Despite RSS, Twitter feeds and Facebook fanpages, newsletter are still pretty nice. Below are some of my favorite newsletters. Please add your favorites in the comments.

Artkrush
My favorite newsletter about art, design and architecture.

About: art
Every: twice-monthly
Subscribe: http://artkrush.com/current/

Gvenk Daily (Dutch)
Every morning Dutch developer Gerard van Enk makes a daily tech update on Twitter. You should definitely follow @gvenkdaily (it’s in Dutch, but most links are English. You can also subscribe to the updates via e-mail.

About: technology news
Every: day
Subscribe: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=gvenkdaily

Springwise
“Springwise and its network of 8,000 spotters scan the globe for smart new business ideas, delivering instant inspiration to entrepreneurial minds. Time to start the next big thing!”

Springwise always surprises you.

About: great ideas
Every: week
Subscribe: http://springwise.com/newsletter/

Dexigner
“Weekly roundup of design news and competitions from the #1 portal for design related information.”

A collection of design related news links nicely ordered by field of interest.

About: design, architecture
Every: week
Subscribe: http://www.dexigner.com/newsletter/

Flavorpill Daily Dose
“Flavorpill’s Daily Dose is a jolt of cultural inspiration, delivered fresh to your inbox every weekday morning to help jump-start your day. Our mission is simple: to provide a quick look at what’s new in music, print, art, film, and online, by offering worthwhile culture to explore right from your screen.”

About: a daily dose of arts, music and culture
Every: day
Subscribe: http://flavorpill.com/signup

Photojojo
Photography tips and tricks. It’s a real feelgood website/newsletter about what you can do with photography.

About: photography
Every: twice-a-week
Subscribe: http://photojojo.com/

Sandbox
“Sandbox is a trusted global network where extraordinary young achievers under 30 come together. It’s an inspiring meeting place where a selection of young thinkers and doers connect, exchange ideas and talk about innovation.”

It’s not really a newsletter kind of newsletter, because the newsletter is also about updates to Sandbox, but the content is really good.

About: updates on the Sandbox Network and inspirational links
Every: month
Subscribe: http://www.sandbox-network.com/contact/

Share your favorite newsletters
Leave it the comments, send me a tweet or e-mail me at hypernarrative@gmail.com.

In the videos below Umar Haque and Douglas Rushkoff are both talking about a shift in how we consume and produce. Fueled by the financial crises there seems to be a growing focus on models that don’t extract value during the proces. The search for models where everyone benefits.

We see this in different fields. Michael Braungart and William McDonough propose in their book Cradle to Cradle a model where waste equeals food. And that we should create processes that are sustainable by itself or even add value on all sides of the proces (documentary).

Lev Manovich talks in his presentations about how a global collective culture gives us the same ideas at the same time. And that it’s almost impossible to have an unique idea, because we build so much on eachothers knowledge in this new connected culture. Working togother is the new ethos.

There is also a shift in advertising agencies. Agencies like Anomaly London and Nothing Amsterdam become creative partners. They Become part of the proces and add more sustainable value instead of extracting it.

Thinking about new models that try to add value. Nice things to wrap your head around. Enjoy.

Douglas Rushkoff is making a lot of interesting videos to promote his book Life Inc.

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

Umar Haque recorded at the Constructive Capitalism conference

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

Via (TiD)

Social media is becoming a very influential referrer. Website like Facebook and Twitter generate growing amounts of traffic websites. They work best for the live web (news) and for memes. And they are in the race to become serious competition for Google in getting the right people on the right page.

Social media (Twitter/Facebook) is the new Google (making the web more useful with its service). It doesn’t care about page rank. It cares about what people think and how trustworthy and influential people are.

Google and Twitter are very different in a number of ways.

Google

1. Longer URL, the longer the better
2. Getting bigger websites to link to your website
3. Know and find
4. Authenticity
5. Ranking content
6. Optimization
7. The best of time

Twitter

1. Short URL, an URL is waste of space
2. Getting influential online people to talk about your website
3. Follow and discover
4. Creativity
5. Ranking people
6. Lobbying
7. The best of now

What does this mean for news reporting?
The major news websites and publication systems weren’t really designed for SEO. They are still catching up, far behind the current technological state blogs are in.

While media and journalist are still blaming Google the second disrupting innovation for their Industry is already taking place. And this time they won’t be able to blaim a company.

What about the editors? Google was about systems, about technology. The current wave of social media is about people. Are the news editors – the current and a new generation – ready?

The link
A news organization in a social media environment doesn’t have to create content, it creates context around links. It directs you. That’s the function of a news organization. Guide you as a customer to the best information you can find. Sometimes this mean (re)writing a summary or story, other times it means linking to other good stuff.

It’s also about value. If you – as a content creator – are not adding much to what’s already out there you can’t expect to have a sustainable business model. If you don’t add much, you won’t get much.

The link is the most important asset of the web. It is for Google and it is for Twitter. In a social media driven web it’s not about the content the link directs to. It’s about who presents the link. Linking builds trust. You have to earn this trust by linking to things that add value for your audience.

Jay Rosen, professor at NYU on the ethic of the link