News Limited Shakes It ALL Up

Australia’s media landscape has been through the ringer over the past few weeks and months, the ground is changing at a pace not seen since the eighties. The latest shake-up comes from the ever stoic News Limited – the Australian arm of News Corporation – the company has announced a massive restructuring of the way it delivers news.

The announcement on last week, which included job cuts and a reduction in east coast operations from 19 divisions to five, came days after Fairfax Media outlined plans to axe 1,900 staff, move jobs offshore, close two major printing presses and downsize its flagship newspapers to tabloids, as well as it’s ongoing boardroom battles with billionaire Gina Rinehart.

Despite the cuts, News Limited CEO Kim Williams has told staff that the organisation remains committed to print :: Read the full article »»»»

Facebook Timeline: Unearthing Pix You Forgot You Had? or A Stalkers Dream!

Like it or not, Facebook is about to make its new profile format –  Timeline – compulsory. Over the next few weeks, every Facebook account will be updated with the new-look profile, presenting a scrapbook of all of your past status updates and photographs.

The latest upgrade to Facebook has security experts warning people to clean up their online history or risk having embarrassing photos, comments and status updates resurface. Facebook will not say exactly when, but sometime in the next month all user profile pages will transition to the new Timeline setting.

The changes mean that every post, photo and action in a Facebook user’s history will be available for friends to easily view in reverse chronological order. Facebook users have had the option to use Timeline since last year.

The problem with Facebook is it keeps changing its default settings, you might not care about the change right now, in 20 years when you’re standing for political office? Clearly social media sites like Facebook have granted us a much more transparent society. Graham Cluley, a social media security commentator says “Facebook is encouraging users to enter even more personal details about themselves and their life experiences, and making it simpler for others to view the information.” Read the full article »»»»

When is a spam email not spam? When it comes from The New York Times!

If your a New York Times Subscriber internet user, you most likely received an  email this morning begging you not to cancel your NYT subscription, quickly followed by another email asking you to ignore the first, confused? don’t be!

Initial reports said that the email was spam - those darned Nigerians - The New York Times appologised, asked recipients to disregard and admitted to it’s mistake.

Read the full article »»»»

CHINA: Beijing Orders Micro-bloggers to Register Real Names

Beijing city authorities on Friday issued new rules requiring microbloggers to register their real names before posting online, as the Chinese government tightens its grip on the internet. The city government now requires users of weibos – the Chinese version of Twitter – to give their real names to website administrators, its official news portal said. The new rules will apply to weibo operators based in Beijing, which include Sina – owner of China’s most popular microblogging service, with more than 200 million users – as well as users living in the Chinese capital. Weibo users reacted angrily to the new rules, saying this was an attempt to muzzle online criticism and debate.

Indias Kapil Sibal Set to Ban Offensive Facebook Posts

We love a good rant out of India, and have pretty much given up on making any sense of the rhetoric that falls from the mouth of Communications Minister Kapil Sibal, in his latest rant though he seems to have outdone himself? He has vowed to ban offensive material from the internet after Facebook, Google and other major firms told the government they were unable to screen content before it was posted. Kapil Sibal said talks with the internet giants had failed to come up with a solution following complaints that he had lodged three months ago over “unacceptable” images.

“My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded,” Mr Sibal told reporters in New Delhi. ”We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. They will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.”

In his usual hypocritical tone, Mr Sibal said the government supported free speech and was against censorship but that some material on the internet was so offensive that no one would find it acceptable. He said he had shown some of the worst images to the internet companies, who had said they could not control all distribution. Read the full article »»»»

Flipboard Launches iPhone App

Flipboard, that übercool social magazine slash Apple iPad App that organizes sectionalized content like #News, #Technology and #Food, as well as social network updates, rolls it all together and spits out a sleek, unified interface, launched its highly anticipated iPhone App this week.

Flipboard cleverly pulls posts from Facebook and Twitter accounts and turns generic updates into sweetly formatted, eye popping posts.

Flipboard Announced the launch via social media: “The moment so many Flipboard readers have asked for is here: Now you can get Flipboard for iPhone. It’s got everything you know and love about Flipboard, but now designed especially for the way you use your iPhone.” Read the full article »»»»