Tagging stuff

We have created a dmupathfinder del.icio.us account to enable us to bookmark relevant resources. It is viewable at: http://del.icio.us/dmupathfinder. We're tagging away in order to understand what vocabularies and ways of tagging emerge. At the end of the project we'll try to capture the themes, developments, redundancies and affordances of this approach.

We are also trying to capture all of our relevant web material in one place. It isn’t possible to get our blogs/wikis within Blackboard fed into a single external site. However, we have created a site in pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/dmupathfinder, which houses:

• DMU Pathfinder-related blogs
• 5 blogs we think we should all keep in touch with regularly
• DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us bookmarks
• DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us tag cloud, which you can search for relevant/related sites
• Relevant reports
  

We intend to monitor the impact of this approach on our project management.

Tagging stuff

We have created a dmupathfinder del.icio.us account to enable us to bookmark relevant resources. It is viewable at: http://del.icio.us/dmupathfinder. We're tagging away in order to understand what vocabularies and ways of tagging emerge. Attheend of the project we'll try to capture the themes, developments, redundancies and affordances of this approach.

We are also trying to capture all of our relevant web material in one place. It isn’t possible to get our blogs/wikis within Blackboard fed into a single external site. However, we have created a site in pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/dmupathfinder, which houses:

• DMU Pathfinder-related blogs
• 5 blogs we think we should all keep in touch with regularly
• DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us bookmarks
• DMU Pathfinder del.icio.us tag cloud, which you can search for relevant/related sites
• Relevant reports
  

We intend to monitor the impact of this approach on our project management.

"It's like watching someone else's firework display"

A nice piece on the BBC website today about "stealing" other people's Wi-Fi. What does this say about social spaces and networking, co-operation and individualism? We see legal and moral issues around technology trailing both technological advances and usage-and-custom. Usage-and-custom being impacted by institutionalised norms is one of the really interesting debates over Web 2.0. It gets me thinking about control and the connections between real and virtual spaces. Does locking down Wi-Fi smack of enclosure? Should we really be encouraging more Wi-Fi commons?

Is this man cheating on his wife?

Is this man cheating on his wife?

Alexandra Alter on the toll one man's virtual marriage is taking on his real one and what researchers are discovering about the surprising power of synthetic identity.

Read More...

[Somebody kindly pointed out that this link is broken. It seems that the hosting website removed the story; perhaps the man who was cheating hacked in! :-) Anyway here is a new link on another website: Read More...]

Secret lives

The Independent on Sunday carried an article entitled "How embarassing is it to see your parents on Facebook?" The point being that the original users of the system are becoming uneasy about the influx of johnny-come-lately parents, politicians and the 'strange tide of "friends".'

So is this pioneer-fear or resentment of settlers within a space that pioneers thought was for them and for their university or college-based nonsense? Or is it less resentment of settlers and more a resentment of the presence of different communities [similar to the way that immigrant Japanese or native American communities were regarded, driven out or coralled by pioneers in the West of America?]. Or is it simply pioneers getting tired of their landscape, which has become less risky, adventurous and enthralling.

The flip side of this is the view that parents should be on social networking sites precisely because it is regarded as risky and adventurous, and because you do not know whom it will enthral. There are growing reports of police and parents spending more time on-line because more space, that is not regulated in the same way as "real space", is 'a perfect hunting ground' for ne'er do wells.

This tension between the psychologies of pioneers and settlers, and their precise reasons for being in a particular space or matrix of spaces, will impact upon the development of specific social networking sites, in just the same way that advertisers' refusal to have their brands linked with extremist and facist political organisations impact on those sites.

These ownership tensions exist with every form of "land": real; virtual; institutional; personal. Social networking requires social conventions and accepted rules of engagement. This is something that we spend less time on than we should; maybe issues of control and ownership in Web 2.0 will alter that.

Free Beer

I had a great two weeks in Cornwall - lots of sun, walking, cycling, reading, and ale. Now on the latter point you should check out the St Austell Brewery's Free Beer link-up with Tate St Ives. This is a real Web 2.0 approach to beer, and a pint of version 3.2 of their Free Beer is really rather nice. Not too flowery [man I hate flowery, hoppy ale], with just enough bite at the sides of the mouth. As the St Austell Brewery website declares:

"The recipe and branding of FREE BEER is published under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike2.5). This gives permission for anyone to use the recipe or create a derivative to brew their own FREE BEER and to use the design and branding."

Things I like:

1. the Creative Commons license for this beer;
2. its link-up between a brewery and a Gallery - a nice and unusual partnership.

Things I dislike - the Brewery web site declares in its legal page:

"No links to this site may be included in any other web site without St Austell Brewery's express written authorisation."

I can't be bothered writing to them so I can't give you the Brewery link, but you can always Google.