

Rick Falkvinge to launch image-based news service - imartin2k
http://falkvinge.net/2015/06/15/launching-new-reporting-service-682-writers-editors-managers-wanted-for-part-time-yes-youll-get-paid-and-paid-well-launch-now-operational-in-q3/

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dredmorbius
For context: Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate
Party, which has representation in the European parliament and has spawned
Pirate Parties in more than 60 other countries. Here, Falkvinge & Co. comment
on information policy and civil liberties in Europe and elsewhere in the
world.

[https://falkvinge.net/about/](https://falkvinge.net/about/)

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dredmorbius
_Quite_ the fascinating concept, though I don't know that I'd buy it. A few
thoughts:

⚫ I share the concerns over usability, sharability, and length, generall.

⚫ Twitter's going to be lifting its 140 character limit, by all signs. It's
also been rather less than useful as a _popular_ medium. It's fascination has
largley rested with the news media, marketers, and advertisers.

⚫ Images _do_ grab eyeballs, and many of us have noted that (including the
#waronwords folks here at G+). But ...

⚫ There's only so much you can say in an image, and the format's not readily
fungible.

⚫ This particular 3,000 word essay was kicked off by an idiotic image meme:
[http://redd.it/39w8u4](http://redd.it/39w8u4)
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/104047951999948186971/posts/j8Kc...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/104047951999948186971/posts/j8KcETpPuEs)
Mind, I had to go looking for the original text first.

⚫ Some sort of system that's similar to meme-generator, in which there _is_ a
full-text story, but a pull-quote is generated and attached to a suitable
image (appropriate and/or interest-grabbing), _but has links back to more
substantive text-based content_ , _and_ generates accessible text and/or
translations, might be a worthwhile hack off of this.

⚫ There's already enough frustration with pixel-obsessed site layouts.
Presenting content-as-text where display size is an unknown strikes me as a
fools errand, but...

⚫ SVG suggests some interesting ways around some or all of this. In particular
you can incorporate SVG and raster images, text is independent, scalable via
CSS, selectable, and can include hyperlinks, and the whole result can be
formatted and presented across a tremendous range of display sizes, even
incorporating different elements as viewport size varies. The resulting images
can also be rasterized as bitmaps if preferred. Device and browser support is
still lacking but is in process.

Discussion on Rick's G+ profile:

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/110980345342028402481/posts/Ux4e...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/110980345342028402481/posts/Ux4eGEK2sgb)

