Moments of crisis, like the shooting in Newtown, tend to produce brief spikes of popular interest in gun control. My research on media attention suggests these spikes are extremely short-lived, and that they may be decreasing in intensity.

People who know me well have learned to insist that I commit to obligations by opening my laptop and putting them onto the appropriate calendar or list - a verbal agreement and a promise to remember won't work.

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

It's fine to have social media that connects us with old friends, but we need tools that help us discover new people as well.

Re-tweeting is a pretty common practice on Twitter, but on an average day, we see maybe one out of 20 posts is a re-tweet.

You can make the case that slacktivism is important because it makes people feel affiliated to a movement and be part of it, and talk about it.

It's becoming clear that the world is listening, so now we're trying to get new groups of people talking.