The phrase “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” was coined by American computer programmer Eric S. Raymond to distinguish two different approaches to the development of software. The Bazaar was likened to the…
Can social media temper growing public antipathy towards political parties?
Mandel Ngan/AFP
On Tuesday, the ACT government held Australia’s first virtual community cabinet using Twitter. Four ministers faced a barrage of tweets in an hour long question and answer session held with the electorate…
Some users have been automatically suspended from all Google services.
halilgokdal
A fresh storm has blown into Google’s new Google+ service. The company has been suspending accounts because they contravene Google’s Community Standards – ostensibly to stop fake or spam accounts being…
Organising the information gathered during crises is key to better responses.
Lindsay Hallam/AFP
With new technology comes new ways of communicating with one another in times of crisis. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow important information to be shared widely and instantaneously. But…
The way we communicate is changing and Al Qaeda have been ahead of the curve AFP PHOTO/DoD.
The nature of influence is changing, yet Governments, particularly in Australia have yet to absorb it. Influence is no longer wielded by pronouncements through traditional media sources. New media has…
Not sharing your password is one of the basic rules for online safety.
Michael Reynolds/EPA
On July 4, a hacker took control of one of the Twitter accounts of US broadcaster FoxNews.com and sent out several tweets announcing President Obama had been shot. Because it was a national holiday and…
Women should be allowed to have fun, without the media judging them.
AAP/Jack Tran
Wilding, a word seldom used outside of sociology, describes compounded acts of immorality. Of teenagers, apparently, running amok. In packs usually, with rage and ribaldry in their eyes. I was thinking…
Health promotion has a lot of catching up to do on social media.
Steve Kay
Smokers who quit with the assistance of a text messaging service are nearly twice as likely to be smoke-free six months later than smokers with no support, according to a study published this week in The…
Google+ faces an uphill struggle to win hearts and minds.
Google
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+. Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
Your Facebook snaps now come with a hidden catch.
rishibando
Around 2 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook each day. As of this week, every new image will be processed by automatic face recognition software, designed to identify the people in the photographs…
Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited will charge readers for access to certain online content on the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after October.
AAP
Media giant News Limited will charge for online access to its broadsheet paper The Australian after October and for certain parts of the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun after that, the company has announced…
Knowing me, knowing you: there is nothing we can’t view.
tonechootero/Flickr
Advanced surveillance and social media might seem like strange bedfellows. Until you look a bit closer, that is. Technologies developed for surveillance applications are typically designed with robustness…
Are privacy concerns irrational in the era of Facebook and Twitter?
qubitsu
It’s hard to discuss public surveillance without immediately being asked about privacy issues. As technologists working on computer-based surveillance, it’s tempting to say this is outside our area of…
Far from “outsourcing your brain”, social media allows you to build different relationships.
AAP/Tracy Nearmy
The executive director of the venerable New York Times has come out fighting against Facebook and other social media. Bill Keller has joined the conga line of commentators decrying the end of friendships…
People power and social media helped win a campaign to protect medical research from cuts. Photo: AAP.
One day in April, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research director Douglas Hilton called his communications manager, Penny Fannin, into his office. “He said he’d heard significant cuts were…
Where we are says a lot about who we are.
tulja/Flickr
PRIVACY – Your location is arguably more personal than your genetic profile; even identical twins can’t be in the same place at the same time. In terms of value, it’s on a par with your medical records…
Facebook is a key tool for the modern revolutionary.
AAP
Facebook, with more than 500 million members, has now reached superpower status. If Facebook were a country, its supporters often say, its population would rank behind only China and India. But there is…
The works of a great writer precipitated the astonishing events in Egypt in February.
EPA/Misam Saleh
We are living in extraordinary times. People are using social media to campaign for freedom from their governments, but their ideas are built on a much more powerful medium: literature. Protests have swept…
Do you trust Facebook as much as you would your best friend?
Karen Bleier/AFP
Unless you’ve been chained to a fax machine for the past seven years, you’ll have noticed that Facebook is immensely popular. Users numbered 641 million by February of this year. Making and maintaining…