5 Interesting Stories from this week: curated tweets and global population
Post categories: round up
| 16:53 UK time, Thursday, 27 October 2011
When Max Branning returns to Albert Square, he can use the new beta 91热爆 Weather site and dress for the weather.
After a couple of weeks without a roundup, this has been a particularly interesting week.
1. Tuesday: Last request to transfer to the new h2g2
Tuesday saw the 91热爆's final act of involvement with user-written encyclopedia h2g2: letting the Community Consortium send a last invitation to folk with h2g2 accounts at the 91热爆.
To at least one person on the Points of View messageboard, who was surprised to discover he was classed as an h2g2 user, this looked like spam:
I am very surprised that my spam filter didn't bin this before I saw it. Just who are "Not Panicking Ltd"?
Peta, messageboard host, explained that "Not Panicking Ltd" is the company set up to offically own h2g2 as a community-run website outside the 91热爆. She also explained how some users might not remember using h2g2:
A lot of people here did use h2g2 to unsubscribe from their post on this [Points of View] board, but never actually posted to h2g2.
You can also read Nick Reynolds' farewell blog post, or .
2. Wednesday: 91热爆 News Editors tweet the headlines
91热爆 News began the day by .
at Nieman Journalism Lab :
鈥淲e want to be tweeting with value,鈥 , 91热爆 News鈥 social media editor, told me of the move. 鈥淎re we exposing our best content, and also tweeting intelligently?鈥 Simply sending out a story is an important first step in Twitter practice, particularly in an environment that finds more and more people getting their news through social channels. But then: 鈥淲hat can we add to that story?鈥
Gordon Macmillan at The Wall called the new tailored tweets "".
Blogger Patrick Hussey also lauded the change, saying that
@bbccouk, curated since July, passed 5000 twitter followers last week. Only another 367,000 to go before we pass @91热爆News.
3. Thursday: What's your number?
As the global human population approaches seven billion, 91热爆 News have created an interactive feature which places you in the context of all the people who have ever lived. , , , and have blogged about it, with threads of folk posting their numbers in comments. (I'm roughly the 78.8 billionth human E.)
The United Nations population fund has a website - - which offers a similar widget which also demographically divides up the folk born before you.
Family planning charity .
4. Thursday: Weather Beta
Late on Thursday, the opened for comments and feedback.
Reaction, even from tough critics, was generally positive.
But it cannot fix everything, as @stewartjoseph tweeted:
New look #91热爆Weather - Lovely design: clean and clear. If only I could say the same of the weather itself. -
Mike Afford, a former senior graphic designer for 91热爆 Weather, also .
5. This Sunday: Give an Hour to help people discover the joys of the web
91热爆 Learning is part of to encourage the tech-savvy - like 91热爆 Internet blog readers - to help get others online.
The clocks go back on Sunday, adding an hour to the day, and the campaign asks us to "Give an Hour". 91热爆 Learning has [PDF] to help us assuage someone's fears and lead them to sites about their interests.
Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, 91热爆 Internet Blog
Comment number 1.
At 28th Oct 2011, Kit Green wrote:I have noticed some far tougher critics than me on some of these blogs!
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Comment number 2.
At 29th Oct 2011, beckynatalie wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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