LiveJournal started as a blogging platform for online diaries, and it combined blogging and social networking features, making it a unique platform at the time.

The platform was inspired by the WELL, an online community that was known for its discussion forums and social networking features.

Initially, LiveJournal was a site for keeping up with school friends, allowing users to share their thoughts and experiences with others.

The platform allowed users to publish and comment on records, and also had collective blogs called communities.

Users could add friends and follow their records, making it a social networking platform as well.

LiveJournal was different from other blogging platforms, such as Myspace, which had open membership and gave users the freedom to customize their pages.

The founder of LiveJournal, Brad Fitzpatrick, initially created the platform as a personal journaling application, but he later transformed it into a website that others could use.

During the transformation, Brad Fitzpatrick made several key technical decisions, including designing the site's architecture to handle a large number of users and implementing a unique commenting system that allowed users to engage with each other's posts.

One of the technical decisions made by Fitzpatrick was to use an open-source content management system, which allowed the site to be highly customizable and enabled the development of a wide range of third-party plugins and themes.

The decision to use a Perl-based architecture and a MySQL database helped to improve the site's scalability and performance, allowing it to handle a large and growing user base.

LiveJournal's popularity peaked in the early 2000s, with over 2.5 million active accounts, but it started to decline with the rise of other social networking platforms such as Facebook, which launched in 2004 for college students and opened to everyone in 2006.

The platform faced challenges, including the removal of materials with terrorism and extremism signs, and was even blocked in Kazakhstan due to illegal materials.

However, access to LiveJournal was later restored in Kazakhstan, and the platform continued to evolve and develop, with plans to open an office in Kazakhstan and develop the Kazakhstan segment of the blogging platform.

Despite its decline in popularity, LiveJournal remains a significant platform for blogging and social networking, with a dedicated user base and a unique set of features that set it apart from other platforms.

The decline in popularity of LiveJournal can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the rise of other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the site's failure to adapt to changing user behaviors and technological advancements.

The site's popularity also declined due to the lack of investment and updates, as the site was sold to a Russian company, SUP Media, in 2007, and the new owners did not prioritize the development of the platform.

The history of LiveJournal serves as a reminder of the importance of ongoing development and adaptation in the rapidly changing world of social media and online communities.

LiveJournal started as a blogging platform for online diaries, and it combined blogging and social networking features, making it a unique platform at the time.

Title:

Content: LiveJournal is back in Kazakhstan
519
Anna VLADIMIROVA
Access to the "Live Journal" was restored after the administration of the LiveJournal blog platform executed the decisions of the judicial authorities of Kazakhstan on the removal of illegal materials posted on the resource.
Representatives of LiveJournal reported on the removal from the blogging platform of materials containing signs of propaganda of terrorism and religious extremism, public calls to commit acts of terrorism and the manufacture of explosive devices.
Earlier, the Saryarka court of Astana issued a decision to close access to the “Live Journal ” from August 20, 2011 due to the distribution of these materials.
As a result, the Committee of Communications, Informatization and Information of the Ministry of Investment and Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to resume access to the resource on the territory of Kazakhstan from November 11 this year.
LiveJournal also plans to open a representative office in Kazakhstan and develop the Kazakhstan segment of the blogging platform.
For reference: “Live Journal ” is a blogging platform for keeping online diaries (blogs).
Provides the ability to publish your own and comment on other people ’ s records, conduct collective blogs (“communities ”), add other users to friends and follow their records in the“ friends feed ”.
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The platform was inspired by the WELL, an online community that was known for its discussion forums and social networking features.

Title:

Content: Regulators Seem to Think That Facebook Is the Internet

That’s a problem.

In 1997, SixDegrees.com was the first real attempt at social networking, creating a space where users could upload their information and list their friends. The site peaked at approximately 3.5 million users before it shut down in 1999.

Since then, a series of social networking business models have emerged, each time offering more advanced tools for user interaction. LiveJournal, a site for keeping up with school friends, combined blogging and social networking features inspired by the WELL; Friendster was a social network that allowed for increased interaction and control by users; Myspace had open membership and gave users the freedom to customize their pages. In 2005, it—and its 25 million user base—was sold to News Corp. But within three years, Myspace had been surpassed by Facebook, which launched in 2004 for college students and opened to everyone in 2006.

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As that history shows, in the early days of the internet, disruption was profound and constant: New companies emerged in music, video, e-commerce, publishing, and telephony on an almost yearly basis. The internet appeared to be a space where competition could thrive.

Not anymore.

Today, disruption happens in much smaller ways. The examples are getting fewer because economies of scale have concentrated innovation in the hands of a few players.

More often, disruption comes from regulation—for better or, often, for worse. Current regulation attempts focus on the actions and behavior of some actors—chiefly Facebook—while creating unintended consequences for the internet, particularly fragmentation, or the splintering of the global internet into one that more closely hews territorial borders.

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It’s understandable that both the public and regulators might think that regulating “the internet” means focusing on the biggest players. Much of it has to do with the fact that users are often exposed to various types of illegal behavior and content through some of the most popular services that exist on the internet. Fix misinformation, or extremism, or ideological silos, or security on Facebook, the thinking goes, and you’ve fixed it on the internet as a whole.

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But this is an unhelpful and misguided narrative. First, the internet is not a monolith, so treating it as if it is simply will not work. Second, many of the issues regulators are trying to address are not internet problems; they are societal. Terrorism, child abuse, and mis- and disinformation are not an offspring of the internet; they existed before the internet, and they will continue to exist after it as they are ingrained in human societies. Yet, they are treated as if they are exclusively internet problems. Third, and most importantly, regulators should stop thinking of the internet as Facebook and treating it as such. In the internet regulatory landscape, there is a mixed bag of different issues, and Facebook’s involvement in all of them, direct or indirect, adds to the current complexity. Content moderation, privacy, intermediary liability, competition, encryption—these are all broader issues related to the internet, not just Facebook. Yet, the pattern that has emerged is to treat them as Facebook issues. What this means is that, instead of focusing on trying to address them in ways appropriate for the entire internet ecosystem, they are addressed through the Facebook lens. This has been quite accurately characterized as the “Facebook Derangement Syndrome.”

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The global regulatory agenda is replete with such examples. In the United Kingdom, the Online Safety legislation wants to ban end-to-end encryption because of Facebook’s plan to introduce it as a default setting in its Messenger service. On the other side of the Commonwealth, Australia recently introduced a media bargaining code mainly targeting Facebook. Facebook famously “left” the country before renegotiating a new agreement. Similarly, in what seems to be a coordinated effort, Canada has vowed to work with Australia in an attempt to impose regulatory restrictions on Facebook.

And this trend is not limited to the Commonwealth.

India’s new intermediary guidelines aim at tightening a regulatory grip on Facebook and its partner company WhatsApp while Brazil’s fake news bill, which got approved by the Senate, is focusing on content moderation on Facebook and traceability on WhatsApp. In France, there have been conversations about the introduction of “new rules” for Facebook, while Germany’s Network Enforcement Law—NetzDG—was drafted with the primary focus of taming Facebook. Finally, in the United States, the Trump administration issued an unsuccessful executive order that aimed to regulate Facebook for bias.

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This approach of limiting regulation to Facebook is not entirely unusual. It reflects the principal-agent conundrum that, over the years, has allowed companies like Facebook to  propose policies and deploy tools that can have an impact on the way regulation gets to be enforced. The principal-agent problem is predominantly characterized by conflict of interest and moral hazards. Due to information asymmetries, the agent holds the bargaining power, and this creates a few unknowns: The principal is in no position to know the information the agent holds. Even when she does, she cannot be certain that the agent is acting to her best interest. So, the principal ends up focusing squarely on the agent, disregarding any peripheral issues that might be significant.

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The principal-agent problem may help explain why governments appear ready to introduce regulation targeting Facebook; however, it does not help explain why, in the process of doing so, the main loser is the internet and its users.

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has said, “We support regulation,” and “we want updated internet regulations to set clear guidelines for addressing today’s toughest challenges.” This statement would be significant if it did not come across as self-serving. At this stage, regulation is inescapable and Facebook knows it—as does the rest of big tech. In an effort to adapt to this new reality, companies often take advantage of their dominant position to drive regulatory processes, often at the expense of regulation itself.

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In this context, the question we should be asking is not whether regulation is appropriate, but what are the real implications of regulating in such a manner? There is already an argument that focusing on a few, big players has an impact on the health of innovation and the ability of newcomers to compete. And, then, there is the internet. The internet’s global reach is one of its main strengths. It is a feature, not a bug. Among other things, it allows the maintenance of supply chains all over the world; it allows people to communicate; it lowers costs; and it makes information sharing easier, all the while helping to address societal issues like poverty or climate change.

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To this end, the attempt to regulate based on one—or a handful—of companies can jeopardize this very important goal of the internet. It can create fragmentation, in the sense of not allowing data to flow across borders or networks to interconnect, and this can be very real and have a very big impact. It can impose limits on the way information and data gets to be shared and the way networks may interoperate. These are significant trade-offs, and they must be part of any regulation’s process.

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So where do we go from here?

For sure, the answer cannot be to stop regulating. We must accept, however, that the current approach often generates unintended consequences that only superficially affect those who must be regulated.

In this light, a possible way forward is to experiment with regulation. Experimental regulation is a relatively underused approach, yet it is flexible enough to accommodate dynamic markets, like the internet. Originally associated with the work of John Dewey, this idea is premised on the fact that, in policymaking, the way we approach theories and strategies of justice depends on “the experience of their pursuit; it is these changes that then allow us to consider how best to achieve our objectives.” The advantage of this thinking is that it considers unintended consequences as an opportunity to better define appropriate regulatory frameworks and how to achieve the desired goals.

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Internet regulation does not experiment enough, and when it does, it appears to have the wrong focus. In Australia, for instance, the effort to ensure robust journalism in an age of disinformation in social media platforms led to a “link tax” that undermines the architecture, history, and economics of the internet. This is partly due to the role big tech companies play in the regulatory process. One of the immediate things one can observe with internet regulation is the process some actors deploy: In the beginning, they operate in favor of sustaining existing policies and bureaucracies. The thinking is that longevity brings legitimacy, and as a result, the policy becomes its own cause. Once this strategy is embedded in process, these powerful forces move toward pushing their own regulatory agenda.

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It is for this reason that there is a certain appeal toward flexible regulatory systems that allow different units to experiment with different approaches and make room for assessments that separate the relevant from the nonrelevant and preexisting rules. Although experimentation neither offers a drastic approach nor aims to replace traditional routes of regulation, it can limit the risks of politicization, as politics become more context focused.

One of the first things we need is an internet impact assessment that looks at the different parts of the internet’s infrastructure and the effect that regulation may have. It is no longer just about regulating a few actors. It is about protecting the global infrastructure that we all depend on daily.

The internet has a Facebook problem, but the internet is not Facebook.

This article represents the views of the author and not those of his employer, the Internet Society. Facebook is an organization member of the Internet Society.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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Initially, LiveJournal was a site for keeping up with school friends, allowing users to share their thoughts and experiences with others.

The platform allowed users to publish and comment on records, and also had collective blogs called communities.

Users could add friends and follow their records, making it a social networking platform as well.

LiveJournal was different from other blogging platforms, such as Myspace, which had open membership and gave users the freedom to customize their pages.

The founder of LiveJournal, Brad Fitzpatrick, initially created the platform as a personal journaling application, but he later transformed it into a website that others could use.

Title:

Content: News section
Tatmedia Board: Reflection of “Attack on Tatarstan ”,“ Emphasis on People ” and Strengthening in TikTok
Especially few young professionals and competent qualified employees
The Tatmedia agency decided to make its own content for the “zumers ” and since last year has been actively mastering the youth TikTok.
The reason is a sharp change in the environment, said the head of Tatmedia Aidar Salimgarayev.
In the era of “infosuhm ”, the main struggle for attention unfolded on the Internet.
And it is obvious that Tatmedia is still losing it.
The pandemic collapsed circulation of republican subscription publications, and television and radio broadcasting is in crisis, admitted the Agency.
And in the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan sometimes “can not find relevant topics for their briefings. ”
About how trends in the media environment have changed over the past two years, why a third of users are already ready to pay for “unique content ” and what projects the Republican Agency for Press and Mass Communications is going to attract“ Generation Z ” and those who are older – in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
“Tatmedia ” decided to make content for“ zoomers ”
Head of the Republican Agency for Press and Mass Communications “Tatmedia ” Aidar Salimgarayev noted at the very beginning of his speech that even the board itself, which was held in the conference mode in Zoom, reflects the events in which the world was and is: it was necessary to change speakers and speakers, as some of them managed to get sick with coronavirus.
However, he insists, the pandemic “failed to change the active life of Tatarstan. ”
Tatarstan residents themselves actively express their position on a number of remaining socially significant problems, from road construction and garbage collection to the formation of public space.
“Not always pleasant, but generally constructive, ” the speaker added.
Basically, it is obvious that the Tatars express their position directly in social networks – so the role of media channels, especially in recent years, has changed a lot.
To date, Salimgarayev said, there has been a “complete redistribution of content. ”
Online and mobile content delivery channels have become popular.
During the pandemic, the systemic problems of the industry, in particular, distribution, worsened.
The near-complete shutdown of print kiosks has exacerbated the drop in retail print runs — by almost half across the country.
Self-isolation has affected the availability of newspapers and magazines, but confidence in high-quality and reliable information has grown, Salimgarayev said.
At the same time, he admitted that social networks, which previously performed only communicative functions, have become for many (almost a quarter of Russians, at least) a source of “reliable information ”.
People, especially young people, have more confidence in those media that are actively represented on social networks.
Despite this, according to Salimgarayev, the main source of reliable information remains news sites on the Internet.
In this light, Tatmedia is concerned with the growth of the quality and popularity of youth content specifically for Generation Z.
For example, in August 2021, the TikTok Factory of SHAYAN TV was launched, directly working for the audience of “zumers ” (a generation of young people born in the 2000s).
“We live in an age of noise. ”
We live in an age of information noise.
There is a struggle for the attention of the reader on the Internet.
The need for digital transformation requires reformatting the work according to the challenges of time, he explained the decision to launch these and other projects of the agency.
Among them, there is a factory of chatbots that can bring “reliable information about public services to the population ” and work out feedback in Telegram (more than 350 thousand Tatarstan citizens have used it).
The agency considers the Ak Bars complex of systems for improving the efficiency of information companies, the launch of a single digital platform for broadcasting the content of Tatarstan TV and radio channels in the form of a mobile application and the digital archive of all Tatarstan magazines and newspapers as promising projects for itself.
The forum “Digital Communications in the Public Sector ” is also going to be held in July.
The head of Tatmedia noted the obvious fact that the majority of readers of the same online media read their news and materials from a smartphone (about 78%).
The audience of readers of online publications has also grown: according to Tatmedia, KazanFirst has an annual audience of more than 17 million, the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya has more than 25 million visitors.
On the other hand, municipal officials and representatives of system-forming enterprises are lagging behind today.
“Tatarstan TV is going through a stage of overcoming, leaving the analogue in cable and digital ”
— In today ’ s realities, it is important to be ahead of events, to form public opinion, and not to follow crises!
For regular work with the population, ministries and administrations to rebuild work in this direction! - Aidar Salimgarayev said.
At the same time, the role of specialists, on whom the formation of the image of government representatives directly depends, remains insufficient in the media space.
Most press services consider the preparation of press releases exhaustive, and in some district administrations there are no real press secretaries at all.
Among other problems facing the media industry of the Republic of Tatarstan, Salimgarayev called “information attacks on Tatarstan ”, the crisis of Tatarstan television and personnel shortage.
Particularly acute, he believes, is the shortage of young professionals and competent qualified staff.
Tatar platform on "Smart TV" and the series "Ber-ber khal"
In order to save local TV, Tatmedia developed a project to ensure the delivery of content of republican TV and radio channels on the Smart TV platform (which allows delivering content to streaming media, such as Netflix or Kinopoisk), which, I am sure, will soon take a leading position.
A successful project in Tatmedia called the series about relationships in the multinational family “Ber-ber khal ” on TNV (the online newspaper“ Realnoe Vremya ” wrote about its preparation a year ago).
At the same time, although the rebranding of local TV channels continues in some areas, the fact of closure of the well-known TV channel STV-Chelny in Naberezhnye Chelny in December 2021 is indicative.
These are the realities of the market, Salimgarayev commented with regret on the closure, citing a sharp outflow of advertising from TV to the pandemic.
“There is a need for modernization ”
Similar trends are also in the subscription print press, which Tatmedia plans to support by appealing to the federals.
- The subscription is falling, - admitted the head of the agency. - But not all resources are exhausted to increase the interest of the reader.
We need a place to promote.
Indeed, for the year, the total volume of copies of republican newspapers and magazines by subscription campaign decreased by 8.4% and for the first half of 2022 amounted to 832.5 thousand.
At the same time, against the background of the fall in circulation of subscription publications, there is a trend of stable growth of national Tatar publications.
– Circulations of private publications in the Tatar language are phenomenal! – said Salimgarayev.
However, to attribute everything to a pandemic is wrong, it was made clear in Tatmedia itself.
So, despite the general negative impact of the pandemic on all printing publishing production, it was marketing flexibility that allowed to increase the profitability of Idel-Press by 7.5% - up to 1 billion rubles.
The shortcomings and problems indicated by the leadership of Tatmedia were confirmed by the press service of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Tatarstan, which has become one of the most active due to obvious things.
According to Alfiya Khasanova, any press service of the department or district administration should report directly to the head.
Create a positive agenda ahead of time.
However, even then, problems remain: there is not enough resource base, the staff of press services is too limited.
There is a need for modernization, she said.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Tatarstan, forced or not, has become one of the most active participants in modern Internet platforms and social networks, where interviews are regularly held, including with Leyla Fazleeva, the head of the operations staff for combating coronavirus.
And in response to requests from social networks, including refuting fakes, the Ministry of Health beat out in 2021 in the lead, ahead of the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Tatarstan and the GZF.
Why the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan sometimes can not find relevant topics for their briefings
— Tatmedia is responsible for the information climate in Tatarstan.
Public information policy needs to change as well.
Products should be born for specific tasks, taking into account the opinions of those for whom they were developed, Asgat Safarov, the head of the presidential apparatus of the Republic of Tatarstan, said. - Today, almost all free time consumers spend with gadgets, attention has decreased.
It is not an easy task to draw attention to the content in the first three seconds!
Otherwise, the reader (or viewer) will leave.
At the same time, Safarov admitted that the media problems are partly to blame not only on the staff (and their lack) of Tatmedia.
So, due to the lack of initiative of some heads of ministries and departments for daily briefings in the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan, sometimes they can not even pick up relevant topics.
“The focus should be on people, not on technology, ” Safarov said.
This problem is not only in Tatarstan.
Thus, according to Andrei Tsepelev, deputy director of the Dialogue ANO, many regional authorities lose in controlling the information field, including due to the inability to work with him “outside the elections. ”
He cited the example of one gubernatorial campaign, when the control of the infopole by the date of the election rose to 70% — and immediately after fell to almost 18%.
Many people misunderstand the principle of the popularity of certain forms of content on the Internet.
So, according to the "Dialogue" in the summer, during the next appeal of Vladimir Putin, most of the content was distributed in the form of cards - they also received the least likes.
While the texts of bloggers, and especially videos in TikTok were among those whom the audience tended to trust more.
People spend more time online, watch less TV
Regarding how much the media environment has changed, Alexander Lyapin, Director of Integrated Communications at the Internet Development Institute, summed up the results.
According to him, 89% of Russians continue to watch TV - on weekdays an average of 2.5 hours, on weekends 3 hours.
It is already inferior in time to the Internet, on which the average Russian spends 3 hours 40 minutes on a weekday and more than 4 hours on the weekend.
Moreover, 86% of people, especially the younger generation, simultaneously watch TV in parallel with the smartphone.
The share of people who watch TV on smartphones or laptops is also growing.
Large TV screens are mainly used for watching movies and TV series in streaming services - series, by the way, have become the leading content both on TV and on the Internet.
And about half of Russians are ready to abandon offline cinemas in favor of online.
The leaders in calls and views on the Internet, in turn, messengers.
Next are the search for information on the Web, social networks and watching video content.
In recent years, for coronavirus reasons, the number of people searching for goods and services on the Internet has increased.
In principle, the Internet today comes mainly through smartphones (95%).
The leaders among the platforms are Instagram, VKontakte and TikTok.
The latter broke into the Russian network about two years ago, pushing back even such giants as Facebook, Twitter, and Odnoklassniki.
Among the messengers in the first place WhatsApp, the second place for the first time last year came out “Telegram ”.
There is also a new phenomenon - "new prime time".
That is, traffic flows from television prime time to the active use of viewers of social networks and the Internet in general.
Social networks have also changed the structure of the formats.
Along with professional, the consumption of amateur content has also increased.
An example is TikTok, which is almost entirely made up of amateur content.
The blurring of the boundaries between professional and amateur content is also demonstrated by the YouTube video service.
Amateur teams are starting to make content that is hugely popular.
And the most popular today — video content, — said Lyapin.
According to him, Russians 14-19 years and 30-40 years prefer video, at the same time decreased and "the duration of content units."
Users are not ready to watch long issues, on average, videos lasting 12-15 minutes are popular.
The paradox that when you do not want to watch long videos, the popularity of series is only growing, the Institute for the Development of the Internet explains as follows: “Users are still ready for long stories, but are not ready to watch them in large pieces. ”
Another interesting trend is the consent of many Russians to subscriptions (and this trend directly contradicts the situation with subscriptions in Tajikistan) and paid content, which are already used by 30% of the population.
It ’ s all about interesting content that people are willing to pay for.
“People subscribe for the sake of unique content, lack of advertising and multiservice, ” the expert noted.
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Sergey Afanasiev
TechnologiesMediaITSocietyPower of Tatarstan Safarov Asgat AkhmetovichSalimgarayev Aidar SaitgarayevichTatmedia
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comments 3
comments
• Anonymous 17: 43
So in the problyma te...
Reply
• Anonymous 18: 16
It is difficult for them, of course, to master all this, the years are not those
Reply
• Anonymous 21: 18
How are the problems going to be solved?
You can't get off with one Tiktok.
Reply
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During the transformation, Brad Fitzpatrick made several key technical decisions, including designing the site's architecture to handle a large number of users and implementing a unique commenting system that allowed users to engage with each other's posts.

Title:

Content:
It's even worse than it appears..
I've heard ActivityPub described as two-way RSS. If so, there are imho more direct ways to arrive at that. I think it's possible to create a federation system that takes a few days to implement. Maybe it doesn't need all the features they've put into ActivityPub. I'm pretty sure a lightweight social network is what's called for now. I know 20 different ventures have started up to do this, but isn't it weird that none of them have built on RSS. That's the only approach imho that has a chance of doing something unique here. I'd rather work with other people, but I'm not into replacing simplicity with something that's not very simple. #
I'm back on Wordle, having solved the puzzle every day for the last 36 days. It's training my mind -- I see patterns I wouldn't ordinarily see, because I spend as much as an hour or two every day looking for patterns in letters, and finding them, eventually. I wish at times my mind worked more like a computer. When their bot says "there were only three possible solutions at that point" -- I wish I could see what they are at each point, or at least know how many they are, if not what they are. The training has also helped my mind debug software. I'm not as daunted as I often am when there appears to be no solution to the problem I'm working on. I'm sure I'll find it eventually. #
People who say Twitter is over aren't considering how vast it is. Same kind of situation as with Atom many years ago. It wasn't obvious how deeply installed RSS was, all the networks that had been created with it. It was basically impossible at that time to displace RSS. Anyway, same thing with Twitter today, no matter how vile the owner of the network is. It has been around since 2006, a time of huge growth in networking, and it captured basically all of it. So if there's anyone you need to reach, and they're hooked up to the net, you almost certainly will be able to reach them on Twitter. This is another situation like Napster. Never have you had all the music of our civilization available so easily to so many people. We could have done so much with that. The most prudent thing to do with Twitter is to organize a buyout for Musk, and get him out of that position. We don't need to delete it, not that we could, we need to get Musk out of a position of control. #

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You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)

One of the technical decisions made by Fitzpatrick was to use an open-source content management system, which allowed the site to be highly customizable and enabled the development of a wide range of third-party plugins and themes.

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Content: Home » Tech Diary — July 15, 2023 and a few weeks before and after

Tech Diary — July 15, 2023 and a few weeks before and after

by admin

We’re sending the tech bid on a new dive trip and we’re also paving it a ramp up Mastodon

Without it being noted here, the technology diary, which daily retweets older technology diary entries that were published on the same date, ceased operations on May 19, 2023. Which is not because someone from the editorial team broke anything or that some capacity limit of their infrastructure had been reached.

The reasons are rather, we already know that, that Twitter (which is now called 𝕏) is in a bad way. We have found a way that at least sends the notification tweets for new technology diary entries via a detour. And to offer an alternative to Twitter, new Tech Diary posts will also be announced on Mastodon.

In a similar way, we send the technology day back on a diving journey, both on Twitter (but who wants to predict how long this will continue to work) and – new! – now also on Mastodon. It all developed something like this:

Virtualist:
I can’t remember exactly how I noticed that the bot sent the last tweet on May 19th. There have been several rumors and reports regarding the Twitter API before.

Anyway, the reason the bot couldn’t tweet anymore is that Twitter decided to pinch off the part of its API that the bot uses. This type of automated Twitter use should now be subject to a fee and thus increase Mr Musk’s wealth.

Actually, I started the bot as a fun project. I’m reasonably proud that the thing ran almost maintenance-free every day for six and a half years. I’ve been developing software for money for over 30 years and I wouldn’t say that applies to too many of my projects.

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Still, I don’t really see why I (or anyone else) should pay money to keep him tweeting now. I vaguely announce in the editorial office that I may redirect his posts to Mastodon.

Clemens:
Of course, I think it’s a great idea to post the bot on Mastodon as well. But it strikes me that there is still one for Twitter gives free developer access through which the bot could continue posting for free. That’s what I write Virtualista. Doesn’t he want to try something with it?

Virtualist:
I read through the details and realize that Clemens is right.

However, this conversion would require some work because a library that the bot uses does not work with the Developer API. Apparently out of annoyance at the Twitter management’s decision, the developer even marked the project as “archived”.

So I would have to look around for an alternative or write one myself. But I don’t want to do that, because Twitter could make further disadvantageous decisions at any time.

Clemens:
I now understand how it is very easy to pass RSS feeds to both Twitter and Mastodon. So I’m nagging Virtualista again.

I suggest that he reprogram the technology day in such a way that he could make the older posts available for an RSS query in a future-proof way instead of sending them directly to Twitter and failing because of the API. And I would then take care of forwarding these to both the Techniktagebot account on Twitter (while that’s still possible) and a Techniktagebot account on Mastodon.

Once the bot’s posts are available via RSS, you can certainly use that for many of the future messengers, threads, Bluesky, or whatever else may come up!

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Virtualist:
That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse. I’ll get to work and rebuild the script to make the posts available via RSS on their anniversaries.

This is relatively easy because the previous script already entered each of the bot’s tweets into a Google sheet, which now has a good 3200 lines. I am now adding a script to the bot that can be called up via URL like a website and then translates the last 10 posts from the table into the XML format of an RSS feed and returns them.

Clemens:
It turns out that some time ago Virtualista even reserved an account with the name “Techniktagebot” at the mastodon instance botsin.space. I connect the RSS file generated by Virtualista’s Techtagebot to both the Twitter account and the Mastodon account of the Techtagebot using dlvr.it.

I’m writing a first draft of a Tech Diary post to highlight the revived (on Twitter) and newly created (on Mastodon) Tech Diary accounts. Working title: We are repairing the technical day offer and are now also sending it on a diving trip on Mastodon.

Virtualist:
However, the word “repaired” bothers me a bit, because the bot itself was as little broken as a house whose driveway someone has dredged away.

And now?
The first posts of the bot going this way on July 15th and 16th still look a bit tattered, Virtualista is still tweaking the RSS file and Clemens the dlvrit parameters, and since July 17th it has been looking nice. And so he posts now Tech Day back on Twitterand he also goes diving on Mastodon: https://botsin.space/@techniktagebot

(Virtualista, Clemens)

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The decision to use a Perl-based architecture and a MySQL database helped to improve the site's scalability and performance, allowing it to handle a large and growing user base.

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Content: 00: 00
Expo 2020 Dubai Today
Dubai Studio City to launch new media channel in 2022
Tony Khalifa to Al Bayan: Dubai is a media and creative icon that attracts innovators we came to achieve our dream
T + T - normal size
Every day and with each new phase, Dubai records remarkable successes and leaps in its journey of excellence in the media, as in other creative fields, dedicated and establishing itself as a real and vital capital of the Arab media and a favorite destination for the media of the world.
It continues to attract the most prominent cadres, platforms and media channels, old and new, which focus on the modern media approach and the twinning between traditional and new media practices.
In his interview with Al Bayan, he confirmed that his choice of Dubai as the headquarters of this modern media project, which will be launched during 2022, because it has become the most important environment for creativity and innovation in our world in all fields, thanks to the high level of production and work environments, in addition to the selection of Lebanese media. Rich in talent, standards, professional and ethical qualitative constants, in parallel with the attractive infrastructure and technology for any media and creative.
"A dream becomes a reality."
This is how Tony Khalifa describes his new media project, details of which will be announced in early January.
He explains the essence of his idea and its contents:
This media project represents an innovative idea that takes media and visual content a step forward. Today, I announced its completion and success in translating and translating it into reality. It is an innovative platform that blends television and digital broadcasting, which will attract viewers across the Arab world with its approach and what it will include.
With the rapid development that the world is witnessing now, as well as the change in the type of content that new generations are witnessing and the way they consume this content through electronic platforms and social media, I felt the importance of addressing this generation with the right content, as well as the importance of providing interactive content with Arab youth, attracting their interest and communicating their voice and conveying the real picture to them honestly.
This is where the idea was built and completed, and our new project starts today from our new headquarters in Dubai, specifically from Dubai Studio City.
Oasis of Media and Excellence
Dubai offers many advantages and vital opportunities to various channels, platforms and media in our world, qualify it to be at the forefront of influencers and successful in this field, and on this point and the reason for choosing Dubai as the center of this new media project, says Tony Khalifa:
Dubai is a wonderful place for creativity and creativity and for business to flourish in any field. It is the most innovative environment in the world because it provides world-class production quality, embraces and possesses amazing talents and experience, as well as high standards and ethical standards in the profession of journalism and media in general.
It also has an unparalleled infrastructure, technologically advanced and secure, as well as a wealth of human resources, young cadres and open source software solutions.
All these qualities make Dubai a great place to live and work.
The decision to move in launching this project from Lebanon to Dubai was motivated by all these factors and also as a result of the successive crises and political, economic and security instability that Lebanon is currently going through, as we can no longer launch important projects of this kind, especially since its infrastructure and technology are suffering from collapse.
We hope that Lebanon will regain its strength as soon as possible and that the beacon of the East will return to its former status.
However, since we have decided to start this project now, it would have been better to come to Dubai and move our production and team to the UAE, where everything is available to achieve one ’ s dream.
That ’ s why I ’ ve already moved to Dubai, with some key members of my production team to start the new venture, and take advantage of what the new media capital has to offer.
Unique Character
Rich content and a literal approach will govern the performance of the channel / new media project, as Tony Khalifa explains in his talk, and details and pillars of this:
This new project is a multi-platform channel, with a digital character and innovative strategy, blending television and digital broadcasting with the latest technology.
We will present content that addresses important issues for viewers in the Arab world in a bold and fun way.
It fills the gap and meets the critical need in the region to inform, inspire and engage younger generations, so we will continue to produce content that transcends borders in a place that transcends borders and exceeds expectations.
This channel will change the concept of traditional media, in an innovative way by integrating news, opinion and political satire, and bravely brainstorming ideas without adhering to some caveats, red lines and policies.
As for the application of modern technology, the new platform features a smart newsroom, based on (iCloud) and (Automations) systems, to be the first channel in the region to adopt these systems.
I ’ m also interested in hearing from other people in the profession who can join me and my team to deliver the best multimedia product in the media, and even invite them all to participate.
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LiveJournal's popularity peaked in the early 2000s, with over 2.5 million active accounts, but it started to decline with the rise of other social networking platforms such as Facebook, which launched in 2004 for college students and opened to everyone in 2006.

The platform faced challenges, including the removal of materials with terrorism and extremism signs, and was even blocked in Kazakhstan due to illegal materials.

However, access to LiveJournal was later restored in Kazakhstan, and the platform continued to evolve and develop, with plans to open an office in Kazakhstan and develop the Kazakhstan segment of the blogging platform.

Despite its decline in popularity, LiveJournal remains a significant platform for blogging and social networking, with a dedicated user base and a unique set of features that set it apart from other platforms.

After Russian users could no longer use foreign social networks, where did they post their blogs?

The decline in popularity of LiveJournal can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the rise of other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the site's failure to adapt to changing user behaviors and technological advancements.

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Content: Rewrite this title: Reddit thrives from Digg v4 disaster
Next article will help you: Reddit is thriving from the Digg v4 disaster
Since the launch of Digg ’ s latest version, v4, last week, the less warm reception has caused a massive influx of traffic to their competitor – Reddit.
Reddit was launched less than a year after Digg ’ s launch, and it wasn ’ t very popular, but it had very loyal users.
However, starting Sunday night, the four-person team saw an increase in new users, unique items, and the number of page views in staggering numbers.
Chief programmer, Chris Slaw, stated that unique page views alone have increased by 50% – averaging around 900,000 per day since Monday morning.
They also report between 13 and 14 million total page views per day.
Approximately 25% of the site ’ s visitors were people who signed up for the site and became “junior editors ” as Chris calls them on the site.
Blog site.
As their numbers grew so fast, Reddit employees were surprised that the site didn ’ t crash.
Their blog also says that they work most days within the site ’ s peak capacity and that they “could never have survived such an unexpected surge. ”
Evelyn Rosley of Tech Crunch spoke with Slough and says they are currently working on new features to keep Redditors happy and to make sure the site can maintain its new and larger user base, including a redesigned user interface.

The site's popularity also declined due to the lack of investment and updates, as the site was sold to a Russian company, SUP Media, in 2007, and the new owners did not prioritize the development of the platform.

Title:

Content: Home / Technology / News /  Why building an app is now child’s play

Vinod Sirohi is a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) in the Uttar Pradesh police. Until a year ago, he and his colleagues would typically use Telegram and WhatsApp groups to share crime-related information or queries. But older chats would get buried on these messenger apps, making it difficult for them to be traced. This prompted Sirohi to think about his own app, one that could help cops find former colleagues, batch mates, acquaintances, and even allow them to share photos and videos.

“If a police officer goes to another city or remote area for work, members should be able to locate the nearest police station and find other members. They should also be able to seek assistance," he said.

But there was one problem. He did not know how to code. This is where tech platform Appy Pie helped him successfully complete this task. Christened Hum Panchee Ek Daal Ke, Sirohi’s app now has about 6,000 members.

The Appy Pie platform allows anyone to build an app by simply dragging and dropping features without any prior coding knowledge, and hence it is known as a ‘no-code’ platform. Such platforms aid users with visual tools to build apps, chatbots, dashboards, mobile and web apps, and even content management platforms. Appy Pie also helps with publishing these apps on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. In short, such platforms have made building and publishing an app nearly a child’s play.

“Maintenance is an issue as every now and then, Google and Apple change guidelines. Users need to rebuild the app in sync with the latest guidelines and republish the app. Features for security and data compliance are also built into the platform. Every year, we do a vulnerability assessment," explained Abhinav Girdhar, chief executive officer (CEO), Appy Pie.

Sirohi is just one of the 10 million registered users of Appy Pie whose customers include universities, research firms, and even media companies. ICFAI Business School, Asianet, and ManipalCigna Health Insurance are some of the organizations in India that have built apps using Appy Pie’s no-code platform.

No-code is aimed at users who may want to build apps but lack the ability to write code manually. But there are other tech-savvy individuals and professionals in startups and mid-sized businesses who may know how to code but do not have the time to build apps or tech platforms. Such people can use ‘low-code’ platforms where minimal coding is involved.

Kissflow’s low-code platform, for instance, is being used by several startups and large enterprises including local firms such as Zomato, CaratLane, and Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Co, and global companies including Domino’s Pizza, and PepsiCo.

Besides individuals, startups and enterprises, low-code and no-code (LCNC) platforms are also being used by governments. The Indian government’s ServicePlus, an electronic service delivery framework, is built on the LCNC platform. Developed by the National Informatics Centre, it has been adopted by 33 states and union territories. With over 2,300 e-services available, lakhs of applications are received, processed, and delivered every month, its website states.

Data from research firms and industry bodies underline its rapid adoption. Research and advisory firm Gartner predicts that LCNC platforms will be used in more than 65% of application developments worldwide by next year. The global LCNC development platform market is all set to produce $187 billion in revenue and account for more than 65% of all application development activity by 2030, according to TeamLease Digital, a professional services platform. Already, India has 150 LCNC startups, a majority of which are bootstrapped. According to industry body Nasscom, the LCNC market generated about $400 million in India in FY21. India has the potential to generate a little over $4 billion in revenue within two years, which will account for 10% of the global market.

The cost factor

There are two kinds of LCNC platforms: one is on-premise and the other is cloud. Many LC platforms charge for the number of apps, number of users, and consumption. Appy Pie, for instance, charges 699 to 1,599 per month for basic services. If the app downloads exceed 2,000, additional charges are levied.

On Kissflow, a startup will have to spend $4,000 a month for an app with 100 users, said Kaushik Roy, head of India sales at the company. “Adoption depends on the customer. They start with no-code, and as the number of processes and workflow increases, they start moving to low-code," he added. “We have separate programmes for startups and enterprises. 70% of the adoption has come from digital native companies. A lot more approval is required in BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance). We have seen a 50-60% adoption rate of low-code in BFSI. In manufacturing and retail, adoption has been 30-40%," Roy informed.

The game changer

Let’s take a closer look at what’s in it for enterprises and startups.

Traditional development, according to a September report by TeamLease Digital, requires a dedicated team of software developers with strong programming skills. However, LCNC platforms require minimal programming skills. Any user can develop customized apps. Much of the routine development can be done with LCNC, reducing the need for bulky IT teams, speeding up business application development and round-the-clock availability, said experts. Many believe that LCNC is a “game changer" for the tech industry, indeed startups.

“Startups use LCNC platforms to get to the minimum viable product (MVP) stage when they are testing a new idea. They build an MVP, pitch it before venture capitalists for funds, and then enhance it. LCNC is good for demo and proof of concepts," Sandeep Koul co-founder and head of product at Whoozbuying, a startup building two LC platforms, said.

Enterprises, particularly BFSI companies, are perhaps more eager to partner technology giants rather than the smaller LCNC companies.

“We are seeing a growing demand for low-code solutions across sectors and industries, with BFSI and retail being the leading adopters," Charoo Singh, country head of Business Applications at Microsoft India, said.

For instance, when Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd wanted to set up a centralized loan origination and management system, it reached out to Microsoft to help build a low-code infrastructure, said Singh.

HDFC Bank said this month that it will use Microsoft’s LCNC capabilities to set up an App Innovation and Automation Factory to help it migrate, modernize and transform its application portfolio. The aim is to build a bank of the future. “At the heart of this is the ability to offer a neo banking experience to our customers that is second to none. We are doing this by investing in proprietary intellectual property as well through tie-ups like these," said Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, group head of Information Technology and chief information officer, HDFC Bank.

Low-code platforms are being used by some companies to migrate old applications that are heavy and built in old programming languages. For that, moving them into light applications can be done faster with low-code platforms, said Kaushik Roy.

Low-code platforms, meanwhile, work in tandem with other solutions. For instance, one can have an app built on a low-code platform and integrate it with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

The AI play

A majority of LCNC platforms allow for the development and deployment of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Moreover, unlike conventional AI app development that takes six to 12 months, no-code AI platforms can facilitate development, testing and deployment in a matter of days or weeks. This shortens the time to market products and services.

“I created a working demo of an app using Flutterflow in 2 hours and got a major deal. They asked for some changes and I quickly did that in front of them," Ganesh S.P., a senior engineering associate at Atlassian, an Australian software company, said in a 15 January tweet. Flutterflow is a low-code app building platform.

AI-based code assistants—such as Microsoft GitHub Copilot, OpenAI ChatGPT, and Amazon Code Whisperer—offer a fresh approach to empower both non-technical users and programmers, according to Kashyap Kompella, AI analyst and chief executive of industry research firm RPA2AI.

Code assistants are code writing solutions. They use a natural language processing (NLP) model trained on billions of lines of open source codes. The assistants can understand both programming languages and the human language (English), which enables them to provide suggestions on next line of codes.

Kompella believes that the very same technology that has led to the development of “powerful pre-trained generative AI models such as Dall-e for images, GPT-3 for content, and ChatGPTfor content generation in a chat interface, can also be used to generate working code for user interfaces, mobile apps, and websites in different programming languages when trained on large datasets of coding samples. As many early ChatGPT examples show, it can be used to debug code as well".

Developers redundant?

Automation can kill jobs. Will LCNC platforms make developers redundant?

Not really. LCNC platforms do not herald the demise of developers since there will always be a high demand for skilled programmers who can customise software. Besides, LCNC frameworks themselves are built on actual coding languages—like PHP, Python, and Java.

In fact, TeamLease Digital sees a growing demand for talent. “With digital transformation happening across industries, demand for specialized skills like LCNC has created new opportunities for budding developers," a report from the company stated. This will create new jobs in India for non-traditional coders. “LCNC", it concludes, “has already started making its place in the IT world and there’s no stopping that".

The gaps

To be sure, LCNC does have its limitations. According to a March 2022 Nasscom report, most LCNC platforms are more suited to larger enterprises rather than small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Lack of training on usage of LCNC solutions and data security concerns are major inhibitors to adoption, the report adds.

Nasscom believes that LCNC adoption across large enterprises will continue to be led by the IT services companies. They will be the consulting, system integration (SI) and implementation partners for large LCNC providers. Adoption by smaller businesses, on the other hand, will continue to be dominated by direct partnership with smaller LCNC providers that offer “better pricing and more customizable solutions".

Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder and chief analyst of Greyhound Research, believes that while most companies claim to be citizen development platforms (meant for business users with no technical skill sets), in real life, that’s far from reality. “While the likes of SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft are attempting to embed these platforms as part of their core offering, the adoption is still primarily limited to the IT teams. The current use of these platforms is limited to basic tasks and functions and not currently used to create end-to-end applications like CRM and others," he said.

Sandeep Koul of Whoozbuying cautions that it is important to have control over the intellectual property, “which is the Git repository or bit code of the app". To enhance the app and expand its features, users need the source code. “But one of the cons of using low-code platforms is that users building an app don’t have access to the codes," he said. They should consider platforms that give them the flexibility of having the codes when they want.

If LCNC platforms find a way to circumvent such limitations, the path ahead could be easier for individuals and businesses looking to build apps fast.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leslie D'Monte

Leslie D'Monte has been a journalist for almost three decades. He specialises in technology and science writing, having worked with leading media groups--both as a reporter and an editor. He is passionate about digital transformation and deep-tech topics including artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, crypto, metaverses, quantum computing, genetics, fintech, electric vehicles, solar power and autonomous vehicles. Leslie is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Knight Science Journalism Fellow (2010-11). In his other avatar, he curates tech events and moderates panels.
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The history of LiveJournal serves as a reminder of the importance of ongoing development and adaptation in the rapidly changing world of social media and online communities.

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Content: How PA Media’s data findings were rewarded with industry peer recognition

By PA Media 17/10/2022

PA Media were recently in attendance at the EANA – The European Alliance of News Agencies Awards held in Zurich, Switzerland, as part of the General Assembly and EANA Autumn Conference. At the event, PA were awarded the “Maxim Minchev” award for News Agency Quality. This was to recognise the work its Data and Insight team have done in the shape of its ongoing Data Analysis project.

Head of Analytics and Insight Steve Jones shares information around the project and how it came to be rewarded with industry peer recognition from PA’s fellow European news agencies.

PA Media has put significant time, effort, and investment in the past two years into a data transformation project to enable us to better understand and respond to the needs of our customers, with the aim of becoming the world’s first truly data-informed news agency.

For that reason, we were absolutely delighted to have our progress recognised with an award for Excellence in News Agency Quality from the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA). It was the second time in recent years we had won the award from our peers, previously receiving the prize for the launch of our innovative Explore platform.

Here’s a little bit more information about what we did to gain the prize.

PA Media’s data transformation

PA Media has already re-imagined the way it delivers content to its customers through its new Explore platform, and the next step was to become a world-leading agency in data understanding.

The results have been dramatic – transforming our understanding of the content we produce, how it gets used, and ensuring more of it is published in print and online every day. In turn, this has helped PA develop far more positive relationships with customers both during contracts and when they are renewed.

Covid and the move to remote working accelerated the uptake of Explore – with more than 10,000 journalists using the platform within a matter of months. That growth has continued apace since, with a 33% increase in monthly active users since January 2021.

The next stage in PA’s digital transformation was to ensure customers were getting the best value from the content we produce every day. To do that, we wanted to get a full understanding of their engagement with our services and use that intelligence to help shape the content we provide to them. And critically, we wanted to feed that information back to them, so they could ensure they were getting the absolute most out of the thousands of articles, pictures, and videos PA produces each day.

How we did it

Initially, a team of six was assembled from multiple disciplines across the agency, including editorial, engineering, data analysis, commercial, and product.

This then led to the creation of PA’s first Analytics and Insight team. The key focus of the team would be to understand customer engagement with PA’s coverage and feed these learnings into editorial, commercial and product planning.

The team took two main approaches: first was analysing the rich data around customers’ use of Explore. Second, the team worked with a third party, Ezyinsights, to develop highly accurate tracking of where PA content appeared on websites and print outlets in the UK and around the world.

The scale of the data made it a complex task. The Analytics and Insight team’s work identified that there were seven million online articles featuring PA content in a single year, and a further 170,000 uses in leading print publications, including all the UK’s national newspapers.

One major project was delivering data for a Content Review, chaired by PA’s Editor-in-Chief Pete Clifton.  During this review, every story was placed into a category depending on how many times it had appeared on customer websites or print publications, and how many times it had been viewed on the Explore platform.

This could then be drilled down to the topic, tag, format, time of publication, or anything else recorded in our metadata – allowing us to fully understand what drove the performance of the content and respond accordingly.

 While the data has been hugely valuable to spot trends that might otherwise be missed, it’s important to note that it doesn’t tell us everything. Some aspects of our coverage may not appear to perform quite as well using these metrics but remain a critical component of our role as the UK and Ireland’s national news agency.

For example, PA is the only news organisation that covers every single session in the two Houses of Parliament – a service that is invaluable to our customers and, to be honest, important for our democracy. And while not every session provides a viral hit of a story, when something significant does happen, publishers will invariably turn to us for coverage.

Another key output was transforming PA’s commercial strategy. Pairing the content data with our customer database allowed us to present information on customer usage to our commercial team.

Perhaps most crucially, this data is also being presented back to publishers as part of regular business reviews, increasing positive engagement by giving them a fascinating view of how they are using PA’s services.

And these analytics have also been critical to the continuous improvement of the Explore platform. For example, our team noticed that user behaviour was demonstrating a clear interest in both local news and our schedule detailing daily coverage plans, so we developed Explore to surface both far more easily.

The effect of this work has been clear. Total article views in Explore have increased by 40% year-on-year. But even more pleasingly, average article views have also jumped 61% during the same period – demonstrating not just the increased demand but the improved effectiveness of both the content and the platform.

Our commitment to Analytics and Insight has been a pivotal moment in the history of PA. We now understand far more clearly how our content is used and, as a result, have more positive relationships with our customers than ever before.

Social Media Journalist for PA Media, Danielle Desouza, was also in attendance at the Conference where she was involved in a riveting discussion about the future of news that looked at how young people engage with the news, entitled: Media Consumption Habits of the Younger Generation.

Danielle shares her first hand experience of the Conference and what learnings she gained from it.

I was selected to attend EANA’s latest conference in Zurich, Switzerland on September 30 on Media Consumption Habits of the Younger Generation, where I was tasked with using social media to highlight the best aspects, alongside two other young agency journalists.

Some of the key talking points were how can news agencies win over younger journalists and stay relevant? AP’s President Daisy Veerasingham gave some great points on this, which include collaborating with groups that cater to younger audiences e.g. The News Movement, using live videos to hold attention and using a variety of different social media platforms.

I really enjoyed the event as I got to use tools I use regularly at work e.g. Twitter threads and personal social media platforms e.g. TikTok to highlight the benefits of social media – which is a key part of my role as a social media journalist at PA – in a different setting.

I got to meet and interview so many fascinating people from agency directors to editors to reporters and it was an honour to represent PA at the event.

If you want to get a flavour of the event and my logged experience of it and the findings that were drawn from the discussions, I would recommend visiting this Twitter thread I created here.

To learn more about PA Media and it’s range of content and data solutions, visit pa.media or email info@pa.media for more information.

To find out more about the EANA, visit https://www.newsalliance.org/.