Digital-Age Punctuation

Exclamation Etiquette: Technology has made communicating with others fast, easy and constant. But at what price to the English language? The proliferation of texting and email and IM’ing and FB chatting in the Digital Age has caused people to adopt a new set of spelling, grammar and punctuation rules — for better or for worse. Take the exclamation point. We were all taught in school to use the exclamation point sparingly; most writers and literary elite scoff at the exclamation point as lazy, shorthand for the effect that the writing itself should have created. But some of these same people, as the New York Times piece points out, will happily and generously sprinkle texts and emails with exclamation points! I am certainly guilty of using them on electronic forms of casual communication to ensure that I’m not coming off as serious when I’m saying something in jest, to make sure that I don’t sound short or gruff. So much is lost in digital translation without the visual cues of body language or the tone of someone’s voice to properly emphasize and punctuate what is being said. Hence the overreliance on exclamation points: “OK. Sure,” sounds so somber, like such an unenthused reply, as opposed to “OK, sure!” NYT

Facebook in the Middle East: Here’s another social media and the Middle East story: Israel prevented many Palestinian activists form boarding flights from Europe to Tel Aviv. The Israeli government had been monitoring these activists’ activity on social media sites and put them on a blacklist, which they gave to airlines to keep those whom they saw as potentially violent protestors out of the country. AP

Website of the Day: Want to know who else is behind Facebook besides the Zuck and how much they are worth? Check out Who Owns Facebook for names, stake percentages and dollar values. Gawker

Tumblr of the Day: We’ve all been there… Damn You, Auto Correct.

Video of the Day: Something tells me, by the time her braces come off, she is going to regret posting this.

https://digiday.com/?p=3808

More in Media

As Patreon and Substack enter the mix, the livestreaming landscape is dividing creators

Platforms’ livestreaming push has highlighted an underlying divide in the community of livestreaming creators.

Digiday+ Research: Publishers were ready to depend more on first-party data. So, now what?

Publishers were ready for the move away from third-party data: the role of first-party data in generating ad revenue was set to grow significantly, and the percentage of ad impressions served by first-party data was set to increase.

Digiday+ Research Data Sheet: The state of subscription pricing

This infographic details how publishers are approaching subscription pricing and how subscriptions drive other revenue streams for publishers.