Johnny Tapia, R.I.P.

The boxing champ Johnny Tapia was found dead at his home. He was 45 years old. I did a video, above, about him when I worked for The Albuquerque Tribune. What impressed me most was how friendly he was. I went to a press conference, hung around for a bit to get footage, and he … Read more

Weekly Reading List 2012-05-27

Graphic of the Day: Media concentration infographic http://t.co/mYomQ6pF # Why newspapers need to lose the ‘view from nowhere’ http://t.co/ovg0xWPC # FBI quietly forms secretive Net-surveillance unit http://t.co/oTtnth99 # Warren Buffett’s letter his editors and publishers http://t.co/hSgciPrf # Powered by Twitter Tools

Friends don’t buy friends: paying for a better Facebook status update ruins the game

For a moment, don your cynic’s armor and think of relationships as a game. Like any game, it has rules. Here’s one of them: you don’t pay people to be your friend. If you do, that person is not your friend.

Right?

Before we gaze deep into the dark navel of interstellar definitions of the meaning of friendship, let’s recap why I wrote this post in the first place: Facebook is letting some users in New Zealand pay to make their status updates more prominent.

I get the business temptation, especially with an I.P.O. on the way. Maybe this is an elaborate play put on to ease investors’ worries about how the social network will continue to grow and churn out profits. This, potentially, could do both. Some folks previously disinterested in Facebook might see a new way to reach people and hop on. Current users might expand their networks in ways to accommodate this manner of paid communication. (Or maybe they’ll contract them to make the networks more efficient.) And if people are buying updates, they’ll want them to be better. Facebook could become a middle-man to writers and editors willing to refine all of those messages.

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Weekly Reading List 2012-05-13

The Outsourced Life – http://t.co/ExkyNKsq http://t.co/uFTMtaKt # Al Jazeera unveils new portal for citizen reporters | News | Rapid TV News http://t.co/slljFskZ # Why Publishers Don't Like Apps – Technology Review http://t.co/YqsIEVFE # Powered by Twitter Tools

Weekly Reading List 2012-05-06

If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them? – http://t.co/ExkyNKsq http://t.co/wXZbM8lJ # Pepsi Puts A Pop Culture “Cheat Sheet” At The Heart Of Its New Campaign http://t.co/4udYkpmm # Powered by Twitter Tools