Obama and accessibility

Just sent this to the Obama website (hillaryclinton.com is consistent).

Hi

I love your site and have blogged about it - but your lack of attention to accessibility concerns me. Simple alt-text on images is missing.

I may be a foreigner but I bet a few Americans would be similar unimpressed.

Otherwise, go Barack!

Paul Canning

p.s. please fix the 'alt text' - it's the least you can do.

What I'm reading

I've made some changes to make the blog a bit more useful for myself.

I've started using Google Reader and it's by far the easiest way to note stuff I've read. I'm a quick scanner. This I'm outputting into a 'what I'm reading' widget in the left-hand column and it comes with a 'public page' for 'starred' items plus I can make tagged feeds public too, I've done this with 'egov' and 'netmarketing' tagged feeds thus far.

Not made Google Reader my homepage but I'll cull feeds on my iGoogle homepage probably back to BBC/drudge/local now I can add Reader to iGoogle. Apparently there's some hacks too. Plus I've got personal search so I get Google Trends analysis of what I'm reading!

Here's Matt Cutts' Reader trends:



From looking at my start, it reads like I've done shit-loads of 'reading' but a lot is reading one line, or rather scanning it. So '543' with a big pinch of salt ...



The other thing is to add many more tags (Blogspot calls them 'labels'). I should have done this from the start, it's the easiest way for me to access and organise stuff and seems to have had the side-effect of encouraging tag clicks, though on ones like 'RAF' and 'firefox' - previously, tag clicks were on 'usability'. It also has the side-effect of boosting post visibility to search engines.

• Jeff Jarvis: The end of the homepage?

Redefining 'boy'band

Yay. 'Old' queens can do tacky HiNRG, jiggle about and strike a pose too!

Actually quite well .. there's 'ope for the rest of us ...

They're called Bearforce1 and they're Dutch. Thanks to Paul in Oz.

Here's some real disco.

Postscript: Undercover Mosque

The current Private Eye looks into the West Midlands Police decision to complain to the media regulators Ofcom about Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque (see my post 'Support Channel Four over Undercover Mosque').

It points out - as others have previously found out - that Ofcom will only accept complaints from “the person affected”. The police told the Eye that they'd “liaised” with Ofcom beforehand, but this amounted to showing them their press release only 10 minutes before it was issued.

The Eye also asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to cite some examples of the “complete distortion” they had accused Channel 4 of perpetrating on the views of the speakers in the documentary. CPS replied:

No. We don’t go into that level of detail.

Or indeed, the Eye notes, any detail at all.

Hat tip to MediaWatch.

Channel Four's Kevin Sutcliffe has criticised, rightly, the BBC's take on the episode [video]:

"Particularly BBC News 24 which really just ran it as a TV fakery story. They framed the debate early on and that was lazy."

The Tories have weighed in too. Telegraph:

Paul Goodman, the shadow community cohesion minister, has written to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, saying the decision caused "widespread concern" and warned that it could encourage extremists.

Mr Goodman wrote: "This decision raises serious questions about media freedom in Britain, and about whether public authorities tasked with upholding the rule of law are now, as a matter of policy, giving special assistance to those who seek to undermine the rule of law, and the pluralist, liberal, democratic culture which both underpins it and guarantees community cohesion.

"As you know, the decision has caused widespread concern.

"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a politically motivated referral, driven by the mistaken belief that the best means of dealing with separatist extremists is to appease them.

"If so, this referral is likely to encourage extremists, discourage moderates, damage public confidence in the CPS and West Midlands Police, compromise media freedom and undermine the Government's stated community cohesion policy."

Channel Four have made noises about suing the West Midlands Police and CPS for defamation. With the Tories now picking this up, this one isn't over.

Andrew Keen booed - and walloped

On the Colbert Report (it follows the Daily Show on Comedy Central):



He gets booed. Can't see him selling many books from that appearance.

Keen asked for advice (on his blog) beforehand.

Anyone have any advice about how to outwit the great Stephen Colbert?

One comments that Colbert actually offers his own advice to guests on his website:

“The best laughs [my guests] can get are through correcting my [character's] stupidity,” Stephen has said. “I think it doesn’t work when they have a joke or two that they’re desperate to say on the show, and then they don’t really actually listen to the conversation. ... They’re waiting to drop the joke in the middle of the interview, and it lands there like conversational plutonium.”

Sounds like Keen listened — he's humourless all right — but still manages to come across as an intellectual snob. No wonder he's getting these US Talk shows — that's one stereotype of Brits.

Commentators on his own blog said he came across as "an elitist", "a simpleton and a jerk", "a complete arrogant elitist", "an arrogant douche", "smug pompous ass", "a bitter talentless hack with a fake british accent", "born out of bitterness", "a stiff Euro no-name", "another cheap whore" and a "grumpy old man".

One said they'd buy the book.

One said:

Sir ... Your entire enterprise, by which I mean your book, this site and above all the arguments you espouse, could only be redeemed if it were, in its entirety, a satirical project.

It's not (ahem) but any 'project' is looking a bit holed below the water. Which is a shame, because Keen's book does raises points which should be discussed. But they're not because of Keen's parade of straw-men. It's the messenger hard-selling his book (and his publishers full-bore oppositionist PR) which is polarising debate.

He's gone back on the provocative book title - "I should have defined amateur more clearly" - and below admits he's beaten in argument. What's left?

Maybe a future with MSM? See here how ABC News backgrounds his comments with clips from their, completely unbiased of course, view of what User Generated Content is.


VS.


On his blog Keen says he was "walloped" by Guardian Unlimited boss Emily Bell in an email exchange this week:

I've finally been nailed. Till now, I think I've come out at least even in all my debates with Web 2.0 boyz like Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelly and David Weinberger. But all good things come to an end. I've finally been outdebated. By a lady -- and an English lady at that.

Keen suffering a touch of the Boris Johnson's.

In my Guardian newspaper debate with Guardian Unlimited's digital supremo Emily Bell, she outwitted me and then took me to the cleaners. My hunch is that I went in a bit cocky, stuck out my chin and got a good walloping. She's a tough bird, that Emily Bell. I'm not debating her again.

A 'lady' and now a 'bird'? Love the macho fighting talk. I'd pay to see Emily actually wallop Andrew.

Speaking of being outwitted and taken to the cleaners, I'm appearing on the Colbert Report this Thursday (8/16). So those of you who want to see me get the mother of wallopings should tune in then. No doubt he'll make me the central comedy on Comedy Central (serves me right for idealizing mainstream media).

Indeed.

Some of Bell's counter-points (my emphases):

The internet challenges us all to up our game - it exponentially increases our audience, but it exposes frailty.

If the internet is so full of amateurish dross then it is no threat to the polished professional - but what you know Andrew, is that it is full of people who are potentially as good as, if not better than, those who have been fortunate enough to reside in a distribution bottleneck - and that is why you are scared.

Thank you for your praise for The Guardian and Guardian Unlimited, but without the internet we would not have reached a worldwide audience of more than 15 million a month. We have an exciting opportunity to invest in journalism for the future and build not just a national but international presence for liberal news and comment. Without the web, our particular future would look extremely different, and not in a good way.

Tell me who, under the age of 25, agrees with your golden ageism arguments? Nobody who grew up with the internet feels your sense of deathly cultural foreboding. Many of them are creating new art forms online which you would shudder at. That's the point. This is their rock 'n roll, and maybe yours has run its course.

I was snagged by your assertion that nobody under 25 had anything to contribute on issues of the new economy or, alarmingly, on Iraq. Or even on anything. I believe Colby Buzzell was 26 when he was posted to Iraq - maybe that extra year gave him the edge - but his blog, and the book that it yielded, My War: Killing Time In Iraq, is certainly more insightful than anything you or I could have written about the conflict.

There are plenty of valid and good reasons for wanting anonymity which I would not presume to question. But it means authenticity might be harder to establish. Or does it? I find myself turning up the authority on technorati searches - but it is not the authority of paid professionals, it is the authority of others who blog in the same area. Take, for instance, the blogroll on Jay Rosen's site: for someone interested in the development of the media it is a goldmine of interesting nuggets. I trust Jay not because he is a skilled academic but because he has blogged for years in an area which I am interested in and have some knowledge of. His posts are informed and attract informed opinion. If an anonymous blogger posts a damaging fallacy, how much resonance does it really acquire? More t

Amateur is not going to fully replace professional - it is idiotic and misleading to suggest it will. But it will supplement and expose mainstream media - in fact it already does.

Postscript: Keen's blog entry about doing the Colbert report.

Those Wikipedia edits in full ...

CalTech graduate student Virgil Griffith built a search tool that traces IP addresses of those who make Wikipedia changes.

WikiScanner is the work of Griffith, 24, a cognitive scientist who is a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Mr. Griffith, who spent two weeks this summer writing the software for the site, said he got interested in creating such a tool last year after hearing of members of Congress who were editing their own entries.

Mr. Griffith said he “was expecting a few people to get nailed pretty hard” after his service became public. “The yield, in terms of public relations disasters, is about what I expected.”

Mr. Griffith, who also likes to refer to himself as a “disruptive technologist,” said he was certain any more examples of self-interested editing would come out in the next few weeks, “because the data set is just so huge."

Here's Wikiscanner. It's slow but persist — I found edits done from my work PC (these were legit!).

It has "editor's picks" — showing the latest body to be 'outed' using WikiScanner.

The Independent has helpfully done a round-up of what's been discovered thus far about who's editing Wikipedia.

Exxon Mobil and the giant oil slick
An IP address that belongs to ExxonMobil, the oil giant, is linked to sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. An allegation that the company "has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen" was replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.

The Republican Party and Iraq
The Republican Party edited Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party entry so it made it clear that the US-led invasion was not a "US-led occupation" but a "US-led liberation."

The CIA and casualties of war
A computer with a CIA IP address was used to change a graphic on casualties of the Iraq war by adding the warning that many of the figures were estimated and not broken down by class. Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited to expand his cv.

The Labour Party and careerist MPs
An anonymous surfer at the Labour Party's headquarters removed a section about Labour students referring to "careerist MPs", and criticisms that the party's student arm was no longer radical.

Dow Chemical and the Bhopal disaster
A computer registered to the Dow Chemical Company is recorded as deleting a passage on the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984, which occurred at a plant operated by Union Carbide, now a wholly owned Dow subsidiary. The incident cost up to 20,000 lives.

Diebold and the dubious voting machines
Voting-machine company Diebold apparently excised long paragraphs detailing the US security industry's concerns over the integrity of their voting machines, and information about the company's chief executive's fundraising for President Bush. The text, deleted in November 2005, was very rapidly restored by another Wikipedia contributor, who advised the anonymous editor, "Please stop removing content from Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism."

The Israeli government and the West Bank wall
A computer linked to the Israeli government twice tried to delete an entire article about the West Bank wall that was critical of the policy. An edit from the same address also modified the entry for Hizbollah describing all its operations as being "mostly military in nature".

The dog breeders and fatal maulings
A dog breeders association in America removed references to two fatal maulings of humans by the Perro de Presa Canario dogs in the US. In 2001 a woman was attacked and killed by two Presa Canario/Mastiff hybrids in the hallway of her apartment building in San Fransisco. Last year a pure-bred Presa Canario fatally mauled a woman in Florida.

The gun lobby and fatal shootings
The National Rifle Association of America doctored concerns about its role in the increase in gun fatalities by replacing the passage with a reference to the association's conservation work in America.

Discovery Channel and guerrilla marketing
A source traced to Discovery Communications, the company that owns the Discovery Channel, deleted reference to company's reputation for " guerrilla marketing".

MySpace and self-censorship
Someone working from an IP address linked to MySpace appears to have been so irritated by references to the social networking website's over-censorial policy that they removed a paragraph accusing MySpace of censorship.

Boeing and a threat to its supremacy
Boeing has made it clear that it is not just one of the world's leading aircraft manufacturers, but is in fact the leading company in this field.

The church's child abuse cover-up
Barbara Alton, assistant to Episcopal Bishop Charles Bennison, in America, deleted information concerning a cover-up of child sexual abuse, allegations that the Bishop misappropriated $11.6 million in trust funds, and evidence of other scandals. When challenged about this, Alton claims she was ordered to delete the information by Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori.

Amnesty and anti-Americanism
A computer with an Amnesty International IP address was used to delete references accusing the charity of holding an anti-American agenda.

Dell computer out-sourcing
Dell removed a passage about how the company out-sourced its support divisions overseas.

Nestle and corporate criticism
Someone from Nestle removed criticisms of some of the company's controversial business practices, which have all subsequently been re-added.

The FBI and Guantánamo
The FBI has removed aerial images of the Guantánamo Bay Naval base in Cuba.

Scientologists and sensitivity
Computers with IP addresses traced to the Church of Scientology were used to expunge critical paragraphs about the cult's world-wide operations. On biography pages for dead celebrities, links were added to articles by a Scientology front group suggesting that pharmaceuticals were responsible for their deaths.

News International and the hypocritical anti-paedophile campaign
Someone at News International saw fit to remove criticism of the News of the World's anti-paedophile campaign by deleting the suggestion that this amounted to editorial hypocrisy. The original entry reminded readers that the paper continued to "publish semi-nude photographs of page three models as young as 16 and salacious stories about female celebrities younger than that."

Oliver Letwin and his great disappearing act
An edit linked to the Conservative Party IP address expunged references to The MP Oliver Letwin's gaffe during the 2001 general election when he reportedly said he wanted to cut "future public spending by fully 20 billion pounds per annum relative to the plans of the Labour government" . The accompanying paragraph, explaining that when his own party failed to support the move he took a low profile on the election campaign, was also removed.

Some more:

• Someone from SeaWorld's owners removed a paragraph about criticism of SeaWorld’s “lack of respect toward its orcas [Killer Wales]”.
• Ebay deletes criticism of Paypal.
• Last year, someone at PepsiCo deleted several paragraphs of the Pepsi entry that focused on its detrimental health effects.
• Someone inside Wal-Mart Stores changed "Wages at Wal-Mart are about 20 percent less than at other retail stores," citing the author Greg Palast as the source, to "The average wage at Wal-Mart is almost double the federal minimum wage", citing Wal-Mart.
• Last year, someone using a computer at the Washington Post Company changed the name of the owner of a free local paper, The Washington Examiner, from Philip Anschutz to Charles Manson.
• A person using a computer at CBS updated the page on Wolf Blitzer of CNN to add that his real name was Irving Federman. (It is actually Wolf Blitzer.)
• Someone at The New York Times Company changed the page on President Bush repeating the word “jerk” 12 times. In the entry for Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, the word “pianist” was changed to “penis.”
• A member of Pope Benedict’s staff changed Gerry Adam’s entry to remove links to newspaper stories written last year that claimed Mr Adams was involved in a double murder in 1971.
• A BBC employee changed US President George W Bush’s middle name from 'Walker' to 'Wanker'.
• Someone from Al Jezeera changed Israel's entry to add: "Jews believe that they are chosen by God and that they are better than other people."
• Someone from the United Nations changed the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci's entry to describe her as a “racist whore.”
• Two Spanish TV stations exposed for performing an 'experiment' on John Lennon and Elvis Presley's entries.
• Games trade association ESA removed references to mod chips which can be used to play pirated game software.
• Apple employees editing the Microsoft page.
  
• Someone using a Connecticut Police computer added " the holocaust is fucking awseome."
• Editors from Christian-right Liberty University deleted the fact that Moral Majority leader and Liberty founder Jerry Falwell was fined in 1987 for illegally transferring funds for his ministry to his political action committees.
• Someone in the South African Government added "'I think that was all bullshit, thats why I deleted it. Thank you motherfucker!" on being discovered editing the HIV/AIDS entry.
• Someone at the ACLU added "during the Pope's final illness, he carried out many of the Pope's functions as leader of the Catholic Church, such as molesting young boys and degrading women."
  
• FoxNews removed references to misquotes, legal brushes, bad ratings, and gaffes by personalities — and, once exposed, responded by attacking Wikipedia's credibility.
  

The only people who seem to have come out clean from Griffith's 'disruptive technology' are Microsoft.

In another blow to Andrew Keen, FoxNews and other anti-Wikipedia credibility types, they are now adding 'nofollow' tags to all outgoing links, thereby destroying Search marketeers attempts to 'game' Wikipedia.

Postscript: According to TechCrunch, Google also come out clean.

Debating the "Cult of the Amateur"

The Barnes and Noble Debate - "Cult of the Amateur"

Andrew Keen, the author of "The Cult of the Amateur" debates his ideas that the Internet is killing culture and the media with (from left) Nicholas Carr, Keith Teare, Andrew Keen, Steve Gillmor, moderated by Dan Farber (ZDNet Editor). Runs 30 minutes. June 19 at Campbell's Barnes and Noble bookstore (near San Jose).

Excellent debate. Some hyperbole, especially from Steve Gillmor [Sgt Pepper as disruptive as Web 2.0?] and some scary notions from Nicholas Carr. A lot breaks down crossing the Atlantic too, which isn't commented on. Everyone's nice to Andrew.

Part 2:



"I should have defined amateur more clearly."

"How's it feel to be a node?"

> Referencing earlier talk · Media literacy in a media saturated world
“The world is not binary,” Dan Gillmor said. “It’s nuanced and complicated, and we are failing to deal with that in this conversation. No one is arguing that traditional media reaches absolute perfection or arguing that new media is perfect….We are engaged in finding our way in a difficult period of de-evolution of the old journalism business model and the rise of a new one.”

He went to say, “Whether we can make it through this very messy period with great journalism is a question, but I think we can. It will include things we directly pay for and indirectly pay for with advertising, and individuals and collectives at the edge of network will create value.” <

> Referencing · Chris Anderson (Long Tail): Why Free is the Best Online Policy
An idea Anderson proposed that will no doubt cause controversy among reading purists is the idea of putting ads in books. Such a book could be free or very low cost, and a copy of the same book without ads would be more expensive. <

Part 3:



"When something old goes away, that's more than just a 'transition'"

"You want to go back to the C16th where we need rich families to pay us, so this [broke musician] guy has to be employed by Steve Jobs?"

"Amateur radio was the original blogosphere."

Bizarre, rambling, possibly crystal-induced audience question answered by "I think that's a really good question" from Andrew. You can tell he's on the PR trail.

"I just don't know what to say to you people."

So said the author of the report which provided the excuse for Australian PM John Howard to take-over Aboriginal communities.

Health worker Pat Anderson (right), co-authored the Little Children are Sacred report about child abuse.

"What the Prime Minister (John Howard) and federal Indigenous Affairs Minister (Mal) Brough have done is just a further form of abuse," Ms Anderson told a gathering of peak physicians convened in Sydney to address Aboriginal health.

"What we have is a prime minister and his ministers who don't have a heart.

"Their approach isn't going to nurture any kind of development ... nothing."

Speaking via telephone hook-up from Canberra, Ms Anderson, an Aboriginal health worker, said the Government's emergency interventions had left her "depressed and disheartened".

"I just don't know what to say to you people."

Ms Anderson's report, co-authored with Rex Wild QC, was used by the government to justify its dramatic intervention, but the authors say none of their 97 recommendations have been addressed.

• Australian racism

First Google Health Screenshots

From Phillip Lenssen

Google Health, codename “Weaver”, is Google’s planned health information storage program. Google’s Vice President of Engineering Adam Bosworth lobbies for the program for quite a while now. Adam said the current US health care system is challenged when it comes to “supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations.” Adam went on to say that people “need the medical information that is out there and available to be organized and made accessible to all ... Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient’s needs.” Adam adds that this – making information accessible – happens to be along Google’s mission.

The New York Times today writes that “about 20 percent of the [US] patient population have computerized records – rather than paper ones – and the Bush administration has pushed the health care industry to speed up the switch to electronic formats. But these records still tend to be controlled by doctors, hospitals or insurers. A patient moves to another state, for example, but the record usually stays.” But, the NYT continues, initiatives like the one by Google “would give much more control to individuals, a trend many health experts see as inevitable.” A prototype of Google Health has now been shown “to health professionals and advisers,” the NYT reports.

To find out just what you might be able to see in a future Google Health service, take a look at these screenshots from Google’s prototype which have been sent in here. As prototypes go, certain approaches of the program may change, and the specific interface may or may not be kept like this in a final release. “We’ll make mistakes and it will be a long-range march,” the NYT quotes Adam Bosworth.

+ imagine social networking plugged into this ...

Hmm. How's the 'Google Heath Service' going to mesh with the National Health Service (NHS)?! Badly, methinks ...

• >> Screenshots

Nicholas Carr posted last year about Google's five 'products', Health is the first sign of the fifth:

So boil it all down, and here is my best guess at what the five Google products will be and how they'll be branded:

• Google Search ("Google" goes back to meaning just search: for all information types, on all devices, personalized)
• AdMarket (a unified market place for buyers and sellers, spanning web text, web video, web banners, print, radio, TV)
• YouTube (YouTube expands from video to become the common interface for all media sharing)
• YouTools (what Apps for Your Domain morphs into, with different tool sets for businesses, families, universities, and hospitals)
• YouFile (a personal information management service, covering health data, finances, etc.)