Financial Times Unveils 70-Foot Interactive Wall in Grand Central Terminal

The Financial Times took the wraps off it’s latest U.S. marketing campaign in New York’s Grand Central Terminal Tuesday. The exhibit and accompanying campaign, which boasts both online and offline components, highlights the publication’s growing investment in data journalism.
Between now and Thursday, those passing by are invited to interact with a large, touch-sensitive floor mat positioned on the west end of Grand Central, in Vanderbilt Hall. With the help of three “brand ambassadors,” who will be positioned by the exhibit at all times, visitors can move around an FT-branded mat to interact with a series of 3D interactive infographics projected 70 feet high on the hall’s south wall.
The infographics touch on three central topics of the FT‘s coverage: the position of the U.S. relative to the global economy, the spread and growth of mobile technology, and the global recession and recovery, U.S. managing editor Rob Grimshaw said in an interview with Mashable. All three were designed by David McCandless, author of Information Is Beautiful (and this great TED Talk).

The online extension of the campaign resides at ftgraphicworld.com, where visitors can watch videos of the infographics in action and share their reactions through an embedded Facebook comment widget. Visitors can also take advantage of a free, one-week subscription offer from the FT.com.
While were impressed by the infographics and the data housed therein, it seems unfortunate that the FT didn’t develop infographics that could have worked on the website in addition to — or even instead of — the exhibit set up in Grand Central. The decision certainly limited the much wider reception the campaign might have enjoyed online, we think.
Images courtesy of The Financial Times, Mashable.

Twitter Reacts to SOPA’s Burial

The Internet rejoiced Friday after Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Texas) said that he would indefinitely pull the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) from consideration “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”
Smith’s announcement came two days after a web-wide blackout protest in which some of the Internet’s most popular and prominent websites censored content, calling attention to SOPA’s potentially devastating effect on Internet freedom and creativity
Twitter users declared victory after Smith’s retreat on Friday, crediting the mass action by activists and ordinary web users alike for the change in course. While similar legislation will undoubtedly set off future rounds of contentious debate in Congress and among the public, Friday was nonetheless a moment of optimism for SOPA’s opponents on Twitter.


“SOPA Is Dead” trended nationally on the network. Politicians, digital advocates, artists, celebrities and popular parody accounts joined the celebration. Many simply expressed joy, but others emphasized the need for sustained vigilance and continued pressure on elected officials.
It was the culmination of an extended public battle over SOPA since the bill was introduced in October. GoDaddy felt the wrath of Internet users in December when it was included on a Congressional list of official SOPA supporters; the company soon reversed its position after vociferous backlash.
Support for the bill quickly eroded over the past week, and the growing momentum was regarded as a powerful example of the web’s populist reach. Then Smith’s significant backtrack on Friday signaled SOPA’s ultimate demise — at least for the foreseeable future.
What do you think about the death of SOPA as we knew it? What were your favorite tweets from Friday? Let us know in the comments.

Could SOPA Rise From the Dead?

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act may have been the two most hated bills in recent legislative history and now they’re dead. Or are they?
Congressman Lamar Smith “postponed consideration” of SOPA after the Senate postponed the similar PIPA legalization. Does a postponement mean death? Is tabling a bill the same as sealing it in a mahogany box and burying it six feet underground?
“I think that it is dead,” said SUNY Geneseo Political Science Dept. Professor and Chair Jeffrey Koch, Ph.D. But then he added, “It’s dead for the rest of the year. Especially in an election year; anything that generates this level of controversy.”
To understand the legislative process, Koch explained, one needs to know that most bills fail. They’re assigned to committees and then they die a rather quiet death. In fact, most legislators who introduce bills already know this, though Koch thinks its unlikely the authors of SOPA and PIPA thought their bills would die right away.
So the bills are dead and unlikely to return in 2012. What makes Koch think they could rise from their murky graves in 2013 or beyond?
“There are bills that do come back,” he said. In fact, “Many bills that do become laws were introduced in many previous Congresses.” He cites health care as an example: Congress has been wrangling over health care legislation for almost a century. And as we all know, a health care bill did finally pass both chambers; President Obama signed it into law in 2010.
It’s simply not unusual for bills on certain issues to get “introduced again and again and again over time,” Koch told Mashable.
Similarly on the topic of these SOPA and PIPA bills, he said it’s unlikely that they’re dead for all time. The reality is that while most people enjoy the openness and ubiquity of the Internet, piracy is real, is costing people money — and this means, Koch said, “I can’t imagine that it’s going to go away so easily.”
Still, legislating a global entity like the Internet is no simple task. Piracy can start far outside U.S. jurisdiction and, Koch told us, “U.S. law can only reach so far.”
Professor Koch offered no opinion on the contents of the bills — but agreed that they were hard to read, and needed a simplified version.
“They’re written in a very technical legalese,” he said. “That has been the case for quite a while. Most bills these days are that way. Particularly if they do deal with something that is a technical issue, and there are a lot more bills like this as society has become more technical and the issues become more technically complex.”
To review, then: SOPA and PIPA are dead, but only in the way a zombie is dead.
They or something like them will rise up again in 12 months. The new bills may even start dragging themselves around the halls of congress right after the November’s presidential election. Future versions will likely try to address the same persistent issue of piracy, and they will be just as hard to read and understand as today’s “dead” versions of SOPA and PIPA.
 by Lance Ulanoff Mashable

Senator Reid: PIPA Vote Postponed

The anti-SOPA Day of Protest ripples continue to spread. On Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) put the brakes on a PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) cloture vote. The vote was originally scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24.
“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” said Reid in a statement Friday morning.
In a cloture vote, the Senate decides whether or not to end debate on a bill and bring it forward for a final up-or-down vote. For such a vote to be successful, three-fifths of the Senate (or 60 Senators) must vote in the positive.
Sen. Reid previously said that “we need to work on this and we’re going to — I will hope we can have a manager’s amendment when we get back here in a week or 10 days and move forward on this. It’s important that we try to do this on a fair basis and I’m going to do everything I can to get that done” during a Jan. 15 interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.
On Wednesday, major websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit went dark to protest PIPA and its sister bill in the House of Representatives, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Facebook and Google, which came out against SOPA and PIPA in a public letter written late last year, provided users with information about the bills and contact information for elected officials. Google also launched an online petition, which gathered over 7 million signatures by Thursday morning.
SOPA and PIPA made it into the CNN-Southern Republican presidential debate Thursday night, with each candidate denouncing the bills to some extent.

Supporters of the two bills consider PIPA and SOPA necessary new tools in the fight against online piracy and copyright infringement. Opponents claim they give excessive power to copyright holders and the federal government, and that they risk making the Internet slower and less secure while also stifling online freedom of speech and digital innovation.
Do you think it’s good that the Senate is taking more time to consider PIPA? Let us know in the comments below.
by Alex Fitzpatrick Mashable

SOPA Is Dead: Smith Pulls Bill

Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, said on Friday that he is pulling the bill “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”
“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith (R-Texas) said. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”
Smith also released the following statement on Friday:

“We need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products. “The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore. American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60% of U.S. exports. The theft of America’s intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.”
“The online theft of American intellectual property is no different than the theft of products from a store. It is illegal and the law should be enforced both in the store and online.
“The Committee will continue work with copyright owners, Internet companies, financial institutions to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America’s intellectual property. We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem. The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation.”

The move comes after widespread protest on the Internet on Wednesday by Wikipedia, Reddit and others. The sites signaled their displeasure with the bill by going dark. That day, several Congressmen dropped their support for SOPA and its Senate counterpart, PIPA. The latter bill has also been taken off the table for now.


“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a statement Friday morning.
Smith’s stance comes just two days after he told The Wall Street Journal that he didn’t plan to back down on SOPA, telling the newspaper he expected to “move forward” with the bill in February.
by Todd Wasserman Mashable

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