Marumushi newsmap

Very cool: graphical, interactive display of current news: newsmap

Fake Steve Jobs outed

The New York Times' Brad Stone has sleuthed out the identity of popular blog-author Fake Steve Jobs.

As Fake Steve posts on his site:

...[T]ip of the hat to you, Brad Stone. You did the sleuthing. You put the
pieces of the puzzle together. You went through my trash, hacked into my
computer, and put listening devices in my home. Now you've ruined the mystery of
Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of
childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself.... One bright
side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag. I really,
really enjoyed seeing those guys keep guessing wrong. For six months Dr. Evil
and Mr. Bigglesworth put their big brains together and couldn't come up with the
answer. Guy from the Times did it in a week. So much for the trope about
smarty-pants bloggers disrupting old media. Brilliant.

Mormonism and Democratic Politics: Are They Compatible?

Great piece from the Pew Forum on Mormonism and democratic politics. Richard Bushman was the speaker, and the link provides a transcript of the discussion amongst Mr. Bushman and the journalists on the church and some of its political history and context. I haven't read the entire thing yet (30 pages), but have just printed it out and wanted to post it here.

Thank you Steve for the pointer!

Link here as well: http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=148

1st Annual YouTube Awards

The first annual YouTube Video Awards were released this week. I wonder if we'll enter a world in which awards for this type of user-generated content (awards, by the way, which are selected by the users) will rival in stature the awards given for professional-generated content in awards ceremonies such as the Oscars, Golden Globes, etc. Might an Online Video Award one day garner the same attention and coveted status as a little gold statuette?

Awards available here: http://www.youtube.com/ytawards.

I have to admit the only winner I knew was the OKGo treadmill choreography: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI. Free Hugs is also great.

Media production and consumption: times they are a changin'.

Time's Person of the Year

Congratulations.

You (yes, you) were named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" this year.

And thank you.