Austin, Texas — Twitter, but increasingly Facebook and YouTube, are becoming essential elements to the way ordinary people in Mexico protect themselves from the war on drugs, according to experts sitting on a panel at South By Southwest Interactive called, “Life on the Line: Tweeting the Drug War.” Panelists included University of Texas at Brownsville professor Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, and journalists Melissa Del Bosque and Sergio Chapa. Correa-Cabrera spoke about a study she’s been doing specifically on the border state of Tamaulipas, which she said is characterized by being the “cradle” of the Zetas cartel, having more bridges to the U.S.… more

Austin, Texas — Comenta TV is a startup from Argentina that is working to streamline the full circle between people who watch content on TV while tweeting about it, the networks who create the content and the brands who sponsor that content. Essentially Comenta TV aggregates social media feeds around a particular show, such as “The Voice” in Argentina, and places them on a web or mobile app. Viewers can then engage with this content more fully, producers can get an insight into how their content is being consumed in real time, and brands and better identify which segments of an audience are actual or potential customers.… more

The Social Revolución announced winners of its 2013 awards Thursday, a day ahead of the start of South by Southwest Interactive. In “The Mobilizer” category Axel Caballero and Joaquin H. Guerra were selected.

• Caballero is the director and producer of Cuéntame, a non-profit media organization that invites Latinos to share their personal stories online and encourages political and community activism. He also runs MetaforaPolitica.com, a blog and public opinion forum in Spanish.

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This post originally appeared in Public Knowledge. By Sherwin Siy Yesterday, the White House responded to a We the People petition on phone unlocking, stating that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones and tablets. This puts the administration in line with a large number of consumers who are upset that the Library of Congress refused to exempt phone unlocking (modifying phone software so consumers can use their phones with a different mobile phone company) from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA.”) However, the White House statement doesn’t reverse the Library’s decision, and nothing in the statement seems to suggest that it plans to.… more

As part of our ongoing goal to make the web more accessible to Latinos everywhere, we have begun to compile a list of Latino academics and experts. The list can be used by reporters, researchers, students, writers and anyone else who’s looking for information. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as a matter of fact we invite you to send us updates to: sara@maswired.com or leave us comments here. That way we hope to build up the database gradually to become more complete. … more

A great post by Jamelle Bouie gives a very detailed explanation of how tech writing works, how people break into the business, and how all of these things maintain the status quo of white male writers. You can read the entire post here, in the meantime here are a few choice excerpts:

…minority students may not have the resources to afford unpaid internships and other jobs that provide a valuable path to jobs in media. “Minority students on campus — whom I’ve talked to about this — always claim that they simply can’t afford to not get paid for a whole summer,” he says.

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By Anthony Gutierrez, Cadre Media There are some video projects you’ll always want to entrust to a professional like (shameless plug) Cadre Media. But filmmaking today has evolved to a point where just about everyone has the tools and expertise to produce simple videos and to make them look and sound great. In today’s post I’m going to go over a few basics to help you do great video work in-house and I’ll also address a few common mistakes I often see in political videos. 1.) Have a plan.… more

Derechos Herencia is a Spanish app for iPhone/iPad and Androids that includes menus for different law enforcement agencies specifically with information about deportation and immigration laws. These menus include info about the Border Patrol, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as local police. The app was created by a 21 year-old undocumented immigrant, Deyvid Morales, with help from Subsplash. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Morales created the app after a personal experience with immigration officials.… more

OoVoo is a video and chat application that allows people to chat with up to 12 people at a time. According to company reps, the idea is to turn your computer into a living room, at least a virtual living room, where people can talk to each other without the feeling that there’s an LCD screen between them. And, for several reasons, it seems Latinos in particular love the service. Ricky Vegas, senior director of advertising operations at ooVoo told Más Wired that what ooVoo does is different from other video chat services because it allows up to 12 people to participate in one voice conversation together.… more

By Yago Cura In 2007, I resigned my high school teaching position in the Bronx and started library school at Queens College. Because my library science degree had evolved to incorporate an invisible “I” (MLIS vs. MLS), I took several classes on web and image design in library school. As a result, the whole Internet-veil thing became demystified and I could clearly see the Mr. Oz in the machine. In 2009, I bought some server space in Canada and purchased a stack of ISBNs from Bowker and started a literary journal, Hinchas de Poesía (www.hinchasdepoesia.com).… more