Sunday 29 April 2007

The success of contributory information (Wikipedia :))

Only two hours after the burst in Virginia Tech, Avril 16th, a wikipedia page was created and became the source of information for thousands of Internet Users and other medias.
The mobilisation of the students on the premises to describe their feelings, what they saw and lived created a impressive stream of information on the Web. This clearly shows that the professional medias of information can't deal without amateur anymore.
The videos, chats and pictures of the students were diffused on CNN.com, Washingtonpost.com and on all the International TVs.

However, the best organized information was on Wikipedia, written by amateurs. Since Avril 16th, more than 2,000 persons contributed to 9,000 modifications of the page. This video I found on Youtube shows the evolution of the "Virginia Tech Massacre" page during the twelve first hours.

Today, the article is full and explains the acts, attacks, perpetrator, follow-up (from the football ligue to the gouvernment reaction) and fits the tragedy with the debate on the Gun Control. The article ends with 130 notes justifying the reliability of the text.

On the French wikipedia page about VT, a debate deals with the question "Is the word massacre too stunning?". The result is that wikipedians prefere the term "burst".

Tuesday 3 April 2007

Edit about The political e-marketing

Few weeks ago, I spoke about the new role of Internet in the french presidential campaign.
Yesterday, Francois Bayrou, credited with about 20% of votes proposed to the three other main candidates a debate. To overstep the strict rules of the CSA (the council responsible of the fair of the campaign), he offered a e-debate.
"I suggest that all the bloggers, all the internet users (...) to get together to organize a debate between us (the four main candidates)" said F. Bayrou during a news conference.
2 of the other candidates accepted, but the 3rd one declined, arguing that "the debate will be with all the candidates or won't be".
The first step of the election is in 17 days, what reduce the possibility of this debate. However, Agoravox try to gather the three candidate who accepted the initial invitation.
A survey asking us if we want this debate before the "first round" shows that 92% of the people are pro (49% want to see it on Internet, 44% at the TV and the others on the radio).

I'm personnaly pro this event (a way for me to follow the campaign even here) but I think this debate won't happen. In France, Internet is not a real media to convice someone to vote for a party. However, few candidates have already accepted to be interviewed by some blogs such as http://www.politicshow.net/