I really appreciate that the "hero" video _asked_ me to click. That already shows you respect me enough not to just auto-play in my face. I think the video suffers from a bit too much dramatization, especially at the end with the triumphant movie trailer music and awkward shots of people looking directly into the camera. I also think some of the copy on the main page could be edited to sound clearer and more natural. For example:
* "Keys only you have access to" -> "Only you have the keys"
* "Room for growth" -> "Room to grow"
* "Gets better over time" -> "Always improving [etc.]"
I mention all the above because I really like what I see here and I'm looking for room in my budget after I post this comment :)
It's impossible to take American journalists seriously after decades (almost two now) of apologizing for the systematic murder, torture, and displacement of Muslims across the world. Google understands that America is in decline and China ascendant, it's future depends on access to the Chinese market. The American bourgeoisie are so blinded by ideology they can't see how they are on the cusp of being superseded. Articles demanding censorship appear weekly in American media. Suppose it's freedom of speech for thee, and not for me, then?
Are you aware that there is more than one journalist in America? Some are for censorship and oppression, some are against. Don't act like they're all some sort of hypocritical hivemind.
Stepping back from the liberal imagination that we are all self-actualizing, free individuals, it's easy to see how journalists function within society and the economy according to class politics.
Just look at how American media & technology companies all shut down Alex Jones:
Google does not rely on the Chinese market. If anything the Chinese rely on western markets and that includes the startups and factories within China. They’re going to need the western market more than their own in the future. Rich nations import and export. China’s exporting far more than its importing.
I doesn't rely on China because it decided to leave. Now it has to come back, or it will be shut out of a market of billions.
China is either the first or second largest world economy based on how you want to measure. It's rapid growth alone will assure Chinese economic power if not outright hegemony for the next century. China is also growing it's sphere of influence. Google is a corporation like any other, and if it misses the boat on getting into the Chinese market while it is still developing, it could be the Sears of search tomorrow.
Rich nations get rich by developing their economies. I don't think anyone has done that better than China. The US economy is exporting soybeans and shuffling debt. Who produces all of the high technology and is constantly innovating in the energy sector of tomorrow? China has seized the commanding heights of the economy.
But yeah, really, the world's biggest market is vital for Google.
China is indeed catching up. Production of technology is done there because labor is cheap (being a producer does not imply innovation). Chinese companies still have a way to go to become mainstream in the western world. The blade cuts both ways, China needs the west at least as much as the other way around.
Analog Africa is a great label. I have been slowly working my way through their collection and the amount of disco, funk, and rock music they exposed me to is amazing. The music is very refreshing. It just ever so slightly odd and different while also being very positive and rhythmic.
My favourite albums of their collection right now are Space Echo, Amara Toure, and also Bambara Mystic Soul.
I think partially because of Spotify's and Youtube's recommender systems this type of music has picked up popularity lately.
There are also several DJs such as Palms Trax and Hunee who have recently started mixing in African Disco into their tracks. I do not complain about this trend.
Sahel Sounds has a really interesting anthology called "Music from African Cellphones", which is mostly very obscure local bands recorded live on cell phones, and shared around that way. I dig how drum machines are influencing the beats - it's a whole new sound.
And of course, there are lots of anthologies of older music from the 1960s and 1970s, all of Fela Kuti's output, etc...
In that case, these news businesses should not be publishing content on the World Wide Web. Users pay for devices, electricity, and monthly network connection, These publishers seem to be stuck in the last epoch. A website is not a finished product like a book or newspaper, it is publicly-accessible data. Users can scrape, restyle, delete, and add content _at will_ whenever they choose to download this content.
So the ideology of capital, which destroyed community morals, is now having it's own tawdry ethics trashed. It's not news that the news is failing. This Author Wrote 7 Reasons Why You Can't Make 20th Century Business Web-Scale.
So what's the impetus for the news business to be available online? If the world wide web should be a free love utopia of data slurping why would these agencies, who have been built on the assumption that the creation and presentation of their data has an inherent worth? How do they get remunerated for their efforts? Or do they just never try to take advantage of this new epoch and die off, leaving us with a billion half-assed citizen journalists?
I would pay for a source of journalism that had any actual effort put in it and wasn't blatantly and hilariously wrong almost all of the time. Sadly news agencies don't fit that bill at all.
I see nothing wrong with them charging money for their work they just can't depend on being able to exercise absolute control over the presentation because instead of being dumb data to be displayed on a remote device its code to be run on the end users device.
You can't separate all the interesting aspects of this distinction and ignore the ones you don't like.
Plomin gives very interesting interviews explaining his experiments to a general audience. Here's a recent example discussing the basics and implications of twin studies in education:
* "Keys only you have access to" -> "Only you have the keys"
* "Room for growth" -> "Room to grow"
* "Gets better over time" -> "Always improving [etc.]"
I mention all the above because I really like what I see here and I'm looking for room in my budget after I post this comment :)
Good luck!