" In today’s new multi-platform media environment, news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:

* Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
* Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
* Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

In addition, people use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. And they use traditional email and other tools to swap stories and comment on them. Among those who get news online, 75% get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52% share links to news with others via those means."

"At Global Voices we were recently commissioned by Open Society Institute's Information Program and the Omidyar Network to help them gain a better understanding of the current state of online technology projects that increase transparency, government accountability, and civic engagement in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, and Central & Eastern Europe. They could have gone about this the traditional way and contracted two or three well established academics to sit in their offices, poring over dozens of websites, conducting a few interviews, and eventually publishing a lengthy white paper to be distributed at academic conferences and stuffed away in ivory tower filing cabinets. Instead we built a network of regional researchers – experts in their field and region. "