One of the more contentious issues surrounding the Web2.0 has been the accuracy (or lack of it) found in entries at Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit has been a favorite target of Nicholas Carr, who has become the unofficial naysayer of everything Web 2.0. In an often cited posting, The amorality of Web 2.0, Carr rips into Wikipedia and the Web 2.0 as the "Cult of the Amateur." In a more recent post, Carr looks at the widely reported…
I just came across an article on Technorati on the State of the Blogosphere (Part 2, Part 1 is here). Would you believe there are “50,000 postings per hour, and over 70,000 new weblogs created each day”? Some very interesting comparisions between the main stream media and blogs, and other analysis.
I’ve come across some pretty interesting sites this week, most brought to my attention by friends and colleagues. Here’s three… Multitouch Screens -An interesting technology apparently patented by Apple. As one of the comments mentions, the interaction does resemble a scene from the movie “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise is sifting through photographs. Campfire – This comes from 37 Signals makers of Basecamp (which we use and really like.) Campfire is a group chat tool. Ning – A “new free and…
Yahoo! has just posted our new Widget, the Solar Viewer Mini. O.K., We know it is still a big widget, but compared to first Solar Viewer it is slimmer and who wants to see tiny images of the sun anyway. This version has “drawers” and scrollers to make it more compact. We’ve had nearly 2,000 downloads just today! Our previous solar viewer has over 38,000 downloads in a little over a month. We developed this widget for NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum.
A New York Times Editorial has more on the the controversy surrounding the Bush administration’s alleged effort to silence NASA scientist Dr. James E. Hansen after he gave a lecture calling for quick reductions in greenhouse emissions. Apparently, a twenty-four-year old presidential appointee who also lied about his credentials was the censor. According to the Times… In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA’s public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush’s…
A bit of shameless promotion here for a course I will be teaching for the Cultural Resource Management Program at University of Victoria. It is a one-week intensive course looking at new and emerging technologies (a.k.a. The Web 2.0) and their applications for museums. It will be held the first week of June 2006. I taught a Web 1.0 version of this course a few times in 2002-2004, it always had a great mix of people from museums large and small. I know…
From the New York Times... The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web…
The Pew/Internet & American Life Project has just released a new report (1/25/06), the Strength of Internet Ties. As they tell it… “The internet helps maintain people’s social networks, and connects them to members of their social network when they need help. 60 million Americans have turned to the internet for help with major life decisions.”…
The Walker Art Center has a post on the State of Museum Blogs focusing on science museum blogs. The Walker has been blogging longer than any museum (that I’m currently aware of). They have six blogs going on a variety of topics.
