ARTS & FARCES internet

ESRD

John Oxendine, Republican gubernatorial candidate and current insurance commissioner of Georgia, has written Kathleen Sebelius, US secretary of health and human services, that he would not allow the state of Georgia to comply with a federal request to create a state pool for high-risk insurance plans. Signaling yet another conservative strategy for attempting to sidestep healthcare reform, Oxendine wrote that “he could not allow Georgia to join a scheme which I believe the Supreme Court will hold to be unconstitutional, leads to the further expansion of federal government, undermines the financial security of our nation, and potentially commits the State of Georgia to future financial obligations.” Replace “healthcare reform” with “civil rights,” “Medicare,” or “Social Security” and the times—and the arguments—haven’t changed much. I’m glad I no longer live in Georgia.

Internet

The same week that Twitter announces it’s first attempt at a business model, the US Library of Congress announces that it will archive all of Twitter. That’s 55 million messages a day according to New York Times reporter Steve Lohr. The Twitter archive is being undertaken as part of the library’s Web Capture project. That project has so far focused on collecting digital documents related to significant events, to the tune of 167 terabytes. Lohr quotes Fred Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer at the Yale Law School, as saying “this is an entirely new addition to the historical record, the second-by-second history of ordinary people.”

Media

Dan Gillmor is still waiting for a response from the New York Times about its relationship with Apple. Gillmor observes, correctly, that there’s at least an apperance of a conflict of interest between the two. Gillmor also asked the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today to answer whether Apple can “unilaterally disable their iPad apps if Apple decides, for any reason, that it doesn’t like the content they’re distributing.” He’s still waiting for a response. Gillmor’s second question is becoming more urgent by the day. Earlier this week, Apple rejected Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Mark Fiore’s app (when Fiore won the Pulitzer, Apple decided to reconsider the rejection).

Politics

The US Republicans strategy is set for the 2010 mid-term elections. Next up for the US Congress appears to be financial system reform and re-regulation proposed by the Democrats. Republicans, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), criticize the proposed legislation as “arrogant and partisan,” the same argument they used for healthcare reform; healthcare reform based almost exclusively on Republican ideals. “We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech. “That’s why we must not pass the financial reform bill that’s about to hit the floor. The fact is this bill wouldn’t solve the problems that led to the financial crisis. It would make them worse.” Never mind that Christopher Dodd’s draft of the Senate bill (.pdf; 1.4MB)—as Jen Psaki, White House deputy communications director—points out: “Under the Senate bill, large financial firms facing insolvency in times of crisis will be shut down or broken apart. Management will be replaced. Creditors will suffer losses. Equity holders will be wiped out. And large financial firms, not taxpayers, will be required to bear the costs.” But wait—McConnell actually voted for the US$700 billion bank bailout under President Bush in 2008.

Publishing

ProPublica became the first online news organization to win a Pulitzer Prize. While Richard Perez-Pena, writing for the New York Times, claims that “over the last few years, the Pulitzer Prize board has relaxed the eligibility rules, allowing news sites to submit work published only online…” that’s inaccurate. It’s more accurate to say that the board expanded the eligibility rules. ProPublica staff writer Sheri Fink won the Pulitzer in the investigative category for “The Deadly Choices at Memorial,” a 13,000-word article about a New Orleans hospital cut off by Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times magazine published Fink’s work on the fourth anniversary of the hurricane.

It had to happen. It just had to. Shortly after Dave Eggers left Salon.com as an editor, he started McSweeney’s in 1998. Overnight, McSweeney’s became the print place for writers to be published. This week Salon.com announced a “content partnership” with McSeeeney’s. First up: Elif Batuman’s “Missed Encounters With the Movies” from the Believer film issue.

Sustainability

The Solar Energy Industries Association claims US solar industry revenues grew by 36% (.pdf; 1MB) in 2009, despite the Great Recession. I’m always wary of trade association reports, but this one has some pretty remarkable metrics, not the least of which is that the US residential photo-voltaic market doubled “and three new CSP plants helped lift the US solar electric market 37% in annual installations over 2008 from 351 MW in 2008 to 481 MW in 2009.” Most hopeful of all is that the price for photo-voltaic modules have fallen more than 40% in the past year: US$3.50-US$4.00 per watt in mid-2008 to US$1.85-US$2.22 per watt in 2009.

Technology

Is Apple’s iPad a generative device? Depends on who you ask. And what the meaning of generative is. Steven Johnson says yes in a widely read New York Times op-ed. Dan Gillmor challenged Johnson’s position in a series of tweets. Johnson responded with a clarifying blog post.

User experience

Eat Media released results from a content strategy survey. Unfortunately nothing about the survey—sample size, response rate, questions posed, etc.—has been made public. Even after public requests. All we know for sure is that Eat Media “sent a survey out to top digital agencies and design firms—companies we consider to be smart thinkers, trailblazers, or just plain awesome.” So, with that great big caveat, take this “findings” for what they’re worth. 82% selected content strategy as a current need; 29% have content strategists/content developers on staff (big difference between the two, contrary to Eat Media‘s thinking they should be linked); 42% thought writers could/should handle this function; and 59% wished content strategists had a better understanding of business.

Rahel Bailie has published a smart overview of the content lifecycle piece of content strategy. “‘Big content management’ is about having a content strategy to create a repeatable system that governs the management of the content, throughout the entire lifecycle,” writes Bailie. She sees content lifecycle as four distinct pieces of a whole pie: strategic analysis > content collection > management of the content > publication (including post-publication maintenance). I don’t much like the “content collection” label, but she makes a good point.