When pondering this month’s edition of Make the Jump, I thought of all of the events our company is involved in through our colleagues, clients and community partners (in addition to Christina’s focus on Idaho Creative Week). So this iteration of our recurring post includes a slew of save the dates for the next month in their own words.

MARCH 20 | Niche Media Mingle – PRSA Idaho
Come mingle with the members of Treasure Valley’s growing new and multimedia news outlets. Emerging “niche” news organizations provide alternative ways to connect with target audiences. This very informal social hour at Solid Boise (5:30-7pm) is designed to help you meet the people behind these emerging news organizations and find out what they need to tell your stories. Participants include Idaho Education News, State Impact Idaho and Meridian Press. Learn more.

MARCH 27 | UnWined at the Movies – Idaho Wine Commission
The Idaho Wine Commission will be presenting UnWined at the Movies, a true movie and wine experience. Held at the Egyptian Theater in downtown Boise, viewers will be able to watch the movie Bottle Shock, the story of the early days of California wine making featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as “Judgment of Paris”, while tasting well-crafted Idaho wine and sampling some specially prepared treats. Buy tickets.

APRIL 4 | Launch of Startup Boise
‘startupboise is an entrepreneur-led, grassroots program assembled to energize the Boise entrepreneur and startup scene by creating a concentrated and collaborative community of startups. Our vision: to help solidify Boise as a premiere startup city in America. The kickoff meeting will be an opportunity to discuss some of the ideas for growing Boise’s startup awareness and will begin to assemble a road map for driving that awareness. Learn more.

APRIL 5-6 | Startup: TV – Kickstand & Boise State University
Startup: TV , “Under one tent”, builds off of Kickstand‘s annual IdaVation conference with the inclusion and participation of organizations that support the Treasure Valley startup community. Activities include a pitch contest for students and local entrepreneurs, and a day of workshops covering five tracks: Idea, Startup, Scalable, Investors, New Models . Learn more. 

APRIL 13 | You Can’t Be What You Can’t See  
Go Lead Idaho’s 3rd annual conference will feature local and national speakers and panels to help attendees find their public engagement voice, discover their policy passion and be inspired to lead – whether through elected, appointed, volunteer or business opportunities. Former Oregon Governor and author of Up the Capitol Steps, A Woman’s March to the Governorship, Barbara Roberts will deliver the day’s keynote. Other elements of the day include panels with Idaho women legislators and business leaders and policy tracks on Education, Health & Wellness, Human & Animal Rights, Environment & Land Use, and Family & Child Welfare. Learn more. 

April 19 | Content Marketing Boot Camp with Mark Ragan
Red Sky and Micron are proud to co-sponsor this one-day workshop where PR Daily and Ragan.com publisher and CEO Mark Ragan will show you how to develop a content strategy that turns prospects into buyers and converts readers into brand evangelists for your company. During this total immersion workshop, you will learn all the latest tools and tactics to create compelling content to promote your company and boost your brand visibility with white papers, customer stories, how-to stories and user-generated information.  Sign up NOW and receive a $150 discount www.ragan.com/rd/yzcm-redskypr

Writing is the most scrutinized and regulated form of communication. Speaking skills are often the most valued and admired. The accompanying graphics, data, and supporting visuals are not necessarily overlooked, but are often in a distant third to written and verbal details.

We believe all three of these elements of communication are vital to every story we tell. Fortunately, there are now a wide range of tools to create visuals that help us tell stories in new and engaging ways. Here are a few of our favorites:

Piktochart: Piktochart is an online infographic builder. Its WYSIWYG interface makes it simple to create infographics from templates and to customize to fit your needs. You can create interactive elements and the text is search engine friendly. Other great infographic creation tools are Infogr.am and Visual.ly.

Google Fusion Tables: One of the most powerful data visualization tools available to the general public is Google Fusion Tables. In Google’s own words, “Fusion Tables is an experimental data visualization web application to gather, visualize, and share larger data tables.”

With Fusion Tables, you can find public data, upload your own, merge it together, then instantly view it in a number of ways. Graphs, charts, map overlays and more are created automatically from your data. How powerful is Fusion Tables? It powers The Guardian’s DataBlog, the Australian government’s public datasets, and Google and Honda’s Japanese Tsunami Response maps.

Excel: Yep, good ‘ol Excel. Sometimes it’s best to not overthink it. If the data you wish to present is straightforward and you just need to drive home that one department is the majority of your budget, a simple bar chart will do the trick. In fact, keeping data simple will help your audience easily glean the information.

As news and the Internet are now inextricably intertwined, visual journalism is evolving beyond photos and graphs to include multimedia elements such as animation, video, and even interactive elements. Some publications are beginning to have specifically visual sections of their content. Our favorites to admire, take cues from, and find inspiration in, are:

Of course there are many more resources out there when it comes to visualizing information. Chad wrote about his experience at an Edward Tufte course and we see great visualizations by media every day from State Impact Idaho to Wired.  Let us know of any favorites you have in the comments below. Finally, one more cool visualization of temperature decreases during the MLK weekend from NOAA:

Video. Infographics. 140 characters. The glory of the latest communication trend regularly spawns obituaries for the written word. But let’s face it, we are more addicted to quality writing than ever before. We are devouring words at a record pace, whether it is brief, powerful bursts of language that capture our attention during time-starved moments, the revival of the in-depth longform article or blogs targeted to our favorite niche topics.

Put simply, quality writing is more important than ever. As more content is produced and distributed the competition for attention is fierce. As we strive to make every word count, here are some of the tools we use to ensure our writing is as polished and powerful as it can be.

Research
One of the most overlooked aspect of writing tool lists are those that aid the research process.  A few favorites:

Evernote: From interviews with subject matter experts to online research to general note-taking, Evernote gives me what I need to get the job done. Just as important is its platform, which enables me to organize and search information easily. I can simultaneously record the audio from an interview and type key notes and phrases to reference when selecting quotes for a story. The web clipper function (available in nearly every browser) enables you to snag a phrase or a full article, tag it and file it for future reference without leaving your browser.  And there are worse options than actually dumping all of your information into a note and drafting your communication from there. You can also fire emails directly into your own individual address and mark them up to automatically file and tag them before you hit send. I’ll stop now, but that’s really the tip of the iceberg for Evernote. Consider yourself lucky this isn’t a blog series that chronicles my obsession with this tool.

IFTTT: Short for If This, Then That – this website is an amazing resource for simple automation of your online world. From a research or knowledge gathering perspective, you can grab an RSS feed and whenever it publishes something new you can send yourself a text or email, add it to Instapaper for later reading or clip and tag it into Evernote among many other options. Again, this is just one example of its overall functionality. Browse the recipes to get a taste of the automation geekery available or indulge us in this shameless plug to be alerted whenever we post a new blog.

The Google: Yes, so obvious but still so universally part of any information-seeking process. Wikipedia ranks a close second for quick insights on a topic. Google Alerts are another automated way to keep tabs on a topic in real-time or in a daily recap.

Writing & Focus
Assuming all the data, research and information gathering is complete here are a few tools to advance the writing process from finding the right word to eliminating distractions to decrapifying the word processor.

Ommwriter: Both a distraction minimizer and word processor, you can download a sample version for free from their website or dive into the paid version on multiple platforms. The processor is bare bones (no formatting of any sort) but the calming full screen backgrounds, music selections and elimination of screen distractions really aids focus. Unfortunately a recent upgrade has lessened the level of choice for background noise but you can always mute and play your writing soundtrack of choice in another app instead.

Ambiance – Speaking of background noise, this is a favorite app of Jess’s that has every flavor of ambient sound imaginable to help you concentrate on the task at hand. Both free and paid versions available on multiple OSes.

Pomodoro – Another method to minimize distraction by focusing in bursts of time. There are several apps that complement this philosophy or you can choose your timer of choice and go. More about the method here.

IA Writer – A word processing tool that is as bare bones as you can get, but very effective, and available for iPad, iPhone and Mac. I’ve written an entire communication plan for a health care client on my iPad while waiting in a doctor’s office. I really wish that wasn’t true, but IAWriter enabled me to keep working between angry thoughts about a tardy physician.

Resources
Finally, even the best writer needs resources to strengthen their craft. Here are a few I use to generate the right word or simply improve my approach:

Visual Thesaurus: First, the wordmapping tool is an amazing resource to help kickstart the mind when you are searching for the right word that is eluding you. Does Visual Thesaurus magically snare the term I’m after every time? No. Does it inspire me down the right or an even better path? Absolutely. The site also offers regular writing and grammar tips as well as a word of the day and serious word nerd articles.

Ragan.com’s Writing & Editing site: There are many writing tip sites and e-newsletters out there, but the resource I access the most of these is Ragan. The writing and editing section of their site offers a great mix of tips from notable writers while also drilling down into types of writing, which is the most valuable to me. We write extensively at the agency, yet we aren’t novelists. And despite the rumors, we are capable of communicating without a media release. Ragan covers the gamut and provides valuable insights into the different communication formats we use daily.

Grammar Girl site & podcast – again, there are several podcasts out there about the written word but in terms of bite-size tips to enhance your writing, the Grammar Girl leads the way.  Her site includes a number of resources as well.

Last but not least, the best writers read early and often. While there is a venue for every topic and interest online you could ever have, pushing yourself into new interests and channels is never a bad thing. When I have time, I regularly browse The Feature (formerly Give Me Something to Read), #muckreads, and other curated channels devoted to longer articles to see what’s out there. I’m also fascinated to see what emerges from Medium. I read a number of articles written by the select few with publishing rights this weekend and am impressed so far. Keep your eyes on that channel as well both for reading and publishing content.

Any tools or resources you would add to the list? I’d love to hear them…

Call us flacks. Label us gawkers. At the end of the day we are just as intrigued by the evolution of media as we are about the lead story on the nightly broadcast. Luckily we aren’t the only ones with this obsession.  We kick off the week with a Make the Jump post focused on the resources that serve as our regular fix on where journalism is going and provide a critical play-by-play of how news is made from a variety of angles.

Poynter:  Focused on supporting the development of journalists through access to education and some of the leading minds in the field, Poynter is also a valued resource to help inform the public about the newsmaking process. Right now their front page features the amateur photographer who captured the indelible image of the space shuttle Columbia and how this Texas physician became a working news photog following that experience. It’s the story behind the story access that fascinates me, as does the curriculum – much of it free.  Beyond that, the range of support this organization provides to help sustain, grow and reinforce the value of journalism in our communities is hard to capture in a few sentences.  Go explore the site.

ProPublica: An independent, non-profit organization dedicated to investigative journalism who made news themselves with the recent addition of Joe Sexton from the  New York Times. Sexton was one of the major driving forces behind Snow Fall, and quite a coup for an organization that shows similar ambitions for reshaping the concepts, expectations and structure of journalism.  I stumbled across their fascinating #muckreads hashtag, which spotlights watchdog pieces outside of their organization. Keeping up with their reports is easy via app, website or podcast.

MuckRack.com:  It’s much more than a comprehensive, beautifully organized collection of journos tweeting but that alone gives you an idea of what stories are rising to the top – potentially to the front page. We haven’t experienced the paid Pro version, but have dipped our toes into the one line press release option and definitely see the appeal of their other offerings. Have I mentioned you can drill down to specific organizations or see what’s trending among journalists?

PBS mediashift: When you carry the tagline “Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution,” your organization is setting some lofty expectations. Still, I’m a sucker for concisely curated content fed to me for later consumption which the Daily Must Reads post/email does quite well.    

Nieman Journalism Lab: A project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, this is one of the best resources analyzing the journalism industry and what its future holds.  Similar to the other channels mentioned, there are apps and podcasts available as well as some unique online resources.

Newseum: Pretty sure I’ve already gushed over my visit to the Newseum in Washington D.C. in a few online venues, but that won’t stop me from another plug. It was the highlight of many highlights of my most recent visit there. The sheer range of history represented there is awe-inspiring and a vivid reminder about journalism’s unrelenting role in sharing the most important stories of our time.  With that plug out of the way, I really wanted to highlight their Today’s Front Pages app.  As you might expect, it captures the front pages of newspapers throughout the globe, just as you find outside the Newseum’s front doors every morning. The app provides a quick and powerful way to learn what different regions are talking about.

NextDraft: I’ll admit this may be straying away from the theme but it’s a resource too good to ignore.  NextDraft is an app (or e-newsletter) with the top news of the day curated by Dave Pell.  Seems simple, but it is simply addicting. He was off unexpectedly last week and his twitter feed is filled with lamentations about his absence.  He may also have the coolest blog title ever: Tweetage Wasteland: Confessions of an Internet Superhero.

Any we’ve missed that rank among your favorite newswatching sites or resources? Let me know via comments below or via @biggie47.

Following a hiatus, we’ve come to grips with our nerdiness and are excited to resume our regular ‘Make the Jump’ blog posts focused on curating and sharing new tools, techniques, apps and content worth an extended look – at least from our point of view.

Out of the gate, a nod to the season here in Idaho minus (not the ice season) – the legislative session and the opportunities for extended access, information and education on the issues in play.

First up, a new app from an unlikely source:

Idaho Legislative Directory App | If you had asked me which lobbying group would be the first to create a Legislature-specific app, I would not have guessed the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. Happy to admit I would’ve been wrong on that bet.

Though I’m not an ‘under the dome’ communicator, keeping on top of what legislators are doing and how legislation is moving through the Statehouse impacts every one of us and our clients. This free app isn’t fancy or necessarily sexy – but that doesn’t matter. It is very user friendly from a pure informational standpoint, and also allows for dynamic tracking of bills that you want to keep tabs on. Well worth a download (on iPhone, iPad, Android devices).

Transparent Idaho

Curious about Idaho’s revenue, expenditures, or details of what each state agency spends where? The new Transparent Idaho site – courtesy of the State Controller’s office – was built to shed light on all of that. Granted, it finally went live in 2013 after years of the state getting less than stellar grades for transparency in Sunshine law reports.

Per the site itself:

This site is designed to make the finances of the government of the State of Idaho more transparent to the citizens of Idaho. It provides a highly accurate look at the State’s budget, revenues, and spending, and how they have changed over the last 3-5 years. Also included are various financial reports and links to other sites providing detailed information regarding State spending.

Financial data supplied to the Idaho State Controller’s Office is provided by individual record submissions by each State Agency. Data is then extracted, reformatted and loaded into the State Controller’s Office data warehouse. All financial data for Transparent Idaho provided from this source is updated NIGHTLY, giving the citizens of Idaho a very realtime look at the financial transactions of State Government.

LiLI’s Citizen Resources

The one thing I love more than tons of data – is someone aggretating resources for me and making it easy to find, access and utilize that information. Props to LiLI (Libraries LInking Idaho –  an online resource with full-text articles from magazines, professional journals, newspapers, and reference books free to all Idaho residents. Kudos to LiLI (Full disclosure: a former Red Sky client) for doing just that.

LiLI’s Resources for Idaho Citizens page has a great roundup of state and non-profit sources of information, from Stacks to help you find public information documents created by Idaho state agencies to an online media literacy program 

StateImpact Idaho

And another great aggregation source is the news crew at StateImpact Idaho. While the statehouse journalists all provide daily updates and information on what happened in the legislature, I give props to Emilie and Molly at State Impact for pulling together the disparate bits of information on how to engage and contact your elected officials in their Guide to the 2013 Legislature.

Did I miss your favorite site/app for access and information concerning Idaho’s electeds and state agencies? Let me know!

But when the topic is social media, there is one insight tool that I always include. Maybe it’s because I love the word ‘technographics’ or those brainiacs at Forrester. Or maybe it’s because when people actually look at data to help develop strategy for their social media engagement I get a bit giddy.  Especially when the tool is free.

The gist:

Forrester’s Social Technographics data classifies consumers into seven overlapping levels of social technology participation. Based on our proprietary Consumer Technographics survey data, we can share with you how social participation varies among your consumers globally and help you plan a targeted social technology strategy. Use this tool to get a high-level snapshot of the social technology behaviors of consumers.

Give it a whirl:

So what do those categories mean?

Take a look.

Identify your audience. Know their behavior online. Plan appropriately.

- Jess Flynn

Foursquare Oooops: It seems that after the bubble of geo-location marketing wins we’ve seen quite a bit of ooops – lack of oversight leading to some geo-squatting (we’ve been victim of this);lack of understanding leading to giving away the whole kit and kaboodle on Groupon and LivingSocial; and lack of leveraging leading to missed opportunities.

Mashable just ran a quick overview of the Top 5 Foursquare Mistakes Committed by Small Businesses which is worth a perusal if you or a client is even thinking of jumping into this space.  Especially the section on leveraging the data at hand via a fairly robust dashboard.

Raw Data Delight: Alright data geeks, prepare to rejoice. Thanks to my favorite site Flowing Data for this nugget…

The Pew Research churns out a lot of interesting results from a number of surveys about online and American culture, but they usually only shared aggregated results, pre-made charts and graphs. This is well and good for the information-consuming public; however, these results can spawn curiosities that are fun to dig into. Luckily, the Pew Research Center launched a Data Sets section that provides raw survey responses and the questions in a variety of easy-to-use data formats.

Our raw data, previously posted only as SPSS files, is now available in comma-delimited (.csv) format for all reports going back to 2003. We hope that making our data available in this open-source format will make analysis easier for researchers who don’t own a copy of SPSS to analyze our data.

This should be fun. Recent datasets include the social side of the Internet, health tracking habits, and reputation management.

If you work in health & wellness or healthcare, the above-mentioned report ‘Social Life of Health Information’ is worth a read.

In Awe of ArtFinder: Further showcasing the power of recommendation engines and the ‘If you like this, then how about this?’ nature of so many retail sites – welcome to the world ArtFinder.

Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for the overview of this London-based startup that touts itself as a new concept for discovering, experiencing and sharing art.

As RWW noted,

ArtFinder doesn’t just offer a Last.fm-like recommendation engine, suggesting, for example, Paul Signac if you like Henri Matisse. It also offers an IMDb-like database of artwork and artists, displaying biographies and images. There are details where you can find a particular piece on display (that would be a Songkick-like feature, I suppose), and there’s also a Shazam-like image recognition capability, so that you can snap a photo and get an ID and more information about a piece of art.

It’s an ambitious undertaking, one that has to tackle the fact that a lot of galleries’ and museums’ art is not yet digitized and much of it restricted from being displayed online due to copyright and licensing restrictions. But that makes it all the more important as artwork is stuck in siloes – both offline and online – that make it inaccessible.

If creativity is truly the currency of the 21st century, we need more ambitious undertakings like these that marry innovation and artistic appreciation.

- Jess Flynn

Just like a canary in the well, I frequently look to non-profits as harbingers of leading-edge technology being utilized in realistic ways. While the bleeding edge brains and early adopters dive in first, seeing how non-profits are leveraging tools for a common good on often ridiculously small budgets is insightful. Mashable pays credence to a few doing mobile well in order to do good. “Non-profits, both large and small, are using mobile to educate, activate, and engage audiences of all sizes. Here are five examples of non-profits rocking mobile for social good.”

The Power of Words

Sometimes it only takes a moment to remind you of a truth. Of the power of something simple. That by stripping away the newest shiny red object, technology advances and hyper-speed of our world it is all about one thing – the amazing and goose-bump-inducing power of words. Click through to view – well worth your two minutes.

Women in Leadership

This has been a hot topic for me lately, as we pulled together and pulled off the first Go Lead Idaho event this past weekend. How do we support, encourage and advocate for diversity of leadership in appointed, elected and business positions? And how much of it rests on us, as women, to seize and move forward on? Personally – I think the majority of it rests on our shoulders.  I’d like to think I’m on the same wavelength as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg (did you see the recent Bloomberg piece?),  because that’s the message she drilled home at a recent commencement address, stating…

“So my heartfelt message is: Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t lean back, lean in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal until the day you have to make a decision. That’s the only way to ensure you even have a decision to make.”

“Women shortchange their own contributions from the very start, and this underestimation is expensive for both you and others. Because when you underestimate yourself, you lessen the impact you can have.”

Word.

Z-Insights

I recently had an amazing experience during a conference trip to Vegas. Next time you trek to Sin City, whether for one of the zillion conferences hosted there or to try your luck, make a side trip to the business culture and shoe mecca of Zappos.

By now you’ve no doubt heard of CEO Tony Hseih’s acclaimed business and corporate culture management book ‘Delivering Happiness.’ The free tours hosted by the Zappos Insights team give you a quick sip of the Kool-aid and a literal and figurative peek behind the curtain at what makes Zappos tick.

Among the highlights from Tony’s brain in print (via OneMillionEntrepreneurs):

1. Invest In The Culture Of Your Business- “Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”

2. Embrace Your Employees’ Creativity- “I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalities, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.”

3. Make Your Company Stand For Something- “We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn’t want to just sell shoes. I wasn’t even into shoes – but I was passionate about customer service.”

4. Give Your Customers A Reason To Come Back- “The #1 driver of our growth has been through repeat customers and word of mouth. We still have financial goals to make, we just choose to invest more in customer service than in paid advertising.”

5. Don’t Focus On The Money- “Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you’re trying to do more than just make money.”

My brain is overloaded with opportunities to blog on the Insights experience. So look for more posts in the future! Until then, check out the Insights world and take that side trip for the experience when you are rolling through Sin City.

- Jess Flynn (aka Zappos Warrior)

Sometimes creating tactical ideas to tie into public relations campaigns can be a daunting task. Other times interesting and unique concepts flow from one’s mind like honey.  When needed, I go to the web for motivation, inspiration and relevant help. Whether tweeting with peers about an idea, or reading about the weirdest our world has to offer, I find ideas and concepts to mold and offer clients.

Here are some of my favorite PR thought-provoking, or just for fun, websites and online tools:

Journalistics: Blog covering modern Journalism and Public Relations, ad where the fields intersect.

Death Star PR: Hilarious parody Twitter account – The Empire’s PR agency.

Google Trends is super easy to use, and helps show clients changes in search volume related to trends and popular buzz.

Laughing Squid is a blog featuring art, culture and technology from around the world: Awesome things surround us!

Bad Pitch Blog: Learn from others’ mistakes.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Compelling numbers are a great source for influence – especially if the stats are true.

Keeping an RSS feed of professional and fun topics helps me in brainstorming sessions, and making a case for something on the spot.

- Leigh Ann Dufurrena

No matter if you were a tween or a twenty-something or a boomer when 9/11 occurred – you had an emotional reaction to last night’s news of the demise of the attack’s mastermind. Coast to coast and across the globe the reaction was swift, viral and intensely personal and insightful.

A few of the jumps to make during this ‘day after’….

The World’s Front Pages: Not really sure that anything can replace the bold type and blaring headlines of newspapers across the world when there is a big story to tell. No flashing web banners seem to draw out the same emotion. I’m not going to be taking any screen grabs, but I sure will save the front page from one of today’s papers – just like I did on September 12, 2001.

For a spectacular and breathtaking array of how the world put their thoughts into headlines – jump over to Newseum, the museum of news, and its Today’s Front Pages section. 760 front pages from 76 countries. Today is a day built for this great aggregator.

LiveTweeting the End for OBL: By now you may have heard of Sohaib Athar, the ‘guy who unknowingly live-tweeted the raid on Bin Laden.’

TechCrunch’s story, including this shot of Sohaib from his Twitter profile, along with tweet screenshots is a great overview of what went down for a guy who was just sharing the news about something odd outside his home. The IT consultant’s blog has been dormant for sometime, but it looks to be getting a lot of traffic now with Sohaib posting, “The guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it: … is what I am for the next few hours on twitter. I am too tired and sleepy to blog or talk about it though, but I guess it is finally time to revive this abandoned blog. Maybe tomorrow…

7 Stages of News: The newscycle is now 24 hours, and information moves at the speed of thumbs. So how does it move? Gigaom did a great job breaking down the 7 Stages of News in the Twitter & Facebook era:

• Excitement
• Uncertainty
• Searching for Validation
• Confirmation
• Jokes, Profits & Platitudes
• Action
• Real Analysis

This week won’t be anything like you thought it would: Understatement of the week, but will bear repeating time and again. Thanks to Ragan’s for getting out the reminder to PR pros and communicators to remember the global context with the post, 7 Things PR Pros can Expect Following Bin Laden’s Death. Unless you can help or add relevant information to the dialogue, Get the hell out of the way.

BEWARE: As with any large news story capturing global attention, the spammers and scammers are out trying to take advantage of it. Mashable has an overview of how malware creators are targeting Bin Laden’s death (& how you are searching for information about it.)

- Jess Flynn