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Data Journalism Developer Studio 2012LX

 

Updated 2011-07-31:

1. I’ve turned off One True Fan, most likely permanently, because it was confusing some Highligher users.

2. I’ve turned off Disqus and WordPress commenting as well, though this might be temporary. For the moment, I want to test out Highlighter as the main/only method of discussion.

3. I haven’t found a list of all sites using Highlighter yet, but I can recommend two run by friends of mine, Audrey Watters (@audreywatters) and Michelle Rae Anderson (@mediaChick):


At O’Reilly’s miniTOC Portland conference yesterday (hashtag #TOCPDX), Josh Mullineaux of Highlighter.com presented a brief overview of a new tool for websites, called Highlighter. I’ve enabled Highlighter on this site. There’s a video on the Highlighter home page, but here’s how it works:

1.  Highlight any text or image on the site with the mouse / trackpad. You will get a three-option menu: “Save This”, “Share It” and “Comment”.

2. The “Save This” option saves the highlighted content in your Highlighter profile. The “Share It” gives you the option of sharing the highlighted content on Facebook, Twitter, or in an email.

3. The “Comment” option is a little more interesting, and I think this is the awesome part of Highlighter. You can comment on the highlighted content, and your comment is sent to the website owner, me in this case, for moderation. If the owner approves, the comment is posted and any Highlighter subscriber can see it and join in the discussion.

There’s a good bit more to this:

  • Highlighter subscribers can follow each others’ streams, just like on Twitter or Facebook. You can think of it as a social network for publishers and their readers. You can join Highlighter here: http://highlighter.com/register/
  • For the publisher, there are detailed analytics about how your readers are engaging with your site.
  • Subscribers have a profile page, which I’ve linked to my Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Mine is http://highlighter.com/znmeb/
The installation is simple – in my case, I’ve simply installed a WordPress plugin. But any web site where you can install JavaScript in the page footer can use Highlighter. And even if you aren’t a publisher, you can subscribe to Highlighter and join in the discussion. I love it!
 

 According to Mashable, “Kraft Looks to Reward Twitter Users Who Tweet About Mac & Cheese“,

Under a new program quietly rolled out over the past few weeks, any time two people individually use the phrase “mac & cheese” in a tweet, they’ll each get a link pointing out the “Mac & Jinx.” The first one to click the link and give Kraft his or her address gets five free boxes of Kraft’s mac and cheese and a T-shirt.

It seems that “Mac & Cheese” is now a Trending Topic, as of 2011-03-08 19:12 UTC. But when you click on the topic, you see this Promoted Tweet:

What could be worse? Alyssa Milano, who has 1,403,372 followers, posted this tweet:

This could get interesting. 

Update: it has gotten interesting. @WootLive has gotten into the act.

Update: FriendsEAT has tweeted about capacity issues stemming from their article.

Oh, by the way — the Kraft campaign that started this whole thing is being run by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Does that name sound familiar? It’s the same agency that came up with the GroupOn Super Bowl ads about Tibet and seafood curry.

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