I’ve always been a visual learner, and these days find myself “watching” news online more frequently than I used to, though I love to read and believe that reading is often the best way to really explore a topic. We’ve all seen our favorite websites and blogs start adding more and more video content. It can be a terrific way to convey information that benefits from visuals, like demonstrations of new technologies or explanations of complex situations.
So this time around, in addition to what I’m reading I wanted to also reference what I’ve been watching.
The WikiLeaks story continues to unfold and intrigue. This week’s headlines have been consumed by the cyber-attacks against WikiLeak’s alleged “enemies.” Targets have included Paypal and Visa, and some pundits are predicting Facebook will be next. It’s been scary fun to watch videos from both sides, like this one in support of WikiLeaks. Because of the constant evolution of this story, the video coverage has been helpful to keeping track of what is allegedly going on.
Sometimes stories that appear in print could really benefit from a dose of video. Case in point is this good story about a startup school for tech in the San Jose Mercury News. Concerned with the declining performance of kits in science and math, the school is chartered with focusing heavily on those topics. What’s more videogenic than a group of inspired youth?
Speaking of video, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the growth of mobile video for a few clients. This week’s Bloomberg Businessweek contains an excellent article on the topic. It ends with a mindboggling stat: video traffic is expected to comprise 90 percent of Internet traffic by 2014. Are we all video junkies?
For fun these days, I’m reading a lot of blogs about my new San Francisco neighborhood in The Mission, and—as always—food and restaurants. A site I recently started loving is the Bold Italic, which is a great blog about San Francisco people, places and things, written by a group of self-proclaimed “Bold Locals.” It’s always a fun read. Another local fave is Eater SF (sister site is Curbed, which I read religiously each day while searching for a home in SF a number of months back). A must-read before I shut down my laptop each evening.
And in the category of old fashioned print books (I have not succumbed yet to an e-reader), I just started reading “Life” Keith Richards’ newly published autobiography. It’s been terrific thus far. Richards is seemingly open and honest, not to mention witty, with memory that is amazing given his druggie past. He certainly has a huge ego and is mighty self absorbed…but what artist is not? While I’m only around one-quarter into it, I’m giving it a thumbs up.
A Shel of My Former Self
Ars Technica
All Things Digital
Bad Pitch Blog
Breakaway Blog
GigaOm
Influential Marketing Blog
Louis Gray
Mashable
PRNewser
Pro PR Tips
ReadWriteWeb
Scobleizer
Silicon Valley Watcher
Strategic Public Relations
TechCrunch
VentureBeat
Webware
Wi-Fi Networking News
ZDNet’s Social Business
