I kind of struck on this formulation in a conversation with a friend. I know I’ve heard it around in various forms, but…
Remember how the media companies in were going to fix the web back in the late 90s? Remember AOL/Time-Warner? Sites that looked like CD-ROMs? Breathless pronouncements that sites would soon all be in [...]
Aug
27
2010
27
2010
The 2010 Mobile Push is the Late 90s Publisher Push Redux
Aug
24
2010
24
2010
David Lowery’s Excellent 300 Songs Project now on Flattr
Um, so I kind of convinced David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fame to put a Flattr button on his AMAZING 300 Songs site.
I don’t know if you know this site, but it’s incredible. It is a near daily blog that tells the back-story of one Camper Van or Cracker song a [...]
Aug
23
2010
23
2010
Two Skunkworks That Actually Might Work
Anya has suggested institutions might support the creation of a skunkworks project to break through the fossilization of Higher Ed.
Perhaps I can’t see the forest for the trees, but I see traditional skunkworks projects as most likely digging us deeper into a hole, forcing an us vs. them mentality among working faculty, and ultimately throwing [...]
Aug
23
2010
23
2010
Defining Openness
Ironically, I can’t seem to post to the EDUCAUSE OPENNESS list (possibly signed up under my old MIT address?). But a question came up on the list of how we want to define openness.
There’s lots of great scholarly definitions that I could discuss, but I’m most interested in accurate definitions we can get laypeople to [...]
Aug
20
2010
20
2010
Addresses and Power
I’ve been thinking a bit about Jim and Brian’s article, and trying to better understand (and triage!) my concerns.
What I’ve been thinking a lot about is addresses, or more properly, unique universal names (some early thoughts on cell phones numbers as names here).
Here’s my most recent stream of thought. This is a PogoPlug:
Now, PogoPlug is [...]
Aug
16
2010
16
2010
Are Directory Holds Increasing? (And, If So, Why?)
Just talked to a professor who mentioned the number of directory holds she is seeing has increased rather dramatically.
Directory holds are where a student submits a request that name, email, and telephone number not be published publicly. A second, more restrictive option actually forbids Keene State from even acknowledging they are attending here.
Faculty are notified [...]
Aug
10
2010
10
2010
“If we’re successful, it means that everybody can be a creator”
I’ve had zero success in getting people to sign up for Flattr (with the exception of my beautiful and talented wife). I don’t think people realize what a radical effect a gift economy could have on the world.
Peter Sunde is basically trying to free the web from harmful corporate influence by rethinking the nature of [...]
Aug
9
2010
9
2010
Interlibrary Loan is the Prototypical Red Balloon Project
New projects need prototypes. When twitter first came out, people often asked me what it was. And to the extent I told them it was an entirely new thing they would tune out. I realized very quickly however that there were two ways to describe it that got people to sign up — to bloggers, [...]
Aug
2
2010
2
2010
WikiLeaks to Self-Fund Using Flattr
A match made in Heaven — WikiLeaks goes with Pirate Bay founder’s social micropayment system. Via TechCrunch::
WikiLeaks, the Sweden-based organisation that publishes anonymous leaks of secret material (most recently 90,000 documents about the War in Afghanistan) has until now, relied on donations to fund its activities. That’s lead to outages when funds became scarce, for [...]
Jul
27
2010
27
2010
Why Flattr Matters
I’ve been meaning to write about Flattr, and blogging, and OER and why it is potentially such an important development. I’ve stopped each time I’ve gone to post, because I have far too much to say about it. I’ll get to it later, I’ve thought.
Then today, a good friend of mine whose internet work [...]