It was a relatively quite weekend for news, perhaps health care and March Madness took our industry’s focus for a few days, which ain’t a bad thing. If there was a theme to the weekend, it was “openness” – in China, in our government, in broadband. The conversation around this is getting interesting. For more on that, see the theme I posted for the Web 2 Summit this coming Fall over at Searchblog on “Points of Control.” Meanwhile, enjoy the links!
Chinese netizens’ open letter to the Chinese Government and Google (RConversation) “While it’s assumed that the Chinese government would seek to keep its people in the dark – hence its censorship in the first place – they find it unfair that Google has not provided them with enough information to form educated and fact-based opinions about what’s going on. The authors raise a list of questions they want answered…” This is a rather historic story playing out – Google is smack in the middle of a significant social movement. What will the next move be?
Yochai Benkler on The Broadband Plan (AVC) Benkler wrote a NYT op-ed criticizing the national broadband plan as too modest, Fred writes a post giving his perspective. America is great because of its profit motive, and America is poor, because of the same.
Stat Rant: Does Facebook Trump Google For News & Can’t We Measure Twitter Correctly? (SEL) If you’ve seen all the stats lately about how Facebook drives more news visits, or that Twitter doesn’t, read this. Danny always gets to the bottom of things. Worthy.
Bringing Lots of Liquids on a Plane at Schiphol (Bruce Schneier) If you travel a lot, this is just grist for your teeth grinding mill.
Social Networking Usage Surges Globally [STATS] (Mashable) Facebook owns this space for now. And everyone is flocking to social.
5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page (OpenForum) Never hurts to get some tips on making your FB presence better.
Let the Sunshine in (Google Blog) Say what you will about Google’s complicated politics with regard to openness, the fact that they throw their weight around on topics like this is very refreshing.
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