Enough said…

I love attending conferences and try to squeeze in as many as possible. However, time, distance and expense have to be taken into consideration, so my options are often limited. The following are upcoming conferences I wish I could attend. If anyone out there is attending any of these, please contact me, as attending conferences vicariously is often just as entertaining.

1. ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit. I’ve mentioned the real-time web many times on this blog, and this event should produce some exciting insights.

The ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit will be made up of a smart and diverse group of people. Together we will discuss the key questions, in the process creating a final agenda on-site – and in real-time! The Real-Time Web is changing so fast that no predetermined agenda of talking heads on stage can do it justice.

2. The Internet as Playground and Factory. A fascinating subject that is rarely discussed in the rush to find the next up-and-coming social media app.

Today we are arguably in the midst of massive transformations in economy, labor, and life related to digital media. The purpose of this conference is to interrogate these dramatic shifts restructuring leisure, consumption, and production since the mid-century. In the 1950s television began to establish commonalities between suburbanites across the United States. Currently, communities that were previously sustained through national newspapers now started to bond over sitcoms. Increasingly people are leaving behind televisions sets in favor of communing with — and through– their computers. They blog, comment, procrastinate, refer, network, tease, tag, detag, remix, and upload and from all of this attention and all of their labor, corporations expropriate value. Guests in the virtual world Second Life even co-create the products and experiences, which they then consume. What is the nature of this interactive ‘labor’ and the new forms of digital sociality that it brings into being?  What are we doing to ourselves?

3. Engaging Data Forum. As we enter the next phase of the web, it seems privacy will become an even more contentious issue.

The Engaging Data: First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information is the launching event of the Engaging Data Initiative, which will include a series of discussion panels and conferences at MIT. This initiative seeks to address the issues surrounding the application and management of personal electronic information by bringing together the main stakeholders from multiple disciplines, including social scientists, engineers, manufacturers, telecommunications service providers, Internet companies, credit companies and banks, privacy officers, lawyers, and watchdogs, and government officials.

Wildcard. Shift Electronic Arts Festival. I firmly believe that librarians, when looking at technology and trying to divine its future direction and what it will mean for our profession, should pay greater attention to the art world, where early adopters and innovators can be found.

From the dazzling shaman of dance music Ebony Bones to electro pioneers Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius aka Cluster, from Susan Collins’ live-video broadcast from a haunted house in Britain and real-time tech-necromancy courtesy of Hamburg robotics artists F18, to seriously fathoming the borders of reality with the video medium: with “Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of Paranormal Realities” as its theme, Shift guarantees an enchantingly varied programme.

The idea of the real time web has taking on serious momentum, and is seen as a fundamental characteristic of the web’s next evolution. Here are a few real time applications that are worth keeping an eye on.

1. YourVersion. Winner of the People’s Choice Award at this years TechCrunch50, this application should certainly be of interest to librarians.

YourVersion is a personalized, real-time discovery engine that finds new, relevant content tailored to one’s interests and makes it easy to bookmark and share that content.

2. Aardvark. Aardvark is a way to get quick answers to questions using your extended social network. You can ask questions via IM or email, and the question is then passed to your friends, and friends of friends, based on what their profiles say their interests are.

3. PostRank. Based on social engagement, PostRank allows you to find the most relevant content on the web in real time that matches your specific interests.

PostRank measures engagement by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience’s interaction with online content. An item’s PostRank score represents how interesting and relevant people have found it to be. The more interesting or relevant an item is, the more work they will do to share or respond to that item so interactions that require more effort are weighted higher. PostRank scoring is based on analysis of the “5 Cs” of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting, and clicking. By collecting interaction engagement metrics in these categories the overall engagement score is calculated and the PostRank value is determined.

Wildcard. Google Wave. Tomorrow, Google will issue 100,000 invitations to preview the new application, or “personal communication and collaboration tool.”. People already believe that it will overtake Twitter in the real time game, but Google has failed in the past so we have to wait and see.

I have been talking to other librarians about Twitter a lot lately and looking for worthwhile material to point them towards, especially articles or reports that move beyond the basics, engage with the application and help explain the sociology that makes it interesting. Here are three of the most recent that I found useful.

One.  The influentials: new approaches for analyzing influence on Twitter. Examines the nuances of interaction on Twitter in an attempt to define influence and distinguish between different types of behaviour. They categorize users as conversationalists, spammers, or materialists in relation to the number of followers vs. followees.

Two. Twitter in higher education: usage habits and trends in today’s college faculty. Worth reading for the remarks, both positive and negative, from academics on Twitter and how those who adopted it use it. Requires an email address to receive the report.

Three. Tweet Tweet Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. When it comes to analyzing social media, danah boyd never disappoints.This is a very recent paper, still in draft form, but well worth the effort.

Wildcard. Tweeting Kegerator. Certainly not library related (at least I hope not!) but so bizarre I had to include it; a network connected keg that sends a Twitter post to tell you when it’s about to run out. Yes, bizarre…

The latest version of Did You Know? has been released, titled Did you know? 4.0, this time created by The Economist Magazine for their annual Media Convergence Forum in partnership with the original creators of Did you know?/Shift happens. Read more about the process on The Fischbowl and enjoy the video.