Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

• How People Consume Conspiracy Theories on Facebook – MIT Technology Review. “Italian researchers trolled conspiracy theorists with stories like the presence of Viagra in chemtrails. MIT Technology Review says we may be underestimating the dangers of this behavior, which can shape public policy and the fate of elections. Yikes.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How – io9. “While it’s great to go through life optimistic, we’re awful at being sufficiently skeptical. Here’s a great example: Convincing people to share news they really, really want to be true. TL;DR: It doesn’t.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• A Beehive That Takes the Sting Out of the Harvest – New York Times. “A new beehive design raises a record-breaking $12million in crowdfunding. Check it out.” (Hugh for Alistair). 
• Digital Journalism: The Next Generation – The New York Review of Books. “There’s something about the tone of this piece I’m not crazy about, but it’s a nice overview of the digital news media landscape, touching on Buzzfeed, Vox, Intercept, FiveThiryEight, and a handful of other platforms. The general tenor is: these platforms aren’t so much shaking up, as consolidating media power.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• What Twitter Can Be – Lowercase Capital. “I can’t claim to be friends with Chris Sacca. I can tell you that I know him. I’ve met him. We’ve exchanged communications. I have tons of respect and admiration for him. He’s a former Googler and one of the most powerful venture capitalists in the game. He’s one of the largest shareholders at Twitter, and has made a lot of right moves with a long string of brilliant investments  Now, he’s come out – publicly – to talk (at depth) about what Twitter needs to do to compete and grow. It’s a long read. It has been played out in the media. Still, if you put aside that this is a piece about Twitter, Sacca is actually providing both a blueprint and recipe that everybody in business should read and layer against their own products and services. The perfect read for a startup… or a multinational brand.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• 7 free tools for anyone who wants to become a better writer – Mashable. “I’d love to tell you that I am above getting sucked into flashy headlines like this. I am not. I clicked with skepticism and self-regret. ’More linkbait,’ I thought to myself. Well, I’m here to report that out of the seven tools listed, I knew none of them. Maybe you are all smarter and more adept at this than I am. I don’t know. For me, this was a whole bunch of valuable links and apps to save for when I need them. So, if you like to write, you may want to check these out.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.