Tag: BLOG

Twitter may be growing in population and volume, but, according to a new study from Cornell University and Yahoo Research, the site still relies upon a small fraction of its users to churn out the majority of its tweets. The site currently boasts around 200 million users and sees about 140 million tweets per day. Half of those, however, are generated by less than 0.05-percent of all Twitter ...

When asked what we do for work, we often wince before saying, "I'm a blogger." It's because, for most folks, the term likely describes a twenty-something nerd who lives in his mother's basement, collects unemployment, and writes in his LiveJournal about black metal bands. Thanks to the New York Times' profile of Heather Armstrong, though, "blogger" might soon mean an independently wealthy media ...

As the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's true, Twitter and Tumblr should be very flattered by the Chinese copycat sites Sina Weibo and DianDian, which have plucked ideas and designs from the microblogging networks. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Sina Weibo has eclipsed Twitter as China's leading microblogging site. Mirae Asset Securities estimates ...

Blogging platforms and personal blogs have both seen dips in traffic with the emergence of Twitter and Facebook. Services like Blogger and LiveJournal, which cater to a younger crowd focused on sharing thoughts and experiences with others, have borne the brunt of the decline. A Pew Research Center poll found that the percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds with blogs had fallen by half since 2006, to ...

A Pennsylvania teacher has proven that educators aren't so different (or more mature) than their supposedly petulant pupils. Thirty-year-old Natalie Munroe has reportedly been suspended with pay, and could possibly be terminated from Central Bucks East High School, because of repeated blog posts that labeled her students as "lazy whiners" and "disrespectful oafs." She also posted a "pithy ...

Yoani Sanchez is a 35-year-old Cuban dissident who regularly criticizes her country's communist regime on her blog, 'Generation Y.' Her outspoken writing has garnered plenty of awards and has been translated into 15 languages. But, since 2008, Generation Y has been blocked within her native Cuba. On Tuesday, however, the Cuban government suddenly re-established access to the blog, much to ...

Political censorship by oppressive regimes often results in murky facts being distributed on an international scale. Dissidents and citizen journalists -- the important voices who are responsible for reporting on the ground -- frequently end up in Big Brother-style detention. Yet, this week in Tunisia, a unique scene played out, indicating the changing shape of political activism and, perhaps, ...

A man from New Jersey has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for making death threats against three federal judges on his blog. Right-wing blogger Hal Turner reportedly took issue with a 2009 ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed legal challenges to handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. Disgusted with the decision, Turner took to his blog, where he ...

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized 82 websites, most of which were shut down for selling counterfeit designer handbags and sunglasses. But caught up in the massive virtual raid were several music blogs, including OnSmash.com, RapGodFathers.com and rmx4u.com. The sites were shut down for posting copyrighted material without the permission ...

A few months ago, 30-year-old Alisha Arnold found out that she was pregnant for the third time, after having suffered two miscarriages in less than two years. She and her husband Pete, however, weren't sure if they were ready to become parents, and began entertaining thoughts of an abortion. Before making that intensely personal decision, though, the couple decided to gauge the collective opinion ...

Memorializing the deceased with Facebook mausoleums may offer some digital consolation to bereaved friends and family, but a new product concept called the 'E-Tomb' has taken the idea of post-mortem social networking to an entirely new (and creepily literal) level. Designed by Huang Jianbo, Zhao Ting, Wang Yushan, Ran Xiangfei and Mo Ran, the E-Tomb sort of looks like a cross between a ...

We love you, Joan Didion! Bicoastal grandmother of New Journalism, with your wry eyes and detached verse -- won't you ever debase yourself and blog? "Well, I don't really understand blogging," the writer said at a luncheon for Colin Firth's new film 'The King's Speech.' She told Guest of a Guest, "It seems like writing, except quicker. I mean, I'm not actually looking for that instant ...

On Halloween, a group of really cool teenagers decided to remind everyone of their awesomeness, and proceeded to vandalize their Brooklyn neighborhood. Little did they know, however, that 26-year-old Daniel Cavanagh was lurking in the shadows and observing their every movement. After doing a little research, Cavanagh friended the teens on Facebook, and headed to his blog, where he described the ...

Blogs didn't exist during the Civil War, but the New York Times certainly did -- and its extensive archives capture just about every phase of the five-year conflict. Now, nearly 150 years after the war broke out, the paper has begun covering the war once again in "real time," on a new blog called 'Disunion.' Each post on the new forum focuses on what was going on in the U.S. on that particular ...

Bruce Slutsky, a 61-year-old from Flushing, NY was recently called to jury duty to hear a civil case, which involved a plaintiff filing assault charges against his neighbors. Unlike most jurors, however, Slutsky decided to document his courtroom experience on his blog. And, although the Queens, NY court ultimately determined that Slutsky's online actions didn't pose a threat to the trial's ...