Archive for the 'Internet' category

Tuesday tech links: Twitter again

Sep 22 2009 Published by under Internet, Present, Social software, Tuesday Tech Links, Uncategorized

After all the Twitter articles, reports, and sociology last week I thought it might be a good idea to focus on something a little lighter. Here are three Twitter visualizations that are fun and, maybe, useful.

1. Trendsmap. This visualization tracks Twitter trends by geographical location and displays the information as a tag cloud on a Google Map, which can be sorted by a specific city or general region in real time. Clicking on a tag opens a small information box that aggregates the latest tweets, the trend history, and offers related news links and images.

2. Visible Tweets. Visible Tweets displays a stream of tweets on any trend you choose. They are displayed one at a time on a colourful background, with beautiful transitions between tweets. Designed to display tweets in a public place, a perfect addition to any twittered conference.

3. Trend Tracker. While the others focus on place or aesthetics, Trend Tracker allows you to see trending topics by geography and time of day. It is also possible to see a trend topic by location on a world map over 24 hours, which means you can follow trends as they travel around the globe.

Wildcard. TwittEarth. Displays a geo-located tweet, accompanied by a very bizarre icon, at ten second intervals. Useless but strangely seductive.

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Tuesday tech links

Sep 15 2009 Published by under Information, Internet, Present, Social software, Tuesday Tech Links

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…

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The latest Did You Know?

Sep 14 2009 Published by under Conferences, Information, Internet, Technology

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.

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Web Squared

Sep 12 2009 Published by under Conferences, Future, Information, Internet, Social software, Technology

John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly, founders of the Web 2.0 Conference, have coined a new term (and released a white paper) on what they believe is the next evolution of the internet – Web Squared (Web²).

The Web is no longer a collection of static pages of HTML that describe something in the world. Increasingly, the Web is the world – everything and everyone in the world casts an “information shadow,” an aura of data which, when captured and processed intelligently, offers extraordinary opportunity and mind bending implications. Web Squared is our way of exploring this phenomenon and giving it a name.

According to Battelle and O’Reilly, Web 2.0 + World = Web².

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Tuesday tech links

Sep 08 2009 Published by under Internet, Present, Social software, Tuesday Tech Links

Rather than talk about specific technologies, this week I thought I would post the technology/social media authors or researchers that I believe are worth paying attention to.

One. Alice Marwick is a PhD candidate at the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and her dissertation is on social status and elitism in Web 2.0 communities. I originally began to read her for her earlier work on microcelebrity and internet fame.

Two. Jane McGonigal is a game designer and researcher, who focuses on pervasive gaming and alternate reality games, and is currently the Director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future. She is especially interested in the way games can be used to improve the world and impact player’s cognitive processes, social relations and public participation, an interest that can be clearly seen in her work in World Without Oil, a multi-player online game designed to examine the challenges of a future without petroleum.

Three. Aleks Krotoski is a journalist for The Guardian newspaper and hosts their technology podcast, and also an academic in the process of completing her PhD in social psychology, where she is examining how information spreads through online social networks. She is also currently working on the BBC series Digital Revolution, about the social history of the Web, for broadcast next year.

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