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Links for July 3rd 2008
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.
Blogging (the book) by Jill Walker Rettberg
I’m delighted to see that Jill Walker Rettberg’s book Blogging has just been released. I had the pleasure of reading much of this book in draft form last year while Jill was a guest researcher here in Communication Studies here at UWA, and on the basis of what I read I’m confident this book will be extremely well received. Jill’s work is neither a simple how-to guide (of which there are many), nor is it a book on blogging which presumes readers are already blogosphere aficionados. Rather, Jill has managed to write an engaging and critical book which situates blogging within broader histories – such as the role of blogging in terms of literacy, the evolution of citizen journalism, blogs and/as social networks, and even ethical frameworks which examine advertising and authenticity in blogs. More to the point, for someone new to blogs as an idea, or in practice, Blogging offers a world of insight and experience distilled into a readable and engaging form.
The table of contents and the (extremely positive) early reviews of Blogging are available on Polity’s website, and it can be ordered now from Amazon UK or will be available from Amazon US in about two months.
I strongly recommend you read Blogging for yourself!
Links for June 17th 2008
Interesting links for June 12th 2008 through June 17th 2008:
- Blogger arrests hit record high [BBC NEWS | Technology] – “Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report. In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.”
- Facebook No Longer The Second Largest Social Network [Tech Crunch] – “April 2008 was the milestone: Facebook officially caught up to MySpace in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors, according to data released by Comscore … Both services are attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites each month.”
- Save Jericho Again: TV Campaign Info – The fan fight to save the now twice-cancelled US TV series Jericho continues, with dedicated Jericho nuts this time raising funds for a series of tv advertisements and billboard trying to save the show and get a new network to pick up the series.
- Sexually Frustrated Superheroes: Superheroes Who Can’t Have Sex [io9] – Which comic-book superheroes can’t have sex? Any why? (And I can’t believe there is an alternative future Spider-Man comic in which Mary-Jane dies after sharing too many bodily fluids with Marvel’s favourite hero!!).
Five Years!
I realised today that I’ve passed one of those blogging milestones: about a fortnight ago, I crossed the birthday barrier and have now consistently spent Five Years Blogging! Sure, it hasn’t all been here … like many people I started out on Blogger because it was free, easy and I had no idea what I was doing. This probably should be a moment for reflection, looking at how much has changed (now I think I know what I’m doing), but as I’m preparing for my last day of teaching for the semester tomorrow, I thought instead I’d refer back to October 2006 I wrote a ‘Why I Blog’ post as part of the Reconstruction special issue on blogging. Largely, my reasons for blogging remain the same. I wonder if I’ll still be going in 2013?
Links for May 23rd 2008
Interesting links for May 23rd 2008:
- Lessons From the Class Blog [zigzigger] – Reflections on 4 semesters of teaching with a class blog in a media course. Some useful observations about how much students blog, ideas about assessing blogs and whether ‘forced’ comments are of any use.
- Star Wars Kid: The Data Dump [Waxy.org] – Andy Baio takes a very in depth look at the Star Wars Kid meme (that he named, hosted and shared) from 2003, complete with very, very detailed stats and a look at the media coverage SWK got.
- Cash will buy clone of man’s best friend [PerthNow] – “A US biotech company will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions, in a move condemned by some ethicists who fear it could lead to human clones.” (Hello ‘RePet’ from The Sixth Day!)
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