“Kill the elderly”: a Facebook group I’ll avoid

Some investigating around Facebook by Dave has turned up some very ageist attitudes amongst those who use the social networking environment. Check out the conversation here on Freydblog.
It’s awful to read but hurts me more than it shocks; teens, struggling with understanding and establishing their own identity, are prone to putting down others: [...]

Digi-learning: maximizing the benefits of social economies

The value of collaborative development is widely acknowledged (see proprietary software development release dates versus those of open source programs – guess which advances more rapidly). How can these proven techniques be leveraged to advance education?  Recent studies by IBM (reign in your scepticism, please) show : “hours spent playing online can hone [...]

Best practices for “healthy meetings”

It rarely happens that I so love a blog entry that I want to quote the entire thing, but that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. Check out K. G. Schneider’s latest blog entry on healthy meetings for your organization at Free Range Librarian. It provides a summary of ways to keep [...]

Response to Stephen Abram on Social Networking sites and Libraries

Demi-god of internet information management Stephen Abram’s latest monthly e-letter questions what makes social networking sites  site “sticky”, encouraging return visits, and why prods us to wonder why users “willingly create and share…without financial and assessment award”.  Danah Boyd’s presentation to the AAAS covered these questions: youths engage in these social networking sites for interaction [...]

Vatican Library closure

Closed for renovations until 2010, the Vatican Library’s priceless books will not be directly accessible for research. Here are some extracts from the BCC report on technology in place there that tickled me.
“…the Vatican Library is in the vanguard of digital technology. Microchips have already been installed inside some valuable books, which [...]

Text-chat vs Voice in MMOGs: questioning identity

I’ve been riffing a bit about virtual presence lately; the identity construction it represents. I’ve recently created a Facebook account, re-engaged with my old Tribe account, and am mustering up the courage to join an online gaming environment. On top of that is the omnipresent responsibility to keep feeding this blog and [...]

Completely Biased SN Recognition Awards 2007

MISU [Most Interesting Sign-up]:  Second Life.  Becoming a resident entails selecting a last name from a provided list.  How about that:  Vonnegut’s Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain was on to something.

IFF  [Instant Friend Factor]:  Facebook.  Invitations from fun folk I actually know were waiting for me when I signed up.  MySpace takes a second for creator [...]

Social Networking: CBC report on the new Internet phenom

A quote from early CBC coverage on the Internet likened its rapid growth to that of an embryonic brain. It’s a fascinating report that touches upon many big issues of social networking: behaviour of the anonymous; the ameliorating effect of group environments on anonymous behaviour; posting of “sensitive” information [...]

Devil’s advocate: social bookmarking

I made reference earlier to the fabulous benefits of social bookmarking without completely enumerating them. Many of us are sharing rosy reviews of the practice. Here are the benefits as I see them to be:

Greater amount of search “area” on internet covered with single query;
Higher number of accurate returns per query;
Despite tag ambiguities, [...]

Reflections on Facebook

Well, I’ve taken advantage of a week off from readings and assignments to get caught up with being alive in the world again; getting into an exercise routine, spinning up some fire, and getting back in touch with friends and family.  Even getting in touch with friends I haven’t interacted with in several months, and [...]