Category Archive for The Web 2.0

Museum Blogs Update

Just quick note that the “AutoAggregator” is now operational on Museumblogs.org. This allows us to automatically important short summaries of postings from many of the sites in the directory. There are now 130 postings on the site. Check it out. Update (6-12-06): We now have 200 posts, but we’re still not bringing in all of the rss feeds. It is complicated, as we explain here.

Earth Observatory and NEO

I just returned from Washington D.C. where I was involved in a series of meetings at the Association of Science-Technology Centers. In one of the meetings, I had an opportunity to meet David Herring from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He helps coordinate NASA’s Earth Observatory website. Launched in 1998, the Earth Observatory has been one of the best spots on the Internet for learning about our planet’s dynamic systems. The site is nominated (again) for a Webby Award as Best…

A Better Online Community Through Membership

A List Apart recently published this intersting article, Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters, on the importance of user identity in an online community. The article surveys various methodologies from total anonymity to robust mebership systems. John M. Grohol, the author, ends the discussion with six recommendations on how to create a better community through memership. This was a very timely read for me, because we are in the beginning stages of designing an online community for a project we’re working on.

RSS Feeds

It seems more and more the projects that we’re involved in, involve RSS. For those you not familiar take a look at What is RSS and Why Should I Care, a very straight-forward article on Search Engine Watch. First off, RSS feeds continue to multiply: RSS Feeds.com has about 120,000 listed which Feedburner claims over 250,000, but since nearly every blog has an associated RSS feed (or multiple ones), there are literally tens-of-millions of feeds (Technorati claims it has over…

Museums on the Web Recap

Last week Museums on the Web Conference (MW) was held here in New Mexico right across the Rio Grande in downtown Albuquerque. We were glad for its proximity, because not only would we not have to travel far (really no travel at all), we were also able to invite the conferences attendees to celebrate our new studio in Corrales, New Mexico. It was very hectic in the studio in the weeks leading up to the conference — there was a lot of prep work…

Museum Blog Round up

The New Media Initiatives Blog at the Walker has posted their set of guidelines for blog authors. Essential reading for those museums considering jumping into the blogosphere. elearnspace has the latest on Web 2.0 a New Wave of Innovation for Teaching Learning an article in EDUCAUSE REVIEW. The Museum People’s Journal cites an article an article from the Chicagoist: Museum’s Aren’t Attracting Diverse Crowds. (No permalinks, so I linked directly to the article.) Assembly Looks at the Museum…

The Web 2.0 Build Up

At next week’s Museums and the Web Conference the theme is the Web 2.0. From the opening plenary to the closing, everyone is talking about it. The closing plenary is even called Museum 2.0 (which is the second time I’ve seen this term, :-)). I thought it might be interesting to chart the term “Web 2.0” in Technorati. Since February 1st, there have been roughly average of 1,000 posts with the term Web 2.0 compared to about 100 in March of last…

Curate-Your-Own Museum

A friend pointed out an article in the Washington Post about The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum entitled, A Curate-Your-Own Museum Web Site. The so-called “online national design museum” promises to open the museum and its vast collection to visitors anywhere in the world. What’s more, if development can keep up with vision, the site will turn museumgoers into participants in a bold cultural experiment. Interactivity is the key. Cooper-Hewitt Director Paul Thompson describes “an open theater for ideas.” And John Maeda, a digital…

Museums and Web 2.0: Connectivism

Last week, I attended a roundtable discussion called “E-Learning in Museums” held by the Canadian Heritage Information Network in Ottawa. One of the other speakers, George Siemens gave an interesting presentation entitled, Connectivism: Museums as Learning Ecologies. For those of you in the museum field and in education, George’s blog elearnspace is a great resource, dating back to June 2002, practically ancient history as far as blogs are concerned. He also maintains a site on Connectivism, so if you’re interested in…