Mediagazer: The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains (Nick Bilton/Bits)

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! — I vowed I would never become a Twit. Now I have Tweeted nearly 10,000 Tweets. I said Twitter represented the end of civilization. It now represents a part of the civilization I live in. I said it was impossible to think of great writing in terms of 140 characters.

Nick Bilton / Bits:

The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains — If you're reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader please stop what you're doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever you do, don't click on the links in this article.

Discussion: GigaOM, Rough Type, Boing Boing, Fast Company, The Huffington Post and Gizmodo

Felix Salmon / MediaFile:

Zach Kouwe fired again — In February, a NYT blogger, Zachery Kouwe, was fired for plagiarism. The proximate cause of the firing was a complaint from the WSJ, but he'd had run-ins with other publications in the past, including nicking a memo from Dealbreaker without attribution.

David Cohen / WebNewser:

The Beautiful Game: Social Media Suits Up for 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa — With 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa set to kick off about one hour after this post, Twitter and Facebook — which meant nothing to the average soccer fan during 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany — are donning their jerseys and painting their faces.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Gawker, Speakeasy, Variety, Digits, The Atlantic Online, MediaMemo, PRNewser and Mashable!

How Nike and Pepsi Hijacked the World Cup — Ambush Marketing 101: Tips to Protect Your Brand — or Steal Someone Else's Thunder — The world's greatest sporting spectacle, the World Cup, begins today. Quick: do you know who the “official” sponsors are?

Discussion: B&C, rbr.com, Speakeasy, Guardian and Reuters

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
On Twitter, Even a New iPhone Can't Keep Up With the World Cup

Discussion: The Twitter Engineering Blog, WWD Media Headlines, NewTeeVee, The Book Bench, AdFreak, Media Matters for America and Beet.TV

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: Overdosing on social networking media — (Chris Jackson /, Chris Jackson / / February 2, 2008) — It's hard not to get irritated with a company that urges you to share all sorts of things but makes it hard for you to say who's part of the party.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …

J. David Goodman / New York Times:

Now in Blogs, Product Placement — Welcome to quid pro post. — When a marketer representing Absolut Vodka first offered to sponsor her annual blog festival, Louise Crawford guessed how the other bloggers might react. — “Some of them are going to call me a sellout,” Ms. Crawford remembered thinking.

Discussion: Gawker and City Room

Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:

For The Post, anonymous sources remain a problem — Last month, a story about conflicts between parents and childless adults began with an anecdote about an unleashed puppy pestering a toddler in a District park. After the child's father complained, the dog's owner told The Post that parents …

Steve Buttry / Pursuing the Complete Community …:

New York Times protects its readers from reading about “tweets” — Self-anointed guardians of the English language show an amazing, amusing lack of respect for the language they purport to protect. — Phil Corbett, Standards Editor of the New York Times, decreed this week that tweet was not …

Discussion: The Wardman Wire and The Book Bench

Robin Sloan / Snarkmarket:

The Atlantic rides again (again) — Back in college, the Atlantic was basically my introduction to the world of ideas. I still remember reading this classic article by James Fallows and feeling whole new lobes of understanding come online. This was policy, not politics. Macro, not micro.

David Carr / Media Decoder:

N.Y.P.D. Can Keep Its Secrets: 2004 Convention Arrests Remain Mysterious — On Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the New York City Police Department can withhold 1,900 pages of data detailing police surveillance in advance of the 2004 Republican Convention in New York.

Scott Shane / New York Times:

Administration Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press — WASHINGTON — Hired in 2001 by the National Security Agency to help it catch up with the e-mail and cellphone revolution, Thomas A. Drake became convinced that the government's eavesdroppers were squandering hundreds of millions …

Discussion: Romenesko

Discussion: CNET News, Guardian, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Boing Boing and ANIMAL