links for 2010-09-17

"What’s pointedly missing from Google’s approach is the human factor: there is no empathy in the process. It lives or dies entirely by the 'sword of data', and while that can be a recipe for success—Google is doing quite well in the market—it is rarely a recipe for beauty, taste or comfort. It’s a cold process, almost entirely devoid of any humanity, precisely because it produces results that lack a human touch."

"One of the delightful things about The Onion is how often its put-ons are mistaken by the dull-witted and literal-minded for real news. For every Apple customer who would buy Close Range for a sophisticated laugh, there's surely another who'd do it for the thrill of vaporizing an ostrich's head with a shotgun. Whose intent matters -- the creator or the end user?"

Extraordinarily confessional post about a launch failure, notable not simply because it was about a news-based product.

Thought-provoking post. The last time I did a morning of media law training I nearly went back upstairs and deleted my entire blog in fear...

Roy Greenslade swims against the tide of the Twitterati