It’s All About the People
It’s unavoidable — even a session on technical issues becomes about the people. It’s integral to Web 2.0.
The Age of the Blog
Michael Bhaskar at theDigitalist.net has written an interesting two-part rumination on the place of blogs in the publisher milieu. In it, he neatly slices publishers away from the technological aspect of blogs — wisely dismissing publishers as possible creators of […]
Wildfire or Tipping Point?
The notion that a small group of highly-influential people are responsible for trends may need to be replaced by a more random notion that any person can start a trend when the conditions are right.
FCC Misses Both Forest and Trees
Image via Wikipedia The San Francisco Chronicle (and other sources) recently reported on an initiative from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to examine embedded advertisements in TV programming (“product placements”). Examples rolled out by reporters and the FCC itself include […]
Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nope!
In the latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Nicholas Carr writes that the Internet is making us stupid. Could it actually make us smarter?
Twitter — One Month Later
One month ago, I wrote on this blog that I would begin using Twitter for a month, and see how it worked, both technically and practically. Now, one month later, here are some reflections: Overall, I liked it. I added […]
Printeractivity — A Forgotten Constant?
We’ve all been amazed at the interactivity of print. What?! Yes. The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. Need I say more? Well, yes, I do. Or, more interestingly, I can. Take This Old House, a magazine derivative from the PBS […]
A Twitter Experiment
Life is an approximation of reality. What we know and what is possible are two different things. Experiments help test and bridge the gap. With that spirit, I’m experimenting on this blog with Twitter now. You can find a link […]
New Internet Trends — Social, Mobile, Robust, and Profitable
Morgan Stanley has updated its Internet trends report. You can view it below: Some interesting items stand out on what has become the de facto publishing medium for scholarly publishers: Consumers rule! Not only will consumer Internet bandwidth traffic surpass […]
The Facebook Nightmare Scenario
A great video on YouTube shows what it would be like if Facebook were made real. It’s very funny and a little bawdy by my prudish American standards, so don’t watch with your kids, and turn your speakers down to […]
ShopText Melds Magazines With Digital
Image via Wikipedia Hearst Magazines recently announced it’s rolling out ShopText, a system that uses text messaging to link print products with online. Readers of print can text a keyword to a number, and receive samples, buy products, or access […]
Is Twitter’s Hockey Stick Meaningful?
While it may be a fluke, it may be meaningful that, as Hitwise notes, Twitter has hit the hockey stick in growth, a tipping point of adoption and use that may herald a more mainstream place for the micro-blogging platform.: […]
Students Cave When Asked to Give Up Digital Tools
A recent exercise at the University of Central Florida in which students could earn extra credit by giving up their digital devices for a week (5 days) ended with only 2 of the 28 earning the bonus points. The digital devices […]
Will Texting and Twitters Kill Email?
There are many signs that email is threatened as the primary mode of communication between individuals. From record levels of spam (96.4% of all email is spam, some claim) to its incompatibility with cell phones, email is threatened with being […]
Blog-based Peer Review Experiment: Mixed Results
An experiment in having a book peer-reviewed online has concluded, and the results are detailed in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The book entitled “Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies,” examines the importance of using software design […]