From a link on boing boing I came across an article on citimedia’s blog. The post covers a recent study from Harvard University called “The Hype vs. Reality vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News“. Even though the study itself is not a short blog post it is really interesting and worth reading if you have the time.
Some interesting trends that are documented about participants :
- The will to share, is a big motivator, few wish to become journalists
- A community to plug into, where trying things as a group means things can be tried and tested far quicker
- More women than men vocalised the desire to find people with similar interests
- A feel good factor and giving back factor is often cited
These five elements are cited in Citimedia’s blog by particpants as reasons why they do not participate in online communities :
- Busy, haven’t got the time
- Not perfect communities with low value exchanges
- Often confronted with technical issues
- User interfaces are hard to understand/use
- Lurkers that only want to ‘listen’ that don’t feel they can contribute
There are some interesting Technorati graphs used in the survey that illustrate the evolution of the blog phenomenon. Other graphs illustrate the impact of world events on the quantity of posts/articles at these specific dates.
I’m waiting to spend my first Euro on Apple’s iTunes !
What for ?
Well I’m waiting for the French legislation to go through, that will stop them from selling in their proprietary format. That will allow me to listen to it with the mp3 software of my choice and on the mp3 player of my choice. I own an iPod and that’s it. But I am sick of not being able to play the music with or on what Apple have decided.
I pay, I choose.
I’m also sick of listening to wining idiots on poor quality tech sites that have no other comments than to crack jokes about the French. Weird that, since several other European countries started voicing the fact that they would also like this very large market player to stop taking advantage of its dominant position, they no longer know what to say or who to joke at !
Well there have been some serious articles written but they seem to have a different opinion, could it be the lack of intelligence involved with the other joke happy idiots ? The Apple business model is as always with Apple a closed model that combining factors has brought to the forefront but this may be the way forward for a more open model…
And the first song I’ll buy, will be Natalie Walker’s No One Else. The whole album may have come out by the time Apple have finally come to their senses !
Hey the proprietary formats are ridiculous anyway.
Update : Interesting article at Fortune magazine :
Gravier says technology companies fail to realize that opening their software could create a boom for online purchases, since millions more people would be able to play downloads, increasingly on their mobile phones. “When records came out, they said it would close concert halls,” Gravier notes. “But they are still there.”
As well as a very interesting article at the Interntational Herald Tribune :
“Europe has managed to shift the debate into a conflict between citizens and digital controls,” said Peter Brown, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, a group that opposes proprietary software. “This is great because the discussion has been limited to technology circles for too long.”
When I saw the replay of what happened between Zidane and the Italian player during the World Cup final I was completely shocked ! It was not part of the original match coverage so there was a lot of confusion and articles since have explained that video footage from a fourth referee was used to make the decision to give Zidane the red card. This was obviously the best decision regardless of what was said.
Before Zidane actually gave his interview, to a privately owned television company that has previously sponsored him, several newspapers took turns in determining what was said to him. One claimed he was called a dirty terrorist by the Italian player. I must say I nearly felt what Zidane did was justified when I thought this might have been true ! When reasoning with the facts in my mind though, the simple and ‘just solution’ is that the Italian player (that I have deliberately not named since he’s obviously not worth it !) should be sanctioned if this is what he said. ‘Le Monde’ put forward ideas that the Italian player may have called Zidane’s sister or mother names. This is according to Zidane’s interview, was what actually happened.
Justice, legal systems and rules are created to stop people from getting away with things like what Zidane did and what this Italian football player said !
Although bloggers are bringing on the humour factor here (Athletes behaving badly) and here (how different countries saw the event), this really is an after-shock doubled by disappointment.
Disappointment because Zidane chose a channel that is scrambled to the general public to have his interview when he claims to be close to the people. The fact that the interview wasn’t actually scrambled doesn’t change the fact that many people don’t even have the channel configured on their televisions. I was also disappointed in the way that Zidane behaved during the interview. After having said he was sorry to all the kids that saw what he did, he went on to say that he didn’t regret what he had done !
So all the teachers that have to stop fights in the playground when one kid says something unkind or very unkind will have to deal with explaining to them that their idol may have said he’d do it again given the circumstances but he was WRONG to say that.
What happened to “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” ! Zidane’s reaction on the pitch during the game and off the pitch during the interview are both unacceptable. Saying he’s sorry to the kids in his interview and then saying he’d do it again is just totally irresponsible especially after having discussed the subject of children that look up to him…
It seems according to a Spiegel article that Zidane’s mother has requested the Italian player’s “balls on a platter” for what he said to her son !
So, do you know what a “hubster” is ?
Wal-Mart would like everybody to think that it is a community member of the Wal-Mart “The Hub”. The Wal-Mart ad company GSD&M would also like to think of this first and foremost. However as this blog points out, in the US, hubster is often used to talk about someone’s husband ex. “Hubster and me are going to the supermarket”.
The Wal-Mart project of an online community was pretty much ripped to pieces by AdAge in well written and well researched article a few days ago. It certainly does seem that Wal-Mart’s Ad company has not only relinquished any originality in it’s Hub project to MySpace but also dropped all hope of sincerity as well. It just seems as though no real spirit or sincerity stands out except lure kids in under the Wal-Mart banner and hand out a few presents. As the quote below explains the freedom kids always aspire is out of the door with Wal-Mart. There are many other ways to deal with kids security issues that don’t involve stopping them from doing anything!
As the Ad Age article explains :
It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.
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