links for 2010-09-08

• Crowdsourcing tubestrike info
  today, I was able to see a cool new use of some open source software called Ushahidi today to map the impact of the strike on us poor Londoners and our blighted travel plans.
  (tags: crowdsourcing socialmediatools socialmedia)
• The Day After – Lessons Learned from the Crowdmap experience
  Late on Monday night, I wrote a short post here in anticipation of the crowdmap I’d just set up for BBC London, which I hoped would provide a useful service the following day for the London tubestrike, 7th September 2010.

  It’s now Wednesday morning, and I can write, while still feeling slightly shell-shocked from the experience, that all in all, I’m very pleased with how it went.

  (tags: crowdsourcing socialmedia)
• The rise of the content farms
  Is this the year of the content farm?

  Last month, Demand Media, which already has a UK operation, published its IPO prospectus. This autumn, AOL plans a UK launch for Seed.com, a platform for freelance contributions that looks a lot like Demand’s. Homegrown entrepreneurs have taken the hint, too: last week, a marketplace for celebrity coverage called Interview Hub opened for business.

  Content farms are an attempt to increase the efficiency with which copy is commissioned, produced and published. Among freelance journalists, the instinctive response is often negative.

  No wonder. Would you fancy competing with thousands of new (and far less experienced) rivals for work that pays far less than it used to?

  (tags: journalism contentfarms)
• Net Neutrality: Why Worry?
  Why should you worry about Net Neutrality? It’s a complicated concept, even more complex in reality. Yet, for people like Chris Anderson of Wired it could spell the end of what we know as the free Internet. At a Polis experts seminar the conclusion was that you should not leave this area of media policy to competition, but that still leaves a lot of debate about what how you might interfere to prevent interference with the Web.
  (tags: netneutrality POLIS)
• ‘Good Samaritan’ survey shows charitable giving trends
  A third of the world’s population has given money to charity in the past month, the largest study ever carried out into global social conscience reveals today.

  The “World Giving Index” used Gallup surveys of 195,000 people in 153 nations and asked people whether they had volunteered or given money or help in the last month. It also asked respondents to rank how happy they are with life.

  (tags: giving donations charity)