Kruse Kronicle

Saturday Links

1. Scientific American has some interesting thoughts on How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health

... Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as “will” or “going to.” In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say “Wo qu ting jiangzuo,” which translates to “I go listen seminar.” Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. ...

2.Fair Trade 2.0? Coffee’s Economics, Rewritten by Farmers

3. R. J. Moeller qutoes from John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) new book:

“Capitalism has a purpose beyond just making money. I think the critics of capitalism have got it in this very small box. That it’s all about money. It’s based in being greedy, selfish and exploitative. And yet, I haven’t found it to be that way. Most of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I know and have met did not start their business primarily out of a desire to make money. Not that there’s anything wrong with making money. My body cannot function unless it produces red-blood cells. No red-blood cells and I’m a dead man. But that’s not the purpose of my life.

Similarly, a business cannot exist unless it produces a profit . . . but that’s not the only reason it exists.”

4. David Henderson with thoughts on economic impact of marriage: "Get Married and Stay Married"

When I was writing a review of Dwight Lee's and Richard McKenzie's excellent book, Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life, I called Dwight to ask a question and we got talking about Rule #5: Get Married and Stay Married. Dwight pointed out that if you follow the other 7 rules but don't get married or stay married, you have a substantial probability of building a fortune and a satisfying life. But, he said, if you don't get married and stay married, you tend not to follow at least some of the other 7 rules.

5. With more thoughts on the economic impact of marriage, Glen Reynolds reflects on The other marriage inequality

While the upscale college-educated crowd continues to marry at very high rates, marriage rates are plummeting among those further down on the socioeconomic ladder.

6. Steven Pearlstein with a thoughtful essay: Is capitalism moral?

... A useful debate about the morality of capitalism must get beyond libertarian nostrums that greed is good, what’s mine is mine and whatever the market produces is fair. It should also acknowledge that there is no moral imperative to redistribute income and opportunity until everyone has secured a berth in a middle class free from economic worries. If our moral obligation is to provide everyone with a reasonable shot at economic success within a market system that, by its nature, thrives on unequal outcomes, then we ought to ask not just whether government is doing too much or too little, but whether it is doing the right things.

7. Matt Ridley with an interesting piece on how Obsidian chronicles ancient trade. This conclusion was interesting.

Instead, Dr. Butzer argues that Sargon's conquest itself caused the collapse of trade by destroying cities and disrupting what had till then been "an inter-networked world-economy, once extending from the Aegean to the Indus Valley." In other words, as with the end of the Roman empire, the collapse of trade caused the collapse of civilization more than the other way around.

8. Speaking of economic History, Rewriting Biblical history? Agriculture might be 5,000 years older than believed.

A new find suggests farmers in Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat and barley.

9. Americans Just Keep Driving Less And Less

10. The New York Times on New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs. (To LEDs)

11. Science 2.0 on A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?

... “Educational systems could be improved by acknowledging that, in general, boys and girls are different,” said University of Missouri biologist David Geary in their statement. “For example, in trying to close the sex gap in math scores, the reading gap was left behind. Now, our study has found that the difference between girls’ and boys’ reading scores was three times larger than the sex difference in math scores. Girls’ higher scores in reading could lead to advantages in admissions to certain university programs, such as marketing, journalism or literature, and subsequently careers in those fields. Boys lower reading scores could correlate to problems in any career, since reading is essential in most jobs.”

Generally, when conditions are good, the math gap increases and the reading gap decreases and when conditions are bad the math gap decreases and the reading gap increases. This pattern remained consistent within nations as well as among them, according to the work by Geary and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Leeds that included testing performance data from 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 75 nations. ...

12. Maclom Gladwell was half right. Professor Jonah Berger on his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

13. Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible

14. Mashable has great advice with 5 Alternatives to Unfriending Someone on Facebook

15. David Brooks with insight on How Movements Recover

... Two rival reform movements arose to restore the integrity of Catholicism. Those in the first movement, the Donatists, believed the church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity. ...

... In the fourth century, another revival movement arose, embraced by Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo. The problem with the Donatists, Augustine argued, is that they are too static. They try to seal off an ark to ride out the storm, but they end up sealing themselves in. They cut themselves off from new circumstances and growth.

Augustine, as his magisterial biographer Peter Brown puts it, “was deeply preoccupied by the idea of the basic unity of the human race.” He reacted against any effort to divide people between those within the church and those permanently outside. ....

16. A great piece by someone who considers them unaffiliated with any religion. Every Christian and congregation needs to reflect on the insignificance of the church in this writers life. His tribe is growing: The significant insignificance of religion

Saturday Links

1. I love maps and charts. Naturally I was drawn to this: 36 Maps That Explain The Entire World. Here is just one example:

2. Roger Pielke, Jr., says It's Time to Bury the Easterlin Paradox.

"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some other metric.

A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."

3. John Danforth thinks We Need Less Religion in our Politics and Less Politics in our Religion.

4. I opined about this in yesterday's post but I'm linking it again. One of the better Salon piece's I've read. When liberals ignore injustice

"Why isn't there more outrage about the president's unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?"

5. Arnold Kling with an interesting piece on the role of Jews in the rise of the modern urbanized economic order. The Unintended Consequences of God

"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."

6. New Geography wants to know Is Urbanism The New Trickle-Down Economics?

"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics, though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."

7. NPR has nice piece on mini-reacters. Are Mini-Reactors The Future Of Nuclear Power?

8. Mark Perry excerpts a quote from green libertarian John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.

“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”

9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:

The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state:  markets where possible; the state where necessary.

10. Climate Change: Key Data Points from Pew Research. Highlights some interesting shifts in the public's priorities.

11. Great piece about yet another way family life is changing. Yes, I’m a Homemaker

I’m a guy. My wife works. We’ve got no kids. I’m a stay-at-home dude.

"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy? Usually I just change the subject. ..."

12. The Atlantic reports that Women Are Often Remarkably Reluctant to Ask for Help Around the House

A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...

... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.

Doing less housework seems to be a popular option. ...

13. Business insider reports on a finding that comes as no shock to me: Men Really Do Have A Harder Time Reading Other People's Emotions.

Psychiatrists have concluded that males take longer to assess facial expressions as their brains have to work twice as hard to work out whether another person looks friendly or intelligent.

14. Daniel Kirk with a thoughtful piece Homosexuality under the Reign of Christ

15. Facebook Unfriending Has Real-Life Consequences

In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.

16. The Future of Librarians in an EBook World

... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.

But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...

17. 3-D Printing just gets more amazing. A 3D Printer That Generates Human Embryonic Stem Cells

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more, but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern.

Peter Enns "6 Helpful Hints for Blog Commenters So You Can Avoid Looking Criminally Insane"

Peter Enns: 6 Helpful Hints for Blog Commenters So You Can Avoid Looking Criminally Insane

Enns writes:

I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now, and most of the comments I get are engaging–whether pro or con–and it’s been great fun and I’ve learned much from many of you.

But over the past year, mainly since my book The Evolution of Adam came out, I’ve seen an increase in comments that leave me wondering whether having an internet connection should be as closely regulated as becoming a foster parent.

So, for this next year, as you comment on my posts, please try to keep the following helpful hints in mind.

1. I hesitate saying this because it takes all the fun out of it, but blog posts are editorials, i.e., opinion pieces, meant to provoke conversation and stimulate minds. My thinking and experience fuel these posts, of course, and I stick by them, but they are also works in progress, not final “here I stand” moments. That’s why I allow comments.

2. Blog titles capture the emotive thrust of blog posts; they are not literal distillations of blog content. For example, ...

Read the whole thing. Good stuff!

 

Saturday Links

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I hope you had a great Christmas and are enjoying the holidays.

1. The Huffington Post offers their top religion stories of 2012: 2012 Religion Stories: The Top 10

2. David Gushee reflects on Glen Stassen's A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age: The illnesses of American Christianity

"... The first kind of Christianity avoids reactionary authoritarianism but is often a therapeutic or vanilla mush that fails to ask anything of anybody out of fear of giving offense. The second kind of Christianity offers stern, clear moral directives that attract people seeking the “specific instruction, even confrontation that calls us to grow in discipleship” (p. 6), but disastrously embraces right-wing ideology and baptizes that as the content of Christianity.

Both of these versions of Christianity are so deeply flawed, says Stassen, that both are contributing to the alarming spread of secularism in the U.S. The first version of Christianity is so thin as to lack any particular reason why one would want to get out of bed on Sunday and go to church; the second is so reactionary as to drive thoughtful people into an anti-religious posture if they conclude that religion equals right-wing authoritarianism.

I believe this is a stark but actually quite accurate depiction of the primary problems afflicting the Protestantisms of the left and of the right in the current U.S. setting. ..."

3. When New England Progressives Won't Tolerate Evangelicals. "Once a center of 19th-century evangelism, Northfield, Mass., is unsettled by the prospect of a school with religious aims."

4. Peter Enns with yet another provocative post: What do Turkey, Bethlehem, and Tennessee Have in Common? They Don’t Bode Well for the Conservative Christian Subculture

5. Peter Liethart offers a book review of Peter Brown's new book, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 Ad, at Christianity Today: How the Early Church Made Peace with Prosperity. (And, no, I don't know why everyone seems to be Peter this week ... Enns, Liethart, and Brown.)

6. Why Latin Americans top the happiness rankings

"While not exclusive to Latin America, the culture of family, support, and living a life to spend time with your family, I think, is an important part of Latin American culture that keeps people positive. Being with those close to you and finding other friends and partners that value that way of life is a key part of Latin American culture. That might be the main reason why people remain positive: they are never truly alone. Interestingly, many discussions and documentaries about immigrant groups in the United States show an internal conflict among many who move to the US and who do not wish to lose their support systems in a new culture rooted in individualism. While being motivated and entrepreneurial is valued, a life being with your family, where you are never truly alone, is the basis for many cultures in many parts of the world. Many new Americans frown on the thought that children can detach themselves from their family at 18 years of age. They believe people can only truly thrive as a family."

7. In contrast to Latin American happiness based in family connection is this survey of British children that revealed that A 'dad' is tenth most popular Christmas list request for children.

8. Christian Science Monitor reports on Parental leave global comparison: US still among least generous

9. And in yet another story on familial collections China orders children to visit their elderly parents.

10. Scientific American reports some positive news: Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

11. Men may want to think twice before taking up yoga. It seems men are more prone to serious injury from yoga. Wounded Warrior Pose

12. What are the ten most popular books of all time? The 10 Most Read Books In The World

13. Traditional Books On Decline, Survey Says

"A Pew Internet Research Center survey released Thursday found that the percentage of Americans aged 16 and older who read an e-book grew from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year. Readers of traditional books dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent. Overall, those reading books of any kind dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent, a shift Pew called statistically insignificant."

14. Here are nine interesting findings about state by state data from the Census Bureau: Here Are The States Where People Are Leaving, Moving To, And Having Lots Of Babies

• Puerto Rico, Vermont, and Rhode Island are the only states (and territory) that saw a net decrease in population over the year.
• The fastest growing region was the South (1.06% population growth) followed by the West (1.03% population growth).
• North Dakota and the District of Columbia had the highest population growth, with 2.5% and 2.3% population growth, respectively. Texas, Wyoming, and Utah also saw major growth.
• West Virginia and Maine are the only two states where people are dying faster than they are being born, with 0.93 and 0.99 births for each death.
• Utah (3.44) and Alaska (3.33) had the highest birth to death ratio in 2012. That means 3.44 babies were born for each death in Utah.
• Domestic migration determines the rate that people leave and enter states to and from other states. Per capita, more natives left New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to move somewhere else than any other states.
• On the other hand, people flocked to North Dakota, D.C., Wyoming and South Carolina.
• The states that had the highest rates of international migration — that is, the rate of immigrants coming in — were Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida, New York and D.C.
• Puerto Rico is seeing a massive exodus — 1% of their population left last year.

15. When we think of transportation in the United States, few of us think about river and costal water transportation. Yet a great many goods and commodities are shipped on our rivers. The Midwest drought is having an impact on a major artery of that transportation network. The Mississippi River's Water Levels Are Dropping, And Could Shut Down Trade Next Week

16. Facebook?! Twitter?! Instagram?! We Did That 40 Years Ago. "Three decades before Yelp and Craigslist, there was the Community Memory Terminal. ..."

 

 17. America's Stuff Is Getting Really Old, And That's Bullish

"In other words, Americans are increasingly likely to have to purchase and replace these goods some time soon as they get more and more worn out.  That's bullish for spending, jobs, and the economy as a whole."

18.From right here in my hometown, just a mile or two from where I live: In a Kansas City Neighborhood, Deep Investments and an Uncertain Future. The Atlantic Cities reports on Kansas City's experiments with Green Impact Zones.

19. Why are men, in aggregate, better navigators than women? National Geographic: Of Men, Navigation, and Zits

"... Yet a few differences between the sexes do seem to hold up to scrutiny. One is spatial abilities. If men look at an object, for example, they are slightly faster at guessing what it would look like if it were rotated 180 degrees. There are plenty of women who do better than individual men. But overall there’s a stasticially significant difference in their average performance. This kind of difference carries over from one culture to another. It’s even detectable in babies. ...

... Whenever we reflect on human evolution, it pays to compare our species to other animals. And in the case of spatial abilities, the comparison is fascinating. Almost a century ago, the psychologist Helen Hubbet found that male rats could get through a maze faster than females. The difference can also be found in a number of other species. ...

... Clint and his colleagues propose a different explanation: male spatial ability is not an adaptation so much as a side effect. Males produce testosterone as they develop, and the hormone has a clear benefit in terms of reproduction, increasing male fertility. But testosterone also happens to produce a lot of side effects, including male pattern baldness and an increased chance of developing acne. It would be absurd to say acne was an adaptation favored by natural selection. The same goes for the male edge in spatial ability, Clint and his colleagues argue. They note that when male rats are castrated, they do worse at navigating a maze; when they are given shots of testosterone, they regain their skill. ..."

Saturday Links

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1. Several articles I saw this week are reflecting on data presented in The Pew Forum's The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Here is one interesting chart from the survey, showing what percentage of each religions's adherents live in minority religious status in their own country.

2. This is really fascinating. Smithsonian: Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!)

3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?

4.From the Guardian, Private healthcare: the lessons from Sweden

"... Despite its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

5. Scott Annan writes in The Future Of Business Is Morality, And The Future Is Now

"... We have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but also for their impact. And I’m not just talking about writing a check or funding a charity; I’m referring to business models for which community involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers. (Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea: the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is now.

Whether it’s the job of the corporation or not to set the moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business, greater profit will follow. ..."

6. Scientific American asks, After 40 Years, Has Recycling Lived Up to Its Billing?

7. AOL has a short piece about the rise of small nuclear reactors. The Next Big Thing in Nuclear Power: Going Small

8. Scientific American has a list of The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.

9. Depression Surpasses Asthma as Top Disability Problem among U.S. and Canadian Teens

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

10. Robotic arm controlled by the mind allows paraplegic woman to feed herself

11. Interesting piece on Why We Prefer Masculine Voices (Even in Women).

12. Atlantic Cities looks into The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility.

13. People Are Leaving California In Record Numbers

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state’s economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California’s net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a “labor pool with the right skills at the right price” — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

14. The United States Has Seen A Huge Drop In Executions Since 2000.

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to a statement President Obama made at Newtown, CT. When we deal with complex topics like gun control, we are always talking about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more than 30,000 lives. The were 32,367 traffic fatalities last year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making statements like this, as politicians often do.

16. The New York Times has an opinion piece  by John Dickerson, The Decline of Evangelical America

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive. The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature but I think his articulation of trends is right.

17. I saw two interesting posts on the sociology Facebook this week. The New York Times had a piece about announcing bad news on Facebook: On Facebook, Bad With the Good. Mashable reports that Socioeconomic Status Predicts Number of Facebook Friends.

18. Gangnam Style hits one billion views on YouTube. K pop rules!

Why stores are finally turning on to WiFi

Fortune: Why stores are finally turning on to WiFi

Despite fears of so-called showrooming, some stores are opening up to wireless internet.

FORTUNE -- For years, retailers frowned on shoppers visiting their stores merely to scope out products before returning home and buying them online for less. The phenomenon became so common that it earned a name -- showrooming.

The practice has only expanded with the proliferation of smartphones. Shoppers can use them to quickly compare the price of a Fossil handbag, for example, with the same version on Amazon.com (AMZN). There's nothing store managers can do to stop them. The shoppers have won the war.

Recognizing their defeat, many retailers have made a u-turn and are now helping shoppers get online. ...

... To connect to a network, shoppers must first agree to a terms of service that appears on their smartphone screens. The agreement generally spells out that the network is not secure and that the stores will track the Web sites customers visit and the type of devices they use.

Such data could eventually be used to help stores offer personalized coupons and identify merchandise to add to their shelves, said Bryan Wargo, chief executive of Nearbuy Systems, a start-up that helps stores monitor customer behavior on Wi-Fi networks and dissect the data. Customers frequently using the Wi-Fi network to search a rival's Web site for red cashmere sweaters, for instance, could signal that the store should start stocking them. ...

Is Facebook Killing Holiday Photo Cards?

Time: Why I’ve Stopped Sending Holiday Photo Cards

"... I didn’t know it then but my world, my social world, was changing. Today, my 1,500 Facebook friends — 1,300 of whom I have never actually met—have already seen the best of the year’s haul of pictures of my kids. They also know where I’ve gone on vacation and sometimes, what I cooked for dinner or what I thought of a movie on a Saturday night in May. There’s little point to writing a Christmas update now, with boasts about grades and athletic prowess, hospitalizations and holidays, and the dog’s mishaps, when we have already posted these events and so much more of our minutiae all year long. The urge to share has already been well sated. ...

... Still, the demise of the Christmas photo card saddens me. It portends the end of the U.S. Postal Service. It signals the day is near when writing on paper is non-existent. Finally, it is part of a decline of a certain quality of communication, one that involved delay and anticipation, forethought and reflection. Opening these cards, the satisfaction wasn’t just in the Peace on Earth greeting, but in the recognition that a distant friend or relative you hadn’t heard from in a year was still thinking about you, and maybe sharing news about major events of the past 12 months...."

Is she right? Do you send cards and Christmas letters? Has social media changed how you communicate around the holidays?

Saturday Links

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Here are this week's Saturday links.

1. To celebrate the Christmas season, Deck the Halls with Macro Follies

2. The Explosion of 15th Century Printing: A Data Visualization

"... Drawing on data from the [Harvard] university's library collections, the animation below maps the number and location of printed works by year. Watch it full screen in HD to see cities light up as the years scroll by in the lower left corner. ..."

3. Drive-through fast-food not convenient enough for you? Burger King delivery: A new front in the fast-food wars?

4. There is a U-shaped happiness curve, consistent across cultures, that shows happiness declines from childhood until about our mid-forties and then begins to improve as me grow old. It appears it may hold true in primates as well. Our ability to discount bad news, even when we shouldn't, follows the same U-shaped curve. Our brains and experience are optimal for discerning bad news in middle-age. Turns out that ignorance (or maybe denial) truly is bliss. Viewpoint: How happiness changes with age. On a related note, it appears that Elderly Brains Have Trouble Recognizing Untrustworthy Faces.

5. The holiday season is in full swing and many people falsely believe this a time of elevated suicide rates. Actually, spring and summer have the highest rates and Nov - Jan have the lowest. In 2010, July was highest and December was lowest. Holiday suicide myth persists, research says

6. French sperm count 'falls by a third' but still within normal range. Researchers don't seem to know why.

7. The Atlantic has interesting article on Why Don't Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore? It includes this graph.

"Michael" was in the top 3 names for boys from 1953-2010. It dropped to sixth last year. Want to know how your name ranks for each year since 1880? Go to the Social Security Online's Popular Baby Names. The Baby Name Wizard is also pretty cool.

8. More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers.

"For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set...."

And this reminds me of last year, or the year before, when cooking sets were becoming big with boys. They've been watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network. "Bam!" New merchandising angle.

9. Instead of indiscriminately sending kids off to college and saddling them with huge debt, maybe a New push for two-year degrees could be smart move for US, report says.

10. Business Insider lists The 12 Most Corrupt Countries In The World.

11. Love them or hate them, the Koch brothers are intriguing. Many political junkies know of them but few others seem to know about them. Forbes has an interesting feature article in the most recent issue on the Koch empire and its influence: Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America

12. Is the two party system fracturing? Coalition Is to Control State Senate as Dissident Democrats Join With Republicans

13. How is this economic recovery different from others? The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever

14. "Data-driven healthcare won't replace physicians entirely, but it will help those receptive to technology perform their jobs better." Technology will replace 80% of what doctors do

15. Another bright idea. New plastic lighting saves energy. Goodbye, fluorescent lights?

"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."

16. Yet another good story about the rise of vertical farming. Salad in the sky: The rise of the vertical farm?

17. The Conservation Law Center has an interesting piece about the potential changes nanotechnology will bring to use of resources and the economy. Nanotechnology: The Potential to Make Every Industry Sustainable

"... Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise of making every one of them sustainable.”

It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology, industry and society.

Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology. There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable manner.

In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and— that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks. Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products exist. Let us not miss this opportunity. ..."

18. The American Enterprise Institute has an interesting summary of a Nielson report about social media usage. 8 fun facts about the incredible rise of social media

19. Death On Facebook Now Common As 'Dead Profiles' Create Vast Virtual Cemetery

"It used be that news of death spread through phone calls, and before that, letters and house calls. The departed were publicly remembered via memorials on street corners, newspaper obituaries and flowers at grave sites. To some degree, this is still the case. But increasingly, the announcements and subsequent mourning occur on social media. Facebook, with 1 billion detailed, self-submitted user profiles, was created to connect the living. But it has become the world's largest site of memorials for the dead."

20. From the "That's just not right!" file. Harvard Economics Department does their version of "Call me maybe."

Stats Legend Andrew Gelman Explains What Makes For Great Charts And Graphs, And How You're Doing It All Wrong

Business Insider: Stats Legend Andrew Gelman Explains What Makes For Great Charts And Graphs, And How You're Doing It All Wrong

OMG! Texting turns twenty

Economist

Saturday Links

Here are the links for this week. Lots of interesting finds this week and not nearly enough time to blog.

1. Google Fiber offers super-fast broadband to Kansas City. If all goes well, we will get connected late spring of 2013.

2. Two Thirds of Ocean Life Remains Undiscovered. If they haven't found them, how do they know?

3.  "British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way." Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?

4. What is the optimal rate of taxation according to the Laffer Curve? Goats hold the answer. Goat Economics: Why the Laffer Curve Is No Joke

5. The print media industry is rapidly morphing right before our eyes. Google Ad Revenue Now More Than U.S. Print Publications Combined [CHART]

6. Cyberspace continues to evolve. Text Messaging Declines in U.S. for First Time, Report Says

7. "It's a common grumble that politicians' lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president - who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay." Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president

8. You may have heard that there was a presidential election last week. Here is a map showing how the counties voted, with red being the most intensely Republican and blue being the most Democrat. (Source: The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic)

9. Speaking of the election, there has been a lot written about how the GOP will need to change if they want to win national elections. As a right-leaning guy, I thought this article in Slate, The New Grand Old Party, and this one by Bobby Jindal, How Republicans can win future elections, were among the best.

10. China continues to work on technological innovations that will address their water problems. Industry Special: Desalination tech helps slake nation's thirst for fresh water.

11. The world is going to the dogs. The Dog Economy Is Global—but What Is the World's True Canine Capital?

12. As manufacturing becomes more automated, requiring fewer workers, we see The Emerging Professional, Scientific, and Technical Sector.

13. Nanotechnology just keeps getting more amazing. "The latest invention from Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering sounds like something a superhero would have. A self-repairing plastic-metal material has been developed by a team of professors, researchers and graduate students." New Self-Repairing Material Invented at Stanford

14. For the true narcissist, you now have the ability to replicate your image in 3D. 3D-printing photo booth gives you a figurine instead of a bad photo

15. Speaking of 3D-Printing, how big a deal is it? "Chris Anderson has exited one of the top jobs in publishing - Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine - to pursue the life of an entrepreneur, making a big bet that 3D printers represent a massive new phase of the industrial revolution." Chris Anderson: Why I left Wired - 3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web

16. The debate about an historical Adam continues. Peter Enns with another interesting post, Who Needs a Historical Prometheus…uh, I mean Adam?

17. George Bullard asks, When is a Church a Church, and When is it a Flash Mob?

"A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails." [Wikipedia accessed 11.12.12] How do you define a church?"

18. This was me thirty years ago (in my dreams!)

19. Ever wonder how Cy Young award winning pitcher R. A. Dickey manages to throw knuckleballs? Apparently, so do physicists. How a Baseball Star’s Tricky Pitch Strikes Out Hitters—and Baffles Physicists

20. I loved these stat brain teasers. 5 Statistics Problems That Will Change The Way You See The World

How Facebook and Twitter Are Making Developing World Cities Better

Atlantic Cities: How Facebook and Twitter Are Making Developing World Cities Better

... In Latin America, Mexico City is not unique. Use of social media is growing at a breathtaking pace across the region. When Facebook passed the 1 billion user mark in October, few people noticed that 19 percent of those users live in Latin America (which only accounts for 8 percent of the world's population). The governments of virtually all large Latin American cities now use social media to engage with citizens, and smaller cities are quickly following suit. The Inter-American Development Bank recently found that social media is used by governments in 70 percent of the region´s 140 "emerging cities" (those having 100,000 to 2 million residents and above-average economic growth rates).

Although the press has focused on Latin American presidents who have embraced social media as a potent new channel for old-fashioned political communications, something very different is happening at the municipal level.

Mayors seem to be betting that by micromanaging urban issues via Twitter or Facebook, they will give voters concrete evidence of their effectiveness in office. This is a risky tactic, of course. Many local governments that find it easy to virtually "engage" with constituents may not have the budgets, the organization, or the staff to actually solve the problems that generate complaints. The result, in that case, could be a voter backlash amplified, ironically, over the same social media channels. ...

... Over the coming decade, hundreds of millions of city dwellers in emerging economies such as Mexico, Brazil, India and China are likely to rise from poverty. Much has been written about how their increasing expectations will pressure governments like never before to deliver tangible improvements that make urban life safer, healthier, and more egalitarian.

I predict that social media will have a highly disruptive but largely positive effect in this context. At a minimum, these technologies will give new vitality to the ancient ideals of participation and accountability. At best, they might shorten the wait for new lights in a darkened park. In either event, the next mayor of Mexico City, like others across the developing world, will not really have the option of ignoring social media. That's where people are choosing to speak, and where they expect to be heard.

Saturday Links

Here are the links for this week.

1. Ever thought about starting your own blog? Michael Hyatt has some advice: My Advice to Beginning Bloggers

2. Is gender inclusive language taking hold? Good News, You Guys Everyone! English Is Becoming More Inclusive

3. How New Yorkers Adjusted to Sudden Smartphone Withdrawal

4. Paying for What Was Free: Lessons from the New York Times Paywall

Abstract

In a national online longitudinal survey, participants reported their attitudes and behaviors in response to the recently implemented metered paywall by the New York Times. Previously free online content now requires a digital subscription to access beyond a small free monthly allotment. Participants were surveyed shortly after the paywall was announced and again 11 weeks after it was implemented to understand how they would react and adapt to this change. Most readers planned not to pay and ultimately did not. Instead, they devalued the newspaper, visited its Web site less frequently, and used loopholes, particularly those who thought the paywall would lead to inequality. Results of an experimental justification manipulation revealed that framing the paywall in terms of financial necessity moderately increased support and willingness to pay. Framing the paywall in terms of a profit motive proved to be a noncompelling justification, sharply decreasing both support and willingness to pay. Results suggest that people react negatively to paying for previously free content, but change can be facilitated with compelling justifications that emphasize fairness.

5. The world is safer. But no one in Washington can talk about it.

... Beyond the United States, global statistics point undeniably toward progress in achieving greater peace and stability. There are fewer wars now than at any time in decades. The number of people killed as a result of armed violence worldwide is plunging as well — down to about 526,000 in 2011 from about 740,000 in 2008, according to the United Nations. ...

... Most top Pentagon officials say the statistics showing that the world is safer are irrelevant and don’t reflect the magnitude of the risks. The result is what Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has dubbed a “security paradox.” The world may seem safer, Dempsey says, but the potential for global catastrophe has grown as the planet has become more interconnected and potential enemies have greater access to more powerful weapons and technology. ...

6. A 51st state? Is Puerto Rico on Its Way To Becoming the 51st State? Possibly.

7. Mitt Romney joins a long list also-rans. So how does he compare to other presidential also-rans?

8. Speaking of campaigns, Time has an interesting piece about the inner-workings of the Obama data crunching team, Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win. Contrast this with the disaster that was Romney's get-out-the-vote operation. Romney's Get out the Vote Epic Fail.

9. How much difference is there in the coming of age experience between Baby Boomers and Millennials? Mother and daughter team Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig are interviewed about their new book: What’s the Matter With Millennials?

10. McDonald's Sales Fall For First Time In Nearly A Decade

11. Interesting piece on crowd sourcing in Harvard Business Review. Let the Crowd Fix Your Product's Bugs

"The online startup Kaggle assembles a diverse group of people from around the world to work on tough problems submitted by organizations. The company runs data science competitions, where the goal is to arrive at a better prediction than the submitting organization's starting 'baseline' prediction. Results from these contests are striking in a couple ways. For one thing, improvements over the baseline are usually substantial. In one case, Allstate submitted a dataset of vehicle characteristics and asked the Kaggle community to predict which of them would have later personal liability claims filed against them. The contest lasted approximately three months, and drew in more than 100 contestants. The winning prediction was more than 270% better than the insurance company's baseline.

Another interesting fact is that the majority of Kaggle contests are won by people who are marginal to the domain of the challenge — who, for example, made the best prediction about hospital readmission rates despite having no experience in health care — and so would not have been consulted as part of any traditional search for solutions. In many cases, these demonstrably capable and successful data scientists acquired their expertise in new and decidedly digital ways"

12. I can't wait to see this one!

The Definitive-ish Guide for Using Social Media in the Church - Book Review

How can my church effectively use social media? Which social media services should my church use? Aren’t we opening our congregation up to abuse if we venture into social media?

I’ve been blogging for seven years and because of that, I frequently get questions like these from pastors and congregation leaders. I can offer some help but social media can be used in many creative ways. I’ve never focused on social media’s application for a congregation so my input has always been incomplete. But now I have definitive-ish solution, or at least a starting place, for congregations that want to fully engage with social media.

Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow wrote a book earlier this year, The Definitive-ish Guide for Using Social Media in the Church. Bruce was a church planter and a pastor. He also is also a past moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). But most importantly, Bruce has been an avid user of social media as pastor in the congregational setting.

The book begins with Bruce highlighting culture shifts that have reshaped the way we communicate and connect. He writes about the spirituality of social media, but also the inherent dangers, offering insights on how to navigate this new world.

As a starting place, Bruce recommends five social media tools:

• Facebook
• Blogging
• Google Docs
• Yelp
• Dropbox

I use all five of these. Maybe you do too. But what was helpful for me was Bruce showing particular ways these tools can be helpful in the life of a congregation. He raised several ideas I hadn’t given much consideration. For instance, I use Yelp to look up stuff all the time. What are people saying about your congregation at Yelp? Have you encouraged people in your congregation to write a review so people who want to know about your congregation can get a flavor of what you are about? My congregation has one review. I’m going to work on that. In a later chapter, for the more adventurous souls, Bruce briefly explores several other social media tools like Twitter, YouTube, Goodreads, and Instagram.

Near the end of the book, Bruce offers some very helpful advice for pastors. You have been a pastor of a congregation for several years and now you have taken a new call. In the PCUSA world, you are expected to severe pastoral relationships with your congregation so there is no confusion for the new pastor. But you are now Facebook friends with half your congregation and a member of groups the congregation has formed through social media. How do you manage this transition? I think Bruce offers some very helpful advice. He has had to live this himself.

Finally, Bruce closes out with a frequently asked questions chapter. He invites his readers to jump in but also to communicate back to him the things they learn along the way. He has an appendix that offers some practical helps. The book is only available (I believe) in electronic format. That will allow Bruce to update the book easily as social media evolves. He tells me he is already working on a second edition.

This book is just awesome! If your congregation has been resisting social media, I’d encourage you to read this book. Even if your congregation has already been using social media, I think you will find tips and ideas you may not have considered. It is relatively short book written in a very engaging style. I now feel like I have a tool I can give to others to help get them started. I recommend you get a copy today.

Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense

Atlantic: Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense

And that's something of a challenge for the collaborative encyclopedia going forward

For about the last five years, Wikipedia has had trouble getting and keeping new volunteer editors. The foundation behind Wikipedia has made building up the editor base a major goal, and is attacking it from all angles, such as encouraging a culture that is friendlier to newbies, creating an easier sign-up page, and making the editing process more intutitive.

But what if the decline in engagement has little to do with culture or the design of the site? What if, instead, it's that there's just less for new Wikipedians to do?

It may seem impossible for an encyclopedia of everything to ever near completion, but at least for the major articles on topics like big wars, important historical figures, central scientific concepts, the English-language Wikipedia's pretty well filled out. (There is, of course, room for improvement in articles that have received less attention, but that is a different, yet still very important, set of challenges.) There's always going to be some tidying -- better citations, small updates, new links, cleaner formatting -- but the bulk of the work, the actual writing and structuring of the articles, has already been done. "There are more and more readers of Wikipedia, but they have less and less new to add," writes historian and Wikipedia editor Richard Jensen in the latest issue of The Journal of Military History. ...

This graph was says a thousand words:

 

Death to Email!

Fast Company: Email Is The New Pony Express--And It's Time To Put It Down

Email, like paper letters delivered by horseback, has become an unproductivity tool and may just be the biggest time killer in the modern workplace. Here's where companies are headed next. ...

So what's the solution? Our idea: Turn email into a conversation. Get rid of the inbox. Build an online platform where departments can post and respond to messages on central discussion threads, Facebook-style. Then integrate that with Twitter and Facebook so great ideas can be broadcast--with a click--to the world. Conversations isn’t a revolutionary concept; it’s a duh-it’s-about-time concept. And it’s worked for us and 5 million clients. A year from now, we may well be reading email its last rites. Here’s why:

Email has become an unproductivity tool. Right now, the typical corporate user spends 2 hours and 14 minutes every day reading and responding to email ...

Email is linear, not collaborative. Email was never intended for collaborative work. ...

Email is not social. Email is where good ideas go to die. ...

Your inbox is a black hole. You may be able to quickly and easily search your inbox, but odds are the rest of your department or company can’t. ...

Sharing documents on email is a joke....

I hope he is right.

Facebook crosses billion threshold, on quest for growth

Reuters: Facebook crosses billion threshold, on quest for growth

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc passed the 1 billion user mark in September, a level of global penetration that is a remarkable achievement for an 8-year-old social network and a heightened challenge to its quest for sustained growth.

Facebook, which has endured a bruising four months in the stock market since a haphazard May 18 initial public offering, has acknowledged that a slowdown in new-user acquisition is inevitable as its worldwide reach expands.

But doubts over whether the company can squeeze more and more dollars out of each network member - given well-publicized struggles to monetize the growing ranks of users who access Facebook from mobile devices - have shaved more than 40 percent off Facebook's value since its IPO, although shares still trade at a lofty 45 times projected 2012 earnings.

Thursday's announcement that Facebook crossed the billion threshold on September 14 confirmed expectations on Wall Street that growth is actually trailing off.

The latest quarter's growth appeared likely to come in lower in raw numbers, let alone by percentage, than the April-June quarter's 54 million new users. About 45 million joined from the start of July, when it had 955 million users, through September 14.

And the previous quarter was way down from the 102 million who joined during the first three months of 2012. ...

Because the Customer Is NOT Always Right!

BusinessWeek: Because the Customer Is NOT Always Right!

Restaurant-goers can Yelp (YELP) about high prices and bad service; homeowners can carp about shoddy contractors on Angie’s List (ANGI); ripped-off customers can tattle to the Better Business Bureau.

Now small business owners have a place to share opinions of their own: BadConsumers.com. The site’s tagline: “Because the customer is NOT always right!”

“Everything’s geared for the consumers and their protection. What about us?” asks Peter Robideau, 48, the site’s founder and owner of TeleTechie, a Malverne (N.Y.) technology support company that employs eight and brings in about $1 million annually. Robideau, a database programmer who started the company in 2004, has long traded gripes with fellow entrepreneurs about customers who haggle on prices after agreeing to them, stop payment on valid invoices, or don’t ever pay.

He had for some time wanted to find a way for small business owners to share the bad customer lists that many of them keep internally. “I have 7,000 customers on Long Island, and most of them are great,” Robideau says. “But there are a handful out there who are repeat offenders, and they only do it to small businesses because they know you don’t have a room full of lawyers to sue them. They make you wonder why you’re in business in the first place.” Most problem customers are not reneging on payments because they’re poor, he says: “It’s not that they can’t afford to pay you. They’re like rich kleptomaniacs.”

Robideau built the BadConsumers database and had a friend design the front end; he’s invested about $5,000 in the project. The site, which went live in early September, is offering free six-month memberships to business owners nationwide who submit valid tax ID numbers. Robideau says almost 500 people have become members and figures he’ll eventually charge around $100 for annual memberships. He envisions the site as protection for entrepreneurs: the electronic equivalent of the bounced checks that retailers post at cash registers.

Bad debt is a pervasive problem for small businesses, and it’s maddeningly difficult to solve. In a Citibank (C) survey of 750 small business owners released in September, 30 percent identified slow or delinquent receivables and bankruptcies as their greatest cash-flow management challenge. Nearly one-quarter blamed late or nonpayments for sudden cash crunches during the past year and said making a collection call was “the most uncomfortable business finance challenge,” second only to reducing staff. ...

Survey: 75% of Homeless Youth Use at Least One Social Network

Atlantic: Survey: 75% of Homeless Youth Use at Least One Social Network

Even without a roof over their heads, young adults find ways to access the Internet.

... Guadagno argues that the results should lead us to rethink the concept of the digital divide of Internet haves and have nots. "To the extent that our findings show a 'digital divide' between undergraduates at a four-year university and age-matched participants in a program for homeless young adults, it is mainly in types of Internet use and not access to the Internet, and that divide is relatively minor," we read. "Since it is clear that the proportions of undergraduates and homeless young adults accessing social networking sites are similar, we assert that the term digital divide is not descriptive of the young adult population." ...

The Bookscore: the new Rotten Tomatoes for books?

Christian Science Monitor: The Bookscore: the new Rotten Tomatoes for books?

The website The Bookscore rounds up book reviews, assigns a ranking, and lets readers discuss literary news.

Why rely on one book review when you can read five?

The website The Bookscore aims to fill that need with its collection of aggregated reviews for new titles. On The Bookscore, the articles for a certain book are gathered so that, like on movie websites like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, a website visitor can look at a title and get an overall score for a book, averaged from multiple reviews. For example, “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed currently holds a score of 8.8; “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel” is the proud possessor of a 9.1.

“The Bookscore sets itself apart by including reviews from the only the most trusted sources, by giving users a complete online forum for news and discussion to go along with the reviews, and by allowing the users to contribute to the content directly by requesting books to be scored,” said co-founder Sam Griswold, who founded the site with Chris Laursen. ...

 

Why shopping will never be the same

USA Today: Why shopping will never be the same

... The convergence of smartphone technology, social-media data and futuristic technology such as 3-D printers is changing the face of retail in a way that experts across the industry say will upend the bricks-and-mortar model in a matter of a few years.

"The next five years will bring more change to retail than the last 100 years," says Cyriac Roeding, CEO of Shopkick, a location-based shopping app available at Macy's, Target and other top retailers.

Within 10 years, retail as we know it will be unrecognizable, says Kevin Sterneckert, a Gartner analyst who follows retail technology. Big-box stores such as Office Depot, Old Navy and Best Buy will shrink to become test centers for online purchases. Retail stores will be there for a "touch and feel" experience only, with no actual sales. Stores won't stock any merchandise; it'll be shipped to you. This will help them stay competitive with online-only retailers, Sterneckert says.

Branding strategist Adam Hanft says this all might sound futuristic, but much of it is rooted in reality. He says satellite stores will open in apartment buildings and office centers. FedEx and UPS will delve deeper into refrigerated home delivery. Google trucks will deliver local services. Clothing — even pharmaceuticals — will be produced in the home via affordable 3-D printers.

"Every waking moment is a shopping moment," says Steve Yankovich, head of eBay's mobile business, which expects to handle $10 billion in transactions this year. "Anytime, anywhere."

Game-shifting tech — such as smartphones, location-based services, augmented reality and big data, which makes sense of all the data on mobile devices and social networks — will most assuredly upend several multibillion-dollar retail markets, forcing retailers to adapt or die, say venture capitalists and analysts.

Eventually, 3-D printers will let consumers produce their own towels, utensils and clothes. While in their infancy, the devices have been used to print hearing aids, iPad cases and model rockets, says Andy Filo, an expert on 3-D printers. The technology is several years away, however, from being widely available and affordable, he says.

And almost all of it will be paid with … your phone. ...

... Driving the future

All of this will be possible within several years because of:

•Smartphones. Location-based services and the growing adoption of Near Field Communication — a wireless technology standard for one-tap payment — will turn consumers' phones into stand-ins for credit, debit and loyalty cards, says Bill Gajda, head of mobile at Visa. Meanwhile, Nordstrom, among many, is phasing out cash registers this year in favor of smartphones with store-designed apps for purchases and inventory.

•The death of cash. If credit cards diminished use of cash in the 1950s, powerful smartphones and tablets will hasten its demise. Both are reshaping the relationship between merchant and customer as newfangled wallets, and each is edging toward becoming credit card readers and (cash) registers.

"Cash has dug in its heels for small-value transactions, but with the arrival of each new tech offering (providing) an alternative way to pay for little stuff — text your parking payment, Starbucks mobile app, Square, etc. — cash is being further and further marginalized," says David Wolman, author of the book The End of Money.

•Augmented reality. The increasingly popular technology adds a visual layer of information on top of surfaces such as a mirror. One breakthrough might come at the mall, with AR mirrors that let consumers shop based on data projected on glass, say social-media experts such as Brian Solis.

Another intriguing option is Google Glass, which puts computer-processing power, a camera, a microphone, wireless communications and a tiny screen into a pair of lightweight eyeglasses. Ultimately, Google hopes the "smart" glasses — which are a few years away — will be able to access information in real time, including the ability to identify locations and provide additional information about your whereabouts.

Harnessing social media

As smartphones and tablets grow in popularity, retailers are trying to get their hands around Facebook, Twitter and social media, and cater to consumers, says Niraj Shah, CEO of Wayfair, an e-commerce company that recently passed Crate & Barrel to become the No. 2 Internet retailer of home products. It racked up a record $500 million in revenue last year.

Only 8% to 13% of retail shopping in the USA is done online. Impressive as future retail technology might look, it will take good old-fashioned customer service to boost those figures, says Will Young, who heads Zappos Labs. ...

Map of the Day: Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke

Atlantic City: Map of the Day: Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke

The map above is the latest play on the old "pop" vs. "soda" map of the United States. Edwin Chen, a data scientist at Twitter who conducted math and linguistics research at MIT, compiled tweets that used either "coke," "soda," or "pop" when describing a soft drink. The red on the map shows places where "coke" is more prevalently tweeted, green indicates "pop," and blue is for "soda." Chen describes his method for organizing, cleaning, and aggregating the data: ...

5 Reasons for Technological Optimisim

Big Think: 5 Reasons for Technological Optimism

A List of Churches on Pinterest

DJChuang.com: A List of Churches on Pinterest

While there are articles (here, here, here, here, there) that give great ideas for how a church could be using Pinterest, right now it’s kinda elusive to find churches actually actively using Pinterest.

Aside: I myself have 624 pins and my dear wife has over 2,127 pins.

Here’s a list of churches on Pinterest I’d found, with a current count of pins when this list was compiled (please do add more) : ...

Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

Forbes: Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

We think of Google and Facebook as Web gorillas.  They’ll be around forever. Yet, with the rate that the tech world is moving these days, there are good reasons to think both might be gone completely in 5 – 8 years.  Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone.  And there’s some academic theory to back up that view, along with casual observations from recent history. ...

... In the tech Internet world, we’ve really had 3 generations:

•  
  • Web 1.0 (companies founded from 1994 – 2001, including Netscape, Yahoo! (YHOO), AOL (AOL), Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY)),
  • Web 2.0 or Social (companies founded from 2002 – 2009, including Facebook (FB), LinkedIn (LNKD), and Groupon (GRPN)),
  • and now Mobile (from 2010 – present, including Instagram).

With each succeeding generation in tech, it seems the prior generation can’t quite wrap its head around the subtle changes that the next generation brings.  Web 1.0 companies did a great job of aggregating data and presenting it in an easy to digest portal fashion.  Google did a good job organizing the chaos of the Web better than AltaVista, Excite, Lycos and all the other search engines that preceded it.  Amazon did a great job of centralizing the chaos of e-commerce shopping and putting all you needed in one place.

When Web 2.0 companies began to emerge, they seemed to gravitate to the importance of social connections.   MySpace built a network of people with a passion for music initially.  Facebook got college students.  LinkedIn got the white collar professionals.  Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon showed how users could generate content themselves and make the overall community more valuable. ...

...  Social companies born since 2010 have a very different view of the world.  These companies – and Instagram is the most topical example at the moment – view the mobile smartphone as the primary (and oftentimes exclusive) platform for their application.  They don’t even think of launching via a web site.  They assume, over time, people will use their mobile applications almost entirely instead of websites.

We will never have Web 3.0, because the Web’s dead.

Web 1.0 and 2.0 companies still seem unsure how to adapt to this new paradigm.  Facebook is the triumphant winner of social companies.  It will go public in a few weeks and probably hit $140 billion in market capitalization.  Yet, it loses money in mobile and has rather simple iPhone and iPad versions of its desktop experience.  It is just trying to figure out how to make money on the web – as it only had $3.7 billion in revenues in 2011 and its revenues actually decelerated in Q1 of this year relative to Q4 of last year.  It has no idea how it will make money in mobile.

The failed history of Web 1.0 companies adapting to the world of social suggests that Facebook will be as woeful at adapting to social as Google has been with its “ghost town” Google+ initiative last year. ...

... The bottom line is that the next 5 – 8 years could be incredibly dynamic.  It’s possible that both Google and Facebook could be shells of their current selves – or gone entirely.

They will have all the money in the world to try and adapt to the shift to mobile but history suggests they won’t be able to successfully do it.  I often hear Google bulls point to the market share of Android or Eric Schmidt’s hypothesis that Google could one day charge all Android subscribers $10 a month for value-added services as proof of future profits.  Yet, where are all the great social success stories by Web 1.0 companies?  I imagine we’ll see as many great examples of social companies jumping horses mid-race to become great mobile companies. ...

... The Googles and Facebooks of tomorrow might not even exist today.  And several Web 1.0 and 2.0 companies might be completely wiped off the map by then.

Fortunes will be made by those who adapt to and invest in this complete greenfield.

Those who own the future are going to be the ones who create it.  It’s all up for grabs.  Web monopolies are not as sticky as the monopolies of old.

More congregations turn to Facebook, Web, high-tech outreach

USA Today: More congregations turn to Facebook, Web, high-tech outreach

16 Ways Educators Use Pinterest

From: Online Universities Blog

Pinterest changes the way brides plan their weddings

USA Today: Pinterest changes the way brides plan their weddings

To get a glimpse at the Pinterest phenomenon, look no further than Trish Smith. Her childhood pal Tiffany Loken was so sure she'd join the ranks of the addicted that she created a 50-pin "my best friend's wedding" board for Smith — even though the IT education adviser from Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., wasn't engaged.

"Yeah," says Smith, 29, laughing. Posted to the wildly popular, photo-driven social media platform were "all the ideas we had talked about since I was a little girl" in pretty, pictorial form.

Six months later, in December, with a proposal in hand, Smith seized the wedding planning reins and cemented her Pinterest obsession, creating seven boards over one to three hours every night related to her Nov. 10 nuptials. One showcases two dozen potential hairstyles; another displays 29 possible bouquets. But the topper on the cake? The 366-pin catch-all "my countrytale wedding" board, with its photo patchwork of gowns, favors, boutonnieres and, yes, a baker's dozen cake toppers.

Meet the Pinterest bride. For her, planning a fairy-tale wedding without the tool is, well, inconceivable. Indeed, Smith estimates that 90% of her rustic mountain event will be inspired by or pulled directly from Pinterest, as she wishes.

With its heavily female demographic and emphasis on DIY derring-do, Pinterest and brides go together like love and marriage. But it's not just the women in white who are touchscreen-tapping into the power of the 2-year-old site.

"It's changing the industry" for vendors, planners and magazines, says Anne Fulenwider, editor in chief of Brides. Since she took over the title in November, Pinterest has "exploded and really changed the conversation." A majority of her readers are pinners — repinning other users' favorites, culling the Web for new stock and uploading their own pictures. She estimates that Brides' 55 boards, supplied with fresh images every day, are gaining about 500 followers a week. A favorite? "Couture-inspired wedding gowns," with more than 10,000 followers. ...

Social networking sites and politics

Pew Internet: Social networking sites and politics

Here are some interesting graphs about how liberals, moderates, conservatives deal with political differences they encounter on social networking sites (SNS). Seems liberals and conservatives or more likely than moderates to discover a friend has different political views than they expected. Liberals are a litlle more likely than moderates or conservatives to drop or block someone they disagree with. The more to the extremes you are the more likely you are to say that you agree with most posts by your friends, suggesting the presence of echo chambers.

I've never dropped a FB friend over political issues. I have dropped several twitter feeds from people (from both sides of the spectrum) who contiually tweet snarky political comments, and I've moved FB friends to categories in my feed where I see them less often. I enjoy discussing politics but echo chamber snarkiness is wearisome no matter which perspective it comes from.

Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Blog Readers

Nielsonwire: Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Blog Readers

Blogs are sometimes overlooked as a significant source of online buzz in comparison to social networking sites, yet consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006. ...

... Bloggers: Who are they?

It’s no surprise that the growing number of blogs mirrors a growth in bloggers. Overall, 6.7 million people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12 million write blogs using their social networks.

So, who are blog writers and what else do they do online?

•  
  • Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
  • Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
  • About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
  • Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month

 

Faith and Facebook: UM churches finding their way with social media

UM Portal: Faith and Facebook: UM churches finding their way with social media

... So how can churches encourage congregants to interact with their church’s Facebook page? Here are some ways churches have engaged people through Facebook:

• Custer Road UMC in Plano, Texas, hosted a competition for its college students who attend universities across the country. “Post your stories of the worst possible roommate experiences. The best worst stories will get a $10 gift card.” In the next two weeks, the church’s college students posted more than 100 comments and stories.

• Several church youth groups report using their Facebook page for “scavenger hunts.” Youth have to find something or record their group doing something. They post it on the Facebook page where the youth minister can then tally points. In the process, the youth are sharing their youth group activities with all of their Facebook friends, since every video shows up on their profiles as well as the church’s Facebook page.

• The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor at House for All Saints and Sinners, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America mission church in Denver, Colo., posts on Facebook while preparing sermons. Sometimes she seeks stories; sometimes she wants to know what people think about the lectionary text for the week. Facebook and Twitter afford the opportunity for her congregants and friends to contribute to her sermons.

• Good Shepherd UMC, Mr. Richardson’s church, posts an abundance of pictures from church events on Facebook and tags its members. Not only does this then show up on church members’ walls for all of their Facebook friends to see, but many of their members have used the photos as their profile picture, linking their online identity to their church.

• Bed Start, a ministry that helps low-income families in Plano, Texas, uses Facebook to mobilize volunteers to address immediate and unexpected needs.

• White’s Chapel UMC in Southlake, Texas, uses Facebook as a primary means for communication with its local and online congregation. The church advertises across North and South America, welcoming Brazilians, Canadians, Chileans, Hondurans, Venezuelans, Americans and others into online worship several days a week.

• Multiple church youth groups report using Facebook to give updates to donors, parents and congregation members while they serve on mission trips and choir tours.

• University Park UMC in Dallas posts close-up pictures of parts of their building and challenges members to identify the subject.

• Lake Highlands UMC in Dallas spent minimal amounts on Facebook advertising for its Christmas Eve worship services. The ad appeared on screens in the church’s ZIP code 1.4 million times. About 400 people clicked for more information.

But does all of this online interaction actually further the missions of congregations?

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released 2011 data that challenges many assumptions of social media critics.

“The findings suggest that there is little validity to concerns that people who use social network sites experience smaller social networks, less closeness or experience less diversity,” the Pew report said, adding that frequent use of Facebook is associated with having more overall close ties.

Using independent metrics, the study further established that Facebook users have stronger total support, emotional support and companionship. Social network site users are half as likely to be socially isolated as the average American. ...

Bruce Reyes-Chow: We’re Starting a New Presbyterian Church

bruce reyes-chow: We’re Starting a New Presbyterian Church

... For a while now I have had an inkling that the “social media amplifies the local church” paradigm could be flipped upside-down resulting in a powerful way to be church. If this shift were to be taken seriously, some interesting questions are raised:

•  
  • What if a church decided that the discipline of following Christ and building genuine Christian community could be lived out without everyone having to actually be in one place at one time?
  • What if a church unapologetically leveraged online tools to be a community no longer bound by architecture, time and physical proximity?
  • What if a church that met online believed that even a historic religious tradition like the Presbyterian Church (USA) can be expressed in new ways?
  • Essentially . . . can church be church when it is primarily lived and manifested online?

Well ask “What if?” no longer because the church that I am planting is going to be one that tries to answer these questions. Peering through the lens of social media, I am excited to push the bounds of traditional church formation, while maintaining all that is good about traditional church. To be clear, the online nature of this idea certainly creates great technological possibilities, but my intention is that we will build just a church like any church: one that worships, serves, studies and prays together . . . we will just happen to gather online. There will be no justifications seeking legitimacy, no quotes inferring that this is not a “real church” and no posture that we are competing for people, resources or notoriety . . . just a church. ...

... Again I know that there are many of questions that we need to address before a full launch - “What about X?” and “How will we do X?” - but I also know that only way this new church will be able to respond well is to keep widening the circle of involvement. With this in mind our first step is to gauge the interest of folks and begin to gather people for some conversations and planning. Some of you are ready to dive right in, others will want nothing to do with this craziness and still others of you will need to lurk around the edges until the time is right. However you might see yourself connected to this church that has yet to be named, as we begin to build up a spiritual community, develop organizational strategies and start being church together, you are invited to JOIN OUR FACEBOOK PAGE and FILL OUT THE SURVEY BELOW.

There is definitely more to come and I look forward to walking this journey with some of you. Please pass this along to any folks who you think might also be interested.

Quiz: The changing face of online religion

Faith and Leadership Blog: Quiz: The changing face of online religion

More congregations are following their members online. But many are still evolving in the way they use technology for ministry. Take our quiz to explore the latest developments in virtual outreach.

... The Faith Communities Today survey found a correlation between the number of different kinds of technology a congregation employed and its growth. Nearly six in 10 congregations using five or six new technologies such as email, websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook reported growth in worship attendance from 2005 to 2010. Just three in 10 congregations using two or fewer technologies reported growth, according to the Faith Communities Today survey. 

The survey also found that major users of new technologies tended to be newer congregations with relatively younger pastors and larger percentages of young adult members.

Overall, Thumma notes, the use of new technology is associated with several indicators of growth, including a willingness to make changes, an openness to being distinctive from nearby congregations and the embrace of innovative worship experiences.

Yet research also shows that churches may be missing out on a lot of the potential for social media to engage people in ministry.

Many new media users, young people in particular, are used to interacting online with websites and through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

But much of the online presence of congregations is a one-way affair.

The 2008 U.S. Congregational Life Survey found that while more than four in five congregations with websites have event calendars online, just 6 percent feature online discussion groups or Bible studies.

The approach is almost like using technology as a billboard and “less about how can we serve you, how can we engage you,” said Deborah Bruce, project director for the congregational life survey.

At its most effective, Thumma said, technology can enhance the number and depth of ties among churchgoers. It can offer members and visitors opportunities to carry faithful living into everyday life in ways from sharing prayer requests on Facebook to participating in online church services.

Simply offering daily devotions or highlighting parts of a service online can send the message that “this church is really trying to make what happens on Sunday relevant to the rest of the week,” said Thumma, co-author with Warren Bird of the new book “The Other 80 Percent: Turning Your Church’s Spectators into Active Participants.”

Online Data Helping Campaigns Customize Ads

New York Times: Online Data Helping Campaigns Customize Ads

Political campaigns, which have borrowed tricks from Madison Avenue for decades, are now fully engaged on the latest technological frontier in advertising: aiming specific ads at potential supporters based on where they live, the Web sites they visit and their voting records. ...

... The technology that makes such customized advertising possible is called microtargeting, which is similar to the techniques nonpolitical advertisers use to serve up, for example, hotel ads online to people who had shopped for vacations recently.

In the last few years, companies that collect data on how consumers behave both online and off and what charitable donations they make have combined that vast store of information with voter registration records.

As a result, microtargeting allows campaigns to put specific messages in front of specific voters — something that has increased in sophistication with the large buckets of data available to political consultants. ...

... The process for targeting a user with political messages takes three steps. The first two are common to any online marketing: a “cookie,” or digital marker, is dropped on a user’s computer after the user visits a Web site or makes a purchase, and that profile is matched with offline data like what charities a person supports, what type of credit card a person has and what type of car he or she drives. The political consultants then take a third step and match that data with voting records, including party registration and how often the person has voted in past election cycles, but not whom that person voted for.

Throughout the process, the targeted consumers are tagged with an alphanumeric code, removing their names and making the data anonymous. So while the campaigns are not aiming at consumers by name — only by the code — the effect is the same. Campaigns are able to aim at specific possible voters across the Web. Instead of buying an ad on, say, The Miami Herald Web site, a campaign can buy an audience.

Another advantage is that these ads can be bought quickly — using an auction process to obtain ad space — when campaigns need to move rapidly to aim at an audience, for example, to counter a bad debate performance or an unflattering newspaper article. ...

... Critics say that the ability to limit political messages to registered voters toes the line of social discrimination. Daniel Kreiss, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, called some of the targeting techniques a form of political redlining. ...

There may be some ethical considerations to advertising this way, but I don't the "redlining" is one of them. If you feel you are being redlined, then the solution is quite simple: Go vote! Then you will have political ads galore. Trust me. I speak from experience.

Speaking the language of the next generation

Pew Internet: Speaking the language of the next generation

Director Lee Rainie will address the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters. He will focus on the media habits of Millennials and GenX and how their patterns of gathering and creating information are different in the digital age.

 

Speaking the language of the next generation

View more presentations from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Why Pinterest Is So Addictive

Fast Company: Why Pinterest Is So Addictive

I would have written this article sooner, but I was busy on Pinterest. If you are still among the uninitiated, the social platform for collecting, sharing, and commenting on of photos of personal passions is uniquely engaging, absorbing, and addictive.

The human instinct to collect things--be it baseball cards, miniature spoons, or teacups--is as old as stuff itself. But it took Pinterest to perfect this process online. So no wonder it’s having a moment: comScore found that Pinterest just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, who spend an average of 98 minutes a month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. It’s also driving more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn--combined, according to Shareaholic.

But why would Pinterest, which has been around since 2008, be attracting such swarms of devotees now? Fast Company turned to the experts to uncover the psychology behind Pinterest’s winning formula, and why it’s resonating with thousands of new users.

Finding Your Happy Place and Sharing Your Ideal Self

...

Know Your Internet: What Is Pinterest and Why Should I Care?

The Atlantic: Know Your Internet: What Is Pinterest and Why Should I Care?

On the cold, crowded beach that is the Internet, another monster wave has been spotted on the horizon. This wave is called Pinterest and it looks like it could be -- or already is -- the Next Big Thing in social media. This week, Techcrunch blared, "Pinterest Reaches 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever," based on Comscore data. Last week, a study was making the rounds that claimed to show that Pinterest was driving more referral traffic than Google+.

We're getting to that point with Pinterest where (in tech circles at least) it feels awkward to ask what it is even if you're not exactly sure. This is your quick guide to the site.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social network currently in a loose invitation-only beta. It fits into the category of  "visual bookmarking." Like Tumblr (or Ye Olde Delicious), the service uses a browser bookmarklet, which makes it easy to post things from around the Interwebs. Pinterest's user gimmick/interface is that it lets you "pin" any photo from the Internet to a "board" on its site.

Why should I care about Pinterest?

Pinterest has broken out of the pack of new social networks to become a formidable source of traffic, particularly to retail sites. It has a very slick user interface and strong revenue model. And the site has a fascinating demographic breakdown: it's strongest among young women in the center of the country. ...

I actually got hooked on Pinterest this weekend. It is an interesting concept. But I did notice a huge abundance of women with obessissons about clothes, shoes, and food. I'm curious to see in what other ways it might evolve.

(Also see Pinterest: Is It A Facebook Or A Grokster?)

Professor Facebook: Social networking for scientists

Economist: Professor Facebook: Social networking for scientists

GIVEN journalists’ penchant for sticking the suffix “gate” onto anything they think smells of conspiracy, a public-relations consultant might have suggested a different name. But ResearchGate, a small firm based in Berlin, is immune to such trivia. It is ambitious, too—aiming to do for the academic world what Mark Zuckerberg did for the world in general, by creating a social network for scientists. And it is successful. About 1.4m researchers have signed up already, and that number is growing by 50,000 a month. ...

... To make things more efficient and interdisciplinary, ResearchGate wants to help the academic world to grow more connective tissue, as Ijad Madisch, one of the firm’s founders, puts it. As on Facebook, users create a profile page with biographical information, list their interests and research skills, and join groups. They can see what others with similar interests are up to and post comments. They can also upload their papers and create invitation-only workgroups. ...

... At the moment, most of those users are in their 20s. Their favourite activity is to ask each other questions about practical research problems, from DNA-sequencing techniques to statistical tricks. They are also busy reading each other’s papers: more than 10m have been uploaded. (Most scientific journals now allow authors to post their work on “personal web pages”, which includes profile pages on social networks, according to Dr Madisch.)

The service certainly saves these young researchers trial and error, and therefore time and money. They will probably also like a new feature ResearchGate is planning to introduce in April: a feedback system which lets users rate each other’s contributions. This would allow them to build a reputation other than by publishing papers.

Scientists whose reputations are established may be more hesitant, though, and not just because they are set in their ways. Science is not only about collaboration but also about competition. ...

Interactive Map: The Growth of Newspapers Across the U.S.: 1690-2011

Stanford University: The Growth of Newspapers Across the U.S.: 1690-2011

Go to the link above. Shows newspapers as the emerge and disappear over time. You can also drill down to specific locations by using the zoom feature.

Pew study says Facebook friends are real friends

Kansas City Star: Pew study says Facebook friends are real friends

Social media denizens, a common criticism goes, are cocooned in silos of homogeneous individuals, cut off from real-world relationships and apathetic about real-world concerns such as voting. But a new study of adult social-media users found just the opposite.

Results of the survey, released in June, show Facebook users are more trusting, have more close friends, get more support from those friends and are more politically engaged than people who do not use the social network, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project said.

...FRIEND BREAKDOWN

The average Facebook user has 229 Facebook friends:

•22 percent people from high school

•12 percent extended family

•10 percent co-workers

•9 percent college friends

•8 percent immediate family

•7 percent people from voluntary groups

•2 percent neighbors

Source: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

Do the Amish use Facebook?

Modeled Behavior: Do the Amish use Facebook?

The relationship between the Amish and technology is not so absolutist as most probably imagine. A recent article on the use of Facebook among Amish teens illustrates the complex, varied, and surprising ways in which the so-called Plain People interact with technology:

There are no statistics to show how many Amish are on Facebook, the social networking site used by an estimated 500 million people worldwide. But some, in a community that shuns electricity in their homes, won’t buy cars and maintains traditional garb, say the number of Plain kids using Facebook — often logging on via their cellphones — appears to be increasing….

For now, the reaction to Facebook in Amish communities ranges from preaching against it directly to being completely unaware of it:

The Amishwoman at the stand near Gap said one local minister actually did preach against Facebook in recent weeks. Others, she said, are vaguely worried, aware that it’s happening but unsure how many are involved. And they’re also hampered by the fact that many older Amishmen and women simply don’t know what Facebook is.

About that MLK quote

Christian Century: About that MLK quote

... The problem is that the first sentence of this quote didn't come from King. It's by a woman named Jessica Dovey, who posted it Monday along with the other three sentences, which she (correctly) attributed to King. A prominent Twitter user misread the post before tweeting it, at which point we all started seeing the fake quote on our Facebook walls.

It's interesting that so many people reposted this without noticing that the first sentence's relevance is oddly specific. If that raised suspicion, 30 seconds and some intermediate Google skills would have confirmed it. Yet some people got pretty upset about the initial tweeter's inaccuracy, as if one person's mistake or license can be blamed for others' credulity. Nobody tell them about pseudo-Paul, okay?

While this incident couldn't have happened even ten years ago, putting words in the mouths of beloved and influential people is nothing new. And the frustrated reactions seem particularly odd given that in this case--unlike many others--there's little question that the quote represents the attributed source in spirit....

Bin Laden Hit Live on Twitter

Wall Street Journal: From Abbottabad, Live-Tweeting the Bin Laden Attack

A man in Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin Laden was killed by the U.S. on Monday, inadvertently live-tweeted the attack as it started.

The man, who uses the Twitter handle “ReallyVirtual”, identifies himself as Sohaib Athar, “an IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops.”

Around 11 hours ago, according to the Twitter timeline, Mr. Athar first tweeted about a helicopter hovering above him at 1 a.m., saying it was a “rare event” for Abbottabad. That would have been at about 3.30 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday.

Still, Mr. Athar seems to have thought of it as a mere annoyance, as his next tweet was “Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/”

Within minutes, he tweeted: “A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”.

After a while when the sound of the helicopter stopped following a blast, Mr. Athar tweeted “seems like my giant swatter worked !”

That was followed by a Twitter discussion about what had happened. He wrote to “@m0hcin the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…”

Mr. Athar noted that “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicpoters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad” ...

 

Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers

Christianity Today: Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers

... James warned us, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly" (James 3:1, NIV1984). James goes on to graphically portray the incredible power that our tongues have both to praise and to curse especially in the context of teaching. He then says, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life." (James 3:13). Solomon echoes similar wisdom, "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent" (Prov. 17:28).

Yet Facebook and Twitter do not encourage this kind of self-restraint. In fact, they encourage an opposing value system. Social media relentlessly asks us to publish our personal opinions on anything and everything that happens. There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.

You must declare your position, and you must declare it now.

We convince ourselves that by answering the questions social media asks us we are standing for truth alongside the great leaders of the church, but slowly and subtly as we respond to the prompts of our phones rather than our Bibles we begin to worship the false gods of immediacy, distraction, and celebrity in the Temple of Lord Zuckerberg. If you don't think the value system of technology affects you, ask yourself, If it was 2003 and some author wrote some book questioning some doctrine would I have felt compelled to publish my thoughts? ...

Theologians Launch Blog to Tackle Biblical Illiteracy

Christian Post: Theologians Launch Blog to Tackle Biblical Illiteracy

In an effort to combat biblical illiteracy, a group of 30 seminary professors have made themselves available to provide free education to the public.

The free education comes in the form of a blog – launched this week – with regular posts on anything from prayer and spiritual formation to historical theology and biblical exposition.

"At a time when biblical literacy is at an all time low and there are so many muddled, uninformed views of the Bible, something like The Good Book Blog is such a breath of fresh air," said author of Hipster Christianity and blogger Brett McCracken.

The Good Book Blog features daily posts by faculty from Biola University's Talbot School of Theology. ...

Spanish nun expelled from order over Facebook usage

The Telegraph: Spanish nun expelled from order over Facebook usage

A Spanish nun has been kicked out of the religious order where she lived the last 35 years in seclusion after spending too much time on the social networking site Facebook.

María Jesús Galán, dubbed "Sister Internet" by her fellow nuns, announced on her Facebook page that she had been asked to leave the convent after disagreements over her online activities.

The 54-year old, who lists her hobbies as "reading, music, art, and making friends" had almost 600 Facebook "friends"at the time of her eviction and now has fan pages with thousands of supporters from around the globe calling for her to be allowed back into the order.

A computer was first brought onto the premises of the 14th century Santo Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, central Spain 10 years ago after the Mother Superior was persuaded it would lessen the need for nuns to enter the outside world.

"It enabled us do things such as banking online and saved us having to make trips into the city," explained Sister Maria, who entered as a novice at the age of 21.

However, the nun quickly saw the possibilities and soon began digitising the archives contained within the convent's ancient walls and making them accessible to the world.

In 2008, she won a local government prize for her painstaking work scanning the pages of precious texts held in the convent's library.

The award made headlines and she soon had scores of friends worldwide connecting through her Facebook page.

But despite admitting that her dedication to her vocation was as strong as ever she said she was driven from the convent by her fellow nuns who disapproved of her cyber activity and "made life impossible". ...

Sounds like a nun who jsut fell into a bad habit. (Sorry. It was just to easy.)

Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter

New York Times: Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter

... Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family. ...

Poll: Churches are fans of Facebook, social media

Baptist Press: Poll: Churches are fans of Facebook, social media

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Churches are turning increasingly to social networking tools as ministry aids and Facebook is by far the most popular tool, according to a new study by LifeWay Research.

The survey of 1,003 Protestant congregations was conducted in September and sponsored by LifeWay's Digital Church partner, Fellowship Technologies. It found that 47 percent of churches actively use Facebook.

The second most popular way of networking is through the tools included in church management software packages, actively used by 20 percent of congregations. Three percent use MySpace, 2 percent a church-specific package like Cobblestone, Unifyer, or The City, and 1 percent use Ning.

However, a full 40 percent of churches do not use any social networking tools. ...

Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US

Guardian: Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US

Twitter and Facebook don't connect people – they isolate them from reality, say a rising number of academics.

The way in which people frantically communicate online via Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging can be seen as a form of modern madness, according to a leading American sociologist.

"A behaviour that has become typical may still express the problems that once caused us to see it as pathological," MIT professor Sherry Turkle writes in her new book, Alone Together, which is leading an attack on the information age.

Turkle's book, published in the UK next month, has caused a sensation in America, which is usually more obsessed with the merits of social networking. She appeared last week on Stephen Colbert's late-night comedy show, The Colbert Report. When Turkle said she had been at funerals where people checked their iPhones, Colbert quipped: "We all say goodbye in our own way."

Turkle's thesis is simple: technology is threatening to dominate our lives and make us less human. Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world.

But Turkle's book is far from the only work of its kind. An intellectual backlash in America is calling for a rejection of some of the values and methods of modern communications. "It is a huge backlash. The different kinds of communication that people are using have become something that scares people," said Professor William Kist, an education expert at Kent State University, Ohio.

The list of attacks on social media is a long one and comes from all corners of academia and popular culture. ...

This is all just nonsense ... at least that is what everyone on Facebook told me. ;-)

There's Nothing So Old as the Recently New

Wall Street Journal: There's Nothing So Old as the Recently New

Watching friends learn kite-surfing last week, equipped not only with new designs of inflatable kites shaped like pterodactyls but new kinds of harnesses shaped like medieval chastity belts and even new helmets shaped like Elizabethan sleeping caps, it occurred to me that nothing becomes obsolete so fast as something new. For it is pretty clear that the rise of kite-surfing, invented in the late 1990s, is slowly killing wind-surfing.

Wind-surfing, invented in the 1970s, is not yet as moribund as the fax, which was invented at about the same time, but it may be heading that way. As recently as 2005, wind-surfers were scoffing at the upstart kite-surfers, arguing that their pastime was slower, more cumbersome and more dangerous. (I remember scoffing at email's inferiority to fax in the days when you had to call to alert somebody to check for an incoming email.)

Now kite-surfing equipment packs smaller and costs less than wind surfing's, the skills are easier to learn, the speed is as great—greater in light winds—and it can be done on land in the form of kite-karting. People have already crossed hundreds of miles of ocean by kite-surfing, from the Canaries to Morocco, for example, and from Tasmania to Australia.

My point is that new technologies threaten young technologies more than they threaten ancient ones. Kite-surfing may kill wind-surfing, but it will not affect sailing. Email eclipsed fax more than it did letter-writing. Social networking is overtaking telephoning, but not partying. In the era of Kinect, Space Invaders is dead, but poker is thriving. In competition with jets, airships have largely died out, but ships have not. Refrigeration killed the newfangled ice trade, but old-fashioned pickling, smoking and curing continued. ...

... It follows that obsolescence more probably beckons for the things that have changed our life most recently, rather than for the things that are already old. My generation finds it hard to believe that email will die, but the young barely touch it, preferring Facebook, Twitter and text. I suspect rather than go extinct, email will evolve into something more compatible with text and social networking. And perhaps we may be permitted a wry smile at the certain prospect that the young will in turn be marooned with obsolete habits and terms like Facebook, Twitter and text.