Internet News

Book: The Shallows

A hard look at the Web's 'shallows' by Tom Krazit, Relevant Results (Jun 29)

Nicholas Carr is on the writer's circuit promoting his new book - The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains (Excerpt available). Mostly we lose concentration as we fight our way through information overload.

"Carr worries that in a world where information is available easily and instantly that we are losing the ability to think for ourselves; to reach a deep understanding of a topic through research, reflection, and honest debate. He cites prolific research detailing how our brains have adapted to new stimuli over time, and posits that our current multitasking-hyperlink-overloaded brains are returning to a more primitive state that eliminates centuries of cultural and technological progress produced by the ability of books to encourage deep thought."

Article links to interview done with Carr by CNet.

Also see Nora Young's interview on Spark, CBC Radio.

Malcolm Gladwell does not tweet

Malcolm Gladwell: The quiet Canadian , Patrick Brethour, Globe and Mail (Apr 4)

This should hearten everyone who doesn't do twitter and blogging. Malcolm Gladwell, writer for the New Yorker and author of three popular books that explain aspects of our modern society, does not blog (2 postings a year does not make a blogger) or tweet.

"Celebrated writer Malcolm Gladwell seems to have penned the script for the first part of the 21st century, with his provocative bestsellers on ideas such as contagion (The Tipping Point), the power of instant conclusions (Blink) and the genesis of genius (Outliers). But Mr. Gladwell, who returns home to Canada briefly this week, is conspicuously and deliberately absent from a central part of modern life: social media. His blog posts are biannual, his Facebook page is a placeholder and he has never ventured on to Twitter. "

In this article he explains why he does not use social media. And he's not convinced that ideas spread through social media.

"Do ideas spread through social media? I don’t think they are vehicles. People aren’t spreading ideas on Twitter, they’re spreading observations, perhaps. The point of Tipping Point is that I was very interested in face-to-face interpersonal reactions. If social media or online communication is the means to the creation of a personal connection, it’s a fabulous thing. But if it’s an excuse to not make a connection, it’s ultimately a trivial thing."

Future of the Internet

New Pew Research Center Survey on the Future of the Internet, Newsbreaks (Feb 22)

"The survey finds that most experts and stakeholders say the internet will enhance-not degrade-our intelligence. It will also change the functions of reading and writing and will be rebuilt around still-unanticipated gadgetry and applications."

The full report is at http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Future-of-the-Internet-IV.aspx

"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and rendering of knowledge,” said Janna Anderson, study co-author and director of the Imagining the Internet Center. “There are still many people, however, who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools.”"

Many well known Internet observers and thinkers are quoted in the report. Here is Stephen Downes on changes in the nature of writing.

"“The internet generation is being exposed to text and media in unprecedented quantities, and more, is not just consuming this media, but producing it as well. Practice tells. The improvement will be especially dramatic and apparent because new readers will be compared primarily with the previous generation, the television generation, which for the most part did not read at all. Unfortunately, this improvement will be apparent only to the newly literate generation; the older generation will continue to complain that young people cannot read, despite evidence to the contrary. Moreover, it will be apparent by 2020 that a multi-literate society has developed, one that can communicate with ease through a variety of media, including art and photography, animation, video, games and simulations, as well as text and code.” – Stephen Downes, National Research Council, Canada"

Power Through Social Media

Twitter attack by Daniel Dale, Toronto Star (Feb 9)

"Blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have given people unprecedented power to document, discover and discuss perceived problems at major institutions. Here's a look at social media-fuelled crises and how the organization responded:"

Related story - TTC riders, staff in angry Facebook battle (Feb 9) - Facebook group formed by transit workers is hijacked by angry riders.

Google Me The Movie

Google Me (The Full Movie) Altsearchengines (Dec 30)

This movie has been around for over a year. Jim Killeen lived in Los Angeles and decided to Google his name and then to meet the people with whom he shared a name. Out of this emerged a 96 minute movie about our relationship with search and internet technology.

"Whether an effort to defeat the innumerable self-imposed social barriers erected since the advent of the Internet or out of sheer and simple curiosity, the result is nevertheless telling and enormously entertaining – as well as a provoking commentary on today’s society and how technology has transformed our lives."

The full 96 minutes is available for viewing. Settle in and enjoy.

Cyberpolarization on the net

The Things People Say - Rumors in an age of unreason., by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker (Nov 2)

This is a most disturbing article. Just because we think the Internet promotes dissemination of information to create a better informed and less biased electorate, doesn't mean it does. This article in reviewing “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done” by Cass R Sunstein shows how far we are from that. The opposite is more the truth - our technologies are entrenching people more in their beliefs and views.

Partly this is because it is easy 1) to not read news at all, and 2) to read what we want by setting filters. This will lead to "group polarization".

There is virtually no opinion an individual can hold that is so outlandish that he will not find other believers on the Web. “Views that would ordinarily dissolve, simply because of an absence of social support, can be found in large numbers on the Internet, even if they are understood to be exotic, indefensible, or bizarre in most communities,” Sunstein observes. Racists used to have to leave home to meet up with other racists (or Democrats with other Democrats, or Republicans with Republicans); now they need not even get dressed in order to “chat” with their ideological soul mates.

“It seems plain that the Internet is serving, for many, as a breeding group for extremism, precisely because like-minded people are deliberating with greater ease and frequency with one another,” Sunstein writes. He refers to this process as “cyberpolarization.”

Blogging and Tweeting

Blogging: Past, Present, and Future, video at Businessweek.com [about 6 min]

"Ten years ago, you probably hadn't heard of blogging. Now, millions do it every day. BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker chats with Rosenberg about where all this is heading."

Scott Rosenberg author of "Say Everything" talks about blogging and people putting their lives on the Web. Twitter is a blogging extention and recommended for the little bits, and longre thoughts are for blogs.

Also Why Does Twitter Matter? by Bruce Nussbaum - recommending that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham attend to twittering for the social protest that it expresses today.

News 2.0 Impact

News 2.0: The Future of News in an Age of Social Media, Ira Basen, CBC News (June 30)

CBC ran an excellent 2 hour program on News 2.0 - direction of the News business in the Web 2.0 age of citizen journalism and social media.

"There is much to celebrate about this democratization of the media, but there are also reasons to be concerned about the loss of an independent, professional journalistic filter at a time when everyone can be their own media. Can online communities of "citizen journalists" be counted on to help us make informed choices as citizens and consumers? What's lost, and what's gained when "News 1.0" gives way to "News 2.0?""

Ira Basen interviewed Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, Andrew Keen, Paul Sullivan, Matthew Ingram, Paul Gillin, Kirk Lapointe. Web site has links to transcripts of interviews and resources.

Future of the Web

From Linking to Thinking - ALA Midwinter 2009 OCLC Symposium

"The Web, and how we use it, has changed dramatically over the past few years. We've seen explosive growth in social networking, more types and volumes of content becoming available, a wider availability and sophistication of creative tools and the growing use of mobile devices to access the Internet. Taken individually, each of these changes represents a major shift in how we learn and communicate. Together, these trends signal a shift to a future where the Web is at the center of our information lives.

What does that mean for us as learners, educators, citizens and creators? How will our lives be changed when we don't connect to information on a case-by-case basis, but live in an environment saturated with data, media and communications?"

Text and video from David Weinberger, Nova Spivack, and discussion with Roy Tennant moderating.

Stalking though Twitter

Twitterstalking by Zosia Bielski, Globe and Mail (Apr 2)

Observations about a new book on the use of social networking tools such as Twitter for spying on others:

Hal Niedzviecki, "the Toronto-based social commentator is examining how social networking tools such as Twitter are changing values in his eighth book, The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and our Neighbors, which will be published in May".

This form of spying is widespread: "A recent survey of 1,724 Britons by Yasni.co.uk, a search engine for tracking down people, found that 54 per cent of respondents had used networks such as Twitter to peer in on an ex's life. For some of the respondents, harvesting intelligence became addictive, with one-quarter saying they regularly “check up on” exes."

In case you didn't know: "Twitter allows non-users to track others' profiles by simply Googling them. The service does let users block certain followers or lock their profiles so people have to request to follow them, but few are doing this as it “is completely contrary to the point of Twitter,” Mr. Niedzviecki said."

If you don't want to be followed, don't leave "digital crumbs".

Searching and the Brain

Is Google Rewiring Our Brains? by Gord Hotchkiss, Search Engine Land (Mar 6)

Gord Hotchkiss interviewed Teena Moody at UCLA about their studies into "the impact of technology on our neural networks."

This will whet your appetite:

"In this column, we’ll explore possible reasons why more of the brain fires as we become more comfortable with searching. Dr. Moody and I explored some possible explanations for this. Danny Sullivan and I have been telling anyone who would listen that Googling is a habit. This study seems to provide more evidence for that view. But more than this, it’s a fascinating glimpse into how our brains evaluate what we see on the search page."

What search tells us about society

The most popular how-to searches of 2008 (Feb 3)

Insight into the minds of US residents through the "how to's" they search on. Concerns are about weight, money, jobs and work, marriage, the turkey dinner at Thanksgiving, and only one entry for the environment - how to recycle cell phones.

Obama Inauguration Live

Mathew Ingram on Obama's inauguration online, Globe and Mail (Jan 15)

Mathew Ingram answered questions about accessing sites that are covering the inauguration of Barack Obama.

He began by explaining why people who are not in the US are often blocked from viewing streamed video from Hulu or Joost. This is generally because a distributor who has paid to broadcast the content would not want it given away on the Web - and so opts to block it.

But, everyone can tap into the Twitter lines. Ingram has many suggestions about Twitter pages / feeds to follow (such as Twitter / inauguration or Obama Inaugural ) and how to search Twitter to pick up conversation.

Another live method to use or view is Cover It Live, a Canadian service that makes it easy to host a live blog showing text, chat, live video. Globe and Mail reporters will be using it on Jan 20 for the inauguration - "We're hoping to have a live-blog/chat going on the day of the inauguration, so that we can talk about it not just with other Globe journalists who are covering the event, but with people who are there and Twittering about it or want to comment."

The Globe and Mail will also have a hub with a variety of content about US Presidential inaugurations. Link given was http://www.theglobeandmail.com/Obamainauguration

For searching for more information or events, Ingram recommends using several key words or finding specialty services (Twitter in this case) -- "include as many unique keywords as you can -- Obama and inauguration and "live stream" for example, or Obama and inauguration and video and streaming, or something like that. That's where Twitter search like search.twitter.com or Twitscoop or Tweetscan can help, because it's a smaller group of people who are already focused on what you're trying to find. "

MORE: Learn more ways to virtually participate from this article in PCWorld -- Obama Inauguration: Be There Without Being There by Mark Sullivan, (Jan 14) -- "These sites and services, used together or separately, will immerse you in the media experience of Obama's inauguration on Tuesday."

Future of the Internet 2008

The Future of Internet III, Janna Anderson, PEW Internet and American Life (Dec 14)

"A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves.

They disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives. "

Some predictions are expected: more mobile devices and use, and voice recognition technologies; but some are frightening. To list a couple:

+ "The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations. "

+ "The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness."

Online Video getting Longer

Full-length movies going online by Michael Geist, Toronto Star (Dec 8)

There is a shift taking place to longer-form video. Comcast figures on video watching in July 2008 showed an average of viewing time of 2.9 minutes - but that is sure to change.

Michel Geist mentions several films that are available for download or streamed viewing.

Geist himself released "Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law", a 47-minute documentary on copyright reform." ... "Finding ways to distribute films may have once posed a significant barrier, but that is clearly no longer the case. Why Copyright? was posted to online video sites such as YouTube and Blip.tv, which offer free streaming distribution. Another version was posted to Dot-Sub, a video-streaming site that enables viewers to create subtitles in other languages. Further versions were made available via BitTorrent, allowing people to download the entire DVD of the film."

Other examples are Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising (Blip.tv) and the Finnish parody, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, at Google Video.

Conclusion: "These experiments point to the potential for taking films from the big screen to the computer screen. Combining free Internet streaming or downloading with a commercial model that may include DVD sales, merchandise sales, broadcast license fees and advertising revenues hold the promise of generating wider audiences and providing a financial payback for creators."

2008 Through Yahoo Lens

Yahoo! Reviews A Year in Search, Marketwatch (Dec 1)

Yahoo's Year in Review comes from Yahoo Buzz - shows the interests mainly of US users during 2008.

"The Yahoo! 2008 Year in Review not only presents the top ten searches, but overall themes and popular trends that bubbled to the surface, including the economy, politicians, news stories, Olympians, rising celebrities, influential women, and notable deaths. Also included in this year's review are additional top tens in select areas throughout Yahoo! such as Yahoo! Food, Shine, Tech, Green, Shopping, Travel, Games, Movies, Music, Local, Upcoming, Hot Jobs, most Buzzed-Up stories and clicked-on stories from yahoo.com. "

Through Billions of Searches in 2008, People Sought to Make Sense of the World Around Them, Witnessing a Year of Passionate Politics, Olympic Records, New Celebrities on the Rise and Market Meltdowns

Future of the Future

E-book — Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future, ResourceShelf (Nov 2)

ResourceShelf can be such a treasure. chest of terrific reources. This posting takes us to the web site of a new book by Cory Doctorow - Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

From the excerpt:

"Readers will discover how America chose Happy Meal toys over copyright, why Facebook is taking a faceplant, how the Internet is basically just a giant Xerox machine, why Wikipedia is a poor cousin of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and how to enjoy free e-books. Practicing what he preaches, all of the author’s books, including this one, are simultaneously released in print and on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their reuse and sharing."

Put it on the Christmas list.

Grown up Digital

Video: Don Tapscott discusses 'Grown Up Digital' Greg Meckbach - CIO Canada via ItWorldCanada (Nov 11)

Don Tapscott says good things about today's youth - "“Overall, they have better active working memories,” Tapscott said. “They have better switching abilities between activities, they are better manipulators of information. They naturally know how to collaborate better than baby boomers. In their culture is the new culture of work.”"

Watch the video interview [3 miin]

Web 2.0 for Obama

Poorly connected Republicans went down the YouTube by John Naughton, Guardian (Nov 9)

One of many articles on how use of the Web and social media by the Obama campaign made the difference. We are now officially in a new era.

Howard Dean's campaign pioneered its use, and Barack Obama's campaign wrote the textbook on how to use it for best effect.

"The Obama team drew the right conclusion: the trick was to use the net not just to raise money and generate excitement, but to use it as a tool for co-ordinating old-style action on the ground."

And YouTube - "Meanwhile, YouTube ensured that everything of significance that happened was recorded and broadcast via the net. It made sure that every gaffe made by Sarah Palin was endlessly repeated on a global loop; that McCain's contradictory statements were available for leisurely comparison; and that Obama's speeches were transmitted in full rather than in network soundbites."

More on the Web and politics in Web 2.0 Summit videos: Huffington, Musk, Gore by Zoë Slocum (Nov 9)

"In a panel discussion in which The Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington is joined by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Democratic campaign organizer Joe Trippi, Huffington argues that "were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president," in part because the blogosphere has "an obsessive-compulsive disorder." Trippi agrees that "the (Internet) medium demands authenticity." "

Several videos to watch.

Grown Up Digital

Digital boom is about to hit the workplace by Don Tapscott, Globe and Mail (Nov

First of four excerpts from Don Tapscott's new book about those kids who were growing up digital 10 years ago (or so), and are now entering the workplace.

"I call them the Net Generation, because they're the first generation to grow up digital. These are the children of the baby boomers, young people turning 11 to 31 this year. They're the biggest generation ever - even more numerous than their baby boomer parents. For them, digital technology is like their parents' fridge: It's not technology to them, but simply a normal part of life."

Digital Natives and Information

Convenience Trumps Quality: How Digital Natives Use Information by Derek Law, Web Fumsi (June 2008)

Information skills are changing as a result of the web and computers. Marc Perensky was the first to identify digital natives and digital immigrants. Derek Law considers the habits and practices of "digital natives" in handling information. Basically - "They want instant results and instant gratification because a fundamental tenet is that convenience trumps quality".

Note - "Web 2.0 can then be seen not as some new technology to which we must respond but as a manifestation of how digital natives manage their world."

But the implications for content first noticed by Perensky are the chilling ones.

"Increasingly, we can expect to work in a world shorn of its certainties and in which most information is in practice ephemeral. We already have a situation in which 44% of websites disappear within a year - and this applies as much to national libraries and museums as it does to bedsits in Clapham. It is a world in which much content is both user-created and image-based and where Wikipedia, not Britannica, will be the normal entry point to information and where information is therefore democratic rather than authoritative."

Discomgoogolation

Discomgoogolated?, Reuters via Globe and Mail (Sept 1)

Oh - can I ever relate to this!

"Nearly half of Britons – 44 per cent – are discomgoogolation sufferers, according to a survey, with more than one-quarter – 27 per cent – admitting to rising stress levels when they are unable to go online."

"The survey also found 76 per cent of Britons could not live without the Internet, with more than half of the population using the web between one and four hours a day and 19 per cent of people spending more time online than with their family in a week."

That's what it has come to - can't live without the Internet.

VR at Google

Google's Ventures Into Virtual Reality MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP via Time (Jul 9)

Google takes on Second Life and provides a virtual world of its own

"Google debuted a free service Tuesday in which three-dimensional software enables people to congregate in fantasy rooms and other computer-manufactured versions of real life. The service, called "Lively," represents Google's answer to an already well-established site, "Second Life," where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to navigate virtual reality"

Also - With Lively, Google tries its own 'Second Life' By Stephen Shankland, Webware - has a screenshot and gives a realistic view (imo) about using it.

Google and Scientific Theory

Google and the End of Science - Bringing it all back Hume, by
Anton Wylie, Register (Jul 9)

How much can data correlation and analysis explain what is? Google's research director Peter Norvig asserts that it can replace the scientific theories.

"Speaking at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in March. Norvig claimed: "All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them" - a reference to Google's success at linking web-pages with users. [WiReD magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson] Anderson has generalized that idea to science as a whole in a piece titled The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete:" (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory)

"What the Internet is doing to our brains"

What's Google doing to our minds? By Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune (June 30)

Is Google making us stupid - reducing powers of concentration and memory? It's not just Google - Web in general and easy access to information. This article spotlights Nicholas Carr's piece in the Atlantic Monthly - Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" - "What the Internet is doing to our brains"

History of the Internet

How the Web Was Won by Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb, Vanity Fair, July 2008 issue

My goodness - Vanity Fair - article on the history of the Internet. It has been 50 years since the US government set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which ultimately developed the first internet.

"To observe this year’s twin anniversaries, Vanity Fair set out to do something that has never been done: to compile an oral history, speaking with scores of people involved in every stage of the Internet’s development, from the 1950s onward. From more than 100 hours of interviews we have distilled and edited their words into a concise narrative of the past half-century—a history of the Internet in the words of the people who made it."

There's text and audio in the 8 chapters.

What's in a Search Log

New play explores what search reveals about us KATHY MATHESON, AP via Globe and Mail (June 6)

User 927 is new play centered on the AOL search log for one user . These logs were released to the public in 2006 to a great outcry.

Director Michael Alltop and writer Katharine Clark Gray put together a 90-minute play around the search log of User 927 .

Basic story is about "a mother and her teenage daughter who move from Brooklyn, N.Y., to fictional Osterville, Ind., in search of a simpler life." The daughter uses a computer in the public library to explore the search logs.

Health Risks of Stress

Is technology killing us? Jack Kapica, Cyberia Blog (Jan 24)

Research done at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, "says there’s a direct biological link between workplace worry and coronary heart disease. ... The study said that stress disturbs the interaction of the hypothalamic, pituitary and adrenal systems, sending signals to the heart that could lead to cardiac instability."

Kapica suggests that technology is a factor in increasing workplace stress either on its own (dealing with problems in using the technology) or because of related pressures (expected increase in productivity). To this we might add the stress of information overload and staying up to date.

Also see Study shows how stress at work is linked to heart disease, University College London.

Living with Information

Information R/evolution, a new video by Professor Michael Wesch and students at Kansas State University "explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information". From Digital Ethnography (Oct 10) It's excellent.

OneWebDay - Love the Net

Celebrate the Internet on Saturday's OneWebDay, Computerworld (Sep 21)

OneWebDay - September 22, 2007 - is to celebrate online life and the Internet.

"The idea behind OneWebDay is to urge people to reflect on the changes the Internet has made in their lives, how it should not be taken granted and to think about its future, said Susan Crawford, a visiting cyberlaw professor at the University of Michigan."

Visit http://www.onewebday.org/ and get involved.

Complaints on the Web

Web Sites to Vent and Learn by Reid Goldsborough, LinkUp Digital (Aug)

Ways to find out if others have complained about companies or products - Google search, blogs, discussion groups, forums at the company site.

Warning to companies: "Active online users are considered “e-fluentials.” Their opinions have more legs than the opinions of others and can percolate upward, reaching many more people."

Ah - is this the place to report how unhappy I was with the service from US Air on being stranded in Philadelphia for three days because my flight was cancelled due to thunderstorms?

Order or Disorder

Cult of the Amateur? Keen v. Weinberger, Amy Gahran, Poynter Online (July 18)

Are amateurs writing on the Web choking out expertise and considered opinion? Andrew Keen author of The Cult of the Amateur thinks so, but David Weinberger thinks otherwise and says so in his book, Everything is Miscellaneous. Pick your side. But Gahran makes a good point - amateurs in he past have made major contributions to knowledge - think of all the amateur eccentrics in the late 1800s inventing, discovering, and beginning projects like the Oxford dictionary.

Look Forward to Web: 2012

The Web: 2012 New Yorker Conference (May 7, 2007) - archived webcast of a panel discussion on the "future of commerce, journalism, and community on the Internet". Panelists were Barry Diller on ecommerce (IAC), Arianna Huffington on news (Huffington Post), and Craig Newmark on social networking (Craigslist). Moderated by Ken Auletta. Tune in at least for hearing what Arianna Huffington says on new ways of reporting.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/web2012

Semantic Web - Berners-Lee

A chat with the Father of the Web by Mathew Ingram, Geekwatch (09/05/07)

"... Sir Tim [Berners Lee] talked about what he sees as the future of the "semantic Web" -- in which not just websites will be connected together, but all kinds of data everywhere will be interconnected -- and also some of the things he thinks could put the future of the Web at risk, such as the potential for large telecom companies to try and control the flow of data."

Who Uses Tech Toys?

Pew Research: 'Web 2.0' Crowd A Small Minority by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (May 7)

Summarizes the recent study by Pew Internet and American Life Project on the use of "modern information gadgetry".

Which are you?

• Elite user (31%)


• Middle of the road (20%)


• Limited use of technology (49%)

At PEW - Technology and Media Use (May 6)

Postscript: Test yourself with the Pew / Internet quiz - "Answer a few questions to see where you fit in the new typology of information and
communication technology users developed by the Pew Internet Project."http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/

And since we are on the subject of information overload, the Walrus Magazine has a terrific article in the April issue - Driven to Distraction by John Lorinc.

Are you packing a crate of electronic devices and also feeling tired and overwhelmed. There could be a connection.

"Even before this all-in-one technology makes its grand debut, we are revelling in the miracle of nearly ubiquitous connectivity. But all this access has not come without a psychological cost that is ultimately rooted in the way our brains function. If we now find ourselves adrift in an ocean of information, our mental state increasingly resembles the slivered surface of a melting glacier. As the dozens of studies at interruptions.net attest, we have created a technological miasma that inundates us with an inexhaustible supply of electronic distractions. Rather than providing necessary interruptions to assist us in focusing on the incomplete task at hand, as Zeigarnik proposed, the deluge of multi-channel signals has produced an array of concentration-related problems, including lost productivity, cognitive overload, and a wearying diminishment in our ability to retain the very information we consume with such voraciousness. It may be that our hyper-connected world has quite simply made it difficult for us to think."

Misinformation on the Internet

Caught in the deadly web of the internet by Robert Fisk, Independent (Apr 21) "Any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent "

Another story of a person being hurt by information found on the Internet.

"Taner Akcam is the distinguished Turkish scholar at the University of Minnesota who, with immense courage, proved the facts of the Armenian genocide - the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915 - from Turkish documents and archives. His book A Shameful Act was published to great critical acclaim in Britain and the United States."

But there's an online campaign to discredit him being done through misinformation at Wikipedia and other sites, that US and Canadian immigration authorities are reading and believing.

Fisk writes, "So let's get this clear. US and Canadian officials now appear to be detaining the innocent on the grounds of hate postings on the internet. And it is the innocent - guilty until proved otherwise, I suppose - who must now pay lawyers to protect them from Homeland Security and the internet. But as Akcam says, there is nothing he can do."

Just for the record - I found this story by following a lead at Furl.net to a member who seemed to have similar interests to mine - and it worked.

Perils to Privacy

Be careful what you write about yourself anywhere - it might get to the web and Google will index it, and then a customs officer (US in this case) will see that you contravened some law. This happened to Andrew Feldmar, a prominent Vancouver psychotherapist, who was stopped by U.S. Customs at the Peace Arch on a random check. Officers ran a Google search and discovered he had written an article about taking LSD over 30 years before. The article was published in a scholarly journal. But no matter - he is now permanently banned from the United States for having used a "controlled substance".

A few trips decades ago put an end to this one - A former LSD user is turned away at border after guards use Internet to dredge up past, by Rod Mickleburgh, Globe and Mail (APr 25)

New US Border Check Tool: Google, Danny Sullivan, Searchengineland (Apr 24)

Will ICANN approve .XXX?

Virtual red-light district facing new vote, by Anick Jesdanun, AP via Globe and Mail (Mar 23)

ICANN, the body that approves new domain names, is considering xxx again for the red-light district on the Internet. There don't seem to be many who want it.

+ porn sites think it would be easier for the government to "ghettoize" them.
+ Free Speech Coalition would rather have a kids-friendly domain.
+ Filters for .xxx won't really block access to determined kids.
+ Religious groups says it will legitimize adult sites. BTW - "more than a third of U.S. Internet users visit each month, according to comScore Media Metrix. The Web site measurement firm said 4 per cent of all Web traffic and 2 per cent of all time spent Web surfing involved an adult site."

ICM Registry Inc is the proposing company. "The startup, founded and funded by four entrepreneurs with backgrounds in domain names and U.K. Internet companies, plans to charge $60 (U.S.) to register a name — 10 times the fees for .com. Ten dollars of it would go to a companion non-profit group that would set policies for .xxx use and recommend business practices for fighting child pornography and promoting child safety."

TVO - Future of the Internet

The Agenda with Steve Paikin ran a session on Who Lives Online? (Thursday, Feb 8, 2007). Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and director of the Institute for the Future at Stanford University, was the main guest and spoke on the Future of the Internet. A good part of the discussion was about the erosion of privacy. TVO viewers responded to a poll on how worried they were about privacy on the Internet with only 8% being concerned. Session is available as a podcast and a video (listed in left panel).

Google Bombing - Defused?

Google Kills Bush's Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs, Search Engine Land (Jan 25)

Google has changed the algorithm that allowed Google bombing. First bomb defused was the Bush "miserable failure" - pity.

"A search today now shows the US White House page carrying Bush's name is no longer top listed. Also gone are pages about Michael Moore and former US president Jimmy Carter that were on the first page of results due to Google bombing actions."

Scenarios - Search in 2015

The search engine scene in 2015, Pandia (Jan 2007)

Fascinating three-part look to the future by the creators of Pandia, Per and Susanne Koch.

Pandia makes some predictions for change in search in 2007 with longer term consequences: text search (still the way), Microsoft vs Yahoo, personalized search, social search (teenagers will move to 3D virtual worlds and abandon the web), and Office online.

Part 2 Search 2015: When media equals the Internet looks at TV, radio, books - Internet is everywhere.

Part 3 Does Google Image Search threaten our civil rights? uses an interview format to look at the "civil rights implications of advanced image search" where the advanced capabilities can analyze the image itself and a society where cameras and image editors are ubiquitous.

Time: Person of the Year 2006

If you participate on the Web by blogging, bookmarking, video sharing, adding content to a wiki, posting photos to Flickr, myspacing - in any way - you are this year's Person of the Year according to Time Magazine.

Time's Person of the Year: You -- In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter By LEV GROSSMAN, Time.com (Dec 13)

"But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

I've seen a few articles that are scornful of this choice (2006 having been a very difficult year), but I think it is a good one. There seems to be a very strong current running that is dragging people into communities on the Web. It isn't new - Usenet used to be very strong, people have been reviewing products for years at Epinions and others, people have been running blogs for 4 years or so. Still - there is a sense of something stronger now. Much seems to be for the entertainment purposes, but knowledge building and sharing is taking place.

Time Magazine celebrates participatory media, Pandia (Dec 19) -- Pandia reminds us that there is at least one voice warning us of the dangers of "online collectivism" - Jaron Lanier who wrote about the hive mind in Digital Maoism.

Time has 15 stories of what people are doing on the Web today. Citizens of the New Digital Democracy "You control the media now and the world will never be the same. Meet 15 of the web generation's movers and shakers" By LEV GROSSMAN

Popurls - fun

Keep your finger on the pulse of the Web with Popurls

"Popurls is a single page that gives you a view of the most popular sites on the Internet right now. It collects RSS streams from some of the most popular sources of all kinds of news online."

Popurls pick up links from social news and bookmarking sites - the "hivemind" as Pandia says.

YouTube and Politics

The YouTube factor CP via Globe and Mail (Nov 6)

Campaign videos for candidates in the liberal leadership race are turning up on YouTube. Some are done by amateurs who capture part of a session sometimes with a camera phone. Other videos can be from the campaign organizers.

"All four front-runners — Ignatieff, Rae, Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion — have videos trumpeting their best debate performances, public speeches, and qualifications for high office." But there are unflattering clips too.

"Political parties expect YouTube's influence to grow and are preparing to use it more extensively in the next federal election campaign. The Liberals plan to create a special full-time unit dedicated to on-line projects like fundraising, voter turnout, and YouTube advertising."

Web Science Research - for a better Web

Studying the Web "The inventor of the Web is launching a new university program that aims to improve the online experience." By Brittany Sauser, Technology Review (Nov 3)

Tim Berners-Lee finds that the Web is mainly display and needs more community and more collaboration -- "The Web needs to be fundamentally changed from a place where information is displayed to one where it is interpreted, exchanged, and processed to better enable humanity to interact." He is involved with a new project - the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) - to develop new tools for understanding and interacting.

Web inventor advocates better understanding of Net's future AP via Globe and Mail (Nov 3)

"The British scientist who developed the World Wide Web said Thursday that he is concerned the Internet could be misused as it grows and he is advocating a research project to study its future."

Internet 2020

The Web Beyond 2.0 in 2010 by Enid Burns, Clickz Stats (Sep 25)

"Web 2.0 is only the beginning of the Internet's evolution. "The Future of the Internet II," a report published by Pew Internet & the American Life Project gathers views of the future from Internet leaders, activists, builders, and commentators."

There will likely be a global low cost network with interoperability across platforms, the dominant language is expected to be English, people will divulge more about themselves with more loss of privacy, and there will still be a digital divide in access to the Internet.

The report and executive summary are at http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/188/report_display.asp

Also see summary by Amy Graham at Poynter Online - Pew Predicts Ubiquitous, Scary Net of the Future

Self Promotion on the Net

Identity of "lonelygirl15" revealed by Matthew Ingram, GeekWatch in Globe and Mail (Sept 12)

Again a case of real life on the Internet -- real life in the sense of deception, gullability, voyeurism. One thing - it's a great case of self-promotion. It all surrounds a teen lonelygirl15 putting up videos on YouTube that hundreds of thousands watched. Mystery will only bring out the detectives, and one person tracked her down. Llonelygirl15 is Jessica Rose, a 19-year old aspiring actress with possible ties to a Hollywood agency.

Also, Geeks blow the cover of Internet teen darling by PAUL WALDIE, Globe and Mail (Sep 13)

Videos are easy to find at YouTube.

CBC Looks at the End of Old Media -

The CBC 3-part documentary on the challenges posed by amateur and independent publishing and producing on the Web is available from the CBC news site. The End of Radio, The End of TV, and The End of Print are all productions in the spirit of the message - new formats, new views are upsetting the old order. Jian Ghomeshi, parttime host of Sounds Like Canada, is the guide to the new producers of podcasts, guerrilla news, music for iPods, videoblogs, blogs, and digitization projects of books. These are roughly 22 minutes long and are all worth the time. See http://www.cbc.ca/theend/

Digital Maoism

Jaron Lanier got a moment on CBC Sunday Morning. A computer scientist and "digital visonary" living in Berkely, California, Lanier wrote the very controversial Digital Maoism. He does not like what he sees as "online collectivisim", Wikipedia being a prime example, a "hive" mind which is "stupid and boring".

Ed Yourdon, notable years ago for his work in structured programming, entered to his blog, The Yourdon Report, Ongoing debate about Jaron Lanier’s “Digital Maoism” (Aug 19). Here he takes issue with the article and counters by pointing out the "Long Tail" - the numbers of people who fit into the tail of a distribution curve who are not average, who are not choosing what others do. They are not part of the hive mind.

More in Newsweek from Stephen Levy - Poking a Stick Into The 'Hive Mind' To Lanier, the 'wisdom of crowds' delivers a reflection of the lowest common denominator.

"In a recent essay posted on the Web site Edge.org, Lanier disparages the recent spate of efforts that rely on conscious collaboration (like the anyone-can-participate online reference work Wikipedia) or passive polling (the so-called meta sites like Digg, which draw on user response to rank news articles and blog postings). To Lanier, these represent an alarming decision—rejecting individual expression and creativity to become part of a faceless mob. To emphasize the enormity of this movement, Lanier titled his essay with a fearsome moniker: "Digital Maoism.""

Google Trends and Country Insights

A nation's interests? Google tells all By Anand Giridharadas International Herald Tribune (May 13) - this article teases out many interesting observations based on using terms at Google Trends. I don't think we can draw firm conclusions from country comparisons on search terms but the impressions might make us think.

"In India, suspicions that Sonia Gandhi is the power behind the throne of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appear to be buttressed by search results. As the leader of India's governing Congress Party, Gandhi gets about 50 percent more searches from Indian users than Singh does."

Net Neutrality

Battle for the Web, by Tyler Hamilton, The Star (Mar 28)

"In an interview with the Toronto Star, Berners-Lee said he's "very concerned" about talk from major North America phone and cable giants about their desire to collect so-called Web tolls from content suppliers and e-commerce companies that want assured access to broadband subscribers."

Keyword Searching

KWIC and Dirty? Human Cognition and the Claims of Full-Text Searching by Jeffery Garnett, Journal of Electronic Publishing (Winter 2006) What will be the effects of an information-seeking culture that relies on keyword searching and depends on the vast digitization projects taking place? It could very easily be incapacitating overload.

"This paper focuses on keyword searching as our generation's answer to the problem of information glut. Together with various mechanical sorting and ranking algorithms, it is the dyke we have erected against the flood of information that the progressive digitization of all texts is creating. Or perhaps more accurately, it is the faucet we have put in that dyke. Recent studies suggest that students and information consumers are quite satisfied with what they find through keyword searches (De Rosa, Dempsey, and Wilson 2004; Marcum 2005; Fast and Campbell 2004). Why then are they not the perfect answer?"

Mentioned in ResourceShelf Feb 28

Cyberlibel

‘Cyberlibel' cases mount with rising popularity of blogs , Canadian Press via Globe and Mail (Mar 4) -- Be careful what you post to a blog or put into an email. You could be sued for libel. Companies are trolling the blogs form mention of their name - it's called "reputation management".

Getting Past the Chinese Wall

Scaling the firewall of digital censorship, by Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail (Feb 17) - A project in development at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto may make it possible to break through the firewalls erected by repressive countries for curtailin information flow. Psiphon is designed to not "leave dangerous footprints on computers. In simple terms, it works by giving monitored computer users a way to send an encrypted request for information to a computer located in a secure country. That computer finds the information and sends it back, also encrypted."

MySpace Community

MySpace rises as new online star, by Anick Jesdanun, BUsiness Week ONline (Feb 12)

MySpace, a web social centre mainly used by teens and 20-somethings, gets 2.5 times the traffic of Google. Young people keep in touch through blogs and photos.

"Instead of using e-mail and instant messaging, Olszanowski keeps in touch with many friends simply by posting bulletins on her personal MySpace page, known as a profile. There, friends can send her a private message or post a public comment; they can see her photo album or read her Web journal, called a blog"

Law and Cyberspace

First Monday for February 2006 covers law and cyberspace.

Law and Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace
by David R. Johnson and David G. Post (originally published in May 1996)

The Great Debate — Law in the Virtual World
by David G. Post and David R. Johnson

Virtual Borders: The Interdependence of Real and Virtual Worlds
by James Grimmelmann

Dispute Resolution Without Borders: Some Implications for the Emergence of Law in Cyberspace
by Ethan Katsh

The Life of the Law Online
by David R. Johnson

Web 2.0 Tools

New, Improved Web "Ready for the next online revolution? Powerful tools help you work, search, communicate, and share data your way--usually for free." by Scott Spanbauer, PC World (Feb 2006)

"Here's a sampling of the most useful and interesting sites and services of what some call Web 2.0. All promise to deliver the best Internet experience yet. (Many of these are run by fledgling companies or by individuals, so surfer beware.)"

Web 2.0 Expanding

So, what's next? Why, Web 2.0, naturally - Latest buzz is about making sites more interactive, less static by Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chroncile (Jan 30)

Is Web 2.0 a real change in the Web experience or a marketing gimmick? User involvement - reviews, ratings etc - have been in use for years. Article points to some distinguishing features that are more widespread but suggests that term has been diluted. Does list several "next generation", "Web 2.0" websites.

Maintaining social networks

The Strength of Internet Ties: The internet and email aid users in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions, from Pew Internet and American Life (Jan 25)

From the press release: "Disputing concerns that heavy use of the internet ight diminish people's social relations, the report finds that the internet fits seamlessly with Americans' in-person and phone encounters. With the help of the internet, people are able to maintain active contact with sizable social networks, even though many of the people in those networks do not live close to them."

Power of Math

Math Will Rock Your World "A generation ago, quants turned finance upside down. Now they're mapping out ad campaigns and building new businesses from mountains of personal data". Business Week Online (Jan 23 issue)

"Converting words to math" ... "The world is moving into a new age of numbers" ... "slices of our lives now sit in databases:.

Fascinating article on what is being done with math, why - the business purpose and the money-making possibilities, and just a bit on what this will mean for privacy.

"This industrial metamorphosis also has a dark side. The power of mathematicians to make sense of personal data and to model the behavior of individuals will inevitably continue to erode privacy. "

Web Linking Practices

Web Linking: Is It Legal or Not? by Reid Goldsborough, LinkUP Digital (Jan 2) -- The Web is about linking, but not all links are good. Links to the welcome page are encouraged and considered good -- all the better for higher ranking. Links to specific bits of content or images are not - and are called "bandwidth theft". Webmasters can fight this. Deep links to internal pages may not be welcome either, and it may be better to ask for permission.

2005 Tech Stories

Winners and Losers 2005 by Dan Tynan, PC World (Dec 27) Lists some of the "best and worst tech stories of the year" - and some are both good and bad.

"It was a year where blogs and podcasting threatened to overtake mainstream media, where a Web search giant tried to be everything for everybody but instead became a magnet for critics, and where the recording industry won a major battle against peer-to-peer file sharing only to shoot itself in the foot (and every other appendage) over a disastrous copy-protection scheme."

Just Google It

This is the Google side of your brain by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today (Dec 18) - Google has become our auxiliary brain. Why memorize anything when we can look it up on Google?

2005 Changed The Media

Top 10 Tech Transformations of 2005 by JD Lasica, New Media Musings (Dec 29) -- "Top 10 ways in which technology has impacted our culture during 2005" -- Lasica has noted some trends that mark a change in how we gather information. It's more community and more multimedia than print newspapers and mainstream sources. Not insignificantly, Lasica also noted "a steady erosion of traditional notions of privacy".

Battelle on Next Big Thing

The future of online search, in CNN.com (Dec 26) - interview with John Battelle, author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture". Also points to tagging as the future for finding things on the web.

"The idea is that we might get to the point where everything in the world of value is in the index correctly, is on the Internet and some way represented, whether it's your car, your child or whether it's a media object like a page or an audio file or whatever, or in this case a picture. And then you create these vast semantic attachments to everything and that becomes the seedbed for the next generation of search to crawl and make sense of."

What people search for

The Year in Search: A 2005 Review by Enid Burns, Clickz (Dec 21) - recaps top searches at the major search engines. If this is a summation of our interests, we're in trouble. Of interest - people in aggregate at Lycos are much more serious than anywhere else showing concern for Katrina, Tsunami, Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks and Peter Jennings,

What Canadians Search For

Yahoo Takes Pulse of Canadian Surfers, by Jack Kapica, Globe and Mail (Dec 15)

Kapica took a look at Yahoo Canada's Year in Review.

"Canadians, it appears, are less interested in the Toronto Maple Leafs than in Paris Hilton, but Paris Hilton takes a back seat to Oprah Winfrey as a more celebrity. They think Karla Homolka's release from prison was a more important news story than the death of Pope John Paul II. And they think the peculiar death of airline Jetsgo was a worse scandal than the Liberals' sponsorship scandal."

Review: Ambient Findability

Information Wants to be Found by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Dec 14) - reviews the new book, Ambient Findability, by Peter Morville.

"Ambient Findability is really an intellectual romp through a wide range of ideas, history and concepts all related to information: How we find it, interact with it and consume it. As the subtitle suggests, "What we find changes who we become."

Ambient Findability is published by O'Reilly. There's a sample chapter at the book site.

Abuse of User Reviews

Six Degrees of Reputation: The Use and Abuse of Online Review and Recommendation Systems, by Shay David and Trevor John Pinch, Social Science Research Network (Nov 25) [PDF document for download, 34 pages]

It's quite clear that many user reviews of books and CDs and likely other products are bogus. This study documents some of the abuses, mostly at Amazon. But this is a system in transition. Article quotes Lawrence Lessig on the constraints that law, norms, market features and code (in this case the technology) impose. But, notwithstanding all those forces, the company (Amazon) could use algorithms to detect abuse and prevent them - and perhaps they will as more people learn to distrust and ignore the user reviews.

Abstract: " This paper reports initial findings from a study that used quantitative and qualitative research methods and custom-built software to investigate online economies of reputation and user practices in online product reviews at several leading ecommerce sites (primarily Amazon.com). We explore several cases in which book and CD reviews were copied in part or in whole from one item to another and show that hundreds of product reviews on Amazon.com might be copies of one another. We further explain the strategies involved in these suspect product reviews, and the ways in which the collapse of the barriers between authors and readers affect the ways in which these information goods are being produced, and exchanged. We report on techniques that are employed by authors, artists, editors, and readers to ensure they promote their agendas while they build their identities as experts. We suggest a framework for discussing the changes of the categories of authorship, creativity, expertise, and reputation that are being re-negotiated in this multi-tier reputation economy"

Ask Jeeves view of Web 2.0

Ask Jeeves Search & Web 2.0 - CNET Japan Search Conference, Search Engine Journal (Nov 18) -- Daniel Read, VP Consumer Products at Ask Jeeves, talked about Web 2.0 at the CNET Japan Innovation Conference.

"What is web 2.0? Web 2.0 is a work in progress which is a transtition of the architecture of the web and its applications. Such variables of the transition are blogs, wikis, AJAX, Google AdSense. 2.0 is taking search beyond the initial ten blue links such as more data, meta data and tagging, blogging is a revolution in micropublishing, advertising driven services, search verticals emerging and expanding quickly (local maps for example). Mashups are an important part of Web 2.0, expanding or improving upon existing products."

Loren Baker, the editor and note-taker, listed several "new generation ideas" as well as technologies that Ask Jeeves says they are following or have adopted. Ask Jeeves views Teoma (its search engine) to be based on a view of the web as a "social network".

Social Side of the Web

How wikis are changing our view of the world By Daniel Terdiman, Cnet (Nov 15) - About the use of wikis (open forums) for bringing together people for various projects. Wikipedia encyclopedia is the most famous Wiki project. Also Wikinews especially as seen for reporting on Katrina and the London Bombings. There are a few other applications in communities and in companies.

"While blogs, newsgroups or e-mail lists also can keep people informed of recent events and available resources, none of these alternatives have the ability to present the very latest information--and nothing but the latest information--in a single place."

This article is part of a series on Taking Back the Web: New generation, technologies return Net to social roots. This was Day 2. Look for upcoming articles on tagging, maps, youth.

Declan McCullagh started the series with The law of 'spontaneous order' (Nov 14) "Do technologies like collaborative Web sites, methods of "tagging" photos and documents, and mapping-related projects really represent the next Internet revolution?"

Many Webs

The Future of the Web -- in Many Dimensions Richard Reisman, Always On (Oct 18) "Just when we think we understand the Web we find it has yet another dimension and here are eight to start with". There are many webs - the content one we search, the social where we network, the semantic, the service and even more.

Teens on the Internet

New report on Family, Friends and Community from Pew Internet and American Life (Nov 2)
"Teen Content Creators and Consumers: More than half of online teens have created content for the internet; and most teen downloaders think that getting free music files is easy to do."

The Search - Review

Google May Be Bad for You; Battelle's `The Search' Explains Why by Jonathan Thaw, Bloomberg (Sept 29) - reviews John Battelle's new book, `The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture''.

Key sentence -- " The real value of Battelle's book, though, is his analysis of the social implications of search engines, be they operated by Google, Yahoo! Inc. or Microsoft Corp."

Copyright and Trademarks

Copyrights, Trademarks and Search Engines By Grant Crowell, SearchDay (Oct 20) - debate about implications for web site owners surrounding copyright on their work (or others) and trademark clashes. Consider RSS feed from one source being input for another site and the second site gets revenue through AdSense. This gets more complicated by the day.

Info Overload

Unplugged: Information Overload Requires a Human Solution by Paul Chin, Intranet Journal (Oct 13)

"I believe that many people suffering from information overload are allowing technology to run them rather than the other way around. More technology isn't always the answer, no matter how well written or developed. To borrow from another movie, Soylent Green: Productivity is people."

A new web

It's A Whole New Web And this time around it will be built by you Business Week Online (Sept 26) - Announces the arrival of a new Web of community and participatition.

Of interest - " The new imperatives of Web 2.0, as many call it, will present challenges not only for Web giants such as eBay (EBAY ), Yahoo, and Google but for some of mainstream tech's biggest leaders as well. That's because these new Web services are rapidly erasing the line between the Web and desktop software. "Applications are no longer software artifacts," notes Net pioneer Tim O'Reilly, CEO of tech publisher O'Reilly Media Inc. "They're ongoing services.""

And if Ajax has its way, this will be a faster Web too, where response is as good as desktop software -- Ajax: How To Weave A Faster Web

Blog for therapy

Blogging for the Soul, Not the Bottom Line by Enid Burns, ClickZ (Sept 16) New survey of bloggers done for AOL found that half of respondents blog for self-therapy.

"Further, one third of bloggers write about self-help and self-esteem topics. Thirty-one percent either blog or read blogs in times of need or high anxiety, while only five percent prefer to seek help from a counselor or mental health professional. The only thing more popular than blogs in times of need is seeking advice from family and friends."

Reviews of Battelle's book

Two reviews of John Battelle's new book, The Search: How Google Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed our Culture -

Search as the New Great Game by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Sept 14)-- "Although the subtitle includes the requisite mention of Google, the book is really a much broader look at both the history of the web search industry and the profound effects and changes it is having on our social lives."

How Google Got Its Groove, Business Week Online (Sept 19) - "Worthwhile for its insights on how the Google craze got started."

"Internet search ecosystem"

SearchThis: What's on Your Mind? By Kevin M. Ryan, IMedia (Sept 7) -- "Search Editor Kevin Ryan analyzes how search activity reflects the nation's response to Hurricane Katrina, gas, and more." Uses Yahoo! Buzz Index, Google Zeitgeist, and MSN Search Insider to see what has been on the minds of searchers during the unfolding of the Katrina disaster. Watching this activity, Ryan notes, "brings us closer to understanding how the internet search ecosystem functions".

One section is about the sponsored listings that come up. Of interest: "And let's not forget what the credit card companies are making on these transactions: as payment for managing your portfolio of charitable donations, Network for Good [a charity portal] deducts three percent of total donations from credit card entries and $10 per transaction for online checks."

OurMedia is social media

A Conversation with OurMedia Co-Founder, J.D. Lasica by Christina Pika, ResourceShelf (July 28, 2005) - Journalist J.D. Lasica has ambitious plans for OurMedia, a project to provide free storage space to anyone for personal-media publishing.

"In March 2005 we launched Ourmedia.org, hewing to that vision of free storage. Some 20,000 people signed up to become members in the first two months. We're a nonprofit educational community with the goal of helping to enable the grassroots media movement, which is now in full bloom. Members have published thousands of truly astonishing works -- home videos, podcasts, student films, independent movies and more."

Search Engine Archiving

Internet Archiving Illegal? by Andrew Goodman, Traffick.com (Jul 19) - comments on the "kerfluffle" about the Bill C-60 in Canada to amend parts of the copyright act to make it illegal for search engines to "cache" page that was reported by CNet in In Canada: Cache a page, go to jail?.

Creative Commons is the Answer

Creative Commons and Creative Commons Search Tools by Laura Gordon-Murnane, Searcher (July)

Article poses many questions about copyright and the public domain and reviews the history of copyright law as the introduction to the value and workings of the Creative Commons.

" How can you help patrons identify public domain content that might come from blogs, podcasts, Web sites, and organizations? Existing copyright laws have made it more difficult to identify public domain content. Why? Because everything copyrighted once exists in a “tangible medium.” "

Describes Creative Commons and how to find the licensed content for your needs.

Grokster Fallout

Canadians wary of Grokster case fallout by Jack Kapica, Globe and Mail (Jun 28)

Considers the fallout in Canada of the decision in the US Supreme Court that found that file-swapping companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks can be sued for use of their P2P products for downloading copyrighted music and movies.

Quotes Ottawa copyright lawyer Howard Knopf

"The irony is that the U.S. decision is based upon the assumption that the impugned software was being extensively used by end users for infringing purposes," he said Tuesday. "In Canada, that's not the case because our levy scheme, put in place at the Canadian Recording Industry Association's insistence, makes downloading from the Internet legal, as long as it's for private use and done on an audio recording medium."

For background on the Grokster decision in the US Supreme Court there is this news analysis in BusinessWeek Online -- <b>A Supreme Slap at Grokster & Co. by Lorraine Woellert (Jun 28) "The high court's ruling against the file-sharing services makes it clear that piracy won't be tolerated. But the battle is hardly over."

Technostress

Is Technology Stressing You Out? Here ar Some Ways to Regain Control> by Reid Goldsborough, Linkup Digital (June) -- YES it is. Qutoes from Larry Rosen, co-author of TechnoStress: Coping With Technology @Work @Home @Play. Book was published in 1997 but has some commonsense pointers for today. One bit of advice is to prioritize - we've all heard that before.

Wired magazine says that <b>It's Just the 'internet' Now . They will no longer capitalize web, net, or internet. The internet is "simply another medium for delivering and receiving information" like radio or television.

Personalized search results for the 50Plus

The Older You Are, The More You Want Personalized Search by Danny Sullivan SearchDay (July 26) Survey shows that people older than 50 are more interested in personalized information services than those younger are.

However, only 673 respondents were polled and only 56% provided demographic information - which probably includes age. So exactly how many people over 50 were asked?

Sullivan notes that the two main personalized services are Google's Personalized Web Search (does anyone use that?) and Eurekster. What about MSNbot News and Findory.com news?

The New Internet

Mapping the New Internet Expert says it will take a new attitude to squash spam, wire your washer, and identify the next IM. by Alexandra Krasne, PC World (June 10, 2004) John Patrick, former vice president of Internet technology at IBM and now president of the consulting organization Attitude LLC, spoke at IAPP Truste Symposium about some likely directions in Internet-based services but some attitudes will have to change first. He sees more efficient searching through use of XML, and more services through always-on computers. He's not hopeful about squashing spam at least not in the near term.

Berners-Lee Honoured and Rewarded

The father of 'www' finally gets his due Victoria Shannon/IHT IHT (June 14, 2004 ) - Tim Berners-Lee was awarded the world's largest technology prize, the Millennium Technology Prize from the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. The award recognized his contribution to creating the World Wide Web, attributing to Berners-Lee being the first to truly articulate the concept. He is a strong proponent of an open web and has been critical of the rush to software patenting by the major companies.

Info Overload

How Info-Overload Experts Unwind By Elaine Porterfield Wired (May. 13, 2004 ) - Conference in Seattle at the University of Washington looked technology overload and its impact on our lives. Information, Silence and Sanctuary was organized by Professor David Levy. "the group tackled issues and ideas related to the physiological and psychological effects of stress created by the speed of modern life. It also explored theories on how society has gotten to this point. "

WWW2004

The Unfolding Saga of the Web
By Michelle Delio. Wired (May 12) - Interview with Dr. Stuart Feldman, head of IBM's Internet Technology division, about the past and future of the Web. Feldman will co-chair WWW2004, the 13th World Wide Web Conference.

Considers the Web to still be "bratty" and hopes that the brattiness will be kept as more order and control is brought to the Web. "It is amazing to me how bohemian neighborhoods continue to coexist so nicely with the rapid gentrification of the Web. But as society increases its dependence on the Web, it will have to get more serious, more civilized. " Foresees a future of more sharing of applications. There are privacy issues - people will have to make choices.

Social Networks Exposed

Google's Orkut Personal Information Offered Outside Orkut By Danny Sullivan, Editor SearchEngineWatch (May 7) A lesson to all of us - the networks that people set up in supposedly private areas can be breached as they were with Orkut, as Sullivan reports.

Anti Social-networking

On-line socializing not for everyone AP via Globe and Mail (Mar 29) - this is a relief - not everyone is gaga over social networking on the Net.

Orkut in the New Yorker

The Real Orkut by Jesse Lichenstein. New Yorker (March 22) About Orkut Buyukkokten, the Google engineer who came up with the idea of Orkut as a community, and Orkut itself.

Social Networking

Internetworking New social-networking startups aim to mine digital connections to help people find jobs and close deals. By Michael Fitzgerald. Technology Review (April 2004)

There may be over 30 online social networking communities. "The premise behind this new social-networking technology is simple: you may know a lot of people from work, college, church, or your neighborhood, but you probably don’t know exactly who their friends are—and forget about their friends’ friends. But join an online social network and invite a few acquaintances, and the software will begin to reveal previously hidden second- or third-degree connections that can lead to an interview, business meeting, or tee time with that elusive potential client or employer."

Hmm - not all communities are created equal. Let's not think we can hobnob electronically with the rich and influential.

Creating Online Content

Report on Content Creation Online by Pew Internet & American Life Project (Feb 29, 2004) -- "44% of U.S. Internet users have contributed their thoughts and their files to the online world". They have done this through blogs, photographs, writing for their company's web site, family sites and the like. Pew Internet Project surveys have "shown that somewhere between 2% and 7% of American Internet users have
created blogs and about 11% of Internet users are blog readers. These are
not hugely impressive figures, but they are hardly trivial. They mean that
anywhere from 3 million to nearly 9 million Americans have created these
diaries".

"Online content creators are evenly divided between men and women. They are
especially likely to be students, to have broadband connections at home,
and to enjoy high levels of education and household income."

Google Monopoly

Bloor Research commented on Google's power and seeming monopoly in Silicon.com (Feb 29). Google Monopoly? Google has obtained its preeminance by fair means, but commentators do have 2 concerns: Google's "editorial control and influence", and of course "power to influence the selection, availability and immediacy of purchases largely through its ranking algorithms.

Reportorial Googling

9,000 Google hits can't be wrong - or can they? By Lionel Beehner. Christian Science Monitor (Feb 27, 2004) - criticizes journalists for practicing "reportorial Googling" rather than sound research for their stories.

The crux of the matter -- "True, Google is a handy and smart website as well as an excellent starting place to gather background information or to brainstorm for story ideas (or, for that matter, a fun way to spy on friends and exes). But it's neither a scientific nor accurate tool to gauge a subject's popularity. Its data can be faulty, fleeting, and, as any doctoral student or fact-checker knows, terribly inaccurate. Not only because the search engine brings up blogs and message boards and Bob Andrews's freshman term paper on Western civilization - none of which was probably fact- or spell-checked - but because its hit-counts fluctuate faster than poll numbers in Iowa."

Social Networks

Users Direct the Next Big Thing - Emerging technologies, such as social networks, rely on people to shape and guide them. - Dennis O'Reilly, PC World Thursday, February 19, 2004

Discussion on the Net

The Net Is All About Interactivity by Reid Goldsborough. LinkUp Digital (Feb 1) -- considers opportunities for discussion on the Internet citing those that have worked and those where resistance has crept in (such as at eBay). Not noted in the article is the difficulty of dealing with the quantity of drivel, spam, and porn that occurs in any open forum.

Bias in Amazon Reviews

Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers By AMY HARMON. New York Times (Feb 14) Amazon.ca revealed the identities of anonymous book reviewers at the Amazon.com site. Some, like John Rechy who wrote City of Light, gave themselves healthy 5-star ratings. Others are suspected of trashing works by their rivals.

"Numbering 10 million and growing by tens of thousands each week, the reader reviews are the most popular feature of Amazon's sites, according to the company, which also culls reviews from more traditional critics like Publishers Weekly. Many authors applaud the democracy of allowing readers to voice their opinions, and rejoice when they see a new one posted — so long as it is positive."

Books aren't the only things that receive reviews - DVDs, restaurants, electronic equipment. There is opportunity for bias in all.

"The word-of-mouth advice is widely seen as empowering to consumers who no longer have to rely on privileged critics with access to a television station or printing press to disseminate their opinions. But the reliability of the new authorities is the subject of increasing debate, at least among active Amazon users."

Social networking

Social Networks: Will Users Pay to Get Friends? by Bob Tedeschi. New York Times (Feb 9)

Is there money in social networking? Operations like Friendster, Tribe.com, Orkut invite connections through friends of friends. Friendster has 5 million registered users and the reputation of a date-finding place.

Nonetheless there may be more opportunity for fees in business social networking such as Ryze.

"The prospects of social networking sites that focus on business-oriented users look more promising, analysts say. When these companies start charging fees later this year, they expect business users to spend more freely, partly because they may be able to expense the cost or write it off on taxes. That is one reason at least one business-oriented networking site, Ryze.com, has already reached profitability, according to Adrian Scott, its chief executive. "

Google's Impact

Google for a grade: UW class to study popular search engine By Cynthia Flash. Seattle Times (Feb 2)

A professor at the University of Washington Information School, Joe Janes, is teaching a course on Google -- "to determine whether Google is in fact good or whether researchers' reliance on such a simple and one-sided search tool is degrading the quality of research. " Course outline for LIS 598 is open for viewing (for now).

The Search Culture

Battelle's Search by Andrew Goodman. Traffick (Jan 14) Wry comments about John Battelle's to-be-published book about search.

Battelle had been a founder of Wired and CEO of Industry Standard. He has a blog in which he muses on his ideas. On November 13, 2003 his thoughts were on his work-in-progress -- Search: Business and Culture in the Age of Google -- and the idea of a "Database of Intentions".

"The Database of Intentions is simply this: The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result. It lives in many places, but three or four places in particular hold a massive amount of this data (ie MSN, Google, and Yahoo). This information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind - a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, supoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends. Such a beast has never before existed in the history of culture, but is almost guaranteed to grow exponentially from this day forward. This artifact can tell us extraordinary things about who we are and what we want as a culture. And it has the potential to be abused in equally extraordinary fashion. " Whereupon he discovered "an industry of people devoted to search".