Despite employing a small army of contractors to monitor posts, it’s clear the company is no longer fit for purposeWay back in the 1950s, a pioneering British cybernetician, W Ross Ashby, proposed a fundamental law of dynamic systems. In his book An Introduction to Cybernetics, he formulated his law of requisite variety, which defines “the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states”. In plain English, it boils down to this: for a system to be viable, it has to be able to absorb or cope with the complexity of its environment. And there are basically only two ways of achieving viability in those terms: either the system manages to control (or reduce) the variety of its environment, or it has to increase its internal capacity (its “variety”) to match what is being thrown at it from the environment.Sounds abstruse, I know, but it has a contemporary resonance. Specifically, it provides a way of understanding some of the current internal turmoil in Facebook as it grapples with the problem of keeping unacceptable, hateful or psychotic content off its platform. Two weeks ago, the New York Times was leaked 1,400 pages from the rulebooks that the company’s moderators are trying to follow as they police the stuff that flows through its servers. According to the paper, the leak came from an employee who said he “feared that the company was exercising too much power, with too little oversight – and making too many mistakes”.... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#plain english
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Tue, 04/10/2011 - 10:05 Little, Brown and Sphere has bought the autobiography of Duran Duran bassist and founding member John Taylor. Little, Brown editor in chief Antonia Hodgson bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, at auction from... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#jonathan conway
Last week, Facebook rolled out several new features during its fourth annual F8 Developer Conference that could change the way the magazine industry interacts with the social media platform. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#facebook rolled
If the population of Facebook users was outraged at the site's new layout unveiled yesterday, they're going to completely lose it over Timeline, the new Facebook experience that turns a user's profile into a literal life history timeline. In short, Facebook combined its social feed with the... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2011-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#social feed
#facebook information
#personal story
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 08/09/2011 - 15:50 John Wiley & Sons has reported revenue growth of 5% for its first quarter fiscal year 2012 results, up to $430m (£267.5m) from $408m, on the same period last year. Revenue for its professional and trade division grew... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#quarter growth
#ebook revenue
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 22/08/2011 - 15:00 Simon & Schuster US has signed a deal to publish the physical editions of John Locke's Donovan Creed novels in North America. In June, Locke became the first self-published author to sell more than one million ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john locke
#physical editions
#self-published author
#million ebooks
The purchase sets off speculation about publishing ambitions at Facebook, and puts renewed focus on its highly-anticipated iPad app. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-08-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Wed, 03/08/2011 - 09:14 Facebook has bought the innovative ebook publisher Push Pop Press but will not use the company to publish ebooks. The giant social networking website will instead use PPP's platform and technology to give "people even richer... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#publish ebooks
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 29/07/2011 - 11:18 John Murray has acquired a non-fiction title by ex-paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Tootal about the Second World War British operation to take the Merville Gun battery, part of the Nazi's Atlantic Wall, to help the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john murray
#non-fiction title
#including canada
#annabel merullo
Written By: Neill Denny Publication Date: Thu, 21/07/2011 - 08:45 John Blake has signed a book by a journalist-turned-lawyer on the Rupert Murdoch story, for publication next February. Called The Rise and Fall of the Murdoch Empire the book will be written by John Lisners, who worked for... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#decade ago
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 21/07/2011 - 09:00 Murdoch Books has bought a healthy living cookbook from "Grease" star Olivia Newton-John. Managing director Christine Jones bought US, UK, Australian and New Zealand rights from Louise Georgeson. LivWise will be published in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#zealand rights
#absolutely delighted
Apple's contact information page in the iOS 5 address book has a field not just for Twitter, but also offers space to add friends' handles on Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Myspace. Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Thu, 26/05/2011 - 13:52 Press Books m.d. John Bond is leaving HarperCollins by the end of June "following a mutual agreement" between himself and HC c.e.o. Victoria Barnsley. The division, which comprises Fourth Estate and HarperPress, will be run by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#victoria barnsley
#john bond
#leave harpercollins
#leaving harpercollins
#short term
John Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, explained why his company made a buyout bid for Barnes & Noble valuing it at $1 billion. The decision came down to Liberty's bid for Sirius and his outlook for Nook, he said. You might look at the experience we've had with Sirius XM, Malone told... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2011-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#future success
#amazons kindle
#e-reader platform
#third-party devices
#existing properties
#coming months
PW has a new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pubweekly. We hope you'll come check us out over there, "like" us, and join the publishing business conversation in the interactive space that is Facebook. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Perhaps youve probably heard: Facebook and Google are at war, and Facebooks not afraid to play dirty. Thursdays revelation that the social networking site hired PR firm Burston-Marsteller to plant a negative story about Googles privacy settings raises a number of questions. Like, Who at... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2011-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#googles head
#silicon valley
#focus attention
Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 27/04/2011 - 15:46 John Smith & Son deputy chairman Willie Anderson has retired after 38 years' service. Anderson began his career at the academic bookseller as a bookshop sales assistant in 1973 and was the first staff member to be... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john smith
#academic bookseller
#staff member
#current owner
The Advocate, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana newspaper owned by the Manship family is managing its content publishing infrastructure with DTI ContentPublisher and DTI Cloud. Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2011-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#baton rouge
Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Fri, 15/04/2011 - 11:33 Roland Philipps at John Murray has bought a book on digital written by the author Nick Harkaway, which argues that the new technologies will make us more human. Philipps bought British Commonwealth rights through Patrick Walsh... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#john murray
#patrick walsh
#conville walsh
#cautious optimism
Longtime Time Inc. executive John Squires, last seen running the magazine industry's version of Hulu, has a new gig: He's at Akademos, a Connecticut-based company that runs digital bookstores for small and mid-sized colleges. Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#magazine industry
WH Smiths non-executive board director John Barton has stood down after 12 years of service. He will be replaced by Jeff Harris, currently chairman of both Cookson Group plc and Filtrona plc, on 10th June 2011. W H Smith's chairman, Walker Boyd, said: "On behalf of the board, I would like to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#significant contribution
#good wishes