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How Journalism Education Can, and Should, Blow Up the System
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Social Media
Socializing the Space Shuttle's Farewell
More than a decade ago, I was driving down a Tampa, Fla., street when I saw one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen -- and may ever see. A space shuttle, piggybacked on a jumbo jet, came out of nowhere and seemed to fill the entire sky. It was massive -- seeing it on TV was one thing,...
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Technology
FTC: If It's Your Computer, You Should Own Your Data
If you own your computer, you should own the data that's on it. That's the message from Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz. At a Washington press conference -- also broadcast -- the FTC issued a new report on Internet privacy. Leibowitz praised how far the nation's come in protecting data, even from this time last year. But he also...
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Augmented Reality
Real Life, Only Better: Augmented Reality Takes Off
My favorite technology -- augmented reality, or AR -- lets anybody feel like Harry Potter, except that you make magic with a computer or mobile device instead of a wand. I call it "real life, only better" because it takes a live scene and puts useful or entertaining images, video, graphics -- whatever -- on top of it. When I...
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Social Networking
An avatar, for lack of a better explanation, is our incarnation on the Internet -- the virtual Halloween costume we wear every day. Whether it's an animated alter ego in a game or online community, or a two-dimensional Facebook profile picture or Twitter "Twavatar," your avatar is how the online world sees you. It's also how you see yourself. Researchers...
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Social Networking
How Social Media 'Friends' Translate Into Real-Life Friendships
When social media first gained attention, I heard many people scoff that these online connections couldn't possibly be real friends. Some even used "Facebook friend" as a synonym for shallowness, fearing people might trade face-to-face interaction for a virtual life online. But many years, re-tweets, meet-ups, event invitations and birthday wishes later, the majority of the people I know now...
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Social Networking
Weiner Scandal Lesson: Sexting More Trackable Than Real-Life Flirting
My first internship was covering state politics. College parties were nothing compared to the drinking, carousing and eye-opening public behavior I saw during the legislative session. It was the 1970s -- a mere decade after the "Mad Men" '60s. Each week brought a new jaw-dropper, such as when a legislator told me he'd be happy to discuss a bill he...
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Social Networking
Facebook Sometimes Slow to Remove Offensive Content, Fake Profiles
When it comes to Facebook, what goes up may not come down, at least not without a fight. In many cases, the social networking giant has been slow to act when it comes to offensive content and fake profiles. Robin Sinkhorn, mother of actress Lauren Potter, who plays Becky in the popular TV series "Glee," learned this last year. Potter...
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Online Video
How an Atlanta Ice Skater Made a Viral Video Go Worldwide
Every city has at least one iconic street. New York has Broadway. Los Angeles has Sunset Boulevard. Chicago has Lake Shore Drive. Atlanta? It has Peachtree Street. And one frozen night in early January, within blocks of the house where Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone with the Wind," Peachtree became more than a street -- an urban rebel christened it as...
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Social Media
CNN's Joshua Levs Uses Social Media Savvy in Hard, Soft News
When Joshua Levs left NPR's Atlanta Bureau to become a correspondent for CNN, he found that something was missing. Specifically, it was time. The rapid pace of TV left him with a fraction of the time he once had to present the many layers of a story. In the end, Levs saw that social media could fill the gap and provide an additional avenue for him to share information and connect.
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AdvertisingShift
Augmented Reality Invades Newsrooms, Kids' Shows, Ads
You point your wireless device -- cell phone, iPad, whatever -- at a graphic on a box of unassembled furniture and then the instructions, complete with 3-D diagrams, instantly appear on-screen. Point at a piece of paper and it's suddenly a game board shared by friends across the room or across the world. This is augmented reality, or AR. While...
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MagazineShift
Revamped Forbes Pushes Advertorials, Social Media, Conflict
Earlier this year Kevin Gentzel, the chief revenue officer of Forbes, took a look at what the chief marketing officers in the Forbes CMO Network were doing with their companies. He realized they were becoming content creators -- and that this had big implications for his magazine and other traditional media. Gentzel said this underscored the massive shift that was...
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