bush than Kerry. This kind of
precision changes the nature of campaigning, as campaigns can
send flyers to only a few hundred people, say, or buy bus ads
on one particular city line. Micro-targeting is hardly
perfect, but when it works it allows campaigns to speak to
voters directly and cost-effectively.

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Social media fails the `47 percent' video caper

by Hazel Sheffield

October 4, 2012
Columbia Journalism Review

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/social_media_fails_the_47_perc.php

When Mother Jones premiered the now-infamous 47 percent video
on September 17, it received two million views in 24 hours
and rapidly changed the discourse surrounding the campaign.
But why did the source of the video go to a news outlet like
Mother Jones, instead of distributing it independently? The
last decade, after all, has seen a rise in citizen and crowd-
sourced journalism.

The source tried; but the story didn't go viral until David
Corn, Washington bureau chief at Mother Jones, convinced the
source to give him the whole tape. That four-month process
would suggest that civilians can act as civic watchdogs,
chronicling events of huge news value, but that journalists
are still needed to verify and contextualize the findings
before they break as news.

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Publishers abandon fight against Google book scanning

By Timothy B. Lee

October 4, 2012
Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/publishers-abandon-fight-against-google-book-scanning/

Five large publishers have made a separate peace with Google
over the inclusion of their books in Google Books, announcing
a settlement that resolves the seven-year-old litigation with
the search giant. Because this settlement is not a class
action, the terms are not public and the deal is not subject
to court approval.

In addition to its dispute with the publishers, Google is
also defending a lawsuit by the Author's Guild, which is
seeking to head a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the
nation's authors. This action is still pending.

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Activists warned to watch what they say as social media
monitoring becomes 'next big thing in law enforcement'

By Kevin Rawlinson

October 1, 2012
The Independent (UK)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/activists-warned-to-watch-what-they-say-as-social-media-monitoring-becomes-next-big-thing-in-law-enforcement-8191977.html

Political activists must watch what they say on the likes of
Facebook and Twitter, sites which will become the "next big
thing in law enforcement", a leading human rights lawyer has
warned.

John Cooper QC said that police are monitoring key activists
online and that officers and the courts are becoming
increasingly savvy when it comes to social media. Mr Cooper
QC's warning comes after a New York court ordered Twitter to
hand over messages posted on the site by a demonstrator
belonging to the Occupy Wall Street movement in America.
After a lengthy legal fight, Twitter eventually complied with
an order to hand over the tweets.

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NBC News Kills the Demographic, Personifies its Viewers
Instead

By Joe Mandese

October 3, 2012
Mediapost.com

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/184424/nbc-news-kills-the-demographic-personifies-its-vi.html

In a bid to shift advertisers and agencies away from what it
claims is an archaic way of defining TV and video news
audiences -- the demographic -- NBC News Digital this week
will begin pitching a new audience targeting scheme based not
on the classic age, sex and income descriptors that have been
used for the past half century, but on the behaviors and
"personas" of news consumers.

Focusing on behavior vs. demographics, they are clustering
news consumers into four main groups based on actual
behaviors: "Always On" consumers who are constantly connected
to electronic news feeds; "Reporters," a segment of "digital
natives" who consume news and consider themselves news
disseminators; "Skimmers," who are not passionately connected
to news; and Veterans," who primarily rely on traditional
media as a trusted source for news.

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The New York Times Bans Quote Approval

By Chris O'Shea

September 21, 2012
Mediabistro.com

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/the-new-york-times-bans-quote-approval_b68461

Let's give a round of applause to The New York Times, for
officially banning the practice of letting sources edit their
quotes prior to publication. Quote approval has been a hot
topic lately, and the Times finally decided to do something
about it. The Times' executive editor, Jill Abramson, told
the paper's public editor that giving sources the ability to
edit their words "puts so much control over the content of
journalism in the wrong place" and we couldn't agree more.

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Elections 2012: Big Bird? Really? Romney Would Cripple Public
Broadcasting That Serves Native America

By Mark Trahant

October 4, 2012 Indian Country Today

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/04/elections-2012-big-bird-really-romney-would-cripple-public-broadcasting-that-serves-native-america-137640

Republican challenger Mitt Romney gave Big Bird plenty of
attention at the presidential debate Wednesday night, saying
it was time to end the federal subsidy for public
broadcasting. Romney's proposal would cripple the portion of
public broadcasting that is not as popular, such as serving
Native Americans. Although Romney talked about ending
funding for PBS, what he really meant is the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, the agency which funds minority
programs, including Native American Public
Telecommunications.

According to NAPT's Executive Director Shirley Sneve, a
Rosebud Sioux (or Sicangu Lakota), "For Indian country,
losing CPB funding would literally cost lives. In our work,
funding station and independent producers to tell Native
stories for PBS audiences, those voices would be silent. Our
numbers are so small that this subject matter would be hard
to attract corporate advertising." There are more than 40
tribal radio stations, often serving remote locations.

[Full disclosure - I was on the Board of NAPT for more than
10 years. Nan Otek]

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The Next Big Battle in Internet Policy .

By Marvin Ammori

October 2, 2012
Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/10/network_neutrality_the_fcc_and_the_internet_of_things_.html

For two years, network neutrality, the nation's most high-
profile and contentious Internet policy conflict has taken a
backseat to other debates-privacy investigations,
cybersecurity, proposed copyright legislation, and censorship
abroad.

But that quiet won't last much longer. At stake is access to
the mobile Internet on the handhelds and tablets in our
pockets-as well as access by the chips increasingly embedded
in our clothes, toasters, and heart monitors. When your
smartphone can talk to your fridge, network neutrality will
be more important than ever, and the issue is beginning to
heat up.

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