Links for December 9th 2008 through December 13th 2008:
- The Rumor Bomb: On Convergence Culture and Politics by Jayson Harsin [Flow TV, 9.04, December 2008] - Jayson Harsin looks at everything from Obama’s “terrorist connections” to Steve Jobs’ “heart attack” to understand how rumours work in the age of convergence culture (and what a huge impact they can have in an instantaneous, online, connective culture).
- Library Releases Report on Flickr Pilot (Library of Congress) [Library of Congress Blog] - “Only nine months into the Library of Congress’ pilot project placing Library photos on the Web site Flickr, the photos have drawn more than 10 million views, 7,166 comments and more than 67,000 tags, according to a new report from the project team overseeing the lively project. “The popularity and impact of the pilot have been remarkable,” said Michelle Springer, project manager for digital initiatives in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, who said total views reached 10 million in October. The site is averaging 500,000 views a month, she said, adding that Flickr members have marked 79 percent of the photos as “favorites.” The report recommends that the Library of Congress continue to participate in The Commons and explore other Web 2.0 communities.” [Full Report PDF] (Short version: sharing public cultural goods via participatory culture platforms is a win for everyone!)
- Microsoft Office to debut online [BBC NEWS | Technology] - “Microsoft is preparing web versions of some of its most popular programs. In 2009 web versions of Word, Excel and other programs in the Microsoft Office suite plus Exchange and Sharepoint will go online. Users will be able to get at the programs via a web browser rather than install them on a PC. Some versions of the programs are expected to be free to use provided users are happy to view adverts alongside the software.” (So, Microsoft are racing to reclaim some of the cloud computing presence which has become Google’s spare backbone … given how slowly Google Docs have evolved as a service, and how crude their slide presentation software is, if their offering is good enough there could be real Microsoft Vs Google competition in the clouds!)
Tags: cloud, digitalculture, Obama, office, stevejobs
Links of interest for October 28th 2008:
- Putting Privacy Settings in the Context of Use (in Facebook and elsewhere) [apophenia] - danah boyd’s sensible and timely reminder about Facebook’s ridiculously complicated and confusing privacy settings: “Facebook’s privacy settings are the most flexible and the most confusing privacy settings in the industry. Over and over again, I interview teens (and adults) who think that they’ve set their privacy settings to do one thing and are shocked (and sometimes horrified) to learn that their privacy settings do something else. Furthermore, because of things like tagged photos, people are often unaware of the visibility of content that they did not directly contribute. People continue to get themselves into trouble because they lack the control that they think they have.” [Via Jill] (These, incidentally, are among the reasons why you won’t see any pictures of my son on Facebook! Flickr, where I retain copyright and can actually use meaningful privacy settings, is far preferable!)
- Google considers local centre [Australian IT] - “Google has quietly dispatched a team of experts from the US on a fact-finding mission to decide whether it should establish a data centre in Australia. In the past few weeks the team of about five Google US employees had been involved in high-level discussions with local data centre providers, sources said. The meetings are believed to have been led by Simon Tusha, who labels himself as “Google’s duke of data centres”. A Google-run data centre would be positive for the company’s operations in Australia as it sought to increase its penetration of the large education sector.”
- Microsoft to battle in the clouds [BBC NEWS | Technology] - “Microsoft has unveiled a cloud computing service, in which data and applications will not be stored on individuals’ computers. The new platform, dubbed Windows Azure, was announced at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. The platform was described by Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie as “Windows for the cloud”. … The move sees Microsoft taking on established players like Google and Amazon in the rapidly growing business of online software. The aim is to allow developers to build new applications which will live on the internet, rather than on their own computers.” [Check out Windows Azure; but Dave Winer's not impressed.]
Tags: cloud, digitalculture, facebook, security, surveillance, thecloud, windows
