Cody Taylor

teflon_king writes with news that renowned British newspaper The Guardian will be abandoning its paper-and-ink distribution scheme and publishing all articles and news as Tweets. Quoting: “A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper’s archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include ‘1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!;’ ‘OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more;’ and ‘JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?’ Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet. For example, Martin Luther King’s legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian’s Twitterised archive as ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by,’ eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new mediatechnology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

A brave traveller has made it all the way to New Zealand without buying a single ticket along the way. Paul Smith – dubbed the Twitchhiker – made the 11,000-mile trip using only donations from people who use the social networking site Twitter.

Google’s former visual designer is purportedly going to Twitter. What does this mean for the hot micropublishing service?

TechDirt has an interesting look at some of the questions arising about the copyrightability of Twitter messages. I haven’t seen any actual copyright lawyers weigh in yet, but it certainly will be interesting to watch the feathers fly until someone nails down the answer. “[…] it seems like there would be two issues here. The first is whether or not the content is covered by copyright — and, for most messages the answer would probably be yes (there would need to be some sort of creative element to the messages to make that happen, so a simple ‘hi’ or ‘thanks’ or whatever might not cut it). But, the more important question then would be whether or not ESPN could quote the Twitter message. And, there, the answer is almost certainly, yes, they could, just as they could quote something you wrote in a blog post.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The “Place for Friends” is starting to feel lonely. MySpace, the Rupert Murdoch-owned website once synonymous with social networking, is losing popularity and key staff in its biggest troubles since launching five years ago.Latest figures show that Murdoch is being beaten in the fight for social networks.

How to use Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks to get ahead.

who will be the innovator that leads the way in monetizing social media?

If you have OnStar in your car, you may soon be able to send and receive hands-free Tweets through OnStar’s voice-activated calling system.

Someone has to do all that writing, even if each entry is barely a sentence long. In many cases, celebrities have turned to ‘ghost Twitterers’ who keep fans updated on the latest twists and turns. Ghost writers are popular for books, but the idea of having someone else write continual updates of one’s daily life seems slightly absurd.