Tama Leaver dot Net

Links of interest for October 9th 2008 through October 12th 2008:

• VloggerHeads - An 18+ onlys videoblogging site where comments are - in theory - taken seriously and meaningful conversations are encouraged between videobloggers. Yes, they’ve left YouTube for good reason. There’s a good rundown on the rationale behind the site in this Wired article: “Sick of Griefers, YouTube Vloggers Start Members-Only Site“.
• A Decade of Internet Superstars: Where Are They Now? [PC World] - A puff piece looking at the trajectories of internet meme folk after their meme’s energy has run out. Would you believe Chris “leave Britney alone!” Crocker has released his own single? Jennifer “Jennicam” Ringley has completely dropped off the web after being the most visible person on it for a while. And the Ask a Ninja guys are still answering questions … like ninjas.
• Tweethearts: blogger proposes to nerd girlfriend over Twitter, she tweets back acceptance. - Boing Boing - “seanbonner: @tarabrown so, um, you wanna get hitched?” Proposal by Twitter! (She says yes!)
• Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube [Institute of Network Cultures] - A fantastic collection of scholarly essays looking at YouTube as a cultural phenomenon. The entire collection is released under a Creative Commons (CC BY NC SA) license and features work by: Tilman Baumgärtel, Jean Burgess, Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Sean Cubitt, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, David Garcia, Alexandra Juhasz, Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, Minke Kampman, Seth Keen, Sarah Késenne, Marsha Kinder, Patricia Lange, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Matthew Mitchem, Sabine Niederer, Ana Peraica, Birgit Richard, Keith Sanborn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Thomas Thiel, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Peter Westenberg.
• YouTube Links to Online Music Stores [Google OS] - “YouTube started to add links to iTunes and Amazon MP3 for music videos from EMI Music and Universal Music. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs and video games — related to the content they’re watching on the site,” announces Google Blog. … For now, the links are only available in the US, but they will be added internationally if this experiment turns out to be a success.”

Tags: academia, amazon, apple, celebrity, community, digitalculture, itunes, meme, monetize, pdf, socialnetworking, theory, videoblog, videoblogging

Interesting links for July 4th 2008 through July 7th 2008:

• Iran: death penalty for “corrupt weblogs” [Boing Boing] - “New legislation has been proposed in Iran that could make blogging a crime punishable by death. … A translated English copy of the proposed legislation is here.”
• Watching you, watching YouTube [BBC NEWS | dot.life] - A thoughtful and cautionary response to the release of YouTube viewing data to Viacom. Also, see YouTube’s official response to user concerns about the ruling.
• The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs [Online University Reviews] - Proof that many good academics write many good blogs (on many, many different subjects). I read about a dozen of these. [Via Chuck]
• Google must divulge YouTube log [BBC NEWS | Technology] - “Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled. The ruling comes as part of Google’s legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.”
• Fox News: The return of yellow journalism and photoshop [Dennis Dunleavy] - Fox News photoshops images of their press critics. Dunleavy: “promulgating a use of technology that imperils journalistic standards and deceives its viewers.” [More.]

Tags: academia, censorship, digitalculture, ethics, fox, highered, iran, journalism, law, legal, panopticon, photoshop, politics, privacy, ruling, teaching, usa, viacom

Interesting links for July 3rd 2008:

• Virtual Worlds Research: Past, Present and Future (Vol 1, No 1) [Journal of Virtual Worlds Research] - The inaugural issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is out, showcasing some excellent research and situating virtual worlds in an ongoing and dynamic research context. It’s also an exemplar of open publishing: all content is online and under Creative Commons licenses.
• Uni cheats outsource to India [The Age] - “Computer Science students are farming out their coursework to cheap programmers in countries like India and university staff admit they are powerless to detect and prevent it….Various well-established sites already sell students essays and other written work.”
• Is YouTube Killing Video Originality? [NewTeeVee] - “…more people are creating …video than ever before… The issue becomes when people start creating for the playcounts. What?s the fastest way to rack up a million plays on YouTube, land an agent and get on Oprah? It?s not by making something new!”
• VioletBlue VioletBlue - An archive of all of the posts that Boing Boing deleted in relation to sex blogger Violet Blue. Looking through this archive, it’s hard to see how these deletions haven’t damaged Boing Boing’s historical presence.
• Firefox download record official [BBC NEWS | Technology] - Mozilla has officially made history with a new Guinness world record for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period. The final record breaking 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3.0 took place in June with parties in over 25 countries.

Tags: academia, boingboinged, censorship, cheating, creativity, digitalculture, ethics, firefox, Google, highered, journal, learning, mashup, mozilla, oer, opensource, plagiarism, remix, research, youtube

Interesting links for June 8th 2008 through June 11th 2008:

• Change Congress - NCMR keynote [Lessig Blog] - Lawrence Lessig’s keynote at the National Conference for Media Reform arguing for a mobilisation of talent to try and end (or, at least, decrease) the corruption in the US Congress.
• J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement [Harvard Magazine] - Rowling gives a really delightful and heartfelt commencement talk at Harvard, rather frankly talking about the importance and benefits of failure, hitting rock bottom, and working out what’s really important in life.
• 280 Slides - Create & Share Presentations Online - Nifty online version of powerpoint/keynote software. A lot more elaborate than Google Docs, but still a long way from Keynote or Powerpoint. A very good, simple and accessible way to do the basics. (I wonder when Google will try and buy this little startup?)
• Sex and the City: A Product-Placement Roundup [vanityfair.com] - The product placement in the Sex and the City movie makes the producers of the James Bond films look like amateurs!

Tags: academia, changecongress, creativity, film, harrypotter, jkrowling, keynote, lessig, marketing, politics, powerpoint, presentation, sexandthecity, speech, talk, usa