The Myth of the Iranian Twitter Revolution
Posted by Grant Brewer
The Myth of the Iranian Twitter Revolution: "Foreign Policy Magazine: ‘But it is time to get Twitter’s role in the events in Iran right. Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran. As Mehdi Yahyanejad, the manager of ‘Balatarin,’ one of the Internet’s most popular Farsi-language Web sites, told the Washington Post last June, Twitter’s impact inside Iran is nil. ‘Here [in the United States], there is lots of buzz,’ he said. ‘But once you look, you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.’"
(Via Subtraction.)
That doesn't seem surprising — Twitter as a source of breaking news is over exaggerated. The Twittersphere just seems littered with retweets of the same things appearing on CNN.
FIFA World Cup site confusing
Posted by Grant Brewer
Is it just me or is the FIFA World Cup 2010 web site making it extra challenging to find practical information and links to things like changing the people allocated to tickets or finding out how the park and ride works!
The City of Johannesburg site is far better linking to useful, practical information that a fan is likely to need in order to attend a match.
Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds
Posted by Grant Brewer
Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds: "Wordle is a toy for generating word clouds from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."
This is the word cloud for this site:
A special report on South Africa: The price of freedom | The Economist
Posted by Grant Brewer
A special report on South Africa: The price of freedom | The Economist: "The price of freedom Since embracing full democracy 16 years ago, South Africa has made huge strides. But, says Diana Geddes (interviewed here), not everything has changed for the better Jun 3rd 2010 | From The Economist print edition"
This is a must read for anyone living, working or interested in South Africa.
Election words
Posted by Grant Brewer
The New York Times has an excellent and interesting information graphic that shows how open various words are used by the different speech-makers in the either the Democrats or the Republicans. It is an interesting representation and the actual words that feature are food for thought. The Republicans do talk about God an awful lot!
SA Blook, Chapter 3 — What the world thinks of South Africa
Posted by Grant Brewer
Understanding South Africa is a challenge. It is a country full of paradoxes and extremes. As the setting of one of the most remarkable political transformations in modern history, it is also home to widespread poverty and mind–numbing violent crime. We remain trapped by past beliefs in our strengths — such as the idea that South Africa is a rich country because of its mineral wealth, or that our extraordinary political transition owes us opportunities in a global economy — and we're struggling to define what exactly we contribute to and how we relate to the world around us. How do all these things come together to forge a nation that can define its own meaning for the twenty first century, and in doing so create an emerging land of opportunity.