The idea that "social networks" and "social media" sites created a social web is pervasive. Everyone behaves as if the traffic your stories receive from the social networks (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon) is the same as all of your social traffic. I began to wonder if I was wrong. Or at least that what I had experienced was a niche phenomenon and most people's web time was not filled with Gchatted and emailed links. I began to think that perhaps Facebook and Twitter has dramatically expanded the volume of -- at the very least -- linksharing that takes place.
But it's not true; a vast majority of traffic to The Atlantic's site is from links without referrer headers, that is, links somehow shared outside of the web, whether email, IM, or text. Alexis Madrigal digs into this alternate history of the social web and the data on it and what it means for our relationship with content and social networks.
Wired takes an unprecedented tour of one of Google's data centers in Lenoir, North Carolina, complete with pictures.
Created by sports fan Greg Lee at the University of Alberta in Canada, Scores can tap into a stash of sporting stories to find relevant anecdotes that a commentator might not have thought of.
Better commentary is definitely a win.
In the last five years, Maryland and Washington State have set up voter registration systems that make it easy for people to register to vote and update their address information online. The problem is that in both states, all the information required from voters to log in to the system is publicly available.
They couldn't even use a Social Security number verification?
Lots of presidential candidates have run on a platform of Not The Incumbent, but Obama may be the first to define himself entirely as Not the Challenger.
Interesting perspective with a ring of truth to it.
Microsoft Corp. today commemorated its 30th Employee Giving Campaign and announced that U.S. employees raised $1 billion in cash since 1983 for approximately 31,000 nonprofits and community organizations around the world.
We expect to break $100 million donated this year alone. Very proud of my company right now and humbled by the small part I get to have in such an impact.
Ars Technica details a walkthrough of Redmond's Studio B where the Surface was designed, prototyped, fabricated, and tested.
Meaning is the space between the words.
— Patrick Rhone, 45
If you have watched a debate, you have watched a pivot. "The pivot is a way of taking a question that might be on a specific subject, and moving to answer it on your own terms," [Brett O'Donnell] says.
Pivots, dodges, or whatever you want to call them are a fundamental part of debate. They're also annoying. A new study on the technique reveals how politicians exploit our cognitive biases when using them.
As I described last month, Google has spent literally tens of thousands of person-hours creating its maps. I argued that no other company could beat Google at this game, which turned out to be my most controversial assertion. People pointed out that while Google's driven 5 million miles in Street View cars, UPS drives 3.3 billion miles a year.
Turns out all that data goes to Nokia. All 12 billion data points per month.