news – Andy writes!

I’d gotten sick and tired of the news — and even more weary of the distortions and reverberations of news and pseudo-news that skittered around the social media universe like ripples from a thousand stones thrown simultaneously into a sludgy pond. Stories and rumors of Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, the backlash to Taylor Swift’s announced support for Kamala Harris, the hate and vitriol spewing forth on cable news and X, which Elon Musk, despite his supposed commitment to making the platform a space for free speech, has turned into a raging hate machine — all of it was taking its toll on my soul and psyche.

So I decided to heavily curtail my consumption of news and news-related information. I could go without news for a week, I thought to myself. It wouldn’t be easy for an info-junkie like me, but I would do my best.

I’ve been playing around a bit with a new analytics tool (and news source) called Silobreaker. It’s an online search service that provides contextual search results in a graphical format. Below is an example of one tool, a network map that allows you to see contextual links between your search term and other relevant data.

(Click image for larger version)

I’m not sure what it all means yet, but it’s interesting. I see some possible applications with measuring media relations efforts, media placement and overall online reputation management.

Silobreaker also has a blog, if you’re interested in updates.

Thanks to Lois Kelly for blogging about this and another interesting but probably less practical tool (for my purposes), HubDub.

Tag: news

Silobreaker: a new PR analytics tool