“Twitter is crack for media addicts.” – George Packer

New technology invariably brings, along with change, a torrent of anxiety about what that change will look like.  This anxiety can be eloquent.  It can also be less than eloquent.  Those who quailed at the prospect of a world quickened and mechanized by the Industrial Revolution, for example, had the good luck of finding a spokesperson in William Blake, the unofficial laureate of Ludditism.  “And was Jerusalem builded here,/” asked Blake mournfully, if not quite grammatically, of an English countryside raped and blackened by industry, “Among these dark Satanic Mills?”

geekosystem On Wednesday, the BBC will be premiering The Chimpcam Project, which was shot by and for chimpanzees. Briefly: a team of Scottish primatologists interested in finding out the sorts of images that chimps preferred equipped the chimps with “a camera enclosed in an orange bash-proof box.”

A top BBC official has apologized--sort of--for prompting an online discussion on the merits of executing gays, but the fallout has raised questions about the purpose of online discussions and whether you can really debate what some people consider a threatened genocide in Uganda. (more...)

The BBC is reporting (as noted by Dave Winer) that Google appears to have reached a deal to placate content providers: users accessing more than five articles via the search engine over the course of a day can be routed, directly from Google, to publisher payment or registration pages.

In a blog post by Google's Josh Cohen, the deal is explained further.

Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free. Now, we've updated the program so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing. If you're a Google user, this means that you may start to see a registration page after you've clicked through to more than five articles on the website of a publisher...in a day. (more...)

video The timing on this, coming the day before Thanksgiving, is not so great. Nevertheless, Wikileaks, a website that "publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors" has decided to publish 573,000 intercepted text messages sent during the 9/11 attacks. Needless, to say it is not an easy read. (more...)

New sets of rules are coming hard and fast for any journalist spending time online. From ESPN's Twitter policy to the Washington Post's social media guidelines, the mainstream media has become increasingly weary of their employees' behavior on the internet. In fear of an amorphous ethical line, and largely attempting to avoid claims of bias, companies are warning their Twitter-happy social networkers to tread lightly, and the BBC is the latest to issue guidelines. But their situation is a bit different. (more...)

video British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was hit with a stunning question on BBC's Sunday morning show about whether he uses prescription painkillers. The question, and fall-out, has become a huge story overseas, as supporters question why the tabloid-like topic was approached during the interview. (more...)

Google has just announced new efforts to help magazine and newspaper publishers with a new search service that displays results in the style of a “virtual magazine”. The program is called "Fast Flip" and will launch with featured content from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the BBC. The concept aims to replicate the experience of browsing a printed publication, with readers pressing next page to be instantly “flipped” on to the next item of content, with revenue share built into the experience. (more...)

This week reports surfaced that Bob Dylan was considering lending his voice to a GPS navigation system - providing directions to lost drivers who seek the raspy tones of the folk legend. Numerous mainstream media sources picked up the story and ran it as hard news -- BBC, NY Times, and the Washington Post all published stories about the convergence of 60's folk rock and the latest in automotive technology. But as Gossip Cop reported today, this story doesn't exactly check out. (more...)