With a tip o’ the nib to John S, from Vice: I Bought a Book About the Internet From 1994 and None of the Links Worked. “The endless pace of linkrot has left books about the internet in a curious limbo—they’re dead trees about the dead-tree killer, after all. To their credit, books about the internet carry a bit of permanence about them, but they also go out of date quickly, which isn’t helpful. But for my purposes, that’s a virtue.”
internet
Pew: The Fate of Online Trust in the Next Decade
Pew (pew pew pew pew pew!): The Fate of Online Trust in the Next Decade. “Many experts say lack of trust will not be a barrier to increased public reliance on the internet. Those who are hopeful that trust will grow expect technical and regulatory change will combat users’ concerns about security and privacy. Those who have doubts about progress say people are inured to risk, addicted to convenience and will not be offered alternatives to online interaction. Some expect the very nature of trust will change.”
The Guardian: Stop children bingeing on social media during holidays, parents urged
The Guardian: Stop children bingeing on social media during holidays, parents urged. “As web use reaches record highs among children, Anne Longfield has attacked the new methods social media giants are using to draw them into spending more time staring at tablets and smartphones. In an interview with the Observer, she said that parents should ‘step up’ and be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet during the summer holidays.”
The Next Web: Number of social media users passes 3 billion with no signs of slowing
The Next Web: Number of social media users passes 3 billion with no signs of slowing. “The latest Global Digital Statshot from We Are Social and Hootsuite reveals that the number of people using social media around the world has just passed the momentous three billion mark…”
Phys.org: The ‘splinternet’ may be the future of the web
Phys.org: The ‘splinternet’ may be the future of the web. “Both The Economist and WIRED are worried about the ‘splinternet’. The UK research organisation NESTA thinks it could ‘break up’ the world wide web as we know it. What is this awkwardly named idea? It’s the concept that someone’s experience of the internet in Turkey, for example, is increasingly different from their experience of the internet in Australia.”
Long Live Gopher: The Techies Keeping the Text-Driven Internet Alive (Motherboard)
Motherboard: Long Live Gopher: The Techies Keeping the Text-Driven Internet Alive. “The Gopher protocol isn’t supported by the modern web basically at all, but despite this, it lingers on, a quarter century from its peak. Here’s how.” I love this.
Ars Technica: New book explores how protesters—and governments—use Internet tactics
Ars Technica: New book explores how protesters—and governments—use Internet tactics. “In February 2003, the largest demonstration in Britain’s history saw two million people march across London to protest the approaching Iraq War. Dozens of other cities across the world saw similar events, and yet. Why did politicians feel safe ignoring the millions who participated in those marches—yet stand down after the protests against the proposed intellectual property laws SOPA and PIPA? Why did Occupy apparently vanish while the Tea Party has embedded itself into US national electoral politics? How much did Facebook really have to do with the Arab Spring? How—and this is the central question technosociologist Zeynep Tufecki considers in her new book, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest—do digital media change the reality and effectiveness of social protest?”
