SOCIAL BLURBS

Via EJC – US: Pooling resources, two newsrooms merge

annak — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:18:56 +0000

Media News – Tuesday, October 19, 2010

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US: Pooling resources, two newsrooms merge

The nonprofit investigative journalism world continues to expand with the announcement on Tuesday that the Center for Public Integrity will absorb the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, a nonprofit journalism arm of The Huffington Post. The move would bring the total headcount at the center to more than 50 employees, making it one of the largest nonprofit investigative newsrooms in the US. As part of the deal, The Huffington Post will transfer USD 2m in grants and financing from the investigative fund to support the new venture. The Huffington Post has also agreed to post three articles a day and a handful of headlines on its Web site in a new section dedicated to promoting investigative journalism. The investigative fund brand will be discontinued. (New York Times)

Watch live technology being demystified from Frontline Georgia

annak — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 07:48:28 +0000

http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=frontlinegeorgia&autoPlay=false

Watch live streaming video from frontlinegeorgia at livestream.com

WEF 2010 – Hamburg

annak — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:45:44 +0000

The tablet year:
Why mobile distribution will change The news Business

via wefhamburg2010.com

Off to Hamburg tonight, for one of the most interesting among this year’s media events – World Editors’ Forum, starting on Wednesday morning. Check out the website for the full program and check back for updates.

Elections and social media

annak — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:57:30 +0000

Although all my updates recently lead to my blog-posts on Global Voices, still better than nothing, right?

So here comes another one, about how social media actually did amazing job covering local elections day on May 30. Here’s the link http://bit.ly/dgBaS8

Tagged: bloggers, elections, local elections, online activism, social media, Tbilisi

Imedi’s Requiem of Georgian Dream

annak — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:15:20 +0000

Debates continue about what Imedi TV did on March 13th, and the Director of the channel doesn’t intend to resign or punish anyone as yet. We’ll still need to investigate who needed this experiment and what was the purpose. One is clear, the most trusted TV Channel logically arrived to the end of what it’s been doing for many months – but made it big this time.

Thank you bloggers, who really care for media’s integrity and the public, you helped me write a post for Global Voices about Imedi’s violation of not only the Code of Conduct for Broadcasters, or professional ethics, but most importantly – violation of its people’s human rights.

Tagged: Arveladze, bloggers, Code of Conduct for Broadcasters, Global Voices, human rights, Imedi, media

Rocko’s experiment with Chatroulette

annak — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:08:19 +0000

I didn’t dare, but Rocko did – experimented with Chatroulette and wrote a hilarious blog-post, giving statistics of one-hour experiment, where out of his 200 chat-partners 100 were looking for tits, 50 were masturbating, 48 were hi and swearing and 2 were expressing condolences “for that Olympics guy”.

Here’s just one screen-shot, if you read Georgian, the blogpost is worth reading, if you don’t read Georgian, you definitely want to scroll down to find “Update” and check out more screenshots.

And if you have no idea what Chatroulette is, read about it’s founder, 17-year-old Russian high-school student in NYT story.

Tagged: bloggers, Chatroulette, fun, Rocko

Without internet connection for a week a…

annak — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 17:52:05 +0000

Without internet connection for a week and with post-holiday and pre-plans for the next year workload, the last post on this blog dates back to January 17th. Apologies. But at least I wrote for Global Voices about tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashvili right before the opening of 2010 Winter Olympics and you can read this post here

Tagged: Tag it

Penisman – Georgian Superhero

annak — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:25:54 +0000

Penisman – a new superhero, who lives in Tbilisi and doesn’t give a crap. Two young Georgians who admired superheroes as kids and created parody of superhero as they entered teenage years, talk about it in today’s guest-post.

15-years-old Giorgi Chilaia (A.K.A. Onavari Taro) and 14-years-old Bachi/Jano Valishvili (A.K.A. Otara), two friends, living in Saburtalo neighborhood, whose pastime is recording music, with the help of a couple other friends, whoever’s available at the moment, announced a band called The Sxvites. Name has its own history, just as silly and, as they say stupid, as many of their lyrics and videos.
The Sxvites rock!
They love Tenacious D (you could tell), sometimes play in the streets, they fool around, come up with absolutely politically incorrect, naughty, offensive lyrics, still funny and yet not so abrasive.
Giorgi started blogging about two years ago, has followers and blogroll, links and comments, in other words – properly set up blog.
Different is their few months-old videoblog called TViuri, which also can be translated as “periods” in Georgian. It doesn’t have any links, any blogroll, anything else other than The Sxvites videos and Archive, even has nothing to do with periods, except probably one song about Mother of Georgia’s (statue) periods.
They say, many do not understand their humor, there are more of those people who do not like them, then those, who like. Although a poll on Giorgi’s personal blog, what kind of content the visitors would like to see, most people, 32 percent say, they want The Sxvites.
Yeah, no doubt, they are funny, can laugh at themselves, at others, at stereotypes, even at Superheroes and at the same time be winners at countrywide competitions in different school subjects or television games, be interested in studying psychiatry, etc.
What’s next in their blogging life? They don’t know – cause they, like their Superhero Penisman “don’t give a crap.”
But they deserve more comments and support on their blog. Cause they are different from other teen bloggers, whose blogs are mostly Emo and never so funny. The Sxvites are superheroes of online TV entertainment, not because of the dirty language or arrogance, but because of tasteful use of it and their self-deprecating humor.

Tagged: blogs, entertainment, Giorgi Chilaia, Onavari Taro, Otara, Penisman, Superhero, Tenacious D, The Sxvites, TV

Kazuri – small and beautiful

annak — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:13:13 +0000

Just because I have some nice photos and because this is a place, where over 400 single Kenyan women create small and beautiful ceramic jewelry, I decided to share it. Well, at least next time you see somewhere in the US or UK or else small store called Kazuri, which in Swahili means “small and beautiful,” you will know who makes these colorful beads.

Kazuri produces over 5 million beads a year and exports them to over 30 countries worldwide and can be ordered online, just search for them.

While visiting this place, guides take you on tour showing the whole process from very beginning to the end product – beads in the store. Get a short tour with the photos…

These beads are just cut and waiting to go to women who will color and make them shiny

After getting these flowers out of forms, women still need to clean them and make more beautiful

These buffaloes are also handmade like everything else in Kazuri, later they will become dark blue and shiny

These giraffes look still naked, missing their spots

Decorating plate, all by hand

Coloring one by one, all by hand, 5 million a year...

Tagged: fair trade, Kazuri, kenya, nairobi, photo, travel, women

Baby Elephant – Unique Gift for Your Loved Ones

annak — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:53:09 +0000

Baby elephants chatting

If you still haven’t come up with the best idea for holiday presents, adopt a baby elephant for your loved ones – they will remember you forever.

When visiting Nairobi, Kenya, The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is the one to remember and their elephant orphanage is the place to visit. A one-hour show during which elephants are playing outside, in front of public, following their keepers, lazying in the mud and having milk, while their keepers are telling their habits, each of their stories, feeding them from big bottles of milk and offering to become a foster parent. Fostering a baby elephant costs only $50 a year. Amazing, isn’t it? You can read all the stories of all the orphaned baby-elephants on the website and adopt any of them, as many as you wish. Obviously the baby will stay in the orphanage and you will get a fostering certificate with a profile and photograph of your adopted orphan and every month you will get the ‘Keepers Diary’ for your elephant. In the diary you will be able to access the daily calendar entries and the monthly photos. Check out more photos here. And videos below:

Tagged: David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, elephant orphanage, kenya, nairobi, travel