The Three Little Pigs updated for the internet age

The little pigs' houses weren't the only things blown away. I'm pretty impressed, too.

The Guardian's Open Platform puts data at the heart of journalism

The Guardian is all about turning journalism into data collection and sharing. To this end, it has developed what it calls the Open Platform, which just opened for business after one year in beta. Here's the story so far, straight from the horse's mouth. Essentially, the open approach allows the content provider to leverage its army of readers to view its data and use it in innovative ways, as you can see on its Flickr group. It also offers an opportunity to partner with companies and organisations who need users willing to provide data and comments, An excellent example comes from the Enjoy England map above.

Although print media may be on its last legs, stories of the death of journalism are greatly exaggerated. What The Guardian recognises is that it has a powerful brand that it can leverage in a variety of ways to attract and engage with its audience, while building exciting partnerships with those that wish to share in its power and influence, but may not be direct paying advertisers in the conventional sense.

The approach taps into the rise of the infographic, which rewards those online content providers who can turn stories (who wants to read an article when you can look at a picture) into images. The New York Times has put Facebook's convoluted privacy settings into perspective like this:

And the people voted with their tweets - it was all over Twitter last week.

Greenpeace fires up Nestlé "twitstorm", but where will it end?

As I was idly checking the Premier League table this morning on the Guardian website, I couldn't help but notice an ad from Greenpeace encouraging people to read up on, and then boycott Nestlé products. Clicking on the image takes you through to a "Nestlé Killer" branded site featuring the following not-safe-for-TV video:

There is also a whole lot of stuff about why Nestlé really is as bad as they say, particularly on their "alleged" use of unethical suppliers in the rainforests of Sumatra.

Parallel to all this, there has been a whole lot of buzz on Twitter and Facebook about Nestlé's social media "fail". Essentially, Nestlé is being attacked from all sides, but particularly via its Facebook fan page. Find the best round-up of the social media furore at Econsultancy - and learn how Greenpeace is behind it all via this Prezi.

There is nothing new about this kind of "Twitstorm", they happen all the time. What is new, however, is that an organisation like Greenpeace can drive online protest via a viral video advertised for hard pounds and pennies on a leading website like the Guardian's. And you can be sure that the clickthrough rates on an image like that above are higher than the usual online branding of offline products, such as cars and insurance.

Also interesting is that the above video is pretty gruesome and will put enough people off eating a KitKat - regardless of their knowledge or stance on the palm oil issue. Greenpeace's claims better be well founded (I personally think they are), or the NGO could end up on the wrong end of a "Twitstorm" itself. 

Of course, most people are more likely to trust Greenpeace over Nestlé, but both sides need to be aware that playing with social media is like playing with fire.

Advertisers move online as blogs, portals and aggregators threaten old media

Hot on the heels of news that television advertising spending in the UK has now been eclipsed by online ads, in the US, the Huffington Post, a link-and-blog-driven news source, recently overtook the Washington Post, a leading print newspaper, for unique visitors. According to editorandpublisher.com:

Yahoo, CNN and MSNBC still topped the chart, but in one surprising shift The Huffington Post surpassed Washingtonpost.com in unique users in the month of September, new data from Nielsen Online reveals.

The Huff Post was up 26% year-over-year to 9.4 million uniques, while uniques at the Washingtonpost.com dropped almost 30% to 9.2 million.

Meanwhile, the New York Times, which has experienced year-over-year declines in uniques for the past several months -- after Nielsen institute expanded panels -- is on the rise again. The site was up 7% to 21.5 million.

What's also interesting is the number of UK publications high up the list (scroll to the bottom of the linked article to see the top 30), with our favourites The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, all showing strongly. All three have worked hard to embrace the digital age, or at least put all of their content online, and that work appears to be paying off.

What happens when a gagging order goes viral?

Simple, the truth comes out on Twitter, via a shedload of links to blog posts and news stories. The image above was snapped from Trendsmap, which provides realtime, location-based results for what people are writing about on Twitter at any given moment. This map was generated when solicitors Carter Ruck attempted to stop The Guardian from reporting on a question in parliament on behalf of its client Trafigura - a company linked to toxic dumping off the Ivory Coast. As the paper reported:

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

A bit of digging by a couple of bloggers and the details were all over Twitter (@stephenfry of course played his part), and the latest is that the case has been dropped. Relative unknowns until this morning, Carter Ruck and Trafigura will be paying the price for trying to silence the mass media for many years to come. Well done Twitter and well done The Guardian - a winning team.

And victory also to The Spectator for being first with the scoop.

Sustainable Development Commission polls public to write report

The Royal Bank of Scotland, 70% owned by the government could become a bank of sustainability if some members of the public get their way, writes The Guardian.

The suggestion is one of 275 potential "breakthrough" ideas submitted by members of the public to the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) to improve the quality of people's lives, increase community involvement and make Britain a fairer society.

There are three things of interest here. The first is that The Guardian picked out just one of the 275 ideas for its headline. Secondly, the process demonstrates another step away from the "think tank" and closer to genuine democracy. Third, it is another sign that environmentalism may be truly on its way.

Shoplifting women of the world unite

Did you know that one in three women jailed in the UK is sent down for shoplifting? No, me neither. But according to The Guardian, it appears to be a symptom of shopping addiction that is gripping the civilised world. Read to the bottom for some extracts from All Consuming: How Shopping Got Us Into This Mess And How We Can Find Our Way Out by the author of the piece, Neal Lawson - and then buy the book from The Guardian bookshop.