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Fascinating three-part interview where a UK-based scam detective interviews a Nigerian who has served time for his involvement with 419. Consistent with what I've heard talking to West African friends about the 419 game… and very interesting to watch the scam detective lose his temper when the issue of motivations comes up…
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Hatari ("danger" in Swahili) uses Ushahidi platform to do community crime reporting in Nairobi. Central challenge is getting over the "why should I report this" barrier – the answer – warnings about crime in your neighborhood.
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PEJ's analysis of New Media in 2009 – heavy, heavy reliance on traditional journalism (roughly 100% of news links, split 20% to BBC and Guardian, remainder mostly to NYTimes, CNN), heavy activist and mobilizing tendencies in Twitter. Very interesting analysis – would be good fun to expand the set of sources considered.
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A quick summary of the key points from PEJ's 2010 state of the media: Advertising doesn't work online, nor do paywalls. So much less money is going towards core journalism, which is the base for online media… and people feel overwhelmed by what they've got and are opting for opinion over fact. Ugly.
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Pew's massive (180,000 word) state of the media report, including analysis of the content of social media, and extensive reflection on the cuts to traditional journalism
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A thorough study of mobile phone tapping in Greece shows the vulnerabilities of phone systems to abuse of law enforcement features by insiders and hackers