A new crowdsourcing platform tracks conflict in the South Caucasus, holes in Skype security, a roundup of tutorials for journalists learning to code and more are found in this week's Digital Media Mash Up, produced by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA).
Here are IJNet's picks from this week's stories:
Crowdsourcing conflict in the South Caucasus
At first glance, the crowdsourcing platform Elva, which means “lightning” or “express message” in Georgian, might seem similar to others such as the ubiquitous Kenyan-developed Ushahidi, already used in the South Caucasus for a variety of purposes such as monitoring elections. But Elva is more focused on long-term needs and in particular how to measure the effect of policy on communities. NetProphet
Think your Skype messages get end-to-end encryption? Think again
The Microsoft-owned service regularly scans message contents for signs of fraud, and company managers may log the results indefinitely, Ars has confirmed. And this can only happen if Microsoft can convert the messages into human-readable form at will. ArsTechnica
Journalists’ beginner guide to coding
As the news industry continues to adapt, journalists are asked to expand their skills beyond sleuthing and writing and into programming. Here are tools and tutorials to get you started. Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
Yahoo can’t decide if it’s a media company or a tech company
Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr for US$1.1 billion is a big gamble by Marissa Mayer, the company’s recently-hired CEO. The microblogging site is a valuable asset, but media accounts of Mayer’s thinking suggest she hasn’t come to terms with Yahoo’s fundamental dysfunction: that it can’t decide whether it’s a media company or a technology company. Washington Post
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Image: "Crowd," courtesy of James Cridland with a Creative Commons license.
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