Literature more memorable when posted on Facebook

"Laura Mickes and her team took 200Facebook stat us updates, stripped them of their context, and showed them to 32 participants alongside other decontextualised lines from 200 different fiction and nonfiction books.

The participants were shown the lines on a screen, briefly, and given the choice of saying whether it had been repeated from earlier in the experiment or not.

The results found that, across the board, people were one and a half times as likely to remember a Facebook post as a line from a book — and, when a similar experiment was carried out with faces instead of the lines from novels, it showed that people were two and a half times as likely to remember the Facebook posts over the faces."

From: http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/01/17/social-media-posts-more-memorable-than-literature/



SpyWriter Jack King || "A new King of thrillers on the horizon" || Author of Political Thrillers || www.SpyWriter.com

Know your online friends

How well do you know your Social Networking "Friends"?

"the U.S. Strategic Command (overseeing the nuclear strike) will concentrate on military computer hacking and cyberdefenses. The Joint Staffs will take responsibility for deception operations, while Special Operations Command will take the lead in military information gathering aimed at supporting secret operations. [...] the Central Command (covering the greater Middle East) has recently purchased a $2.7 million software, especially designed by San-Diego based Ntrepid. The material will permit the manipulation of social media through the use of fake online "personas" managed by the military, followed by all kinds of infiltration and intelligence operations, while being able to keep the trickery under the radar."

http://www.voltairenet.org/article168698.html



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Spies to Predict the Future

"The theory is simple and reasonable: the more you know about what is happening right now, the better you'll be at predicting what will happen next. One United States intelligence agency is planning to do just that -- using Google, Twitter, Facebook, and anything else that provides a window on current events and trends. [...]

The kinds of sources of information that the project will be consulting are referred to as OSI, or Open Source Indicators -- such as "web search trends, blogs, microblogs, internet traffic, webcams, financial markets, and many others" according to the notice. Using "continuous, automated analysis" of these indicators, IARPA hopes to "anticipate and/or detect societal disruptions, such as political crises, disease outbreaks, economic instability, resource shortages, and natural disasters."

More: http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/176564/20110708/us-government-to-use-internet-to-predict-the-future.htm

Writers and Social Media

Recently Malcolm Gladwell weighed in on the relevance of Facebook and Twitter. His answer was a vigorous headshake, so vigorous the head could actually unscrew. Seems Gladwell unnerved a touchy subject. Everyone is running in circles, like headless roosters. Are Social Media of any use to writers / novelists?

Louis-Ferdinand Céline answers (and long before the emergence of these services):

"Let's talk about work, the job of writing. It's the only thing that counts. And even that calls for a good deal of indiscretion. Too much publicity in the way people talk about these things. We're objects of publicity. It's revolting. It's high time people took a cure of modesty. In literature as in everything else we're befouled by publicity. It's disgraceful. I say: do your job and shut up, that's the only way. People will read it or they won't read it, that's their business. The only thing for the author to do is to make himself scarce."

Writers and Social Media

Wondering which Social Media works best to channel your brand and message? Look no further:

Download full chart here (pdf)

Your Facebook 'Friend' is a spy

The average person usually joins social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to get to know others better. However, as the Dutch secret services AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) and MIVD (Military Intelligence and Security Service) point out, people should be careful when placing information on their personal sites.
 
Intelligence agencies often use social networking sites for more sinister purposes. On Friday, the Dutch intelligence agencies began a campaign to warn of the dangers of digital espionage. They say that foreign intelligence services often use these sites to gather information about people.

The intelligence services have published three brochures to inform potential target groups about the dangers. The brochure on 'digital espionage' describes the dangers of infected emails, visiting infected websites and how infected USB sticks are sometimes handed out as promotional gifts at conferences. In addition, social networking sites such as Facebook can also be an interesting source of information for foreign intelligence services.

“You do not have to avoid using Facebook, Hyves [a Dutch social networking site] and other similar sites, but you should keep in mind that they are available to third parties. Espionage is not something from thirty years ago. It is something which exists today in many different forms, and especially in the digital world.” READ MORE

Network Culture

Most of the changes in network culture are subtle and only appear radical in retrospect. Take our relationship with the press. One morning you noted with interest that your daily newspaper had established a website. Another day you decided to stop buying the paper and just read it online. Then you started reading it on a mobile Internet platform, or began listening to a podcast of your favourite column while riding a train. Perhaps you dispensed with official news entirely, preferring a collection of blogs and amateur content. Eventually the paper may well be distributed only on the net, directly incorporating user comments and feedback. Or take the way cell phones have changed our lives. When you first bought a mobile phone, were you aware of how profoundly it would alter your life? Soon, however, you found yourself abandoning the tedium of scheduling dinner plans with friends in advance, instead coordinating with them en route to a particular neighbourhood. Or if your friends or family moved away to university or a new career, you found that through a social networking site like Facebook and through the every-present telematic links of the mobile phone, you did not lose touch with them. Read More