Dialog Box

CNN has decided to sell custom, on-demand t-shirts featuring headlines from their website. No, I’m not making this up.

There seems to be very little rhyme or reason behind their choices of which headlines are permissible for t-shirts — not all of the daily gems can be plastered onto an oh-so-esoteric cotton tee.

And, of course, it has to be “Beta,” since that term has lost all meaning.

Sarcasm and condescension aside, Woot has a far more entertaining way to look at this marketing misstep:

PS: I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from a website that still posts such sensitive, journalistic links as:

Ah, yes. I suppose sensationalism’s best friend is voyeurism.

A ‘proposal’ from veteran web designers Hop Studios asks “What if news sites were built for sharing instead of for telling?” and then answers the question with tickr — a proposed mashup between flickr‘s celebrated Web 2.0 community interface and traditional news outlet content.

While they allude to sites like Wikipedia, they focus on flickr‘s model, because they feel it is highly influential and has innate loyalty-building properties. To me, though, it looks like there’s a heavy wiki influence here.

The observations about the most useful (and popular) UI elements of flickr are interesting to consider, though. Sites like Wikipedia could certainly be improved by some of their logical suggestions, and it would indeed be interesting to see a working news wiki community site like the proposed tickr.

(Thanks, Magnetbox — a blog with one of the most creative looks I’ve seen!)

The news from Virginia Tech is just stunning beyond words. The nationwide emotional impact is laid bare by the connectedness that the internet provides.

The L.A. Times has a worthwhile compilation of reaction across the web:

May peace come to all of the victims, their families, and the Virginia Tech family.

Count me in, too. A major earthquake has just struck Mexico City, and, like prominent blogger Robert Scoble, I heard the news first through Twitter, the relatively new instant message/mini-blog service. Twitter was alive with reports moments after the quake — even before USGS and other authorities made their initial reports.

Even now, the conventional media is just picking up on this story. Checking moments ago, only the L.A. Times has mention of the reports — CNN, ABCNews, and others are still chewing on the Imus story.

I’ll follow up on this later with more on Twitter, but for now, take a look at Scobleizer’s blog for more info.