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- Want to be part of a project that involves Web 2.0, mobile technology and microfinancing?November 29
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Then go over to the blog AfriGadget and check out this post: Support AfriGadget’s Young Mobile Reporters.
As for me, everything I believe that is going to matter in the 21st century is tied up in this project, so I decided to get out my PayPal account and contribute. It’s sounds like a worthwhile initiative.
BTW, this blog was rated one of the 50 best web sites of 2008. A very good addition to your bookmarks or RSS feeds.
- Recessionary Times in Real and Virtual WorldsNovember 23
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The nytimes.com blog Bits has an article on the challenges being faced with virtual worlds. Reading it, you might conclude that virtual worlds were all hype and that they are going to fade away. Perhaps this is true. But consider this:
- of all the emerging technology to come forward in the last few years (e.g, blogs, wikis, RIA), virtual worlds are easily the most challenging in terms of adoption both by companies and users
- virtual worlds are likely to stay longer in trough of disillusionment (as Gartner wisely puts it) before moving up and becoming a productivity tool because of the challenges it provides. But I believe it will. Why?
- because virtual worlds is about much more than Second Life. Second Life is a leader in many ways, but lots of other virtual worlds (e.g. Club Penguin, WebKinz) already have been very successful. These organizations have figured out how to be successful using virtual worlds, and others will too.
- virtual worlds need more “horsepower”, but this “horsepower” (in the form of faster networks, better user interfaces, and of course faster servers), will make some of the challenges associated with virtual worlds recede and allow even more companies to take advantage of virtual worlds.
- On Nicholas Carr’s “Who killed the blogosphere”November 8
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Nicholas Carr can be counted on for thought provoking commentary with regards to technology. His latest that I’ve read is Who killed the blogosphere?
While I don’t disagree with his facts, I do disagree with his slant and the notion of “killed”. I think it is not a matter of death, but of transition. What the blogosphere is undergoing is a transformation that many amateur enthusiasms experience.
It’s not all that different from a few years ago, when lots of people first started creating “home pages” during the start of the World Wide Web, a trend that eventually transitioned into….blogging! This has happened in the past too, as Carr points out, with things such as amateur radio being pushed out by professional radio.
In fact, if a new media does take off, the “pros” tend to come in and take over with better content and quality. It happened with web sites. It happened with radio, recorded music, and now blogging. (Although not always: CB radio was very popular for a time in the 1970s, and then died down without professionals taking over since the medium didn’t lend itself to that.)
What happens with blogging now? The serious bloggers like josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan have turned it into their profession and do it regularly, just like any other writer in a different medium. Indeed, many traditional journalists, while still doing their regular w
- Web 2.0 in a nutshellOctober 22
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By the incomparable Jessica Hagy and found on the Molt:n Digital Blog
- Obama takes political campaigning to a whole new (virtual) levelOctober 14
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According this article in GigaOM, Obama Is campaigning within games:
‘Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.’
Obama’s campaign is like a laboratory on how to take advantage of emerging technologies and use them to his advantage. McCain’s campaign is also using innovative approaches, but no one on either side appears to be using them to the degree that Obama’s people are.