tetw:

But last week, in the wake of the Boston bombings, some of those who previously viewed Twitter as an indispensable news source began turning against the service upon discovering that the wisdom of crowds is, in fact, an adage not often applicable on the Internet. Steve Brunetto, a senior executive at Edgewave, a network security company, said Tuesday’s hacking undermined Twitter at a sensitive time.

“On the heels of the Boston Marathon bombing, everyone’s trying to figure out, ‘Okay, where does Twitter fit into that news cycle? Where does Twitter fit into disseminating information?’” Brunetto said. “They’ve got an opportunity to legitimize themselves as a real player in that information life cycle but they get knocked down a peg every time somebody says, ‘Oh, you can’t believe what you read on Twitter.’” April 25, 2013 at 12:29PM

There’s just one thing about Santiago Swallow that you won’t easily find online: I made him up. Everything above is true. He really does have a Twitter feed with tens of thousands of followers, he really does have a Wikipedia biography, and he really does have an official web site. But he has never been to TED or South By South West and is not writing a book. I—or rather he—flat out lied about that…”

Gerd adds: great story indeed. April 18, 2013 at 07:14AM

Chad Hurley is within a month of launching a collaborative online video startup, the YouTube co-founder said at the South by Southwest festival this weekend. The disclosure is one of the clearest signs yet that video distribution networks are becoming more and more like social networks.

Existing players are often good at what the Harvard scholar calls “sustaining” innovation, but they are rarely good at disruptive innovation. The latter is the kind that transforms something that used to be complicated and expensive — and therefore available only to the wealthy or those with special skills — and makes it available to a much broader group of users. March 04, 2013 at 08:54AM