Welcome to the 34th episode of “The Mediatwits,” the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift’s Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week the show is mainly focused on the huge day of protest online Wednesday against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) before the U.S. Congress. After Wikipedia, Reddit and other sites went black, and millions signed petitions and called lawmakers, at least 40 representatives and Senators said they wouldn’t support the bills in their current form. It was a breathtaking display of online organization that got results.
Special guest Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch discussed the role that Google played in educating people and helping them take action. Plus, Sullivan created one of the more creative memes by sending a telegram to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) because she didn’t have an active Twitter or Facebook page. (Click the image above-left to see the telegram at full size.) In other news, Chief Yahoo and company co-founder Jerry Yang announced he was stepping down as Yahoo tries again to turn the tanker around. Special guest Eric Jackson, an activist investor in Yahoo, talks about the brightened prospects for the web giant now that Yang has departed.
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Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio’s Music Alley.
Here are some highlighted topics from the show:
Intro
1:10: Rafat is going away to get married and to take a long honeymoon trip
3:00: There are more serious issues that should get this much attention
5:00: A clear explanation of the SOPA and PIPA bills before Congress
7:15: Rundown of topics on the podcast
Huge day of protesting SOPA online
8:00: Special guest Danny Sullivan
11:10: Sullivan: Big media companies should make content easier to find, buy
13:00: Should be an easier way to pull down infringing sites
15:10: Sullivan explains why he did the telegram for Sen. Feinstein
19:00: Obama comes out against the bills in their current form
Yang out at Yahoo
20:20: Special guest Eric Jackson
22:40: Jackson: Investors have shied away from Yahoo stock
25:40: Jackson is heartened by new CEO Scott Thompson
28:00: Jackson: Shareholders could get a special dividend
More Reading
SOPA protest by the numbers: 162M pageviews, 7 million signatures at Ars Technica
Your Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests at MediaShift
Put Down the Pitchforks on SOPA at NY Times
Where Do Your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA? at ProPublica
Protect IP Act Senate whip count at OpenCongress
Senator Ron Wyden To The Internet: Thank You For Speaking Up… But We’re Not Done Yet at TechDirt
With Twitter, Blackouts and Demonstrations, Web Flexes Its Muscle at NY Times
Google Blackens Its Logo To Protest SOPA/PIPA, While Bing & Yahoo Carry On As Usual at Search Engine Land
Protests lead to weakening support for Protect IP, SOPA at CNET
Jerry Yang’s Departure Means Major Transformations for Yahoo! at Forbes.com
Yahoo’s Yang is gone. That was the easy part at CNET
With Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang departed from board, Yahoo seeks a new course at Mercury News
Weekly Poll
Don’t forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about the anti-SOPA protests:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+