New York Times

My husband shared this fantastic op-ed from the Times with me the other day.  In short, the NFL is arming fans with a text number so that they can report unruly and vulgar fans to security quickly and privately.

This is certainly a huge help to fans, particularly with children in tow, who want to enjoy a game and not hear beer-sloshed men spew obscenities nearby. But now imagine what else can be done with text messaging to make communities safer. What if your neighborhood in East Baltimore is being overridden by drug dealers? Here's a way to report it quickly, safely and securely to the police. And kids can report other students bringing weapons to school. Read more »

There was much aflutter in New York City yesterday when a group of volunteer activists released and distributed a fake copy of The New York Times with a banner headline announcing the end of the Iraq War. Upon further examination, readers saw that the paper was postdated July 4, 2009. 

I spoke this morning to two organizers of the effort, Beka Economopoulos and Andy Bichlbaum, about how this massive effort (it took over a year to organize and hundreds of volunteers to pull off) was organized and successfully managed. (And it wasn't free.)

The effort was organized similarly to other networked activism efforts in that it had the following key components: Read more »