With today’s opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games, all eyes are on London. This is the most social media-heavy Olympics yet, but one Greek athlete discovered the perils of thoughtless tweets. Here’s a look at the headlines that caught our eye in social media and the publishing business this week:
- Athlete’s Olympic dismissal provides tough Twitter lessons: Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou was banned from the Olympics earlier this week after tweeting a racist comment about West Nile mosquitos. The incident should serve as a reminder for everyone (especially media types and other in the spotlight) to be careful about what they tweet.
- Washington Post‘s TruthTeller will check facts in real-time: The Knight Foundation awarded $50,000 to WaPo to develop an application that will fact-check videos and audio in real time. The goal is to have the product ready to use for presidential debates later this year, and WaPo plans to share the technology with journalists at other news outlets.
- Newsweek Maybe Probably Perhaps Considering Going Online Only: Barry Diller’s remarks during IAC’s earning call may have hinted that Newsweek is going online only. Mediabistro’s FishbowlNY blog explores the rumors.
- Public Radio International acquired by Boston public broadcaster WGBH: In an effort to create a greater impact and scale, WGBH has acquired Public Radio International. The details of the deal’s structure were not disclosed, but Minneapolis-based PRI will remain operationally independent.
- YouTube founders’ new magazine-focused Web curation app Zeen opens in beta: This week, AVOS launched social newspaper service Zeen in early beta. The tool allows users to create their own magazine by clipping content from around the web and customizing the colors and template.