The Pew Research Center released their top stories of 2008 report (pdf) and the big news in their report is not what the top stories are, but where people found them. In 2008 forty percent of the respondents to this national survey said they found their international and national news online compared to only 24 percent in 2007. This moved the Internet ahead of newspapers (35%) but still behind television (70%). However for respondents under thirty,  59 percent said they found their international and national news online which is exactly how many found their international and national news on television.

The PolySigh blog takes a look at what all reporters and editors know to be the hatchet they carry around in their back pocket– quoting their source verbatim and making them sound like an idiot. It’s common for reporters to clean up quotes by correcting grammar and removing verbal pauses (like uh), but at times reporters decide to let it slip to make a point.

It was common to see reports do this to President George W. Bush when they wanted him to be seen as a bumbling idiot, but PolySigh points out they have recently started including Caroline Kennedy’s repeated “You Knows” in her quotes.  Apparently, Kennedy annoyed the reporters by dismissing one of their questions: “Have you guys ever thought about writing for, like, a woman’s magazine or something?”

Polysigh also looks at an interview with President-elect Obama and compares the quotes in the article to an audio file of the interview.  Even thought Obama is a precise speaker, his quotes had to be cleaned up quite a bit, too.

Here’s a transcription below, with “cleaned-up” material in bold:

It is not clear that, uh, uh, an ongoing, open-ended presence has prompted political change in Iraq either. I mean, the fact of the matter is that we still don’t have an oil law. We still don’t have pro-, provincial elections. Uh, we haven’t dealt with Kirkuk, and the argument for staying is that we haven’t made sufficient political progress. So it, it strikes me that for us to deliver a message of clarity to the Iraqis, to the surrounding, uh, the surrounding countries that we are not looking at a permanent occupation, but we want to partner with you to structure, uh, a, uh, a stable, uh, and uh, secure Iraq — that actually will force the Iraqis to make some decisions that they would not otherwise make.

So, we’re moved in and all of utilities are on and haven’t been cut-off so I guess that’s a good sign that turning my electricity and gas on via the provider’s website actually worked.

Starting up my natural gas account online with our provider CenterPoint/Energy was much like turning our electricity on online– it was long and tedious, didn’t let me set-up an online account and then left me questioning whether or not I was really successful. Apparently, I was because our home stayed warm during our recent cold spell.

This is part of my how moving works online series.

The end of the year brings on many predictions for next year. Placecast looks at digital advertising trends for 2009. Again my favorites of their predictions with some comments.

• View-through metrics gain traction –For at least five years I’ve said theres got to be more than just clickthrough to sale an advertiser as their primary metric and here it comes.
• Web will be connected to the physical world –geocode, geolocation.
• Online video consumption will continue to grow –preroll, postroll, overlays will become part of every media buyer’s vocabulary.

New York Center is paying doctors to convert to electronic health records and subsidizing the cost of implementation. President-elect Obama pledged during his campaign to spend $50 billion over five years on electronic health records. The New York Times gives a good overview with a couple of examples of the advantages of ehr to the doctor, the patient and to the general population (as to why the city is subsidizing the cost).

We know that at these fancy schmancy systems, they can do these things. But here in New York, we’re trying to do this for the storefront in Harlem,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, a health department epidemiologist who is spearheading the New York effort. “As of now, about 2 percent of solo and small practices have electronic health records. This is really hard stuff to do. We have boots on the ground.

For the doctor, it helps him quickly review the patients record.

Particularly for less experienced doctors, the system provides what Dr. Jesse Singer, a health department records expert, described as CliffsNotes-style advice on how to handle medical problems based on a patient’s age, sex, ethnic background and medical history. It prompts doctors to provide routine tests and vaccinations, advises them on appropriate treatment and medication for certain conditions, and warns of potentially dangerous drug interactions.

When given access patients can interact with the doctor’s office electronically, too.

They can request appointments electronically, check lab results or chart how well they are doing in, for instance, controlling cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar.

Many in the medical world have long chafed at the notion that patients should not see their charts, and city health officials see the interactivity as a potentially powerful tool to push patients to take more responsibility for their well-being. Just seeing a readout of their vitals at various intervals could help, Dr. Singer said.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting that they are hearing predictions for content web site revenues to be down fifty to eighty percent in 2009 with “the median pessimism point around 50%.”

The only thing that can be said is on the other side, those that survive will be stronger and will have found a revenue model that really will work.

Here’s fourteen social media experts looking at what’s next in 2009. My favorites include

• “Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation.”
• “There’s a lot of fixing that needs to be done.”
• “Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter.”

Full document laying it all out on the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve worn either glasses or contacts since 2nd grade so I know how important correcting my vision is to be able to do my job– without vision correction I can’t see or do anything. I guess I could just site around and listen to the radio all day. A British company has company with new water based glasses that you do not need an optician or optometrist to distribute– now that’s a disruptive technology!

The way it works is as the glasses get thicker, they get more powerful. Basically, there are two lens that have a clear water based solutions between them and they are connected to little syringes with more solutions hidden in the earpieces with a little dial that allows you to adjust how much liquid is contained between the lenses. The wearer adjusts the glasses until their vision is comfortable (which is better one or two, two or three, three or four) and then they have a new pair of glasses.

Shel Israel has written a great case study for his new book Twitterville on how to use twitter to catch a PR disaster before it becomes nightmare and how to put it out quickly using twitter. Israel outlines how Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, catches a web site and the Ford legal team in a spat, get the real story out and helps settles the dispute.

The latest issue of A List Apart examines how building “a website without a content strategy is like a speeding vehicle without a driver.” It looks at what content strategy is, why it’s important and how it effects design.