Information Issues

A look into the crystal ball....

2007-11-20T08:45:00.000-06:00

Hi class,

Next week for our final lecture we will look into a "crystal ball" so to speak and consider some people's predictions and future possibilities. I've included some links below here for you to browse.. pick a couple that interest you and skim them. This will give us some ideas for discussion!

The future of crime?

Is virtual theft a crime in the real world?

The future of reading?

Are we reading less, and is technology to blame?

The future of the Internet?

A poll and a video on many possibilities for the future of technology.

The future of books?

Will the Kindle replace paper books?

The future of music?

Chris Anderson argues that only the "sale of plastic discs" is hurting.

The future of mobile?

Will we be connected and available 24/7, as mobile devices get "smarter"?
Also, Google announced that they are going to roll out an open source cell phone operating system called "Android". What will that mean for privacy - when a company that retains search records also will be able to track who you call as well as your geographical location?

The future of privacy?

Will we have RFID chips inside us? Here is another article on the same topic...

Is technology changing rapidly? Or is it a false perception, as Bob Seidensticker argues in his book, Futurehype: The myths of technology change?

Have a good holiday and see you on Monday!

Web 2.0 Scheduling Tool

2007-11-12T17:13:00.000-06:00

I found out about this neat little scheduling tool called Doodle which is great for setting up meetings. It works best when you want to find a time when everyone can meet together or to do a simple poll to find consensus.

Even though it isn't meant to be used this way, I'm going to try to use it in order to set up time slots for you to meet with me. Not sure if it will work well, but I'm going to test it out in class tonight!

New link: http://www.doodle.ch/participation.html?pollId=hkum2buqzbiwkgrw

Research about Wikipedia

2007-11-11T19:00:00.000-06:00

I heard a story on public radio about a new research study just released about Wikipedia, and that study led me to a couple others. Here is a summary of them:

An ongoing study at the University of Minnesota found that only 1/10 of one percent of Wikipedia editors accounted for 44% of the "content value" of the site (meaning content that ends up being permanent).

The same study found that 42% of errors on Wikipedia were caught before anyone saw them (they have anti-vandalism bots) and that your overall chance of encountering an error of any type on a Wikipedia page is .0037%

A study by MIT showed that the median of the survival time of all types of misinformation on Wikipedia was 90 minutes... but that there are "outlier" articles that survive longer in error without detection.

Finally, a study by researchers at Dartmouth showed that anonymous one-time wikipedia contributors had the best quality of contributions overall. The contributions of "power" contributors increased in quality over time. Sociologists are interested in what motivates anonymous users to contribute - what they "get out of it".

What does it mean that so few Wikipedia users are editors, and that even fewer editors are major contributors? Does the low error rate reassure you, or do you think that it is not low enough given Wikipedia's reach?

A new kind of news?

2007-11-08T13:31:00.001-06:00

Today a new website called MinnPost launched. Their tagline is "a thoughtful approach to news", and the writers are mostly former Star Tribune and Pioneer Press reporters. They have implied that they want to be "deeper" than print newspapers have become, and more accurate than blogs. It will be interesting to see what the site becomes - right now there aren't a lot of stories posted.

I found one interesting section in the editor's note on the page: "MinnPost.com will publish Current Posts, which have the informality of blogs but are always based on original reporting by our journalists." I wonder why they don't just say that they are blog posts? That is what those sections look like to me. It seems like they are blogging, but are trying to shy away from the term by calling it something else.

A similar website started up a couple weeks ago by the former editor of the Citypages called The Daily Mole. However, it is much more like a blog and seems to have a more humorous/ weirder approach to news.

Does this mean something new for news journalists? Is it the beginning of the end for the old-fashioned print newspaper? I'd like to hear your opinion on these new sites if you get a chance to visit them!

Link to MPR story about MinnPost.

p.s.. the lower image is from one of my favorite movies - does anyone know what movie it is? :)

Citations

2007-11-05T13:26:00.000-06:00

Hi all,

I mentioned last week in class that there are software options out there that help writers manage citations. I wanted to test drive some of these, but unfortunately only had time to read about them. But here are a few I read about, and if you've tried them, I encourage you to comment about your experiences!

If you have Office 2007 there is support for MLA and APA citation styles. Microsoft has a tutorial on their support blog. I don't think you can import from sources like library databases.

There is also a free Firefox add on called Zotero, for those of you who use the Firefox browser. It looks like it may import citations and I've heard good things about it....

I've also heard recommendations for easybib and Citation Machine. There may be others, so let me know if you have recommendations!

The Social Web

2007-11-02T19:58:00.000-05:00

Well, long time - no update.

BUT - perhaps it is because I've been spending all my time flying around Second Life!!

(-only kidding-)

BUT these social websites have been in the news a lot lately. One of you mentioned to me at an early class meeting about a recent study that found a difference in the social class of MySpace and Facebook users. Facebook users are supposedly wealthier and more educated than Myspace users. This recent Time article mentions that study, and also states that many people use and manage multiple social sites. It will be interesting to see if people continue to keep up with the different sites, or if they will start choosing only those that "fit" them most closely.

CNN and Reuters recently opened Bureaus in Second life, according to this article in Media Week. Reuters is using an embedded "real life" reporter, while CNN is using "citizen journalists."

I haven't been back to explore more of Second Life since my small foray Monday night for the class. What do you think? Is it worth my time to check some more places out? I could go to the library reference desk at Info Island, explore the digital Sistine Chapel, or even visit a digital pub. OR I could hang out in my First Life, where I seem to have plenty to keep me busy these days!

Questions on Copyright & Trademark

2007-10-21T20:24:00.000-05:00

Hey,

I've done a little digging on a few questions that came up in class. The first question was about Marilyn Monroe's image.

I found an article mentioning a battle between heirs of a celebrity's trademarked likeness and the copyright owners of the media. A famous celebrity can have their image be a trademark owned by their heirs.. but the person who took a photo of them might be the copyright owner of that photo. If a perfume company wants to use the image on their label - do they need permission from the trademark holder or copyright owner? Confusing! It sounds like there is a bill in congress to change the current laws..

The second question was about images of products "blurred out" on re-runs of television shows. It appears that this often happens when a television show has negotiated a deal for product placement. However, the rerun of the show may be on a different network than the original one, and with different sponsors. If the product placement is for Coke, but the show's sponsor is Pepsi, the product will be blurred out. Also, it could be that the show never struck a licensing deal with that company in the first place. Some products may not want to be associated with a particular tv show or movie. I found an article talking about how Coke did not want to be associated with the movie "Grease" and a poster had to be blurred out. It is also why in Ghostbusters they had to make up a fake product "The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man", because no real product wanted to be associated with that scene.

Like I said in class - intellectual property laws and rights can be confusing but interesting! Now I better quit blogging and go drink a cold, refreshing Coca Cola. Ahhhh... ;)

Blog Action Day

2007-10-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

According to the Star Tribune, today is the first ever Blog Action Day, where over 15,000 bloggers are all blogging about the environment. Interesting idea. It goes back to that question though -- can blogging can be a useful form of activism, or would people do more good if they got away from the computer and volunteered in person? It says at the website http://blogactionday.org/ that they will be picking a new theme each year, and that major companies like Google and Wells Fargo are supporting it. I think you can also have your blog listed on their site if you participate.

If the environment is a theme you like, maybe you can join the movement by posting about it today.

Change in the music industry

2007-10-12T22:59:00.000-05:00

As follow up to some of our discussion from last week, here is an article about major artists leaving their record labels or selling to fans directly.

Will it work for them? What about new artists and bands that are small and not well known?

Jonathan sent me a link about an artist who was discovered because of myspace. The music industry is in turmoil, but I still am not sure the major labels will go away entirely. What do you think?

Myanmar, censorship, and the Internet

2007-09-29T15:07:00.000-05:00

There is an interesting story on the ABC news website about censorship and the way news moves across the Internet.

The government of Myanmar has been trying to suppress news of the protests & crackdowns in the country. However, amateur videos have been showing up on YouTube, and an ABC correspondent filed a report using his cell phone.

Now the question is:

Will this footage make a difference? What do you think?

More on wikis

2007-09-28T11:33:00.000-05:00

Hi,

In class last monday we talked about wikis and started working on the class wiki for our group projects. A couple of you sent me cool links about wikis that I wanted to share:

An article about political candidates and Wikipedia entries

An blog post about New Zealand using a wiki to have the public edit their policing law.

Great stuff, thanks for letting me know about these!

I also found another Commoncraft video that helps explain how a group can use a wiki:

Introducing the Class Wiki

2007-09-20T13:05:00.001-05:00

Hi class!
Here is a sneak preview of the class wiki at http://informationaccess.wikispaces.com/. We will be talking about wikis on Monday and we will go through steps to edit the wiki together. Only edit the class wiki now if you want to.. it is not required for this week! You also do NOT need a wikispaces account to experiment with the page.

Some facts about our class wiki:

It was created for free at Wikispaces. Right now it has advertising links on the right side, I will be upgrading it though so those won't show.
It is set up as a public site now, meaning anyone can edit the page.
Like this blog, it has WYSIWYG editing which should be familiar to you. Some other wikis require the use of wiki style which is a simple language.

enjoy!

Week Three Class Recap

2007-09-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is coming a little late, but here is a list of some of the sites we discussed at the beginning of class this week:

Microblogging: Very short blog posts or "status updates". We looked at Twittervision which "geolocates" people with Twitter accounts.
Photoblogging: Photobloggers often use a site like Flickr to share their photos online, or to incorporate photos into a special type of blog. Here is a directory of photoblogs.
Moblogging is creating blog posts "on the go" using your mobile phone's text and photo messaging service.
Liveblogging is when bloggers cover sporting events, political conventions, conferences etc. in real time.
A Tumblelog is a "stream of consciousness blog" with no set theme, such as this one.
Vloggers or Videobloggers use a video service like YouTube to create video posts. A famous example was the online video diary of lonelygirl15, who turned out to be a paid actress.
Podcasts are syndicated audio files that you subscribe to and that can played back on computers and personal audio devices, like iPods.
RSS & AJAX are web standards used to publish feeds of frequently updated content like blog posts and podcasts, so they can be subscribed to.

The videos we watched in class were:
Andrew Keen on CNN
and
Blog the Vote on PBS/ NOW

Using the html editor in blogger

2007-09-13T11:31:00.001-05:00

If you want to make a hyperlink in your post, highlight the word you want to make into the link. Then click on the icon on the toolbar that looks like a green ball with a figure eight near the top. Enter the URL for the website you want the word to point to.

If you want to add a picture to a post, click on the icon in the task bar that is a blue square with a tiny mountain scene.

If you know HTML, you can also do these tasks by using the Edit HTML tab at the top of the edit window.

Oh, and once you publish a post, you can always go back and edit it by clicking on the pencil icon.

Make sense? :)

Blogs - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2007-09-13T11:15:00.000-05:00

Hi class,

If you are having any trouble with your blog or RSS Reader, post a comment here or email me.

Also, you do not have to use your real name on your blog and you don't have to share it with the class. I do think we would all benefit from seeing each others' blogs, but if you don't feel comfortable with that, just tell me and I will only view your blog myself and not post it here.

In class we looked at select blogs from Technorati's list of the top 100 most popular blogs.

Here are some other ways to find blogs:
http://technorati.com/ (I like to search a keyword and then click on the "blogs" tab)
Minnesota blog directory
Blogs at the U of MN

OR.. just go to the website of your favorite newspaper - many columnists have blogs.

Google and your digital self

2007-08-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

Google has an "official YouTube" channel and they just released this video, which shows how GMAIL email is delivered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKAInP_tmHk

A little different than what I taught you in class.. :)

Reminder on your work for the next class period:
Experiment with Googling yourself and the town you grew up in. Try to find yourself on Google Maps or Google Earth, perhaps look up the place you live on Zillow or yourelf on Switchboard (see links below). If you enter an address into Zillow, it plots your house on a map - click on the address line to get a "birds eye view and more info". I'm not sure if it works for apartment buildings, so you may have to look up the house you grew up in or something.

Also, do a brief search in Google Scholar and compare to a brief search in the library databases.

Here are links:
Google
Google Maps Fun tip: use the find businesses tab to search for pizza places near your house.
Google Earth (this one is a free download and is optional for class.)
Zillow Enter your address, then find the "birds eye view" by clicking on your building link.
Switchboard Try to find yourself in the white pages.
Google Scholar
Library Databases (Use search for articles or search by subject link)

Week one class

2007-08-30T12:15:00.001-05:00

I enjoyed class on Monday, I can tell this is going to be a fun group of people.

Here is a link to that video I played at the end of class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

Some other sites that were mentioned included:
The Way Back Machine at the Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/index.php

Hobbes Internet Timeline:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

If I've forgotten any feel free to comment and I'll add it...

Information Issues (INFS 518/ WRIT 599G)

2007-08-18T18:12:00.000-05:00

Hello,

The intention of this blog is to accompany the course offered Fall semester at Metropolitan State University. Information for students will be posted here. Please feel free to comment, and to browse the links on the blog. Students in the class will be expected to periodically check this site for blog updates and information.

Welcome to the class blog!
:)