5 Interesting Stories from this week: curated tweets and global population
Post categories: round up
| 16:53 UK time, Thursday, 27 October 2011
When Max Branning returns to Albert Square, he can use the new beta أغر؟´«أ½ Weather site and dress for the weather.
After a couple of weeks without a roundup, this has been a particularly interesting week.
1. Tuesday: Last request to transfer to the new h2g2
Tuesday saw the أغر؟´«أ½'s final act of involvement with user-written encyclopedia h2g2: letting the Community Consortium send a last invitation to folk with h2g2 accounts at the أغر؟´«أ½.
To at least one person on the Points of View messageboard, who was surprised to discover he was classed as an h2g2 user, this looked like spam:
I am very surprised that my spam filter didn't bin this before I saw it. Just who are "Not Panicking Ltd"?
Peta, messageboard host, explained that "Not Panicking Ltd" is the company set up to offically own h2g2 as a community-run website outside the أغر؟´«أ½. She also explained how some users might not remember using h2g2:
A lot of people here did use h2g2 to unsubscribe from their post on this [Points of View] board, but never actually posted to h2g2.
You can also read Nick Reynolds' farewell blog post, or .
2. Wednesday: أغر؟´«أ½ News Editors tweet the headlines
أغر؟´«أ½ News began the day by .
at Nieman Journalism Lab :
“We want to be tweeting with value,†, أغر؟´«أ½ News’ social media editor, told me of the move. “Are we exposing our best content, and also tweeting intelligently?†Simply sending out a story is an important first step in Twitter practice, particularly in an environment that finds more and more people getting their news through social channels. But then: “What can we add to that story?â€
Gordon Macmillan at The Wall called the new tailored tweets "".
Blogger Patrick Hussey also lauded the change, saying that
@bbccouk, curated since July, passed 5000 twitter followers last week. Only another 367,000 to go before we pass @أغر؟´«أ½News.
3. Thursday: What's your number?
As the global human population approaches seven billion, أغر؟´«أ½ News have created an interactive feature which places you in the context of all the people who have ever lived. , , , and have blogged about it, with threads of folk posting their numbers in comments. (I'm roughly the 78.8 billionth human E.)
The United Nations population fund has a website - - which offers a similar widget which also demographically divides up the folk born before you.
Family planning charity .
4. Thursday: Weather Beta
Late on Thursday, the opened for comments and feedback.
Reaction, even from tough critics, was generally positive.
But it cannot fix everything, as @stewartjoseph tweeted:
New look #أغر؟´«أ½Weather - Lovely design: clean and clear. If only I could say the same of the weather itself. -
Mike Afford, a former senior graphic designer for أغر؟´«أ½ Weather, also .
5. This Sunday: Give an Hour to help people discover the joys of the web
أغر؟´«أ½ Learning is part of to encourage the tech-savvy - like أغر؟´«أ½ Internet blog readers - to help get others online.
The clocks go back on Sunday, adding an hour to the day, and the campaign asks us to "Give an Hour". أغر؟´«أ½ Learning has [PDF] to help us assuage someone's fears and lead them to sites about their interests.
Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, أغر؟´«أ½ Internet Blog
Comment number 1.
At 28th Oct 2011, Kit Green wrote:I have noticed some far tougher critics than me on some of these blogs!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 29th Oct 2011, beckynatalie wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)