Yahoo software continuously tracks common words, phrases and topics that are popular among users across its vast online network. To help create content for the blog, called The Upshot, a team of people will analyze those patterns and pass along their findings to Yahoo’s news staff of two editors and six bloggers.The news staff will then use that search data to create articles that — if the process works as intended — will allow them to focus more precisely on readers.

via At Yahoo, Using Queries to Steer News Coverage – NYTimes.com.

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An actual news experiment with comparison between covering news with Facebook and Twitter, and covering news traditional ways.

At least based on anecdotal evidence, it seems as if everyone has come to this realization at the same time. People also seem to realize that this isn’t just some transitional phase in which the wheat is being separated from the chaff, either; even the best talent is getting screwed. So where does that leave us? I’m not really sure. If I’d have known things were gonna shake out this way in college, I’d have probably thought twice about applying for that first magazine internship. But now, after five years, the point of no return is getting awfully close.

If I haven’t shot it by already.

Basically, this is the same conclusion that I have come to.

Mining Internet content with algorithms that look at mood and feelings, as well as statements.

1. Red Hat: 12.3%

2. IBM: 7.6%

3. Novell: 7.6%

4. Intel: 5.3%

5. Independent consultant: 2.5%

6. Oracle: 2.4%

7. Linux Foundation: 1.6%

8. SGI 1.6%

9. Parallels 1.3%

10. Renesas Technology: 1.3%

11. Academia: 1.2%

12. Fujitsu: 1.1%

13. MontaVista: 1.1%

14. MIPS Technologies: 1.1%

15. Analog Devices: 1.0%

16. HP: 1.0%

Some of those names, like Red Hat, Novell, and the Linux Foundation, will come as no surprise to anyone who follows Linux. Others like Analog Devices, MIPS Technologies, and Renesas Technology might puzzle you at first until you know that they’re chip companies; while we often think of Linux in terms of servers and desktops, it plays an enormous role in embedded computing devices from DVR (digital video recorders) to GPS devices to your car’s engine.

But what I’d like to draw the attention of everyone who thinks of Linux as being written by techies for techies to is that major computer companies that everyone knows, like IBM, Intel, Oracle, Fujitsu, and HP, also spend hundreds of millions in making Linux better. Those companies aren’t doing this because they think Linux is “cool”; they’re investing in it because Linux makes good, hard business sense for traditional hardware and software companies.

via Who writes Linux: Big Business – Computerworld Blogs.

But these acronym rich, highly complex legal conflicts might prove to be irrelevant. Beyond the moral and legal struggle between Internet pirates and traditional content producers, the battle over paid online content – both inside and outside Sweden – has already been lost. Consumers simply aren’t paying for Internet music, movies or newspapers. For better or worse, the old paid model no longer really works. The majority of online consumers believe that all content should be free. And if they can’t access this free content legally, then they will either steal or ignore it.

Not that the old regime is going down without a fight. Last week, Rupert Murdoch, a 20th century Viking now turned 21st century victim, announced his intention to establish a paid “walled garden” around flagship News Corps newspapers such as the Sun, the London Times and the Wall Street Journal. While I defended Murdoch for this ballsy move, most media pundits laughed at the 79 year-old mogul, accusing him of being anachronistically out of touch with the contemporary “consumer” in today’s increasingly free Internet economy.

via Pirate Bay leads Swedish Viking charge on paid content – Telegraph.

At a certain moment in the not too distant future, consumers will finally have to acknowledge their own guilt in the destruction of our paid culture. We have to collectively recognise that it’s not file-sharing sites like Pirate Bay or radical new political parties like the Pirate Party which are killing the music, newspaper and movie industries. Instead, we are collectively killing our own culture by refusing to pay for it online. Each new Spotify or Pirate Bay is, therefore, one more nail in the coffin of the traditional media business.

P2P Not to Blame for Content Industry Failures Says EU.

The report finds, in a surprising contradiction to what industry executives have been spouting for ages, consumers’ behavior has nothing to do with the peer-to-peer technology (P2P) that has given rise to all-you-can-eat systems for free downloads of copyrighted content. In fact, many people claim that they wouldn’t pay for online content even if all other free options were taken away. This finding has dramatic implications for the future of business, and not just in the entertainment industry, either. If people won’t pay for content, how will companies survive?

the EU study reports on the state of the online entertainment industry, revealing factoids like “less than 5% of Europeans have paid for online content in the last three months” and in the youngest age group “this figure is twice as high.” In other words, willingness to pay is an issue that’s only getting worse with each new generation of users, so something needs to be done…and done quick.

As you might have noticed, the print industry is struggling. Yet the very publications that still can’t quite get a handle on the Internet after all these years are now promoting the Twitter generation. This sounds like a death wish, worse than serial “no comments.”

via More folly with sports league’s trying to control athletes’ ‘tweets’ — chicagotribune.com.