We create the stories of the connected society

Last year Todd Smith was shot while covering a city council meeting for a newspaper in suburban St. Louis, Mo. Of the six people who were shot, he was the only one to survive.
Last week, the newspaper laid him off.
“My family is obviously really not happy that I took a bullet for a business. But [...]

I like to complain about the state of communications – generally, and especially online. There is a ton of content flowing online — but most of it is not worth consuming (and certainly not worth paying for). There are millions of organizations requesting donations and demanding action — but very few people participating and far [...]

I want so badly to believe that Susan Boyle is a real phenomenon.  I want to have faith that someone can appear out of nowhere, show off some talent, and have their life changed as a result.  I want to believe that wasn’t possible before the internet existed, and everyone had their own channel and [...]

The Extraordinaries and SeeClickFix have both been voted in as finalists in the Netsquared n2y4 mobile competition. The International competition saw 100’s of entries and 15 mobile innovators remain.
The stakes are high: 50K, bragging rights and the bounty of likely personal side-bets between The Extraordinaries and SeeClickFix.  (Hopefully n2y4 prints their checks in large format [...]

The White House announced today that the Cyberspace Review that President Obama ordered has been completed.  Here is the statement from the Press Secretary:
On February 9, the President directed a 60-day review of the plans, programs and activities underway throughout the government that address our communications and information infrastructure (i.e., cyberspace). The purpose of the [...]

True/Slant, an “original news content network” by “new journalists” (which, in this case, are displaced journalists; apologies to Tom Wolfe), has launched in “open alpha,” which apparently means “very rough; no revenue.”
“News is more than what happens (an old newspaper aphorism),” say the founders, former newsies at America Online who worked at a variety [...]

It’s been four days since a frumpy, unemployed church worker who’s “never been kissed” sang “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent.
You want fast?: 12 million+ You Tube views (2.5m within 72 hourss), 5 fan sites, Bebo fan club, Facebook fan club, fans forum, interviews on BBC and CBS, and a Susan Boyle [...]

A few months back we asked each of our 2009 Game Changers Awards finalists to write about their projects, what they have learned along the way and what’s next. (Here’s the rest of the series). Somehow, amidst the flurry of conference preparations, this one slipped through our crack(ed) editorial process. But it’s important, so here [...]

According to the New York Times, magazine publishers are trying to figure out if they can raise their prices without losing subscribers.
The answer is no.
I subscribe to more than twenty magazines, including Time, Newsweek, US News, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Wired, and GOOD.  I read every single magazine cover [...]

The entry deadline has passed, but the gallery of entries to The Sunlight Foundation’s annual apps competition is worth a look. The foundation supports projects that use technology to make government more transparent – meaning more open, more visible and more subject to public scrutiny. The foundation’s focus is strictly on U.S. policy and government, [...]

From our friends at Naked Media and Scribe Media, tune in at Noon ET April 14 (tomorrow) for a live interview with online publishing visionary Larry Kramer. Larry is an old friend and participant in We Media programs. He’s best known as founder of CBS.Marketwatch. More recently he’s been an advisor to a variety of [...]

Once again, the print version of a newspaper is dead. This time it’s the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, disrupting the lives of journalists and the news coverage of a region, as it shifts to a pared-down digital edition after 146 years of delivering news on paper.
Journalism’s economic crisis has attained historic proportions — but there are signs [...]

According to the CDC, roughly 20% of the American population, some 43 million people, smoke (and within that group 80% smoke every day).  That number is down significantly from just a few decades ago, but the rate of decline has leveled off in recent years.  Some attribute the slow-down to creative marketing tactics by the [...]

WeMedia has been kind enough to offer us a place on their blog to keep their community updated about the progress of SeeClickFix.Com.
We’ll be checking in here frequently, but here’s an update on new features, new relationships, and ways you can help spread the clicking.
___New Features____*Mobile Web VersionUse
SeeClickFix from your smart phone and experience the [...]

Google announced this week that they were creating a venture capital arm whose main objective will be to turn a profit.  The group, called Google Ventures, is expected to invest up to $100 million in the next 12 months.
The New York Times article on the announcement notes that “Google will tap the connections of its [...]