Forget citizen journalism. How about citizen punditry? An unnamed taxi driver IT specialist appeared on the BBC’s news 24 after being mistaken for his fare, technology pundit Guy Kewney. Despite the BBC’s apparent efforts to suppress the moment, the Daily Mail has recovered it, according to Guy himself, who is rightly highly amused that his … Read more
More from Google Trends, the sad rise and fall in our interest in the tsunami: At the end of 2004, the Asian Tsunami piqued/peaked our attention, but the later blips (F, the last little flag on the chart, is the first anniversay) reflect, perhaps, how quickly such things are forgotten.
Google’s new Trends search is a lot of fun, and useful too. See how some things have taken off over the past couple of years, like Web 2.0: and Wikipedia (the lower graph is for volume of related pieces on Google News, the upper for ordinary Search): while others, such as WiMax, are more gradual: … Read more
Great piece in The New Yorker by Mitchell Zuckoff (thanks, John) about a 419 Nigerian email scam that dates back to 2001 involving an ordained minister, John W. Worley. You think you know how these scams work but read on. These people are much more sophisticated and tenacious than the spam you receive. Also, the … Read more
Until now, most spammers sent their stuff through open relays — Internet-connected computers that were either unprotected, or else had been compromised by viruses or trojans into sending the spam without the owner being aware. But that is changing, says AppRiver, and it has big implications for how spammers work and may render useless today’s … Read more