A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog 
 > Michael Helfrich's Radio Weblog

A very good book and a nice synopsis.

For those of us that only manage to read the first 100 pages of important books, Robert Paterson's weblog has a FANTASTIC overview of the Tipping Point. 

I agree. And the applications are many, so this is an important work.

For example, Marc Canter asks why newsQuakes don't show any Asian news.

Aside from operational questions, like the scale and reach of the news crawler or mis-weighting of algorithms, I can think of a few reasons.

1. Too few original sources. How many news sources are online in Africa? What density creates a network bursting with news? 
   
2. Too few cross-language bridges.  Language barriers are huge. Largely independent social networks have just a fringe of overlap. A fractional percent of the population bridges these communities, translating, filtering news. When was the last time you read a news story about something in Poland? Some language/culture-pairs are more open to each other, often driven by proximity and population exchange; think Western Europe. Why no Asian news? Probably quantity.
   
3. Network Diffusion. Unless a meme is reinforced with each telling, stories die out. A fire killing 50 school children in Beijing may be local or even regional news. It may not have the staying power to survive translation.  
   
4. Delay. Translation delays cools off hot stories, stopping their propagation.  

Do you want more news from other worlds? From Africa, Latin America, the subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China?

1. Promote literacy, so more people write.
2. Second and third language training: English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi reach billions.
3. Get your sources online and syndicate their content.

[a klog apart community]