ReadWriteWeb

There are two rights issues that stoke the flames in the heart of European Commission Vice President and Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. One is something she's dubbed the "right to be forgotten:" the ability for an individual to tell an online collector of personal data to destroy its data about her. The other involves the rights of the media to express itself freely, an issue that Europe could not ignore during last week's SOPA protests.

But what about when those two rights collide, when personal data is being collected by a source that qualifies as the media, can that person still ask to be forgotten? In a speech at a conference in Munich last Sunday night, a preview of a draft of new E.U. data protection legislation to be formally introduced tomorrow, Comm. Reding said this quite clearly: "The right to be forgotten is, of course, not an absolute right."

As we begin a new year, I thought I would take a moment to review where Web publishing has come and where it seems to be going. We certainly stand at a crossroads, as we move from the "golden age of blogging" into whatever we are going to call things this year or this moment. I tend to think of this as the post-blogging era.

That isn't to say that blogs are over: we at RWW certainly don't think so. But the very nature of the blog is changing. The days are coming to an end when, as Scott Fulton has said most recently: "You can have freedom from bias or you can have freedom from oversight. You cannot have both." Jon Mitchell wrote earlier in December about new ways of writing, publishing and advertising online.

In the dead of night on Monday, November 14, Zuccotti Park in New York City was raided by police. In the preceding days, there were crackdowns at several of the major Occupy protests around the country. The effort had apparently been coordinated between cities. Monday night's actions against the original Occupy Wall Street encampment were stern, heavy enough to bring a decisive end to the protest. But the raid only served to turn up the heat in New York and around the country.

As they have since the Occupation began, people on the ground fired up their smartphones to report the events as they happened, and curators around the Web gathered and retweeted the salient messages. But early on in the raid, mainstream media outlets began reporting that the police were barring their reporters from entering the park. The NYPD even grounded a CBS News helicopter. The night had chilling implications for freedom of the press. But the news got out anyway. The raw power of citizen media - and the future of news envisioned by a site called Storify - thwarted the media blackout.

We're not out of the woods yet, but Web publishing is starting to hit its stride. Product offerings are getting smarter, prices are getting better and, most importantly, the content is getting more interesting. We might not even be half way to the future of publishing yet, but the industry is picking up steam.

There are new ways to read, new ways to write and new ways to advertise. Publishing is a rapidly changing high-tech business now, so the tools change the content and vice versa. Established publishers have lots of inertia, so the changes won't sweep the world overnight, but here in the blogosphere, there's a palpable sense of excitement. Here's a tour of Web publishing's next level.

In the dead of night on Monday, November 14, Zuccotti Park in New York City was raided by police. In the preceding days, there were crackdowns at several of the major Occupy protests around the country. The effort had apparently been coordinated between cities. Monday night's actions against the original Occupy Wall Street encampment were stern, heavy enough to bring a decisive end to the protest. But the raid only served to turn up the heat in New York and around the country.

As they have since the Occupation began, people on the ground fired up their smartphones to report the events as they happened, and curators around the Web gathered and retweeted the salient messages. But early on in the raid, mainstream media outlets began reporting that the police were barring their reporters from entering the park. The NYPD even grounded a CBS News helicopter. The night had chilling implications for freedom of the press. But the news got out anyway. The raw power of citizen media - and the future of news envisioned by a site called Storify - thwarted the media blackout.

A new study from BBC.com and Starcom MediaVest finds that tablets do wonders for news consumption. Tablet owners report reading more stories from more sources on more topics than non-tablet users, they enjoy the experience more, and they go straight to the source more often, rather than relying on aggregators.

But the study also found that the benefits of tablets extend beyond news. Subjects reported a range of improvements tablets brought to their lives, and many of them were unexpected. The study broke down tablet owners based on how long they've had tablets and found that all of the positive effects increased over time. Tablets aren't a fad; they're fundamentally changing the way people use the Web.

In an effort to capture growing mobile traffic, The Guardian has launched a versatile native Android app. The app is free and ad-supported for all users, but it offers some powerful and distinguishing features.

It displays full-screen photo galleries and audio and video content in addition to text articles. It enables browsing by section, topic, or author, and users can save favorites for easy browsing from the app or the phone's home screen. It even allows downloading of the personalized homepage and favorites for offline reading. The feature set reflects a solid understanding of the needs of new media consumers on the part of The Guardian's mobile team, which we've been watching for a long time.

With the story yesterday about the Netflix price increase, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to examine what is the total cost of my entertainment and communications package and what the actual overall impact would be of the price increase.

My wife and I are empty nesters, but we have a cell plan that also includes my stepson. The three cell phones cost us $175 per month with AT&T, and that is for my iPhone data plan and messaging plans. We live in an urban area where we can choose between DSL and cable options, although in our apartment building AT&T DSL/U-Verse is our only choice for Internet connectivity unless we want to go to a broadband wireless plan.

As many print media outlets continue to struggle to find their place in an increasingly digital ecosystem, the satirical newspaper The Onion has managed to not only make the most the Web and social media, but also continue to expand into new markets and new mediums.

On the second day of ReadWriteWeb's 2Way Summit Tuesday, a team of Onion staffers walked attendees through the publication's history, from its fictitious beginnings in 1756 all the way to its modern experimentation with social media and expansion into broadcast.

Over the last several months we have mentioned how minimalist micro-blogging service Tumblr has attracted traditional media outlets. The New York-based startup has begun providing publisher-friendly features and even managed to snag former Newsweek editor Mark Coatney, who serves as a liaison for traditional media.

Today, National Public Radio (NPR) became the latest media group to join Tumblr, and I spoke with senior strategist Andy Carvin to find out how the organization plans to leverage the quickly growing platform.