Archive for May, 2008
Brand New Action Zude’s New Feature: Better Than Facebook?
Posted on May 25, 2008 05:15:05 AM
Admin wrote:
It has been several months since we last mentioned Zude, the very ambitious project from 5g for creating your own websites and merging your various social networking accounts. A new feature from Zude is working off an interesting trend that’s taking shape in multiple ways across the social media web.
Called “Follow Conversation,” Zude’s new feature is essentially a new way of organizing your guestbook comments. It’s very similar to the Facebook Wall-to-Wall capabilities, in that it’s a commenting system between select people where the entire conversation can be tracked. Zude’s Follow Conversation feature can be extended to any number of people, and it becomes a public/private way in which to actually keep track of all those comments left on your profile page.
It may seem silly to some–why not send a private message or an email blast to an entire group, or better yet, start a group? The thing about Facebook Wall-to-Wall and Zude’s Follow Conversation is that it gives you the option of tracking public messages for any reason. Should you happen to leave a message on another user’s profile and they respond to your message in the same way, there’s no contextual relevancy for that reply message unless you return to their profile and read your initial message (or if you happen to have a really good memory).
With Follow Conversation, you can form very focused commenting conversations with several users that respond to a single public message left on your profile’s guestbook. It’s like threading guestbook comments between users, or beginning a group discussion board. The use of the technology isn’t new, but the organization of such comments is somewhat novel, given the evolution of social networking’s public face of user profiles.
From coComment to messagedance, we’re seeing all sorts of new ways to track and reorganize the several types of conversations you have going on around the web’s social media. I find it pretty interesting to see the many ways in which this is developing, and we’ll see which concepts stick. I know there will be a continued merging of all of this with email, and further integration with social networks.
New Software Keeping Up To Date
Posted on May 24, 2008 05:40:18 PM
Admin wrote: As the oft quoted saying goes - the only certainty is change. Over the last couple of weeks I have been to 2 conferences, both of them with similar themes of new technologies and libraries. One of the speakers I found most interesting was Sherman Young from Macquarie University. He is the author of “The book is dead. long live the book.” Forget the debate, says Young: the book, like John Cleese’s parrot, is already dead. Look around the bus: who’s reading? They’ve all got headphones “dangling out of ears.” At the conference he talked about the interactive, participative way that people interact now, and this includes how they get information and also their recreation. All that time that goes into creating and interacting on Facebook is being taken from passive television watching. He gave a great short take on where the web is going:Web 1 - was about connectivity Web 2 - is about creatingWeb 3 - will be about content, and the machine pulling together information in a meaningful way.Where does that leave public libraries? I think, at the very least, in a position they were in for Web 1 - providing people with access and training so that they can participate in an increasingly online world. At a higher level, we can facilitate content creation - whether that is through workshops or providing the means for people to do things like upload photos, videos or their stories onto social networking sites. On 29 February, WikiNorthia is being launched. WikiNorthia aims to document life in Melbourne’s north through the use of a wiki - which is a website or similar online resource that allows users to add and edit content collectively. But more about WikiNorthia in future blogs!Regular classes are held in libraries that show people how to use RSS feeds, set up a blog and do other neat web 2.0 things. Just ask at your branch. …
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Brand New Updated Mark Zuckerberg’s Tragic Irony
Posted on May 23, 2008 11:45:41 PM
Admin wrote:
So many cliches come to mind today. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it. The shoe’s on the other foot.
Of course, I’m talking about Zuckerberg’s recent legal action against 02138mag.com, an independent magazine we all probably never would have heard about until Facebook’s founder decided to file two separate emergency motions requiring the site to remove several legal documents and copies of his online diary. Ostensibly, Mark is concerned about information 
regarding the lawsuit between ConnectU and Facebook from 2004. If you recall, the boys of ConnectU claim that Zuckerberg stole the whole Facebook idea and code from them, and is now claiming its worth $15 billion, while ConnectU languishes in obscurity.
I haven’t yet poured through all of the documents yet (available for download here at Mashable! in case his motion is granted, see below); 02138 published quite a few of them. They do include Zuckerberg’s Harvard application, his emails to Harvard’s administrative board, and his online diary in addition to several legal documents.
I’m sure there is some legal questions at play here that I don’t claim to fully understand. The bottom line is, though, that these legal documents should be available, if not now, then eventually as part of the public record. The particularly juicy irony is that what Zuckerberg is likely the most upset about is the personal documents like the diary and the Harvard application being released into the public, where gems like this get exposed to the world:
“Frankly, I’m kind of appalled that [ConnectU is] threatening me after the work I’ve done for them free of charge, but after dealing with a bunch of other groups with deep pockets and good legal connections including companies like Microsoft, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he wrote. “I try to shrug it off as a minor annoyance that whenever I do something successful, every capitalist out there wants a piece of the action.”
Between that, and drunken ramblings from his online diary, the damage ranges from straining relations with current partners like Microsoft to just plain being personally embarrassing.
Bottom line, Zuckerberg doesn’t think it is cool when people reveal private data without asking first. Perhaps that’s why he caved on Project Bacn?
[via WSJ]
New Updated Hollywood Private Investigator Is Found Guilty In Wiretapping Case
Posted on May 23, 2008 01:45:29 AM
Admin wrote: The Hollywood private investigator, Anthony Pellicano, was found guilty in a U.S. court in Los Angeles of racketeering for using wiretaps and other tactics to target the rich and famous.
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Brand New Internet Google Uses Snap On Test Search Site
Posted on May 22, 2008 07:33:27 AM
Today,
Google now has a licensing agreement with Snap, the website preview technology that you often see on various blogs and oter publications. Google’s test site, SearchMash, will be using Snap’s technology to try it on for size.
A few tweaks have been implemented, though, so that it can fit in better with Google’s purposes, user interface, etc. The look of the snap preview on SearchMash will more resemble Google, and it will also be using Adobe’s Flash technology instead of Snap’s Ajax. Unlike the roll-over affect you’re accustomed to, the Snap preview appears on the right hand side of the page, for web and image search results. This feature doesn’t seem to be fully activated just yet.
Brand New Update Marketing Technology Trends - Law Practice Management
Posted on May 21, 2008 08:45:27 AM
Admin wrote: The American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management magazine, January/February 2008 issue focuses on marketing technology trends. Heavy emphasis on social networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and podcasting. This is a selection from the full roster of articles: Marketing Technology TrendsToday’s marketing arsenal features a vast array of tools—as well as technology practices that range from the truly cutting-edge to the archaic. Where does your firm fall on the scale? Here’s a look at some technologies that can really boost your business development efforts.By John D. BowersTracking Law Firm Marketing TechnologyWhat are the technology needs of today’s law firm marketing departments? What technology is working—and what is not? The recently released Law Firm Marketing Technology Survey tapped the collective knowledge of firm marketers.By Sue Stock Allison and Leslie MeagleyWhat Can Marketing Directors Teach You?Even if you are in a small firm or solo practice, knowing what technologies the larger firms are using will help you leverage your marketing.by Merrilyn Astin TarltonPlacing Bets on Online Social Networking: A Story of Capital Invested Wisely in LinkedInStrategically navigated, social networking can be an invaluable business development tool with limitless potential. But you have to give as well as get to grow your capital on these sites.By Renée BarrettOnline Networking for Fun and ProfitQuick tips for lawyers looking to dive into networking on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.By Christopher Batio Ins and Outs of Social Networking for Lawyers: How Tough Is It to Cast Your Profile into Infinity?Renowned legal bloggers and Web mavens Denise Howell and Ernest Svenson interact in a conversation that explores the dynamics—and the potential—of these sites.By Denise Howell and Ernie SvensonBranching Out in the Lone Star StateThe Texas Bar launches a social networking site that helps connect bar members. …
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New Source Yay! Strawpoll Lets Everyone Make Twitter Polls!
Posted on May 20, 2008 02:52:09 PM
Today,
As if you don’t hear enough about Twitter (and the potential of the economy therein)… Twitter poll creation tool Strawpoll now has the ability to enable individual users to make polls. This is important because it really offers utility to every user out there, not just the developer that wants to make a Twitter-integrated application for their own purposes.
Such a feature is something I wanted to see when first looking at Strawpoll’s site, directly after its launch earlier this year. Extending the ability for everyone to create a poll using Twitter is a great and natural extension of Strawpoll’s existing service.
The highlights of such a service include increased simplicity in creating and broadcasting polls, mobile access and integration for users and their followers, and email integration as well. In comparison to some of the other Twitter poll services out there, Strawpoll had a few more features that help it stand out from the crowd, namely the aggregation capabilities of Strawpoll.
The aggregated poll results are still accessible only through Strawpoll, but tat’s easy enough to access. It’s also easy to set up your Strawpoll poll, making it slightly addictive, seeing as I often reach out to my Twitter followers in order to get their opinion on really important stuff, like what I should eat for dinner…
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Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:
Would You Rather Be Invisible, or Be Able to Fly?
New Script The Web Starts Gunning For Tv Ads
Posted on May 19, 2008 08:35:28 PM
Today, Video is proliferating on the Internet, and it is no longer limited to short clips of cats flushing toilets, breath mints reacting explosively with carbonated sodas and other user-generated content.
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Brand New Networking The Future Of Linden Lab Following Executive Shuffle
Posted on May 19, 2008 08:26:43 AM
Admin wrote:
The announcement this week, as reported by Reuters, of the departure of Philip Rosedale as CEO of Linden Lab (he will take the role of chairman), the design house of the virtual world Second Life, is one that I imagine portends the slow demise of the game as it is known today. One could of course argue that decline started many months ago, but for argument’s sake, Rosedale’s resignation from his executive position more firmly solidifies my own perception that it is only a matter of when, not if, the land of bizarre, free-form make-believe takes its final bow.
Second Life had a temporary play at fame and stardom, but it eventually degenerated into the heap of aimlessness it is at present. It offered a platform to users free of charge, which enticed many thousands of individuals to spend time creating personal avatars and engineering unique architecture and things more or less synonymous with landmarks in the real world. But because the framework of SL at its core is very much about uninhibited exploration and creation, it effectively showed after being “broken in†by the initial set of players that it had no real purpose, and thus lost its allure, and very quickly saw its growth trend with stagnation and the eventual downward spiral. Now Second Life takes on the air of what-could-have-been.
What could have been is a Second Life with reason. It’s really not too far fetched to consider the possibility that Second Life had the basic makings of a Spore-like environment. Sure, it would be different in the way that the in-game evolutionary tree would begin with creation of human avatars and cities to inhabit. But the stories players could sculpt might have been equally engaging as those made possible through the travails of single-cell organisms in that most eagerly anticipated Mario-esque Will Wright invention to be launched later this year.
The Second Life of the present day doesn’t harbor such potential. It is, on the whole, a boring place to be. And so it idles along. Aimlessly. It is already well past having lost its luster. Now it’s just…there. Nothing especially wonderful going on. Just lingering. Going nowhere fast. Rosedale has said that his commitment to Second Life is strong. But I intuit this move as a preview of more changes (and not good ones) to come.
Server Web 2.0 Tools For Teachers And Teacher-librarians
Posted on May 18, 2008 07:41:13 PM
Admin wrote: This is a cool site for all you K-12 folks out there: WebTools4U2Use “This wiki was created for school library media specialists by Dr. Donna Baumbach and Dr. Judy Lee, University of Central Florida. The purpose is to provide information about some of the new web-based tools (Web 2.0) and how they can be used and are being used by school library media specialists and their students and teachers. Much of the information–including identifying a need for this kind of information–is the result of a survey conducted in 2008 of over 600 school library media specialists about their knowledge and use of web-based tools in library media programs.Because WebTools4U2Use is a wiki, you can add information to any page. We encourage you to do so! Add or edit anything that you think will help other library media specialists learn more about Web 2.0 tools and use them creatively and productively in their programs. We’ve also created special pages for each category of tool so you can share other tools or show others how you and your colleagues are using the tools in your programs, or you can use the “discussion” link at the top of any page.”The headings include:Audio & PodcastingBlogsCalendars, Task Management, & ToDo ListsDrawingPhoto & Photo SharingPortal & WebPage starting toolsPresentaiton ToolsQuiz & Polling toolsRSS & AggregatorsSocial BookmarkingSocial Networksetc.Another useful and collaborative tool for encouraging web 2.0 stuff in the classroom and learning. It even includes a few downloadable flyers to promote the wiki.Stephen (Source: Stephen)
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