Sour Alba

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to communicate with one another through short, concise, messages of no more than 140 characters. Part of the attraction of Twitter is its immediacy, which makes it ideal for sharing articles and breaking news. Given the news focus, it is no surprise a journalists have taken to [...]

On the eve of The Guardian’s launch of full text RSS feeds, Matt McAlister, Head of Guardian Developer Network, pinged me looking for examples of other mainstream media companies that have full text RSS feeds. Surely this many years into the age of syndication, Guardian couldn’t be the first mainstream media company to adopt full [...]

Coming up, an NMK debate in Central London on the future of newspapers

My Guardian column this week reprises discussion on the blog about moving past the article as the fundamental unit of journalism.

There are two main reasons why news sites are reluctant to send readers away by linking to third-party content. First, you shouldn’t send people away or else they won’t come back to your site. Second, a page with links that sends people away has low engagement, which doesn’t serve advertisers well. But if you actually look [...]

Today, in a surprisingly botched announcement, Google announced Chrome, their upcoming open source web browser. The subject of a Google browser is something I’ve opined on a few times over the years, but Jason Kottke’s compiled an even more comprehensive overview of the conversations a few of us have been having for almost seven years.

If that’s up your alley, you might want to check out:

• Stories and Tools, which at six years old is a little dated, but offered up some thoughts on the presentation of web applications that I thought connected nicely with the Google Chrome comic book.
• Google and Theory of Mind, about Google’s great weakness in the insularity of the company’s culture.
• Google Web History – Good and Scary, which at the launch of Google’s Web History feature examined some of the implications of the new tracking system.
• The Circle of (Web) Life, which described a cycle of web businesses supporting each other, based on Google’s support for Mozilla.
• How Matt Haughey Beat Google, challenging the inevitability of Google’s domination of markets by pointing out how they weren’t able to compete with a self-funded, passionate person and his community.
• Google Office: Google Apps for Your Domain, which put the launch of Google Apps in the context of both the office suite competition and Google’s other offerings.
• The Microcontent Client, an outline of ideas about the evolution of browsers and information management applications from 2002.
• Finally, Google’s First Mistake, my rumination on Google’s acquisition of Pyra Labs, a post whose accuracy has both increased and decreased in the years since I wrote it.

Why is Google making more money everyday while newspapers are making less? I’m going to pick on The Washington Post again only because it’s my local paper and this is a local example. There were severe storms in the Washington area today, and the power went out in our Reston office. I wanted to find some [...]

All innovation looks inevitable, except while it’s happening. Google’s search advertising model didn’t spring forth fully formed. It was iterated, and many of the key concepts were borrowed — something many people don’t realize. But a few key market-defying decisions, and one stunning insight, made it all work. Here is a brief history to inspire, taken [...]

Who are the “new establishment” of online journalism? Who are the people shaping the latest developments in bringing journalism to new digital platforms?