Browsing Tag: internet

    Miscellany

    Online journalism: still getting sources wrong in 2018

    October 1, 2018

    A radio station tweeted tonight about a story discussing how young kids are avoiding Apple’s “Screen Time” restrictions and spending more time on iPhones/iPads than their parents want them to.

    I clicked the link in the tweet. It took me to the radio station’s website where I read the article. At the end of the article, it listed Mashable as its source and linked to that version for more info.

    I clicked the link to read the article on Mashable. That article cited its source as The Next Web and linked to their version of the story.

    I clicked the link to read the article on The Next Web. That article cited Yahoo as its source and linked to their version of the story.

    I clicked the link to read the article on Yahoo. That article’s byline says it was sourced from Business Insider, but it didn’t link to the article on BI’s website.

    I went to BusinessInsider.com and looked for the article. It wasn’t on their home page but a quick search located it. Turns out this is where my hunt ended … I’d found the original article.

    To sum up, Business Insider published an article that spread across the internet, but a chain of other news sites that re-published their own versions of the story failed to cite the original source and gave credit to the sites that were just re-purposing the story.

    Ugh. This happened to us a lot when I was at Search Engine Land/Marketing Land/Martech Today, and it always frustrated me. We did a lot of original reporting and other sites did their own versions of our story. But then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and other levels of coverage didn’t cite us as the source, but instead cited some article that had rewritten ours.

    It’s been going on for years like this. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some tool or service that made it easier to locate and credit the original sources of stories? A guy can dream, right? 🙂

    Miscellany

    Fastest airport wi-fi ever

    June 14, 2017

    This has to be the fastest (free) airport wi-fi in history, doesn’t it? I was at Sea-Tac earlier today and couldn’t believe how fast the connection was. Turns out it’s almost 2x as fast as our home download speed, and about 30x as fast as our home upload speeds. Incredible.

    Miscellany

    GoGo Inflight Internet … Speed?

    September 29, 2014

    This was on a recent Delta flight from SLC to EWR. I don’t know why we put up with this and I don’t know why we … or least I … get all excited to get online whenever I fly. Ugh.

    gogo

    Miscellany

    Hey Disqus, 627 Comments in 1 Day is Probably Spam

    July 8, 2013

    Here’s one of the commenters that I banned today while moderating the comments on Search Engine Land and Marketing Land:

    disqus-spammer

    If someone’s writing 627 comments in a single day — their first day! — that’s probably a spammer. It’s not 627 comments on SEL and ML, but across this person’s Disqus account.

    This has been a problem for some time now with Disqus. Some idiots think they can just bludgeon blogs left and right with tons of comments … and they can.

    I wrote a similar post here a little more than a year and suggested that Disqus simply put a limit on how many comments new users can post.

    Disqus staff read the post and joined the conversation in the comments, but that suggestion seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

    Miscellany

    The First Book Ever Ordered on Amazon … & the Guy Who Ordered It

    October 28, 2012

    This is just awesome. Ever wonder what was the first book ever bought on Amazon? And who was the first person to place an order on Amazon?

    Well, turns out that there’s a question on Quora asking those exact questions, and the guy who placed the first order was told about it … then answered!

    His name is John Wainwright and he ordered Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter on April 3, 1995. Check out his full story, along with a photo of the book and the original receipt from Amazon.

    Read Quote of John Wainwright’s answer to Amazon Company History: What was the first book ever ordered by a customer on Amazon? on Quora

    That’s internet history right there. Seriously, seriously cool.