Fact-checking has come a long way in the Internet age, evolving to a point beyond recognition. In the good old days, fact-checking was a venerable profession with its set of ethical rules, and fact-checkers were an integral part of any self-respecting publication. They had helped the media outlets avoid lawsuits and maintain their credibility, and had also made the lives of people like Stephen Glass hell.

Virginia Heffernan, who was a fact-checker at The New Yorker, explains just how involved the job used to be:

In checking long, reported articles, checkers sometimes made dozens of phone calls a week — to bartenders about a restaurant’s ambience, to E.M.T.’s about how stretchers are handled or to anti-abortion activists about the dimensions of ultrasound images on their placards. Not infrequently, checkers were in the diplomacy business, and the best checkers were known for their bedside manners with sources, reporters and editors. Good checkers did not play gotcha, did not gossip about which reporters were error-prone and stayed true to the goals of journalism — to be newsworthy and interesting — as well as to our sub-sublibrarian dedication to factuality.

According to Heffernan, periodicals and reference books like Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary were consulted on a regular basis. She calls “these imposing-looking books… as wacko as anything now on Wikipedia, as many of them made ‘facts’ of off-the-wall data that hardly seemed to be proper objects of empirical study.”

In time, those — as well as the microfilm — were trumped by the LexisNexis’ searchable archive of periodicals. The New Yorker apparently had a subscription.

“Checkers used to stand in line to use it,” recalls Heffernan. “Older editors maintained that ‘you can’t trust Nexis,’ but then the Web appeared, and the catchphrase among the old guard became ‘You can’t trust Google.’ Meanwhile, a reverse process was happening in pop culture, as broadband brought millions of facts, the fantasy of perfect factuality and the satisfaction of fact-checking to everyone.”

With the onset of Google’s and Wikipedia’s popularity, fact-checking was no longer confined to the offices of the established publications. Anyone can “fact-check” with a click of a mouse — anywhere, on any subject. Not that this is necessarily a good thing.

A Columbia Journalism Review survey by Victor Navasky and Evan Lerner reported “less vigorous fact-checking when Web, rather than print, editors are in charge (40%), and sometimes no fact-checking when independent Web editors make content decisions (17%).” The report also pointed out the absence of “indication to readers when corrections are made that a mistake had been there (54%).”

The chart below, printed by the Silicon Alley Insider (SAI) in conjunction with announcing the results of the survey, clearly indicates the declining standards:

Shawna Vercher, CEO of VTi-Media and President of The Society of Successful Women, laments the possibility of “the extinction of news as we know it” on The Huffington Post:

Due to perpetual staff cuts and the ever-present race to be first with a story, it appears that the ‘who, what, where, when and why’ tenets of traditional journalism have been replaced with, ‘Just get something posted online now.’ This apparently leaves the burden of fact-checking and actual reporting to readers and good Samaritans in the comments section.

So if journalists do not have the time or resources to verify a story and we as readers have no duty to keep the playing field neutral, what happens next? At what point are ‘traditional’ online news outlets on par with ad-heavy opinion blogs? What do media companies need to do in order to maintain any sort of respect or readership? Is respectful reporting of news even necessary in order to grow readership or does it in fact hinder it?

Vercher’s point on the “shoot-first” policy on the blogs and other social networks is vividly illustrated by the recent incident at The Washington Post. Sports columnist Mike Wise had deliberately posted a false statement on his Twitter account on August 30, commenting on the six-game suspension of Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback. Earning himself a month-long suspension, Wise had proved two things. He tweeted: “1. I was right about nobody checking facts or sourcing and 2. I’m an idiot. Apologies to all involved.”

Greg Sandoval at CNET News, who has worked with Wise, gently draws some conclusions on what Wise’s misguided deed had also proven:

In addition to the ethical questions, Wise also failed to correctly calculate Twitter’s growing influence as a news source. If he looks upon Twitter as a playground or lab experiment, he should know that 190 million people visit the site every month. Many use it as a news aggregation service and early-warning system. Hot stories spread fast via the service. It has become a simple and efficient way to interact with multiple media sources, pundits, and any Joe who proves trustworthy and knowledgeable.

But even in the Digital Age, some of the old rules still apply: people don’t like being misled…

If Wise was trying to prove that information on Twitter was somehow of lesser value than stories from traditional news sources, he helped prove the opposite.

At the same time, thanks to the Internet, vigilante sites like FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com at least keep the media and the politicians in check. FactCheck.org, a brainchild of The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, is a self-described non-partisan and a nonprofit consumer advocate that “aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics,” thus monitoring “the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.”

PolitiFact.com, stemming from St. Petersburg Times, among other things, tracks the progress on the fulfillment of  “Obama’s promises,” and discerns “fact from fiction” in the politicians’ and other public figures’ statements. Its “Truth-O-Meter” slaps the verdict — with an explanation — ranging from “true,” “mostly true,” “half true,” “barely true,” to “false,” and finally to the damning “pants on fire.”

For instance, most recently, the foodie Jamie Oliver’s statement that “McDonald’s in England only sells organic milk and free-range eggs, which provides more nutritious offerings than in the U.S.” was deemed only “half true,” as was the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s proclamation, “In this country, we have a 25 percent dropout rate.”

PolitiFact’s editor Bill Adair, in a YouTube video entitled “PolitiFact’s Guide to Fact-checking,” breaks down his advice simply, if somewhat obviously, topping it with, “Be skeptical and verify everything.” Adair’s guidelines include:

1. Ask for their sources.
2. Use original sources (independent and non-partisan in particular).
3. Love — and fear — the Internet. (Wikipedia gets a mention. “We use it a lot, but never quote it,” says Adair.)
4. Verify everything. “Every number, every fact, work backwards.”
5. Fact-check your fact-checking.

Speaking of Wikipedia, in one episode of FCU: Fact Checkers Unit, the CSI-spoof series just launched by NBC Universal Digital Studio, two fact-checkers, Pete and Brian, must verify one of the “celebrity tips”: “If you’re having trouble sleeping, just drink a glass of warm milk before you go to bed, like Bill Murray.” Before Pete and Brian embark on a wacky adventure, in the course of which they hang out with Bill Murray at his house until he does indeed drink a glass of warm milk at bedtime, they ask the copyeditor where this “celebrity tip” came from:

– Where did they find that?
– I think, Wikipedia.
– That’s a user-generated site! That could have been written by a seven-year-old!

We will leave you with Heffernan’s poignant words:

In short, fact-checking has assumed radically new forms in the past 15 years. Only fact-checkers from legacy media probably miss the quaint old procedures. But if the Web has changed what qualifies as fact-checking, has it also changed what qualifies as a fact? I suspect that facts on the Web are now more rhetorical devices than identifiable objects. But I can’t verify that.

Source: ”What ‘Fact-Checking’ Means Online,” The New York Times, 08/20/10
Source: “PolitiFact’s Guide to Fact-checking,” YouTube, 06/11/09
Source: “Magazines and Their Web Sites,” Columbia Journalism Review, 03/01/10
Source: “WashPo writer suspended after Twitter hoax,” CNET News, 08/31/10
Source: “Is Journalism Now in the Hands of Commenters?,” The Huffington Post, 08/31/10
Source: “Bill Murray in FCU: Fact Checkers Unit,” Funny Or Die, 08/10
Image of Wikipedia logo by opensourceway, used under its Creative Commons license.
The SAI chart image is used under Fair Use: Reporting.

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Foursquare is all the rage. By “checking in” at your various haunts, you can become the “Mayor” — of your local library, McDonalds, or coffee bar. You can make it easy for people to find you when you’re out and about. You also supply a public record of your movements throughout the day.

Geolocation services with social elements are the latest big thing, even Facebook is looking at integrating these functions into its platform as a result of their popularity. People everywhere are enthusiastically sharing their movements with the world.

Kevin Dugan, host of the Strategic Public Relations blog since 2002, recently noted this trend as well.

We’ve gone from a society that fears the documentation of our actions by an organization to one that willingly records and shares them with social media sites. [Emphasis his.]

I’m obviously comfortable doing so. But even I have limits as to what I share online. Surprised?

I’m not suggesting we rethink this, jump off the grid and start lining our hats with aluminum foil. But as consumers we need to think about our information sharing in the big picture. Consumers get a sense of entitlement with free sites like Facebook and Twitter. But your privacy is a participation sport. And this is bigger than game mechanics. Spend some time with the terms of service around the sites with which you share information.

I cannot agree strongly enough with the last paragraph, as the vast majority of people do not bother to read the rules for the platforms that they use. Most times, they are completely unaware of the uses to which their data can be put. Granted, it is especially hard to keep up with the changes, just look at Facebook — its privacy policy and controls seem to change constantly. Still, it’s your data, and hence it’s your responsibility to keep up with these things.

In addition, it makes for an interesting study. As Dugan points out, we freely share certain personal information, but we would be most upset if someone tried to obtain it without our permission. It is amazing how easy our permission is to obtain when framed in terms of social interaction and convenience.

Source: “1984 – not an instruction manual,” Strategic Public Relations, 08/24/10
Image by jbonnain, used under its Creative Commons license.

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Citizen journalism is often lauded as a welcome alternative to mainstream media in the United States. As we’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog, however, there is an even greater need for citizen journalism in some other countries.

In Russia, for example, an Israeli blogger, known by the screen name “dorinem,” documented her experiences at a hospital in Voronezh, including photographs, on her LiveJournal page. Her critical coverage generated eight pages of comments on the original blog post, which was divided into two parts. (You can view the English translations from Google of Part One and Part Two.)

Dorinem’s reports were also picked up by numerous mainstream media outlets, including Komsomolskaya Pravda. “With around 4 million blogs and very few media outlets bent on challenging the authorities, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the Internet is the last bastion of free speech in Russia,” writes Luke Allnutt on his blog, Tangled Web.

The same is true in other countries such as Egypt, where citizens are using social media and citizen journalism to fight government corruption. “They see the future as bleak,” says Said Sadek, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo. “They see torture. They see corruption. They see rigged elections. What can they do? Of course: The only tool in their hands is their fingertips. And the keyboard.”

There are only thousands of bloggers in Egpyt, which seems small compared to Russia’s total, but Egypt’s social media movement is the largest in the Arab world. Two-thirds of the country’s population is under the age of 30, which contributes to the rise of social media use in protesting. It’s also an equalizer across class. One movement began in April as a Facebook group to support striking laborers, and has now moved from the computer to actions on the streets.

Wael Abbas, one of the most well known bloggers in Egypt, has been arrested for his online journalism, and has been detained for hours at the airport upon re-entry to the country. He says the government has increased surveillance of activists and websites.

Abbas recently covered a courtroom trial involving social media, as described by Deborah Amos for NPR:

‘The judge himself said, ‘I don’t understand the Internet.’ How can you be a judge in a case that you don’t understand anything about?’ Abbas tapped out the details on his cell phone, sitting on a wooden bench at the back of the court.

This trial, against two leading human rights activists and a well-known blogger, is another example of a government crackdown on social media activists who use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as tools of protest. Gamal Eid, Ahmed Seif and Amr Gharbeia are charged with defamation, the use of threats and the misuse of communication. The serious charges could result in fines and prison terms.

Egypt is included on Reporters Without Borders’ Top 10 list of “Enemies of the Internet” for 2010. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that traffic for all Internet service providers (ISPs) passes through state-run Egypt Telecom, so all Internet activity can be monitored on a regular basis. CPJ reports further:

Authorities regularly detain critical bloggers for open-ended periods. Local press freedom groups documented the detention of more than 100 bloggers in 2008 alone. Although most bloggers were released after short periods, some were held for months and many were kept without judicial order. Most detained bloggers report mistreatment, and a number have been tortured.

“I know the limits of social media,” says blogger Abbas. “I know what we can win and what we can lose.”

Source: “Blogging And Tweeting, Egyptians Push For Change,” NPR, 08/26/10
Source: “If  The Hospital Is Bad In Russia, Then Blog It,” Tangled Web, 08/26/10
Source: “10 worst countries to be a blogger,” report from Committee to Protect Journalists, reprinted on the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum with permission, 04/30/09
Image by Hossam el-Hamalawy, used under its Creative Commons license.

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Portable devices like iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone could prove invaluable in teaching social and communication skills to children with developmental disabilities. It also helps that they are cool, inexpensive, and fun to use.

There are dozens of specialized apps available, many by Apple and available through iTunes. Some are targeted at children with autism and Asperger Syndrome, like Model Me Going Places. Others, like Proloquo2Go, are designed to aid children and adults with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and stroke patients who need to regain their ability to speak.

The Internet is particularly rife with lists of “autism-friendly” apps compiled by parents and educators who have tested them, not to mention a recent barrage of positive coverage in outlets like The Huffington Post and USA Today. Apparently, iPad is a hands-down favorite among parents, educators and journalists. Ashley Harrell reports for SF Weekly:

Since the iPad’s unveiling in April, autism experts and parents have brought it into countless homes and classrooms around the world. Developers have begun pumping out applications specifically designed for users with special needs, and initial studies are already measuring the effectiveness of the iPod Touch and the iPad as learning tools for children with autism. Through the devices, some of these children have been able to communicate their thoughts to adults for the first time. Others have learned life skills that had eluded them for years.

“Autistic children are showing tremendous improvement after playing fun-filled exercises on iPad which is less stressful and more fun for both the teachers and the students,” concurs Jeffry McDowell on GadgetsDNA. One study, “iPod Therefore I Can: Enhancing the Learning of Children with Intellectual Disabilities Through Emerging Technologies” (PDF), had tracked the progress of 10 autistic children who were using iPod touches in Australia. According to David Winograd of TUAW.com, “The Unofficial Apple Weblog,” corrective behavior was reinforced on autistic children who, in one case, couldn’t wash their hands, by using images combined with voiceover. Apparently, 60% of the study’s goals were achieved.

Winograd explains one of the reasons the iPad is a favorite among children: “The results of this and other studies have been encouraging, but a major problem for 60 to 80 percent of autistic children is poor motor skills, including poor motor planning, which makes using the small buttons on an iPhone or iPod touch quite difficult. Because of the larger size of an iPad, it can be much more accessible to a larger number of autistic children.”

Another reason for Apple’s portable devices’ popularity among parents is their relatively low cost compared to other “text-to-speech” devices that USA Today‘s Greg Toppo calls “huge, heavy and expensive.” A blogger named Shane writes on Autism Epicenter:

If your child is non-verbal consider that purchasing an augmentative and alternative communication device like a DynaVox costs thousands of dollars. Then consider the iPod Touch with the smallest memory capacity will run you about $220 after tax. And that model will do you just fine. Then $10-$200 more for the appropriate apps. There’s really no comparison when it comes to price. And functionality tends to be just as good. Did I mention how much cooler these little Apple devices are?

That elusive cool factor cannot be overlooked, but it’s the devices’ versatility that seems to appeal to parents of autistic children. Tracy, a product reviewer and mom of an autistic child named Nolan, has been getting a lot of online coverage after she had asked Apple to loan her an iPad, and then had tested dozens of apps that are both specifically targeted at autistic children, as well as cross over into more general child-education category (but could be considered autism-friendly). Her comprehensive list has been making rounds on blogs and various online publications, along with a video showing the highlights of Nolan using some of his favorite apps.

Tracy writes on BookroomReviews,

I am so excited that Apple is noticing us and is interested in what we say about Autism. My hope is this will encourage the geniuses behind the iPad to develop even more resources for our children (and adults). Early intervention is the key and the iPad is a door to the future… The iPad isn’t the cure to Autism, it is a resource for parents that is working.

Shannon Des Roches Rosa, mother of an autistic son named Leo, has also tested a number of apps on an iPad she had now-famously won in a raffle with a $5 ticket. She chronicled her son’s experiences with iPad with several videos and detailed reviews of the apps they had tested. Rosa has nothing but praise for Apple:

Before the iPad, Leo’s autism made him dependent on others for entertainment, play, learning, and communication. With the iPad, Leo electrifies the air around him with independence and daily new skills. People who know Leo are amazed when they see this new boy rocking that iPad. I’m impressed, too, especially when our aggressively food-obsessed boy chooses to play with his iPad rather than eat. I don’t usually dabble in miracle-speak, but I may erect a tiny altar to Steve Jobs in the corner of our living room.

Here’s another tidbit that’s a little off the subject of educational apps, but nonetheless important. In line with its parent company, eBay, focusing on the mobile market, PayPal plans to introduce an app that would allow users to donate to a number of charities directly from their iPhones using their PayPal account. The charities the company had partnered with include Autism Speaks and Save The Children.

Below is a partial list of the most popular apps that have all gotten plenty of coverage and glowing user reviews, including earning the favor from the two little boys mentioned above, Nolan and Leo:

Miscellaneous/For Adults:

• IEP Checklist
• Hidden Curriculum Kids
• Autism Newsfeed
• Behavior Tracker Pro

Behavior:

• Angry Octopus
• First Then Visual Schedule
• iReward Chart
• Autism Xpress

Social Skills:

• Model Me Going Places
• Stories2Learn
• Look2Learn
• Social Skills
• Look In My Eyes Restaurant

Music/Visual/Art:

• Splatter HD
• Draw Free for iPad
• Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD
• Loopz
• iCommunicate for iPad
• iConverse

Communication/Speech/Language:

• Tom the Talking Cat
• Talking Larry the Bird
• ABA Receptive Identification
• MyTalk
• Pocket SLP
• QuickCues
• Proloquo2Go
• Grace
• MyTalk Mobile
• iComm
• TapToTalk
• FirstWords: Deluxe
• iWriteWords

Personally, I can suggest Talking Carl (pic above), my five-year-old’s beloved companion on many a car trip ($.99, iPhone and iPod Touch). Just like Tom the Talking Cat, Carl repeats everything you say in a funny voice. He laughs when he is tickled, growls when he is ignored, and he snores when he sleeps.

Source: ”iPad Apps That Help Autistic Children’s Development (VIDEO),” The Huffington Post, 08/18/10
Source: “iPhone applications can help the autistic,” USA Today, 05/28/09
Source: “iHelp for Autism,” SF Weekly, 08/11/10
Source: “10 Revolutionary iPad Apps to Help Autistic Children,” GadgetsDNA, 08/05/10
Source: “Helping autistic children with iOS devices,” TUAW, 08/18/10
Source: “Autism Apps That Will Help You,” Autism Epicenter, 06/01/10
Source: “The iPad: a Near-Miracle for My Son With Autism,” BlogHer, 06/15/10
Source: “Best iPad Apps for Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome,” BookroomReviews, 08/16/10
Source: “iSpy Autism-Friendly Apps for iPad,” All in a Day’s Quirks, 08/20/10
Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, used under its Creative Commons license.
Image of Talking Carl is used under Fair Use: Reporting.

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Bloggers beware, it seems like everyone out there has an idea on how to limit your access to the open pulpit that is the Internet. From the extremely questionable Righthaven lawsuits (covered earlier on this blog), to recent actions taken by the City of Philadelphia, it seems that efforts to limit online speech are experiencing an upward surge.

The brouhaha in Pennsylvania started when several bloggers have received letters from the city. The demands were for fees of $300 for a local business license, the stated reason being that the bloggers in question ran ads on their blogs. All of the bloggers were small-scale, including one whose profit from his blog was a titanic $11 — and that was after two years!

Valerie Rubinsky at the Philadelphia City Paper broke the story:

For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

Rubinsky examines the situation in detail, and while understanding of the budgetary bind that almost every city government is experiencing right now, she advises that “discretion and common sense” should also be part of the equation. The $300 demanded by the city is six times what Bess’ blog has taken in. For the city to levy business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, and net profits tax on MS Philly Organic and others is completely out of proportion.

Julianne Pepitone, a staff reporter for CNN Money, reports on reactions to Philly’s approach:

NBC’s Philadelphia website accused the city of ‘taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of ‘the greater good.” Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin blasted the city for ‘requiring a license for Internet activists and hobbyists to exercise their free speech.’

On the other hand, The Washington Post pointed out the city was merely following the letter of the law and treating businesses equally: ‘Bloggers running ads next to their copy shouldn’t be exempt if the requirement also applies to people selling old junk on eBay.’

The opinions may vary, but, at the bottom line, this is a case of taxes exceeding — by a huge margin — the revenue taken in. No matter what your business or hobby may be that should never be the case. As bad as that is, there is an even more invasive worry: the chilling effect.

Theresa Masterton, a writer for NBC Philadelphia, notes in her recent column:

In an economy where jobs are sparse and people try to make ends meet with part-time jobs, taxing the independent, scrappy freelancers and bloggers seems counterproductive.

‘To say that these kinds of draconian measures are detrimental to the public discourse would be an understatement,’ writes the Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway.

The Internet in the age of social media exemplifies the right of free speech. Anyone can start a blog and opine on issues or subjects of concern. Actions such as those taken by the City of Philadelphia endanger that freedom of speech.

Of course, as Rob Pegoraro of The Washington Post points out, if you have a sense of humor, there is a small upside to the situation:

[...] By in essence gift-wrapping such a fun story on a slow news week, Philadelphia has provided a form of economic stimulus for bloggers everywhere. If you’ve already opined on this subject, please take a moment in a follow-up post to express thanks to the good people up Interstate 95 who made it all possible.

With that in mind, I’d like to join bloggers everywhere in thanking the city for the story — if not for their actions.

Source: “Hey bloggers! Philly wants you to buy a license,” CNN Money, 08/24/10
Source: “Got a blog that makes no money? The city wants $300, thank you very much,” Philadelphia City Paper, 08/18/10
Source: “Pay Up or Shut Up: Bloggers Charged $300 for Their Thoughts,” NBC Philadelphia, 08/23/10
Source: “Philadelphia ‘blogger fee’ turns into blog fodder,” The Washington Post, 08/23/10
Image by CoCreatr, used under its Creative Commons license.

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The list of publishers embracing mobile devices as a viable platform for their content continues to grow. The iPad is receiving particularly strong love.

Online magazine Slate now has an iPad app, available for free in the iTunes App Store. Perhaps former Slate editor Jason Weisberg — currently editor-in-chief of Slate Group – has changed his mind about the iPad’s place in publishing. Just three short months ago, Weisberg cautioned publishers against buying into the hype surrounding the iPad as the savior of a dying industry, but did admit at the time, “I have high hopes for the iPad app that Slate is working on.”

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. recently announced its upcoming release of a new national newspaper to be distributed solely via mobile devices, including the iPad. The newspaper will be general interest and will charge a subscription fee. It will also operate under the New York Post, meaning that the two will share reporting staff among other things.”We’ll have young people reading newspapers,” the 79-year-old Murdoch said during the company’s Aug. 4 earnings call. “It’s a real game changer in the presentation of news.” No official launch date has been announced yet, but some sources indicate that it could happen by the end of this year. There is also no indicate yet of what the subscription fee might be, but News Corp.-owned The Wall Street Journal currently charges $4 a week.

People‘s iPad app will now be free for subscribers to its print edition ($100 a year), after months of discussion between owner Time Inc. and Apple. “People’s subscriber base is extremely loyal and pays a premium price for the magazine,” said Martha Nelson, editor of Time Inc.’s style and entertainment group. “We want them to have the ability to consume People content however they choose.”

Source: ”News Corp. plans national newspaper for tablet computers and cellphones,” Los Angeles Times, 08/13/10
Source: “Slate Has an iPad App!,” Slate, 08/11/10
Source: “Apple’s Way: Why publishers should beware the App Store,” Slate, 05/14/10
Source: “People Magazine Subscribers to Receive Free Access on iPads,” The New York Times, 08/19/10
Photo by Veronica Belmont, used under its Creative Commons license.

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We’ve been following the Righthaven lawsuit drama since its inception in March. Its scope is broadening, as both the number of lawsuits and the total sought in damages are increasing, as is the public outcry against the company practices. Whatever one’s view on the subject might be, the issue of copyright is currently hot, and one of its aspects, the concept of fair use, is being debated with more zeal than ever.

First, the latest update. As we’ve previously covered, Righthaven has been suing bloggers and website owners over copyright infringement of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVR-J)stories. As of last Wednesday, August 18, the total jumped to a cool 100 with two new lawsuits.

The Las Vegas Sun reporter Steve Green, who has been covering the story extensively since the beginning, reports that one lawsuit was filed against Dominique Houston and the Chris Brown Network, “which allegedly are associated with the website www.chrisbrownconnection.com.” Apparently, two different users posted two LVR-J stories in separate instances on the now defunct site. Another suit was filed against Hush-Hush Entertainment Inc. and PN Media Inc. after a story from LVR-J was cited by a third-party user on the message board of the website owned by the companies. As before, Righthaven is seeking $75,000 apiece.

Understandably, Righthaven’s and the LVR-J‘s actions are drawing a lot of criticism online. Eric E. Johnson writes on his blog,

I think what the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its thugster stooge Righthaven are doing is completely obnoxious. It reeks. It also makes the Las Vegas Review-Journal look like a pack of feral alley dwellers instead of an earnest news organization that is deserving of the public trust…

Filing federal lawsuits against frightened individual bloggers who are without significant legal or financial resources, and doing so without any attempt whatsoever to resolve the dispute informally, is deplorable behavior. That would apply to anyone. But for a newspaper to do it is abhorrent.

Johnson, however, admits that the lawsuits aren’t “frivolous,” offering his take on the meaning of fair use, “the great pressure-relief valve on our system of copyright law.” He writes,

Reposting an entire story from a newspaper on the internet, as a general matter, is just not fair use. I can imagine, hypothetically, circumstances where reposting an entire newspaper story would be fair use, but such circumstances would be very rare. The fact of the matter is, reposting whole newspaper stories is conduct that infringes copyright, and it’s generally actionable. Copyright law makes it easy for copyright holders to sue over minor transgressions. That’s the reality…

On his website TechDirt, Mike Mesnick also criticizes Righthaven, citing the fact that “the lawsuits hit message boards, where the site owners have clear DMCA protections. Also,” he points out, “Righthaven does not issue any DMCA takedown notices — it just goes straight to suing.”

Mesnick questions the sensibility of Righthaven’s actions on several levels. First, he is not at all sure that the venture is lucrative. Quite a few of the lawsuits have been settled out of court — for amounts considerably less that the demanded $75,000 in each lawsuit. Plus, Mesnick argues, if one considers the cost of buying copyrights and the actual process of suing, when the legal dust settles, Righthaven may not be walking away with much.

“Some of the sites that haven’t settled are gearing up to fight this in court (we’ve heard from a bunch), and suddenly whatever Righthaven earned seems to go negative fast if it has to spend time in a courtroom,” writes Mesnick. He goes on to call the claims of Steve Gibson’s, Righhaven’s CEO, and Mark Hineuber’s, the general counsel for the parent company of the LVRJ, that these lawsuits will “raise awareness of copyright laws, and have more links back to our site, and have less of our material infringed on the Internet,” “laughable”:

Yeah, right. Suing people linking to you is going to get more links? Considering that some of the examples of sites being sued included one that posted just 4 paragraphs of a 34-paragraph article… with a link, it seems that these lawsuits are almost guaranteed to lead to less linking.

Gibson keeps claiming that his is not a legal shakedown business, but a technology business. This is pretty laughable too. If they invested in technology beyond ‘searching Google,’ they’ve wasted money here.

Not that the defendants aren’t fighting back. The “Stop the LVRJ/RIGHTHAVEN witch hunt!” page on Facebook is brimming with information on how to defend yourself if you’ve been sued by Righthaven. Righthaven Lawsuits website sports the related media coverage and sites of attorneys handling the cases. It also posts progress updates on current lawsuits, as well as the total count of lawsuits and estimated total amount of settlements to date.

Since some lawsuits involve message boards, the defendants can argue they are not liable, since the material was posted without their consent by third-party users. Another argument is that the material was protected by fair use, and, in cases where the defendant is out of state, that Nevada has no jurisdiction over that defendant.

It would be interesting to see what turn this legal saga takes next, and whether it will affect the copyright laws in the end. Whatever the outcome, it’s far from being over.

Source: “2 lawsuits over R-J copyrights lift total to 100,” Las Vegas Sun, 08/19/10
Source: “Righthaven Getting Small Settlements,” Blog Law Blog, 08/16/10
Source: “Las Vegas Review-Journal Thinks Suing Sites Over Copyright Will Mean More People Link To It,” TechDirt, 08/18/10
Source: “Website operators use new defenses to fight R-J copyright suits,” Las Vegas Sun, 08/18/20
Image by Horia Varlan, used under its Creative Commons license.

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What is the first social media platform that most people think of when you ask them to name one? Facebook. Between the upcoming movie about it, and the constant stream of news stories, even non-users are becoming aware of its reach (and the number of non-users is shrinking every day).

Savvy companies are finding ways to provide additional value and convenience to their prospective audiences in an attempt to generate positive “word of mouth” online. Since Facebook now has more users than many countries have citizens, it’s a no brainer that it would be a powerful tool for those who use it properly.

Enter Delta Airlines. In a move I must applaud, it has added flight-booking functionality to its Facebook Page, a fact I’ve discovered via Michelle Beckham, a colleague from the Cincinnati social media scene and a writer for Examiner.com:

Delta Airlines has decided to bring flight booking capabilities to the place where many of [its] passengers and target market resides: Facebook. Delta, the world’s number one airline, serves more than 170 million passengers each year. Facebook currently has over 500 million users with each user having an average of 130 friends. According to the Facebook Press Page: ‘People spend over 700 billion minutes/month on Facebook.’ Makes sense to me for a large carrier to grab a slice of the reservation pie at the center of where potential passengers are spending a good amount of time.

One of the things fueling this usage of Facebook is the advent of smartphones. Many people I know access the Web through an iPhone or Droid app far more frequently than with a laptop or desktop computer. In addition, the upswing in mobile use also allows instant access and can lead to an increase in impulse purchases.

It’s all about ease of use and ease of access these days. With so much time spent by us on social networks, logic dictates that brands meet their consumers on their own ground. Michelle gives us a quick description of how the ticket window is integrated into Delta’s Facebook page:

Customers will have the full ability to book tickets through the Ticket Window on Facebook using a customized tab:  ‘Book A Trip’ on the top right-hand side of the Page. Enterprises who have truly embraced Facebook and engagement opportunities tend to take full advantage of using FBML to alter or customize the standard look and feel of Facebook pages.

FBML is the markup language used to write custom content into a Facebook page. Similar to the standard HTML, it allows changes that tie directly into Facebook’s native functions. In plain English, it allows one to add widgets and other standard web capabilities to one’s page.

The opportunities for engagement are nearly limitless, confined mainly by the expectation that it will all change soon, as it happens so frequently with Facebook. Delta is ahead of the pack right now, and if its future social-media strategy is as good, it should stay in the lead.

Now, if only there was an app for finding lost luggage…

Source: “Book your next Delta flight from Cincinnati while on Facebook,” Examiner.com, 08/13/10
Image by Kossy@FINEDAYS, used under its Creative Commons license.

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Consumers are using e-readers, smartphones, and tablets with increasing frequency. Simultaneously, magazine and newspaper publishers are rushing to keep up with declining print sales and burgeoning technology to offer digital editions on these devices. The iPad alone has changed the face of magazine publishing since its launch a few months ago.

Numerous magazines now have accompanying iPad apps, such as Time Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, and more than 40 publications from Rodale. iPad has also helped IDG’s Macworld and PCWorld increase downloads of their digital editions, which have been around for years. The two publications averaged 600 monthly downloads together, but iPad versions are now generating a combined 8,000 monthly downloads. Chris Anderson of Wired predicts that iPad versions of his magazine will soon outsell its print editions.

Publishers aren’t just focusing on mobile devices for their digital editions, however. Some are developing models that can be accessed from a regular computer, such as Skiing Interactive from Bonnier Corp., which is a digital duplicate of the print version. Gourmet, which went out of print in November 2009, will be reborn this fall as Gourmet Live, an interactive HTML5 application with social features that will allow users to share content across social networks. Susan Currie Sivek writes on PBS’ Media Shift blog:

The application will use readers’ individual food and cooking interests to shape their experience. A novel component of Gourmet Live will be its ‘gameplay’ approach of selecting and pushing content to the user. The application features real-time curation, meaning that it will constantly modify its content in response to the user’s preferences, information, current location, past experience in the application, and so on.

Other companies are offering standalone digital companions rather than duplicates of or replacements for the print issues. In June, Interweave released Quilting Arts in Stitches, a companion to Quilting Arts Magazine. The company is calling it an eMag™, and describes it as a “much more immersive experience” than traditional e-books or digital magazine editions — part magazine, part workshop, and part video.

“This is new territory for Interweave and publishers everywhere as the industry looks ahead to develop the future of magazines,” said Interweave CEO Clay B. Hall. “The industry hasn’t even landed on a name for this type of product… [W]e’re calling it the eMag™, though it’s a much more immersive experience than what people are accustomed to with an eBook or digital magazine.”

The eMag is software — compatible with both PC and Mac – that is downloaded to a computer (roughly 320MB) and installed. It’s built using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Flash CS5 Professional, with a custom digital viewer that runs on the Adobe AIR platform. Quilting Arts in Stitches costs $14.97 in Interweave’s online store, compared with a $7.99 cover price for a typical monthly issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. It has sold “a few thousand” copies in its first weeks, according to Interweave, who plans to launch three more eMags from its more than 40 consumer art and craft magazines that focus on knitting, specialty fiber and jewelry-making.

Quilting Arts in Stitches includes video demos and interviews with artisan quilters, slideshow galleries of photos with zoom options, downloadable and printable patterns, an embedded search engine, and hyperlinks to other content. Diane Gilleland (a.k.a. “Sister Diane”) at CraftyPod reviewed the first issue of Quilting Arts in Stitches:

All in all, the eMag contains a full hour of assorted video content, ten articles with seven full tutorials, one studio tour, nine artist profiles, four downloadable PDF projects, and five ‘reader challenge’ creativity prompts. And it’s all presented with a beautiful user interface that lets you skip to any point in the content, page or scroll, and zoom in and out on any page.

[…] If I’m an art quilter, this hybrid magazine/software product is something I can revisit again and again as I learn and practice the techniques. I think Interweave has very smartly focused the eMag heavily on how-to material, because that tends to have a long ‘shelf life.’

Interweave’s eMag platform is, so far, advertising-free — but will change with future editions. The company wants to encourage advertisers to take full advantage of the platform for their presentation. This is in line with recommendations from Jason Brightman, director of web design for PCWorld and Macworld, who offered a list of four areas for publishers to focus on when developing a digital edition:

1. Content — Don’t overuse multimedia to the extent it decreases actual content. Don’t let the bells and whistles overshadow good, old-fashioned text. Also make sure that the text is easily legible, and offer a text-only view.
2. Navigation — Keep navigation simple and consistent with other reading experiences, including traditional print media.
3. Advertising — Ads that take full advantage of the interactive features of digital editions will make advertisers the happiest.
4. Ubiquity — Don’t limit your publication to a single platform, e.g., the iPad. Technology is changing, and the market will be even more saturated with devices for consumers to use to access your content.

Source: “Beyond Digital Magazines: Tablets, E-Readers and Mobile Apps,” Folio, 07/29/10
Source: “eMag Review: Quilting Arts In Stitches,” CraftyPod, 07/08/10
Source: “Interweave Launches Digital eMag, Quilting Arts in Stitches, a New Digital Content Product,” Interweave press release, 06/28/10
Source: “Gourmet Live, Quilting eMag Rethink Magazines in Digital Form,” PBS’ MediaShift, 08/09/10
Screen captures of Quilting Arts in Stitches eMag and Gourmet Live application used under Fair Use: Reporting.

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I am working on the “Measuring Results” chapter for my new book on Internet publicity. In the previous edition, I put the info on measuring results at the end of the book. This time, I’m bringing it forward. It’s certainly one of the most confusing aspects of online public relations.

How do you know if a campaign is successful? If online PR does not return some measurable benefits to the bottom line, it won’t be funded for very long. Despite the Internet’s connectivity, it’s difficult to associate many of the activities in Internet public relations directly with sales. We do our best to analyze whatever numbers we can find.

In 2007, I conducted a blog tour for an author whose book on finance resulted in op-ed articles in the Financial Times and The Washington Post, and a review in The Wall Street Journal. These were the three biggest media events in the life of the book. They happened on specific dates, and we tracked the Amazon sales rank for the book using the very handy service at TitleZ. Here are the sales numbers (the lower the rank, the higher the sales):

May 6, 2007: Washington Post op-ed
05/04/07 — 6,298
05/07/07 — 6,758
05/08/07 — 3,773

May 18, 2007: Financial Times op-ed
05/17/07 — 6,114
05/18/07 — 5,624
05/21/07 — 19,941

May 24, 2007: E-News Release Sent
May 24 – 30, 2007: Discussion Group Postings
05/21/07 — 19,941
05/24/07 — 1,565*
05/25/07 — 4,315
05/28/07 — 2,942
05/30/07 — 5,666

June 5, 2007 — Wall Street Journal review
06/04/07 — 47,802
06/05/07 — 11,575
06/06/07 — 2,026

These results clearly indicate that nothing improved the book’s Amazon rank as much as the online campaign, which took the book to 1,565 — its best Amazon rank ever. The second biggest event in Amazon sales was The Wall Street Journal review, which dropped the book’s rank to 2,026 for a day. Nothing moved online sales more than the online campaign.

In bookstore sales, the results were flipped. The Wall Street Journal resulted in the largest spike in sales, followed by the online campaign. In third place was the op-ed in The Washington Post. The Financial Times review didn’t have a measurable impact on either online sales or bookstore sales.

But sales are just one measure of the success of an online campaign. For most Internet PR clients, other important measures include:

• How much traffic resulted from the campaign?
• How many inquiries, or newsletter signups, or phone calls?
• How many comments on my blog posts or blog tour?
• How many websites ran coverage of the client?
• How many email addresses were collected?
• How many media contacts requested a press kit?
• How many sites installed an op-ed article?
• Did the campaign result in any negative coverage?

Recently, I concluded a website re-launch campaign for publisher, New World Library. We had a disappointing linkage campaign, with only three sites out of 20 installing a link to New World Library; a typical campaign would fetch at least five links. However, we had a successful blog outreach campaign, with nine bloggers asking to receive the publisher’s catalog and press materials. It will take weeks, possibly months, for those results to play out.

The early signs are good. Online sales are up, traffic is up, and the work resulted in lots more visibility and inbound links. Google Web Search results for the company’s name in quotation marks, “New World Library,” resulted in 265,000 matches before the campaign, 353,000 three months later. Alta Vista showed that inbound links to the site went from 395 to 665.

Sometimes it takes years for results to show up. In 2008, we conducted a Blog Buddy campaign with Steve LeVine, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of the book, The Oil and The Glory. My crew took Steve on a month-long blog outreach campaign and in short order helped him set up his social networks, clean up his blog, and connect with dozens of top bloggers. The impact on sales at the time was minimal. The impact on Steve’s career was not.

Steve used our training program to get a job producing blogs for The Wall Street Journal. He was then hired by BusinessWeek, which was subsequently purchased by Bloomberg. Last week, I received a private Facebook message from my former client. His blog, The Oil and The Glory, was purchased by Foreign Policy magazine. Steve writes, “I credit you for its success.”

I’ll talk more about some of the other means for measuring the impact of online public relations campaigns in coming weeks. It’s tricky business because many of the positive effects of campaigns (or negative effects from botched campaigns) cannot be measured accurately or quickly.

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