Flickr zaps photos: Bad for citizen journalism — This troubling report about a user being deleted (and all his photos) without warning isn’t good news for Flickr as a tool for citizen journalism. The person and account in question was deleted because his comments were flagged by other users.

Fair enough right? Well no, not if there isn’t an appeals process.

Let’s say I post a bunch of comments critical to the current regime in Iran. The regime could have people systematically flag my comments as “abusive.” Enough flags and then my account will be deleted.

That doesn’t sound like a very good tool to use for citizen journalism, does it?

It seems logical that Flickr needs to add an appeals process. And even if a customer loses an appeal, they should be given a few days to at least back-up their photos from Flickr.

How LIVESTRONG Uses Social Media for Good #FindingTheGood — The Lance Armstrong Foundation is using social media to help bolster the foundation itself and also reach new people. In addition, the foundation’s use of social media has helped spread awareness about their goals.

For journalists, however, what’s most worth emulating is how the foundation uses Facebook and Twitter to create a community:

However, LAF probably spends most of its attention on its Facebook and Twitter communities, which serve as an extension of the organization’s mission of creating an atmosphere of support for those affected by cancer. The organization uses its Facebook fan page as a way to directly connect with cancer survivors on a personal basis, and encourages them to share stories on the discussion boards. According to McMillan, people on the site have come together and organically formed a support group. “People have been very awesome on Facebook,” she told me.

WARNING: Yet Another Twitter Scam Invades Trending Topics — This isn’t the first malware warning about Twitter we’ve had on this site, and unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be the last one we’ll be warning you about either:

Today is Alan Turing’s birthday, and there’s nothing unusual about “Alan Turing” being one of the trending topics on Twitter. However, if you aren’t careful, you might end up clicking the wrong link and picking up some malware along the way.

Now, malware is avoidable if you take precautions. Be wary of clicking on links in the trending topics area. You’ll notice that many people spam the trending topics. You might notice them posting a random string of popular people and phrases with some hashtags and a link: “Britney Spears naked Ed McMahon dies #IranElection Jon and Kate plus 8 http://fakelinkhere.com”

When people do that, they are just trying to scam the system and show up under the trending topics. They want you to click their links (at best just spam, but often far worse).

In particular, Mashable is warning users to stay away of low.cc and myworlds.mp links.

Run Well: The New York Times branches out into a web app to manage your marathon training — The New York Times recently created a new application, Run Well, to help people prepare for marathons:

It lets you choose an upcoming marathon to run and offers six training programs — from famous coaches including Greg McMillan and Jeff Galloway — tailored to a reader’s running experience. Once you chose a program, the tracker displays a full training calendar, a progress chart, and detailed information about each day’s run. You can log each day’s workout, adding any specific comments you’ll want to remember later.

I’m not a marathon runner, so I’ll skip talking about specifics of the app itself, but the idea itself is quite interesting. New York is home to one of the more famous marathons, and The Times has marathon and distance running coverage throughout the year. Creating an interactive application like Run Well could create a special bond with distance runners all over the world.

What can this tool ultimately do for the Times? First, and most importantly, it can help create a more loyal audience. Other news outlets also cover distance running, but how many others offer a valuable tool like Run Well for free? None, last time I checked.

Run Well, and products like it, are exactly the kinds of things that news organizations should be creating. Run Well makes perfect sense with the Times’s editorial product, and the Times maybe able to charge for Run Well in the future. I could also imagine a whole community springing up around this app on nytimes.com.

Technology Review: Wikipedia Gets Ready for a Video Upgrade — Over the next 2-3 months, Wikipedia will be adding video. Contributors will be able to add videos to entries on the site, which should further increase the utility of Wikipeida.

Ultimately, one of the main ideas is to “encourage content providers to put more video into the public domain via the vast online encyclopedia”