Author: Angelo Fernando

Quotes for the week ending 23 Jan, 2010

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“We’ve got the Internet here at Signal, and it’s been a miracle that we’ve been able to stay on air … “Don’t ask me how we’ve managed to do that.”

Mario Viau, station director at SignalFM, in Port-au-Prince, which has been on the air and online since the earthquake struck..

“Because this is just a dirge. I’m ready to shut it off. And I’m sure there’s plenty other about to do the same.

Anonymous commenter on the Rolling Stone blog that live blogged the Hope For Haiti Now telethon. He went on to say that Live Aid “existed to raise money for a terrible epidemic. But the performances were more like a giant party. People were interested, and it was a huge success. This sad telethon will be immediately forgotten. And that’s a shame. Wasted opportunity.”

“Good attitude Mr. Anonymous. With a mindset like that nothing will ever happen.”

Someone going by the name of Jeff, responding to the above poster.

“We are experiencing an outage due to an extremely high number of whales.”

Message on the Twitter web site, supposedly after Haiti suffered aftershocks on Wednesday.

“It puts into the public domain every bit of information collected by public bodies that is not personal or sensitive, from alcohol-attributable mortality to years of life lost through TB. Happily, not all the data sets deal with death.”

Editorial in the Guardian, on the launch of new website, data.gov.uk, which Tim Berners Lee ( and professor Nigel Shadbolt) served as advisors, on the request of Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

“News Corp. needs Google more than Google needs News Corp.”

Greg Patterson, attorney at Espresso Pundit, in Mike Sunnucks’s story on the battle eating up over the Fair Use Doctrine

“Yet, honest Abe and HAL9000, both had one thing in common. They conveniently applied a Heuristic theory as they were, in fact, the only one calling the shots.”

Steven Lowell, PR Manager, Voice 123, on why failure, and the ‘Heuristic Algorithm’ is a bad long-term solution.

Maping what’s happening in Haiti

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Interesting how geomapping is taking off, as  interactive maps (and visualization) becomes a huge asset to crisis communications, journalism. You may recall how mapping was used for the Swine flu.

Now people can help map the relief operation in Haiti – at Ushahidi, a crowd-sourcing site I love to support.

It’s got links to video, news, pictures and ‘Todo’ lists. The site pulls together urgent need requests and status updates.

Like this desparate request:

@MelyMello @WFPlogistics so clos 2 airprt, can u help get help? 18°35’36.24″N, 72°16’40.37″W Othopedic clinic,needs narcotics,IV antibiotics,diesel,gas

Campaign to map Haiti

You can get involved via txt, email, hashtag. Details here: http://ow.ly/YsKP

Quotes for the week ending 16 Jan, 2010

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“This isn’t actually an article form a newspaper. It is part of the ad…”

Copy from a fake piece of editorial that’s part of a creative ad buy for Aflac in The Wall Street Journal, linking to the microsite, getquack.com

“They just had a name that was hard for Chinese to pronounce and harder to spell.”

Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based consultant and former head of digital strategy at Ogilvy & Mather in China, on Google’s decision to pull out of the country.

“I don’t think it’s wrong to take chances …Sometimes they work.”

Jeff Gaspin, of NBC, on the network’s decision to move Jay Leno back to his original slot –11.35 pm

a “pact with the devil”

The reason, according to televangelist Pat Robertson, why he thinks Haiti is cursed.

“Our alleged “pact with the devil” helped your country a lot.”

Haitian ambassador’s response, to Robertson

“This is citizen journalism at its best, bringing the news of nature’s worst to a global audience.”

John Savageau, on CNNs use of citizen journalism in Haiti

Google pulls power of database + search for Haiti relief

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I find this amazing, how Google’s putting its weight behind the humanitarian effort with a simple Crisis Response page. Three examples:

1.  Google’s Crisis Response – Just two search boxes open up for the name of the person.

2. Disaster Relief Page – It also has a page filled with key disaster relief contact information – links and ways to donate via text messaging.

3. Citizen Tube – This wonderful citizen journalism hub on YouTube is has a great way to monitor reports.

Flickr shows its collaborative power in Haiti disaster

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I talk of Collaboration as one of the 4 legs of social media. Usually I use positive examples such as Spot.Us and a host of other experiments.

But as the horrors of the scale of the disaster in Haiti stream in, through citizen journalists, there’s one site to keep watching: Flickr.

Check this Group Pool, where everyone on the ground with a camera of sorts is helping record the event, sharing their resources. Images such as this one will fill our screens and lives in the next few weeks, thanks to them.

A note of caution: Some of these can be disturbing.

Quotes for the week ending 9 Jan, 2010

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“…we’re not saying you’re evil, Google–you just sometimes make us want to wear a tin hat.”

Kit Eaton at Fast Company, on Google’s Near Me Now app on its Android phones and the iPhone that he says  will make “a lot of location-based App Makers” furious.

“Yes, I’m serious…there are plenty of companies that still insist on running every single tweet through multiple PR teams to make sure the messaging is spot on.”

Matt Singley, on the 6 things you need to know about social media.

“your diaphragm changes — your voice comes across very differently.”

Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design and author of slide:ology, on presenting to remote audiences.

“Jay Leno is one of the most compelling entertainers in the world today … It has, however, presented some issues for our affiliates.”

NBC statement on its decision to move the time slot of Leno’s show.

“Seamless connectivity and rich social experience offered by web 2.0 companies are the very antithesis of human freedom.”

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, a web site that claims it can erase a person’s presence from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Is there a giant eraser, online?

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Silly rhetorical question, this headline.

But I suppose some believe you can actually remove one’s digital trail. I am fascinated by the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine which has as this appropriate logo.

The service received a Cease and Desist letter from Facebook.So now there’s this countdown on its site. What does it claim to offer?

“This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego.

Nice try.

Context will save journalism

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It often takes a good journalist to put things in context.

Forget the inverted pyramid. Forget the fair-and-balanced dance of pretending to give equal time. Sometimes it’s the power of good storytelling, that puts things in rich perspective.

I am a big fan of Arizona Republic’s E. E. Montini. In his column today (Putting Janet, John and Jon in context) he puts the whole brouhaha of Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano in context. Why? Because politicians tend to mangle context just to score points with their electorate. The ground rule: “Every single thing said by every single politician is taken out of context. Usually by other politicians.”

And so it is left to journalists to dig out the nuggets from the past. Nuggets that readers tend to forget, that supporters hope was buried in the archives. Most of us think of Google as the great equalizer, the amazing memory machine. But there’s nothing like seeing context pop up on the front page of a dead tree. Thanks to the other machine, the journalist.