Journalism, Politics, and Social Media Converge In An Egyptian Jail

The intersection of politics, journalism, and social media became even more striking over the past few days as student journalist James Karl Buck was arrested along with Mohammed Maree, an Egyptian friend who was helping him report on political unrest in Egypt.

In large part thanks to a Twitter post after his arrest, legions of onliners came to his virtual rescue, contacting the US Embassy and the University of California which quickly dispatched an attorney to Egypt to meet with authorities. Buck was soon on a plane out of Egypt, but his friend Maree's whereabouts still appear to be unknown after a second detention by police.

Details of this remarkable and still very active story are at Buck's blog. Maree's wherabouts are still unknown as of this writing at 10:30 am Saturday.

Amazon's Kindle - the Future of Reading ... or just a dumb ugly gadget?

Newsweek's cover story is about Amazon's Kindle, a reading device that debuts tomorrow.

The Kindle is Steve Bezos' attempt to revolutionize the art of ... reading. Like many bloggers commenting on the new gadget even before it's been seen in public I'm skeptical this approach will succeed for Amazon. They are trying to charge for stuff we all expect for free. Also, they are offering what appears to be an inferior gadget to a laptop.

Thus laptop folks won't buy this and carry around two gadgets, non-laptop folks will buy a laptop before a Kindle, and folks who don't really like the idea of technology taking over journalism are hardly likely to buy a high gadget instead of more books. This leaves.... nobody to buy them.

Even Newsweek's breathless "Future of Reading" cover story suggests what is probably the single biggest challenge to the Kindle. Author Steven Levy notes that the Kindle is up against some formidable competition:

... superbly designed, wickedly functional, infinitely useful and beloved more passionately than any gadget in a Best Buy: the book.