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A couple of Gaping Void goodies
I liked these two from Hugh MacLeod recently. The first will resonate with all my Apple fan friends: And this one seems true of everything from the McCann case to children’s vaccinations:
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Future of content – part 3
Patrick McAndrew has posted part 3 of our distributed debate. It’s a personal case study based on his experience with the openlearn project. Below are my observations on it. On the motivation for openlearn: Some of those reasons are complex, but underneath it I think there are two principles one altruistic and one more selfish: Altruistic reason for open content: there is more value in having the world see this resource than if we store it away or try to sell it Selfish reason for open content: if we don’t do it someone else will, and then what are we left with Obviously altruism is great, but ultimately I think…
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How do I? video search
Tony Hirst has created a neat little search interface using Google’s Coop customizable search engine. It searches a number of video archives to find instructional videos – he seeds it with the phrase ‘How do I?’ He explains it here, so I won’t bother, and thus save myself potential embarrassment by getting it wrong. I will say it returned some very good results for me. I put in a search for How do I.. create a podcast. And the resources it came back with were great. Having just written a piece on podcasting for a course, this reinforces to me the point that increasingly there is little point in me…
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Future of content – Pt 2 response
Ray Corrigan has responded to my first piece on the Future of Content over on his blog. His is an excellent article, reminding us of the influence of big corporations and setting out the reasons why my view might not come to pass. I recommend reading it all. For now, here are my responses to some of the points he makes. "Barlow’s meme has often been taken to mean that we should rely on technology and geography and NOT laws, judges or politicians, to protect freedom of speech. Well government censorship of the Net in places like Saudi Arabia and large responsibility for fingering journalists for arrest in China have…
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The new morning routine
I have a morning routine now, which has evolved over the past year or so. It’s remarkably different from even a couple of years ago, largely as a result of becoming a blogger I think. Here it is: After the school run I sit at the laptop with a cup of tea and bowl of muesli (if I’m indulging – marmite on toast). Firstly, I check email, delete all the spam messages, do any quick responses, and mark any more detailed ones for later. I check messages in the student forum for the course I run. So far, so 1990s. Next I go to my blog, check stats, and comments…
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The future of content -Pt 1
[Note – this is part of a distributed article, see previous post for explanation] The Future of Content In this section I am going to argue that digital content will move toward being free and widely available because of two complementary arguments: the argument from economics and the argument from quality. The argument from economics Where content can be digitised, it is having a profound effect on the economics that underlie the business model of that content, and the way society uses and thinks about it. In this opening section I want to look at two examples of how the digitisation of content has led to significant changes in a…
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Structured, distributed blog article starts today
I am starting something of an experiment today for the rest of this week. I am going to construct an article by structuring a debate across four blogs. The article is around the future of content and starts in my next post. The plan is: Monday – I post a piece on where I think digital content is going, arguing that it is moving towards being free and widely distributed. Tuesday – Ray Corrigan is going to post a piece responding to mine which looks at how digital rights may make it a more, not less, controlled future for content. Wednesday – Patrick McAndrew will focus it on education by…
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That Stephen Fry post
As you may have seen Stephen Fry has started a blog, and his first post was on smart phones and the iPhone in particular. It received so much traffic that it fell over and they’re currently upgrading it. That aside, several things occurred to me after reading it: i) It has to be the longest post I’ve ever read. I love this variety in blogs – they can be whatever size, tone or format you want. One of my favourite bloggers is Christopher Sessums who doesn’t post very frequently, although he does post regularly, about once a week, but his posts are always thoughtful and more akin to essays or…
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Prof in ICT post at the OU
I’ve been asked to flush out any candidates for a Professor of ICT here at the OU, in the newly formed department. Details here: http://www3.open.ac.uk/employment/job-details.asp?id=3263&ref=ext If you’re of Professorial quality (I know you’re thinking – if you’re one, how hard can it be?) come and join us, there’s lots of interesting people here (and me). Don’t contact me for any further info though – I don’t know any more than is here.
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Dylan viral marketing
(Hat tip: Stuart Brown) As you may know, I’m a sucker for viral marketing – it’s like normal marketing but fun. To promote the new Dylan Greatest Hits, they created a make your own Bob video site. You can add the text in. Here is my one:
