The Reading List: June 19

Every Friday, I'm going to try and post a selection of the links from our delicious.com account so you can get a quick snapshot of what we're reading this week. Here goes:
 

• R&D 2.0: Fewer Engineers, More Anthropologists
  "By having anthropologists study and interact with end-customers in their natural settings, Western firms can learn to tailor their business models and offerings to match users' socio-economic and cultural context."
• Why journalists write so much rubbish about Twitter
  "Trying to understand social media by looking at the behaviour of celebrity users makes about as much sense as trying to understand society by looking at the behaviour of celebrities."
• Social math: Yes…data can tell stories too
  "We need to create meaning by relating the unfamiliar to the familiar. Piling on raw numbers may prove a point to statisticians, but others need more context to understand the meaning of data."
• The Little Manual of API Design
  Important stuff for API designers. (link to pdf)
• Why comments suck (& ideas on un-sucking them)
  "If you don't have policies that encourage your editors and writers to read and participate in comments, and user agreements that speak about positive values of civil behavior, then your comments ghetto is really just a self-fulfilling prophecy."
• Twitter Blog: Down Time Rescheduled
  Twitter reschedules its down time in face of the need for effective communication around the Iran elections.
• Using Web Analysis to Improve Government
  "The Social Security Administration (SSA) has created the Retirement Estimator, AN online service that instantly determines how much Uncle Sam will pay you after you retire."
• Facebook's Fatal Error
  At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, 200 million Facebook users began a mad scramble to claim a user name. This was also the moment, says Douglas Rushkoff, when Facebook could become obsolete.
• With Iran crisis, Twitter's youth is over
  "In the aftermath of the contested Iranian elections, however, it's been Twitter's potential as a communications medium, rather than simply a source of up-to-the-minute news, that has been front and center. It's usurped Facebook as the social-media tool in the spotlight."

Have any links you want to share with us? Add them to your delicious.com account and tag them for:extweb.