The Social Software Weblog

Case study: Web 2.0 tools and an arrested Egyptian blogger

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-24T14:39:00+00:00

Filed under: blogging, citizen media, paradigm shifts

Mark Glaser at PBS has posted a long, detailed story on the case of arrested Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah. Alaa is someone Glaser interviewed for a previous story and today's coverage follows up after the man's arrest earlier this month. It's a great discussion of various tools being used in a no-cost, rapid-response human rights campaign. Some very interesting insights from Egyptians on online vs. off-line activities, democracy campaigns and more. Worth a look for sure. It's important that all these exciting technological developments impact more than the shopping habits of people of privilege. Glaser's write up is a great source of detail and thought on one key case study - and a real human being's trip to prison in an autocratic society.

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Richard Edelman on PR 2.0

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-17T21:04:00+00:00

Filed under: citizen media, paradigm shifts

David Wienberger isn't just ClueTrain smart and cool, he's also a really good liveblogger! Check out his text of PR powerman Richard Edelman's conversation at the Syndicate conference. Edelman knows the story on quality communications in a world shaken by blogs and other social media. Edelman's company does PR for Walmart and employs Steve Rubel.

In the above linked talk he provides succinct thoughts on the future of marketing, the pace of corporate adoption of Web 2.0 tools, the Walmart bloggers debacle and more. Worth a read or listen for sure.

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New poll on tech term recognition finds mixed recognition of web 2.0

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-10T14:58:00+00:00

Filed under: paradigm shifts

New Harris Interactive poll (via microsoft) finds that amongst adults in the US:

32% indicated they are not sure how best to describe VoIP
71% have never heard of RSS
46% said they aren't clear on the definition of tagging
79% of US adults are aware of blogs, approximately 17% typically read them.

Those are some wacky numbers, but what are you going to contest them with? 18 month old numbers from Pew? Cynicism? 54% of adults in the US think they are clear on the definition of tagging? Given how low the rest of these numbers are, I presume they mean touching some one you're chasing or spray painting a wall. None the less, those are the most recent numbers we've got as far as I can tell. Thanks due to IT Facts.

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World Vote field test coming this month

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-04T12:54:00+00:00

Filed under: nptech, paradigm shifts

I just found a very interesting initiative called the World Vote field test. Aiming to hold a global, simultaneous online voting day in a couple of weeks. Seems impressive, warrants a closer look. As things like this move forward, is the digital divide all the more apparent? Hard to know what it means for sure, but thought it was interesting. Found via KnowProSE.

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Net Neutrality, a simple video explanation

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-04T05:15:00+00:00

Filed under: industry, paradigm shifts

Check out this short video explaining Net Neutrality in the simplest of terms. The particular arguments made here are just a few of many that could be made, but I thought I'd post it as an introduction to one perspective and its talking points. Now we'll see if the carriers put out videos on YouTube and people start spreading them around. If you want the code to put this video on your blog or site, click the YouTube logo on the bottom right. Video from PublicKnowledge and found by me via eco-geek Jon Stahl.

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Does the world need a Corporation for Public Gaming?

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-14T16:29:00+00:00

Filed under: paradigm shifts

David Rejeski, Director of the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. has posted a call for a public organization to foster the most enlightening aspects of video gaming - ala the Corporation for Public Broadasting. I think that's a great idea. Given the possiblities for social good and the likelyhood for those opportunities to go unsupported, an organization dedicated to fostering positive real world impacts in gaming seems essential. I've covered many positive things being done in Second Life here over the last few weeks - imagine how much more is possible.

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On pitching bloggers for coverage...

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-11T15:45:00+00:00

Filed under: blogging, paradigm shifts

When I get a well-meaning but inappropriate email from someone asking for coverage of their product or service, and I'm feeling nice - I send them to the list of best articles I've found on how to pitch bloggers.

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Meetup in Seattle?

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-02T20:24:00+00:00

Filed under: paradigm shifts

Curt Hopkins, head of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, and I will be in Seattle this Monday night after doing some client work together. If anyone would like to say hi, we'll be at the Rendezvous at 8 PM. I'll be wearing a red baseball cap with the letter B on it.

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AP covers Iranian bloggers' and repression

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-03-29T15:53:00+00:00

Filed under: blogging, paradigm shifts

Wired has run an interesting AP story on Iranian bloggers catching grief from the government there. There's a quote from the Director of a group called The Committee to Protect Bloggers, a great org for keeping up with the battle between democratization and authoritarianism online. How social are social media going to be if some people go to jail for using them for freedom? Definitely a step beyond, though related to, the "I got fired for blogging" meme. (Disclosure: I'm an unpaid technical consultant for The Committee to Protect Bloggers.)

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RFID virus demonstrated

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-03-15T18:09:00+00:00

Filed under: paradigm shifts, tagging

ComputerWorld is reporting that 3 scientists from the Netherlands demonstrated a proof-of-concept virus that could take over mock-up middle-ware on a Radio Frequency ID (RFID) system, something few people thought was possible. "Pervasive computing utopia has its dark side," they say. The consequences here could be huge, but thank goodness some one came public with this information before we all got implants. I know I was totally excited to get an implant before this news burst my bubble ;)

RFID is likely one key part of the future of digital identity. Glad the conversation is complexifying beyond surveillance/civil liberties concerns and people without those concerns. I know I don't want to be wrongfully accused of hording an illicit number of unregistered Gillette razors in my bathroom.

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Digg.com introduces comment rating feature

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-03-04T14:41:00+00:00

Filed under: citizen media, paradigm shifts, aggregators

Those wacky folks over at Digg.com have introduced a new Slashdot-style means of rating commenters' comments (though it seems that it may be simpler than Slashdot's?). Found via.

These sorts of community news sites seem to provide a huge amount of their value in the comments section of each post, so it only makes sense to take the user-centric model a step further and have readers move comments up or down by quality.

With the rise of automated memetrackers and community edited newswires, those of us seeking to add value to readers' experiences by just plain blogging about the industry have our work cut out for us! Perhaps our value proposition is in serving as distinctly flavored super-filters for the news that's still overwhelming even when run through the above mentioned systems (even the guys at Digg do this with the DiggNation show), drawing unique connections that aggregators and comment heads are unlikely to draw and...analyzing the impacts of things in the news.

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