Read, Write & View

Textpattern Try Out

2009-10-19T14:15:00.002-04:00

Hello folks. You may have noticed that blog activity has been low lately. Well there is a reason.

For one, I’ve been working hard on developing a CMS/Blogging/Community platform for GMU called onMason. We’re using WordpressMU and just when I thought I was done with it, we rolled over to WPMU2.8 and I had to deal with half of the site breaking. So that’s been fun. Really though, I’m enjoying it. I love working with WPMU and Wordpress in general, I’m pretty sure I see a switch for this blog in the future.

The other thing I’ve been playing with is Textpattern. I think it’s important to work with and be familiar with as many web tools as possible and my experiments with Textpattern are part of that effort. I’ve set up a personal blog using the system. The site is called You Can Never Ninja Email and is pretty much the place for me to go off on rants outside of the more professional setting of this blog.

I’ll have more to say about Textpattern as I play with it, but I’ll say this much for the system, while it isn’t the best blogging tool, from what I can understand of the platform, it is one of the better tools for taking a static site and running it with a CMS. More on that later.

Also just finished the redesign of Mason Votes (now running off of onMason), check it out.

Link Roundup: The importance of blogs and blog-like interactions for journalism sites

2009-07-21T13:08:00.001-04:00

Image by Eric J. Lubbers via Flickr

How to take advantage of micromedia, niche sites, and community blogging for better reporting:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/what-happens-after-newspapers-reporting-apparently-still-gets-done/

Here's a great article on how the best way to get eyeballs on your news site and keep them there is by building a community around your content. It notes NPR's presence on social media and their focus on providing tools to allow users to create their own content.

"It’s not about how sexy-looking your site is. It’s not about having the absolute latest display technology. It’s about how you engage readers with conversations and with ways of interacting with news staffers and with each other. It’s about projecting personality — showing that behind the stories, the columns, the blogs, there are real people living in your town, sharing your concerns and your joys."

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/what-counts-more-than-desig/

This story showcases on how laid off reporters from Rocky Mountain News used a blog and interaction and conversations with their audience to build a brand and a site.

"If they ask a question,” Etkin added, “they get an answer."

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/07/inside-the-rockies-how-ex-rmn-reporters-are-using-comments-to-build-community-around-baseball/

Here's a great article on how newspapers are seeking out local bloggers and finding huge value in aggregating them, as well as opportunities for potential profit. Notably, some of the ideas they are talking about are similar to the execution we did of collecting and displaying local political blogs though MasonVotes.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/07/newspapers-try-again-with-local-blog-networks182.html

This article describes how one newspaper found that blog-type video content brought in far more viewers (and advertisers) than news channel like reports.

"What we wanted to do was just go back to doing a video show the way reporters talk to each other. It’s more conversational. It’s snarkier. It’s a lot more fun. What you need for video to work on the web is more of a voice. For the web in general, you need a voice."

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/07/ledger-live-how-a-newspaper-webcast-became-less-like-a-news-show-and-more-like-a-blog/

Spymaster – a Twitter Game with Possibilities

2009-06-06T09:19:00.001-04:00

I have to admit, when I was initially thinking about writing this post, I was split. I wasn’t sure whether the post should be “Spymaster – Twitter’s version of an annoying Facebook app” or “Spymaster – Cool Game.” Then I had my mind made up for me. As of approximately 0200 hours on Mon. Jun 01 I’ve completed my first Spymaster war. As a result, I’ve been thinking about what I would change or add, if I was heading up The Directorate.

Previously… on Twitter:

iList’s Eston Bond, Chris Abad, Albert Choi and Ben Myles launched their Twitter-based game Spymaster on May 28. The game allowed you to execute spy-like activities and assassinate your Twitter friends. Attack and Defensive power was a numeral determined by a combination of your number of followers and the equipment you purchased thanks to your illicit activities. Friends you converted into spymaster by getting them to join the game gave extra power.
The game, previously in beta, wracked up hundreds, probably thousands, of users and gained the top trending spot in Twitter Search, staying on the list for at least a day more.
Backlash ensued, Twitter spymasters using the game would automatically tweet their spy activities through the game, using the #spymaster hashtag. While some didn’t seem to care, a few big bloggers went very public about considering the game’s communiqués spam.
Most Spymasters quieted down, the game falling out of the trending slot.
And yet… the game continued…

The following events occurred between 1 and 2 a.m.:

The day before I had noticed that Spymaster @luxuryluke had attacked me. I returned fire with a few attempted assassinations myself. After he had taken me for over 84,000 pounds in game money (I had joined the MI6 team), I fired back. The game scales wins to risk, which meant that as a much lower level player, he had won big. Though I was able to beat him a few times (and lost a few others), my wins were not as large.

LuxuryLuke was sitting at my door, and attempted a number of assassinations. Then, I retaliated. Suddenly, there was another spy in play. Spymaster @mediapeople began his own campaign of small cuts. As my health got chipped away I found myself almost entirely unable to strike back, so I called in the cavalry via direct messages.

Through both public and private messages I called on fellow members of my spy-ring to target and assassinate the two players who had come after me.

Just like any war, it didn’t take long for things to escalate.

@Mediapeople was a lower level player but had a huge advantage in terms of the number of his followers, which meant that he was able to strike with impunity. With a little help from his friends, @Mediapeople was able to finally fully assassinate me, stealing away a savings of over £200,000 by the end of the night, and leaving me in Spymaster purgatory, unable to act until I had been resuscitated by the game. (Which took about ten minutes.)

What about my spy skills?

I discovered a big flaw here. Simply that being an upper level character is in fact a disadvantage. You have more to loose and an inability to get money back stolen from you by lower level spys. Without the ability to properly retaliate and recapture some of my funds, low level spies could take me down with impunity, especially if they have a higher follower count than I.

The way this should work is that if I’m attacked, I can declare all out war against my assassin and get my money back. The other big issue here is balance. A high level should act as a balance against high follower low level characters. Right now, having a low level character is in fact a huge advantage. See the problem?

Ok, ignoring that problem and others that have come up and sometimes dealt with since my first Spymaster war, the game has a lot of potential if we can apply some serious game theory.

So, for the duration of this article, let’s see if Spymaster got game.

A Tactical Triangle of spies.

The tactical triangle is what gamers say when they don’t want to call their method of game balance what it is, Rocks, Paper, Scissors, at least initially. So, does Spymaster have a Rocks, Paper, and Scissors? Assuming you are not cheating, here’s the breakdown that I see, you may notice they map pretty closely to the various directorate (CIA, MI6 and FSB) specialties. I’m also going to propose what roles they should be taking, especially if Spymaster decides to initiate a greater focus on teams in the future.

Spy Classes:

Base Commandant (Defensive Class, aka Tank)

Has an especially high defensive rating.
Very public status poster, daring people to attack him and loose their money.
Invested in serious defensive equipment.
Role: Provide protection to others in the ring.

Saboteur (Earning Class aka Healer)

Has a continual high level of capital, allowing money “laundering” through Swiss Bank accounts.
Has a lower defensive and attack rating because she doesn’t waste money on anything but the bare minimum of equipment.
A higher level character.
Serious experience in tasks.
Owns many safe houses.
Role: Generate and manipulate capital to “heal” offensive and defensive team members by allowing them constant access to equipment and protection for their funds through Swiss Bank transfers.

Assassin (Offensive class aka Damage)

Has an especially high attack rating and relatively normal defensive rating.
Owns a significant cache of equipment
Stays fairly undercover until he comes out and kills you.
Role: Assassinate enemy spies.

While this is what I’ve seen, the three roles tend to blend together out of necessity, you have to keep your defense high to prevent people from stealing your stuff and upper level tasks require expensive equipment, necessitating an investment in more defensive equipment over safe houses to keep it from being stolen. Further, the lack of support for real team play means that playing a support role leaves you in the unwise position of ‘depending on the kindness of strangers.’

How to resolve this?

Put yourself somewhere safe.

Image by inju via Flickr

Right now the whole point of safe houses is that, in some nebulous way, they provide a regular stream of money, even when not performing tasks. However, to really create and effective and long lasting game, we need to give purpose to the name and make Safe Houses usable objects.

Let’s say that you can actually go into a safe house, what advantage would it give?

When in a safe house you cannot do anything other than wait. You must stay in a safe house for at least 10 minutes and you cannot retreat to a safe house without two subsequent turns not under attack. While in a safe house you pay money to the owner of the safe house, if you own your own safe house it stops earning money for you while you hide in it. Safe house attributes are multiplied by those of their owners. While in a safe house, no one can use that safe house and no one can use any of your safe houses. Safe house attributes are added to the defense attribute for the person in it.

The values each safe house adds to those hiding out in it should be calculated by compounding a base and owner value. Each safe house should have a defensive value on it's own. Then a percentage of the owner’s defense is added to that base value. That final number is added to the defensive value of anyone hiding in the safe house. I know this sounds like it may create an invulnerability situation, but we’ll get to resolving that in a bit.

Spy Cells

First, an increased support for Spy Cells, organized groups or guilds of spies. Allow spies in cells to call in support, retaliation strikes and request private handoffs of money outside of the Swiss Banking system, this would allow a greater level of discrimination, pushing more towards character “classes.” Rewarding different play styles is essential for keeping people playing. Further, by creating formalized allegiances, it allows people to further specialize, creating the opportunity for expansion of the tactical triangle.

Further, joining a cell should boost a players statistics through allegiance.

Additional Classes

Infiltrator (Research class aka Artillery)

Relatively low levels of Attack and Defense
Medium size weapons cache
Medium number of safe houses.
Experience with “Analysis” tasks (initial rating determined by retweets perhaps?)
Role: Discover intelligence and lay groundwork for assassinations by performing tasks that uncover information about targets.

Freedom Fighter (Bunker Buster class aka Anti-Tank)

Extremely high attack class at the expense of an especially low defensive class.
Experience with bomb making tasks.
Must spend money on explosive (one-time use) materials.
Role: Eliminating enemy safe houses.

These are the resulting specialty tasks that spies could accomplish in order to train up the new skills and look at future tasks. Each of these specialty tasks increases the specialty Bomb and Analysis skills.

Bomb tasks

Rig car bomb
- Never let them drive away.
Disrupt communications
- Loose lips sink ships.
Disrupt power flow
- Who turned out the lights?
Destroy supply lines.
- Enemies can’t act when they can’t eat.
Incite panic
- Sometimes you’ve just got to go for the big boom.

Analysis tasks

Encode communiqué

Keep it secret.

Hack civilian system.

They don’t know what they’re dealing with.

Hack bank system.

At least they’re not Swiss.

Hack military system.

How many tanks does it take do get to the center of a rouge nation?

Uncover information

Some secrets are meant to be known.

To accomplish some of these new specialty tasks, you are going to need specialty items.

Bomb items (one time use)

Grenade
C-4 Explosive
Timed detonator
Remote detonator

Analysis items

Cipher
One time key (one time use)
Decoding system
Specialized laptop

With the expansion of classes and safe houses, this creates some additional tasks that can be associated with assassinations.

Steal target dossier.

Uncovers player info
Requires a low to medium analysis rating depending on target(much like attack and defense ratings).
If failed player is notified that someone is looking into him and can retreat to a safe house.

Infiltrate enemy cell

Uncover the last allies the player interacted with or find out some of the cell’s members.
Requires a high analysis rating.
If failed entire cell is notified of attempt.

Uncover recruiter

Discover who sent the spy invites.
Requires a low analysis rating.
If failed, both the spy and his recruiter is notified.

Uncover recruited.

Discover who the spy sent invites to.
Requires a medium to high analysis rating.
If failed, the spy and all the people who he sent invites to are notified.

Uncover safe houses owned by spy.

Find out where the spy owns safe houses, this task allows you to uncover one at a time.
High analysis rating required.
If failed, the spy is notified of your attempt.

Destroy identified safe house.

Once a friend uncovers a safe house, bomb it off the face of the planet
Requires a high bomb rating.
If failed, the spy is notified of your attempt.

Destroy spy’s refuge safe house.

Someone lost an attack to a spy in a safe house, now they know he’s hiding out. Let’s flush him out.
Requires a very high bomb rating.
If failed the safe house’s owner and the spy taking refuge in it are notified.

In order to really throw in more team play, spies should be able to post tasks for others to accomplish on their behalf, this could increase the team play. There would be a global board, which people would have to spend money to post tasks on and then spend again to pay off whoever accomplishes the task. Formal cells would have private boards (perhaps they could build them using forum systems themselves), that members would not have to pay to post on.

Player post-able tasks

Any type of special assassination task
Kill order
Alliance proposal
Request to document player’s cell.
Vendetta

Finally, we get to one of the biggest and coolest possibilities to think about. We are half-way to an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) with Spymaster already, why not take it all the way? The last game to try this was pretty cool but didn’t succeed for a number of reasons, the biggest being that right after they launched, 9/11 happened and no one wanted to receive fake calls about terrorists and spies after that.

Provide a running story, encase secrets in random websites, recruit spies to help set up real-life clue hunting events and more. Here’s some ideas on tasks to drive the story forward.

Story Tasks

Retrieve task information.
Enter encoded information

When you find information in a site or IRL location, enter it into the game.

Decode information

Take found codes and run an in-game decryption.

Retrieve database key.

Find out clues where to go for more information.

Read database file.

Find out more secrets.

Hack Fourth Directorate.

The enemy is out there, find out a few big secrets.

I know, I know, we’re getting into a pipe dream area here, but a guy can hope right? You got to dream big. Obviously this increased activity means increased cost. What can the Directorate do to make some money?

Micropayments may be a big possibility, allowing people to pay in for extra content, or infusions of cash without experience could be a way to make some money. A subscription cost to access higher level content would be a possibility, as much as I hate the idea. However, is this really the audience that would pay such a thing?

Obviously, when it comes to making money beyond display ads, the topic requires some though. Who knows what possibilities are to come for the game? I just like being a Twitter spy and it would be great if I could keep on playing, instead of getting bored.

This is one spy, signing out.

The Semantic Web and Display Ads with Amplify

2009-05-13T23:38:00.002-04:00

A recent presentation on the semantic web API called Amplify really put into focus the issue of targeted advertising online and how to solve the recent decreases in display ads for newspaper websites.

Image via Wikipedia

I went to a Social Networking and Semantic Web meetup on May 13. The event, which was the Roy Rosenzweig Forum on Technology & the Humanities, was run in concert with George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media.

There were a number of great products and ideas put forward. The group of presenters covered how to make Recovery.gov more “citizen-friendly,” Zotero, and Glue. The one presentation that really got me thinking, however, was Amplify.

In the demo at the Social Networking and Semantic Web meetup, Amplify’s CIO Mike Petit showcased a quick example with a paragraph written by someone who hates baseball. Amplify analyzed the paragraph and ranked topics by importance and than took those topics and analyzed their sentiment. As a result, it could tell that baseball, despite many occurrences, was a negative topic.

This sort of technology could be the key to saving newspapers online.

One of the big issues that all newspapers are facing, from the college level all the way to The New York Times, is how to make their websites profitable. The big stumbling block on the path to a self-sustaining website is the reluctance of advertisers to buy online banner and button ads from media companies.

Image via CrunchBase

At the end of 2008, Gawker Media Ring’s Nick Denton noticed the trend. Predicting (accurately) that making a profit off of being an online news source was about to become much harder. His very first point in his 2009 internet media business plan was “Get out of categories such as politics to which advertisers are averse.”

This is missing the point. It wasn’t that advertisers are adverse to divisive politics or product reviews (Wonkette and Consumerist, two of the blogs that Gawker shed, covered these categories), it’s that covering sensitive issues means that an advertiser’s ad is more likely to show up next to something critical of the advertiser.

The Consumerist is a great example. Wal-Mart may want to reach that audience, but it can’t do so if its ad is sitting next to an article on how Wal-Mart might be the worst company in America. It’s the same for Wonkette.

The problem is that newspapers are well known for their criticisms and advertisers don’t want to take the chance of having an ad show up next to a bad review. As a result, with the economy down and companies looking to decrease risk, no one wants to chance a Kayne and Lynch incident. This is a special concern in hyperlocal ventures, where your advertisers may often be the people whom you are covering.

That’s where Amplify comes in. In the example shown, most semantic ad services would see the numerous occurrences of the word “baseball” and shunt an ad about baseball on to the page, exactly the opposite of what you’d want to do. Amplify, however, understood that a baseball ad was the opposite of what you’d want.

This sort of brand protection may be exactly the thing that newspapers need to bring confidence back to their advertisers and survive online. If we’re looking for a way to save journalism, Amplify and similar technology may be the key.

In case you couldn't tell, their presentation was very impressive.

Journalism From the Outside

2009-05-11T00:58:00.001-04:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This past weekend we had a great discussion in the #collegejourn chat about the future of journalism. Starting off talking about the recent congressional hearing, we quickly moved towards the subject of how newspapers should work on the web or in print.

I feel like that discussion, regarding the future of journalism is being mirrored all over, not just in Congress but in many college media groups as well. Unsurprisingly, I brought up some of the same points in tonight’s discussion that I have talking about where GMU’s Office of Student Media should go.

I always feel a bit unbalanced in these discussions. Though I’m passionate about what I think is wrong with journalism and newspapers, and how to fix it. I’m not sure that I’m actually a journalist. I sort of fell into journalism by virtue of being a good copy editor and simply ended up in Student Media. I didn’t come into college interested in being a journalist and, though it may end up that way, I don’t really have the goal of living as a journalist either. Journalism is fascinating and important but I have a completely different perspective that landed me here.

My specialty is interactive narrative. I got involved in journalism at GMU because it seemed like the Office of Student Media was one of the best ways to build my narrative side. That being said, my aim is really to work in the video game industry.

Even though I’ve written a lot of journalistic stories and blogged for a real news organization, I sometimes feel a bit like a faker. For the last year or so, even when working as the student newspaper’s managing editor, my gut reaction is to say: ‘Hey, I’m just a blogger, I’m complimented and all, but shouldn’t you talk to someone who’s an actual student journalist?’

I’ve had the same reaction more than once (including an apparent Freudian slip while writing this post) and it is only within the last few months that I’ve started to think of what I do for the Office of Student Media as something that might possibly be journalism and not just a weird way to do what I love, which is create interactive media. I’ve been extremely lucky because working in Student Media at GMU is the best experience in that regard I could have possibly had. However, it is still hard to think of myself as a journalist.

Now, I’m embroiled in the discussion about the future of journalism all the time, but I always feel a little bad. Because of my perspective, where I’ve come from and where I’m going, I’m either hobbled or freed in these conversations.

It can sometimes feel that, because I’m not necessarily a journalist at heart, I’m released from some core beliefs. I don’t believe that people can be impartial about anything and I don’t think that good journalism has to come without bias. Twice in the last week, when I was arguing about the future of the media, hard-core journalists responded “What about the Journalism?”

Either I’m horribly unethical or thinking outside the box with the idea of good journalism rising from a good platform. I’m not entirely sure yet.

In the discussion last week someone separated us out into Web People and Print People. Another participant noted that as being simplistic, but in retrospect, I think it wasn’t necessarily wrong.

This isn’t to say that the other side doesn’t get it, that print people can’t comprehend the idea of web journalism or be good journalists online (or that web people write bad stories). It just means that they have a different set of priorities then I do. One group is not better or worse than the other.

I think there are are some people who have come into this wanting to be web people and some who come in wanting to see their name in print. I’d bet that those other web people, like me, prefer Hunter Thomson to Bob Woodward, think that citizens can be journalists, and believe there is no difference between a Journalist and everyone else. We don’t care who is displaying our content, we care who is discussing it.

I think for print people it is more about the depth of their investigation, the breadth of their reporting, and the size of their word count. That sort of attitude is good, important and essential. Their satisfaction comes from a byline and from the knowledge that they did a good job. Which is not a bad thing at all.

Both sides need to exist. If we have either one without the other, I’m pretty sure everyone would be screwed. However, I think the web people are going to win out in the end, not because of the economy, but because for us, it’s more about empowering the people than anything else.

Patriot Games Episode 5 - Lost Halos

2009-04-26T20:29:00.000-04:00

Here's Episode 5, We talk briefly about the new Halo 3 maps, some old games, and Aram finally gets to play GTA4's DLC, The Lost and Damned

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

Patriot Games Episode 5

Patriot Games Episode 4 - The Pitt and the Prince

2009-04-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

Here's Episode 4, find out all you need to know about Fallout 3's DLC: The Pitt, get the final word (or letter) on Halo Wars, check out the new Prince of Persia and more.

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In episode four, Keith and Aram talk about the latest Fallout 3 DLC and the new Prince of Persia game.

Patriot Games Episode 4

Patriot Games Episode 3 - Halo Wars and Mirror's Edge

2009-04-26T20:24:00.001-04:00

Somewhat delayed due to Aram's jet-leg and subsequent sickness, here is Patriot Games episode 3!

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In this second podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new Halo Wars, what it means as Ensemble Studio's last game, and the pretty but difficult Mirror's Edge.

Patriot Games Episode 3

Patriot Games Episode 02

2009-04-26T20:18:00.001-04:00

Much delayed due to Aram's jet-leg and subsequent sickness, here is Patriot Games episode 2!

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In this second podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new RE5's stop-and-shoot style and the weird but cool Braid.

Patriot Games Episode 2

Enjoy!

First Episode of Patriot Games!

2009-03-02T22:03:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

Welcome to the first Patriot Games podcast. In this podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new Street Fighter and slightly dated Dead Space.

Download Podcast

Cross-posted from Connect2Mason

Connect2Mason Re-Launched

2009-02-24T17:31:00.001-05:00

Hello all,

Since there hasn't been much content up on this blog lately, I figured I'd point out what I have been working on. Over the last week, the Office of Student Media has re-launched Connect2Mason, a website built to cover breaking news and converge content from all of our various Student Media outlets. The new site is up and it has some pretty cool features.

For one thing, the new C2M has been upgraded from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, which brings its own share of problems. The biggest stumbling block we encountered was the change from Views 1 to Views 2, an essential module we use in C2M. However we've been able to solve most of the issues. I think the new site looks pretty good, and I'd love to hear feedback. The old site is visible at http://drupaltest.masonstudentmedia.com/ (though it doesn't really work, you can just see it). The new site is in place at http://connect2mason.com.

Some of the nifty new features include Facebook and Twitter integration and a very cool content slider.

Check out what I've been working on and tell me what you think.

On UPI: Israel Tweets the Gaza Conflict

2009-01-26T18:51:00.002-05:00

Late last month the Israeli Consulate in New York held a Twitter-based news conference, inviting anyone to ask questions of the Israeli government about the conflict in Gaza. While activity around the conference blossomed, President-elect Barack Obama's Twitter account has had little to say since Election Day last year.

The conflict in Gaza has become a growing international issue. Israel only recently sent in ground troops as part of Operation Cast Lead, while Hamas's missiles have slowly made their way deeper into Israel than ever before. Though the Israeli government has declared a cease-fire for the operation, the conflict -- and the conversation surrounding it -- has continued. The repercussions have become global as supporters on both sides broadcast their sentiments publicly over the Internet.

Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, Twitter, a micro blogging service that limits posts to 140 characters, has been a major forum for users to constantly debate and report on the conflict, marking relevant comments with the hash-tag #gaza in order to indicate the ongoing conversation. David Saranga, the consul of media and public affairs for the Israeli Consulate in New York, took notice of the conversation.

…

Read the rest of my article about Twitter’s potential to change the face of public policy at UPI.com.

Three overplayed songs I love anyway

2009-01-23T00:39:00.002-05:00

[Trying out an intresting service called Plinky, it looks like a good way to have fun blogging.]

Don't Stop Believing by Journey

Who can resist singing along to this one?

Elevation by U2

The part where Bono screams Elevation.. obviously.

Paradise By The Dashboard Light by Meat Loaf

"Stop Right There! I Gotta Know Right Now!" Yea, combines two great voices, picks up some different singing styles. Oh, and excellent Baseball metaphors.

How the Israeli Consulate Brought the State to the People

2008-12-31T20:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Tuesday, December 30, 2008, was a landmark for Twitter as a service and for the world of digital public policy. The Israeli Consulate in New York held a citizens press conference on Twitter. Lasting two hours, it engaged everyone on Twitter, led trending topics, and allowed Israel to directly answer questions from one of the web’s biggest communities.

David Saranga, consul of media and public affairs in New York, is the primary force behind the Twitter conference. Consul Saranga is no stranger to the world of new media; he began the consulate’s social networking initiative in 2006. He also was the mind behind the ‘beer ‘n’ babes’ Maxim in Israel campaign.

“There is a lot of public interest regarding the operations in Israel,” Saranga said. “So we decided that if these people want to know about the events in Israel, the best way to do it is to ask us directly.”

Brave words, considering that some of the people he was seeking to engage in conversation had been standing outside his office the day before the conference with signs saying “Allah (SWT) will destroy the terrorist state of Israel.” Consul Saranga wasn’t worried.

“I don’t have a problem with any question,” he said.

“It’s the right of everyone to be informed and to hear what the people on the Israeli side will have to say,” Saranga emphasized.

With its 140 character limit, at first glance Twitter seems an odd choice for a Q&A, but there were good reasons for the choice.

“I definitely think that Twitter is on the ascent,” said Joshua S. Fouts the chief global strategist for Dancing Ink Productions and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Fouts is is currently working on a report for the Obama administration on Understanding Islam in Virtual Worlds. “It allows busy people to check in and see their questions in a time space that is more in-keeping with their flexibility or availability.”

“I think this [Twitter] is just another great avenue for communication,” said Tamar Weinberg, a blogger and social media consultant, who does some pro-bono consulting for the New York-based Israeli Consulate. “If there is one broadcast tool that everyone in the world should be using, maybe it should be Twitter.”

There were good PR reasons for using Twitter as well.

“Exposure for Twitter is heightened, especially among those who are less likely to use traditional media to get this kind of news,” Weinberg said.

Fouts has worked on communicating public policy through new media for the US State department in the 1990s.

“The more that governments steps outside of their comfort zones and experiments with the rapidly evolving technology, the better,” he said. “It behooves governments to use taxpayer dollars in a way that is current with the way the rest of the world is communicating.”

News of the event worked well for the Consulate--increasing its Twitter followers, hits on their websites, and visitors to their other web properties. Not only that, but people began to ask if this was the event that would make Twitter mainstream, resulting in coverage from a number of popular sources including Boing Boing, Wired and ArsTechnica.

Weinberg pointed out one of the best indications that the Consulate’s event was really bringing Twitter to the common man, or in this case, mom.

The Twitter conference began promptly at 1 p.m., but it was rough going at first. Shel Israel, a social media and Twitter expert who had intended to retweet the entire conference, publicly left 30 minutes into the event, tweeting “No real chance for interchange of ideas or to gain new insights. I'm checking out.”

At that point the Consulate’s twitter account was typing out answers about every five minutes, in comparison to the dozens of questions coming in every single minute. In addition to that, the first answers lacked the hash-tag marking them as part of the #askisrael topic, forcing many to turn to Tweet Grid, TweetDeck, FriendFeed or Tweettree to track the whole conversation.

Even with a program like Tweet Grid, some of the answers were phrased confusingly, as the Consulate attempted to compress highly complex discussions into 140 characters, including this early example: “MV DIg dnt respond 2 Calls 2 hult & rammed an IDF ship. it was escorted out 2 intl waters. till this opt. ships were let.” Which, with some work, might translate to “Medical Vessel Dignity didn’t respond to calls to halt and rammed an IDF ship. It was escorted out into international water. Until this operation, ships were let in.”

However, by 2:08 p.m., ‘askisrael’ was the top trending topic on TwitScoop, as ever increasing numbers of Twitter members joined the discussion and the Consulate’s replies increased in frequency and coherency.

“We really try to get as many questions as we can. We had so many of them and we tried to separate between the repeated questions and the original ones.” said Moriel Schottlender, the internet applications development manager for the consulate general of Israel in New York, one of the primary organizers for the event. “This was a little bigger than what we thought in terms of the amount of people that asked questions.”

With so many questions, even with a team behind the account the Consulate couldn’t keep up and had to ask for patience.

Trying to keep up with all the questions, the single twitter account had around five people running the show. Schottlender used TweetDeck to track and organize the questions. Then the other team members wrote down and compressed Consul Saranga’s answers and sent them back for Schottlender to post online. When the group realized just how large the pool of questions they had to deal with was, they sent another member to Twitter’s web interface to help track questions and send tweets.

“The capacity to manage the flow of questions going through is often times difficult.” Fouts said. “Twitter, in particular, allows the people who are hosting the questions to receive and organize them in a way that is more structured and it allows the participants to participate in a way that is more manageable for them, because its asynchronous.”

Schottlender was familiar with TweetDeck and found it the best tool for the job for a number of reasons.

“We expected a lot of questions,” Schottlender said. “We needed something to organize the questions, direct messages and the page for the hash-tag and to be able to see everything in real time. TweetDeck is very good at that, it has all the columns you can define in advance.”

Schottlender also noted the URL shortening tool and TweetShrink as useful features.

“The answers, a lot of times, are more complicated than 140 characters and it took some practice,” she said.

However, that difficulty also turned out to be an advantage.

“The fact that you have to limit yourself to 140 characters makes it necessary to answer in a precise way in a very clear way and to the point, when it comes to the message,” Saranga said. “The fact that we had to limit ourselves to 140 characters was a challenge that, at the end of the day, helped us to shape the message in a very clear an concrete way.”

“Twitter forces the writers, both the people asking and answering the questions, to be very precise about their questions,” Joshua Fouts explained. “From a journalistic standpoint, that’s always been what journalism is interested in, how do you get your lede down to the narrows amount of words possible.”
Between 1 and 3 p.m., the consulate had tweeted almost 70 times, answering around 60 questions. The conference left many community members satisfied.

“We were very happy to see that people were taking the time to ask serious questions,” Schottlender said. “We were hoping that people would communicate with us and join in on the discussion and in that aspect our hopes were met.”

The event generated a lot of interest in the Consulate and the sources it linked from its blog.

“The press conference on Twitter brought to us a lot of traffic in numbers we haven’t seen in the past,” Saranga confirmed. “People, at the end of the day, got what they wanted, more information from a reliable source about the events that are taking place in the Gaza Strip and from what I see, and the debate I see afterwards, I see that people are really satisfied.”

“Around 2000 followers in the less then 24 hours, since we just opened the account,” Saranga said. “I think it’s a good number.”

The conference tried something new on a technical level and succeeded.

“There was an overwhelming number of people that participated in it created an overload of questions which illustrated the interest in both the topic and the fact that presenting the topic in the Twitter venue was something that people thought was accessible enough, worldwide, for them to be a part of.” Fouts said. “It was also successful from a public diplomacy and public relations standpoint, it cast the Israeli consulate in a very technologically progressive light.”

What is in the future for the Israeli Consulate and for Twitter?

Hear more about Fouts’ project Understanding Islam in Virtual Worlds and what it means for the future.

Fouts foresees similar techniques being used in the future. He looks forward to seeing similar techniques in the Obama administration once he releases his report, which includes recommendations on how to use virtual worlds to better understand Islam.

“What social networking tools provide that traditional media doesn’t is it empowers citizens to be a part of the discourse,” Fouts said.

“Before the press conference was announced, no one really knew the existence of the blog, or the consulate’s presence on Twitter,” Weinberg said. “The number of followers completely blossomed.”

“I was very very happy to see the responses of the Twitter community,” said Schottlender. “We would want to use more then TweetDeck for the next time. We might want to use a shorter tag. These are technical things we learn as we go.”

Schottlender is considering a number of ways to improve the experience for all involved.

“We couldn’t really directly reply to a tweet, only to a user, because there was a delay,” she said. “We could use something that will help us stay on top of the multiple questions and answers while keeping the hierarchy.”

The functions Schottlender needs are in the Twitter API, but real-time access isn’t easy.

“I am considering building our own Twitter application. We need something that allows us to track questions online but allow for multiple users to type in final answers. Given the amount of questions we encountered—that might involve developing something of our own.”

On the topic of a second press conference, Saranga was positive that he would want a second one.
“Yes, absolutely yes.”

Saranga sees many future uses for the Twitter account.

“After the operation will end, we are going to go back and think and share our views about Israel, about different aspects of Israel,” he said. “Whether it’s about Israeli society, which is a multi-cultural society, whether it is about Tel Aviv, which is the capital of lifestyle today and the next hot spot when it comes to other aspects, I hope we can dialogue with people about the different ecological achievements of Israel and so on and so forth. I have no doubt that this platform will remain there for us to share Israel with the people out there in the world.”

Saranga proud to lead the way in governmental use of Twitter.

“We are pioneers in this experience.”

Hear More!

You can listen to further comments from the people in this article in the following podcast. This is the short version, so click the RSS link on the side and subscribe to the blog if you want to know when the longer version comes out.

(I apologize for any audio glitches, I’ve been having some bandwidth problems.)

Download Podcast

Video and Photo by the Israeli Consulate

Talking about the #AskIsrael Conference

2008-12-30T16:38:00.001-05:00

I’ve just finished speaking with Consul David Saranga and Moriel Schottlender, Internet Applications Development Manager at the Consulate about the #AskIsrael Twitter Conference. They both were very pleased with the results.

I’m compiling the text and audio for the article now. It should go up soon. I found the conference fascinating. For the most part, the Twitter community seemed very interested in the event and appreciated Israel, as a governmental entity, reaching out on Twitter.

The #AskIsrael Conference

2008-12-30T14:58:00.001-05:00

I’m currently watching New York Israeli Consulate’s Twitter conference wind down. I’m tracking the thing using as many ways to get a handle on the thread of the conversation as possible. Right now the two top methods are TweetDeck and Tweet Grid.

There are a lot of questions being asked and some of them, unfortunately are little more then posturing. The Consulate seems to be trying to keep up, but when questions are being thrown at you many times a second.

The event is scheduled to end in about 5 min, I’m supposed to call them shortly thereafter.

Sorting the Signal to Noise right now. Most people, whether they support Israel or not, seem to be appreciating the event and that Israel is trying to communicate this way.

Stay tuned for the full article!

Old vs New Media - Creative Commons, Wikipeidia and Post Scraping - What is Grand Theft Content?

2008-12-08T02:56:00.011-05:00

So earlier today , my girlfriend PG found that one of the photos she had allowed us to use in the Mason Votes project had ended up on Wikipedia. As you can see, if you read the post, she was upset.

Creative Commons

I make it my policy that whenever I am in charge of managing the content for one of the student groups I work with in my job as Technology Manager for the Office of Student Media, I put their content (with their knowledge of course) under a Creative Commons license that permits sharing as long as it has been attributed. This blog and all of my personal content is also under CC. PG's photos, like all of the photos we put up on Mason Votes' Flickr page , were under Creative Commons.

There are two reasons I argue for CC - the first is that if someone really wants to steal your content on the web, they'll do it. At least with CC, people tend to be a bit more polite and they provide some sort of credit. The second reason is because I honestly believe that this is the way the future is going. I think that a lack of flexibility with their content is the very reason news sources are failing. I believe that this is one, if not the only, central issue in the argument between new and old journalism.

My girl knows what she's talking about!

This is not to say that PG's argument is without merit, I understand where she's coming from and she is certainly not alone. In fact, at the same time she was discovering her photo on Wikipedia, Allen Stern (of popular blog CenterNetworks ) was accusing Jason Goldberg (of popular social news site Social Median) of "Grand Theft Content." The question being argued between the two and the one between PG and I are essentially the same: Should content providers get to have real control over their content? Not only that, but should they want to?

Both PG and Allen Stern make their points well, I'm not going to repeat them here beyond that they believe in having complete control over how their content is used, especially when its use doesn't seem to aid their brand. In Stern's case he believes it takes traffic off of his website and away from his advertisers. PG's believes that free distribution of content smacks of amateurism and doesn't contribute to (for lack of a better term) her personal brand. In this they would both find many friends in the currently existing world of journalism. Most newspapers, wire services, and corporate media organizations agree with this point of view.

Old Media / New Media

There's one problem, these groups are failing. Newspapers are folding left and right and traditional "old media" content providers are hiking up their pants and tightening their belts significantly. So much so that for the first time the AP is being truly challenged by another service. In fact, AP President and CEO Tom Curley has identified CNN's wire service as a "major threat." Let me give it to you straight, the old media is DYING. They can still recover, make up their profits and survive this downturn, but if they do so, they will come out the other end as new media.

There's a reason the traditional media is dying out.

With the economy in shambles and even online display ad rates, once considered to be the end-all of online advertising, are falling. It's little surprise that traditional outlets are reeling, all the ways that they have considered doing advertising for the last century are suddenly not working. They need to find something new, but they are stuck in the middle of a box. They are stuck in a box that was so well insulated with money for the past few decades that they didn't even know it was a box. But now all they can see are a bunch of walls closing in and they have no idea what to do. Even members of the new media are stuck in this box and they are feeling the pain too.

It's time to let go...

Content creators all over need to give up the ghost of control over their content. Your content has skipped out of the narrow frame you made it in and left for the web, trying to exert this determined control that Stern and the mainstream media want over their content is insanity. Yes, you can sue bloggers, cut out web services, and make things difficult, but the only person you are hurting is yourself. There's going to come a point when the old media doesn't have the money to threaten anyone anymore. When that time comes, they need to realize that they have to add value to their content in the content otherwise they are SCREWED.

Think about this... how many websites do you read who publish partial posts in their RSS stream? I know that's the reason I stopped reading The Escapist regularly and it's why I mostly ignore BBC or The Registrar. These publications, along with Stern, are thinking about the old model, the concept of people picking their morning paper off the driveway and sitting around the water-cooler discussing the latest articles. The internet doesn't work that way. It's a billion people standing around a million water-coolers trying to pick out one sentence from the clamor that interests them. If you're not letting as many people shout out your sentence as loudly as possible then you are missing an opportunity, it doesn't matter if you're there to hear the other people say it. Everything adds value to your brand.

News sources don't stand on their own, they bring in traffic through Digg, FriendFeed, Facebook, Social Median, Google Reader, and all the rest. They gain attention when their content is used in blog posts and people speak to them through a thousand services. They gain traffic when they speak back. In the new world, brands gain value by being distributed, not closeted.

Ironically, one of the most interesting conversations on this is happening through comments on Allen Stern's tweet of the story through FriendFeed. There's a reason why. FriendFeed is a community, and as an online community it has a diverse membership. If Stern were to keep his post on his blog and not let it out anywhere else, it would only be seen by a narrow niche that was visiting his website. But on FriendFeed there are technology people, photographers, social media bloggers, mommy bloggers, deviantArt users, twitter addicts, fiction writers, rappers, and so many more. By posting his content to FriendFeed, Stern has access to so many more people then he might otherwise reach. The same happens when he posts on Twitter or Social Median.

Isn't the point of this for people to see your work? If no one sees what photos you take or what articles you write, what's the point? Site hits come from two things - Quality content and interaction. The two things that mainstream media lacks the most. It's no wonder their failing.

This part is for sharing on Social Median!

The old media is dying. If the rest of us don't want to follow suit, here's what we need to realize:

You must create quality content to maintain a brand on the internet. Good pictures, good stories, good video, good content. If you maintain good quality, that will bring people to you.
Conversations everywhere mean more people seeing and sharing your content. That means more people looking to you to provide future content.
You can't keep conversations around your content on your site, but you can go out there and become part of the conversation. If you want what you're doing to work, this is a necessity.
Don't try to maintain that journalistic veneer of professionalism. Put simply: When the newspapers do less in depth coverage then the bloggers, you're all on the same level. If you distance yourself from your readers, it means you don't care about them. Then they don't care about you and they don't care about your content. Then they're gone. The web is the great leveler, take advantage of it!

That's it, all that's left is to paraphrase Neo - "Free your content!" Sharing, remixing, reusing, commenting, mashing it all up, this creates an environment that is beneficial for everyone. You are on the internet (and no, you don't have a choice, you have to be on the internet), you don't control your content, that's just the way it works. If you fight that, it only hurts you and your readers. The traffic is yours to lose.

PS: I bet Allen Stern got a serious up-kick in his traffic from this whole deal. :P

Edit: You can find more conversation around this blog at: Social | Median and FriendFeed.

Wait, So Facebook Dictates Reality?

2008-11-21T21:14:00.001-05:00

I recently read a post by Robin Cannon on "Why Facebook is Useless." It was very well written and upon my first read, I sort of agreed with the points made. However, I was at an event earlier today and something happened to change my mind.

I was sitting at a group dinner at the campus' Hillel when someone mentioned it was National Hug a Mexican day. "Ok," says I. "Why is it Hug a Mexican Day?"

"It says so on Facebook," came the matter of fact response.

As is frequently the case when a member of a previous generation talks about the tools and activities of my peers in "Generation i" (we'll get to why we are called that in a later post) the situation is something like the scene in Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn. We are ships passing in a nebula, we're on the same axis, but different levels.

The reason why Facebook is successful and why it will likely continue to be so is because it is a social network where no one cares about you. On the web, an environment where there are A-lists and web celebrities, Facebook is the place where everyone is the same. You're Facebook existence isn't about adding value to the community, the system isn't built that way (as a few in-Facebook bloggers have found out). The Facebook experience is about finding how to connect somewhere else.

A less obscure comparison: In FriendFeed, your value as a member is determined by the wealth and quality of your contributions to the community. The same is true in most social networks. On Facebook, your value comes from what you add to yourself. It is like a social business card. The great bulk of Facebook users are there to check each other out, to find out what people are doing, and to see just how hot the girl next door is, but all this in order to compare it to what the user is doing and how to get in on that action. On Facebook, no one cares about groups, blogs, or talking to each other. When you are on Facebook it is all about YOU.

There is a reason why the biggest thing on the average Facebook wall is the photo. The reason people are on Facebook is to show themselves off and to see what other people are showing off, not to contribute. Facebook is about pushing the events that you are doing to gain cred for yourself or your organization. It's not creating content, it is creating personal radiance.

Let's take it back to my story. Hug a Mexican Day is an event that was created to complement Hug a Jew Day. Hug a Jew Day is an event that was created in relation to the anniversary of "the night of broken glass" which was the beginning of the Holocaust. But the people who created Hug a Mexican Day didn't know that. Most of the people in Hug a Jew Day didn't know that either, they just hit "Join Event" when their friend invited them to it. But here's the thing, It doesn't matter. People hugged their Mexican friends anyway.

Facebook dictates what happens in the real lives of many thousands of High School and College students, it is responsible for where they go, when they go, and who they hang out with. That's why Facebook is going to be sticking around a lot longer then anyone expects.

Work It - Links on Games and Working in the Industry

2008-11-17T18:09:00.000-05:00

Here's a collection of links to some of the most interesting articles of last week. The overall theme is video games, what they do, how they do them, and how you can get into building them. Check out some very good articles below.

"Games as Language Systems " - Moving Pixels has a very interesting article up comparing the design of video games to the design of languages. This article aims to help you understand that there are many elements through which a player expresses themselves in a game and how they come together.
"Steal from Fable II! Using actors and writers in games " - The ever excellent Sande Chen & Anne Toole look at Fable II's use of actors. The Writers Cabal tells you how and why it matters.
"Interactive Journalism " - Hit Self-Destruct carries this article wondering what the hell happened to in-depth journalism. This article focuses on game journalists and what they've missed.
"Interview: Daniel James on Three Rings' Whirled " - Meet the man behind Whirled a... something ... that is "everything from a Flash game creation tool to a virtual world where people can hang out in rooms and stuff." Is Whirled looking to become 'the social' for gamers, or is it something else entirely?
"Little Big Mess " - Oh, Sean Sands, sometimes you out and out insult me and sometimes you write a damn good editorial. This is one of those good times. Sands' article on The Escapist asks an important question: For a game built on community content, why is Sony failing to communicate with it's Little Big Planet users?
"Decision Paralysis, Or Why I Can't Get Out Of Vault 101 " - Leigh Alexander always writes interesting articles, and this is no exception. Sexy Videogameland takes a look at decision making in video games and what happens when the options increase for "choice in games." Also, this article is the reason I am know about to boot up Fallout 3.

6 Ways Evernote Fails and the 1 Reason I Don't Uninstall It

2008-11-10T19:46:00.007-05:00

The problem with Evernote is that it is absolutely horrible at taking notes. Actually there are more problems than just that, but the core of the issue is that, for a program that has the word 'note' in its name, it is pretty bad at just that.

For those of you not in the know, Evernote is an application for Macs, PCs and iPhones that is built for users to "Capture. Sync. Find" and "remember everything." This sounded pretty cool to me, even without an iPhone. There was one problem, I already use note-taking software. OneNote has been my digital life partner since I first discovered it and I consider it the one piece of essential software on my computer. I use Microsoft's OneNote for everything from work to play and its database goes deep.

However, right before the semester began, my aging Acer laptop literally melted down and I lost an entire summer's worth of notes. It was devastating. I hadn't backed up all of my OneNote directory and to lose as much as I did was horrifying. Evernote's ability to sync up to the web was so attractive that I considered buying a subscription right away.

I decided it would only be fair to try the two products, side by side. So, I put OneNote on my new computer and restored my last backup. Then I installed Evernote and decided to split my classes between them. Evernote, I figured, should be targeted towards the student market segment, so it should work just fine.

The first thing I tried to do was import some of my old OneNote notebooks into the program. This did not work very well. OneNote uses a system recessed pages and my average notebook has sub-pages within pages within tabs. This just didn't import into Evernote in a usable manor. That plan nixed, I went on to use Evernote in two out of my five classes.

The top six problems I encountered:

I missed half of my first class just trying to figure out how to add bulleted lists without copying and pasting them from another program. Also, I found that once I'd created a bullet, increasing the indent was an exercise in annoyance and using enter to exit out of indented lists was counter-intuitive.
Manipulating indents was a huge pain, because Evernote created them as a set of spaces.
Tagging my notes was a waste of time compared to the ability to recess notes in OneNote. I do like tagging, but doing so in class is a waste of time. Putting in enough tags to make class notes useful takes forever and not doing so makes notes impossible to find. I take notes because later I know I'm not going to remember what is in them, without tags I wouldn't know what to search for.
Navigation was both counter-intuitive and difficult. There is a reason no one has ever tried to use two scroll bars for one axis before and it made navigating longer notes simply impossible, which had me almost screaming in frustration during mid-term reviews.
It had no sense of citation and pasting content in from other programs was just weird, often causing odd paragraph spacing.
Without OneNote's multi-level structure, notes were just hard to find. Even with a search bar.

One of Evernote's unique features is its ability to take photos, recognize text, and make them searchable. Everything I do on the web is already tagged and categorized. I never had the opportunity to use this feature of Evernote in the wild. When is there anything I need to take a picture of that I couldn't just type out on my cell phone or text to twitter? I can even take a voice memo if I need to. What would I ever need to use this feature for? Every example I've seen has been on the level of "oh this is cool" but I've yet to see a useful photo. I certainly haven't encountered one myself.

I already tag websites through services like Delicious, Digg, Friendfeed and Ma.gnolia and photos in Facebook, Picasa and Flickr; why would I want to keep them on my hard drive just to search their images? How much textual information is kept in images that this would even matter?

Is Evernote riding a hot air balloon of hype to the top?

I can't imagine Evernote could ever become anything but a minor player without extensive adoption in the student community. Most PC users don't know enough to care about the synchronize feature or are knowledgeable enough to use the photo feature if they even had the opportunity. With that in mined the only other thing Evernote has going for it is the writing recognition for tablets. One problem--almost all Tablet PCs ship with a very good handwriting-input program--OneNote.

The Apple student

The argument can be made that Evernote has a good chance with the growing segment of students using Apple computers, as OneNote doesn't exist outside of Windows. However, almost all students who have Apples don't bring them to class because of their weight and would never need a note-taking program. Of course there's also the fact that for what the average student needs to do, Apple computers are high on price and low on function. While there was an increase in Mac users with this year's freshman class, network compatibility problems and software issues have been driving them away. With the economy in the shape it is, I expect we will see a significantly smaller number of new students with Apple laptops next year.

Where's the beef?

If all this is true and Evernote fails in appealing to what should be (in my opinion at least) its target market segment, who is it appealing to and why is there all this hype?

The reason Evernote has been so noticeable as of late is for one reason (besides the iPhone):

It is the perfect tool for hard-core bloggers who like pulling random info from the web to write about and sharing it with their audience and don't like paying for OneNote or use Macs. These happen to be the same people who are writing the reviews. Unfortunately this function is essentially duplicated with a website like FriendFeed. This begs the question: what are people using it for?

Why is it still installed on my computer?

I discovered one amazing use for Evernote. Writing fiction. Especially this month, which is National Novel Writing Month. Evernote's lack of formatting options, non-existent spell-check, and reassuring synchronization mean that this is a perfect tool for short fiction or speed writers. If Evernote added a word-count tool, I have no doubt they'd be able to capture the NaNoWriMo crowd with ease.

Other than that, I don't understand what possible real-life use people have for Evernote, unless they own an iPhone. As for its future? I can't see it going far without some serious changes, no matter how many people sign up for the service. No one will pay for it unless it is useful as a tool for... well... notetaking.

I'd like to know, how are you using Evernote? Is it in a way that actually helps your workflow or is it just a toy? I'm open to being proved wrong, but I just can't see a way that Evernote in its current form can succeed as anything but a plaything for the techno-elite and perhaps some savvy writers.

I really wanted to like Evernote, it seemed like such a good idea, but I couldn't. After NaNoWriMo, I don't see myself using it again.

Cool Things... Back to Work! [A Grim Doc]

2008-11-06T17:34:00.000-05:00

Huzzah! The election is over and now I can finally put Mason Votes to rest. By the end of the project we had built a student-powered election map. At the very end we had a very cool live video showing students half-way to rioting in celebration of Obama. But I'm also posting because I found something pretty cool:

Double Fine has posted the original Grim Fandango puzzle document. It is an interesting read, if you are interested in game design you may want to check it out.

Using Lijit to Educate Students on the Election

2008-10-26T10:32:00.005-04:00

I shot off an e-mail to Tara, the Community Catalyst (which, by the way, is one of the coolest job titles I've ever seen) for Lijit thanking her company for how helpful the Lijit search tool has been in George Mason University's Mason Votes project. I figured I'd also take a moment here on my blog to detail just how Mason Votes has been using Lijit's search tool and why it matters so much.

For those of you who don't know, Lijit is a social search tool that allows users to search a site and it's social networks and associated friends. You can also see it right here on this blog.

When I was tasked with adding overall search functionality to Mason Votes, at first, I wasn't sure what to do. But then, I realized Lijit was the perfect solution for Mason Votes' search.

Mason Votes' content is spread out among a number of social networks, including Flickr and YouTube. We also have George Mason University students who create media for us and for our affiliates, UWIRE and UPI. On top of all that, a number of the University departments that make up the Mason Votes committee, which partly oversees the website, also have resources about the election.

So I put Lijit up on our front page and integrated it into our WordPress install. Initially, we had some issues with it properly indexing our Flickr photos, but I contacted Lijit's support people and they fixed it right away, allowing users to initiate a search both for blog posts and every photo we took that had to do with that post.

Lijit has been driving people to look at our content more in depth and all across our social network, unifying Mason Votes content in one search field. The committee loves Lijit because it includes their departments in the search. Writers love Lijit because they can come to one place to find all of their election content. Photographers love it because they can find all of their photos.

One of the greatest features we've been able to take advantage of is being able to see, in detail, what people are searching for that brings them to our site and what they search for on our site. We can convert search terms into more hits by increasing our blogging on what people are most interested in. This drives traffic to the site and means satisfied readers, because we write about what they care about.

On an even more satisfying level, I've sat down with some of our writers and we've seen their parents coming in (we can tell by the location of incoming searches and search terms) and finding all the content their kids have been creating for Mason Votes.

It doesn't get better than that.

I'd like to publicly thank Lijit and their search service, because they've made Mason Votes a much better site then it ever could have been otherwise. Without Lijit, so much of our content would have likely remained unseen. Lijit is a great example of how to really use the social web to unify your content and, most relevant of all in this case, to provide educational information. Thanks!

Facebook Bans News of SpeedDate.com

2008-10-24T09:33:00.003-04:00

So, if you've been keeping an eye on Facebook news you may have noticed ReadWriteWeb's article "Speed Dating on the Oregon Trail." I'm the type of person who likes to keep their friends up to date on news so they don't, say, get surprised by opening up their favorite app and seeing a speed dating service instead of the game they downloaded it for and I tried to post a note about this news. However, Facebook is apparently censoring any mention of SpeedDate.com.

As you can see above any note post that contains "SpeedDate.com" is automatically prevented from being posted. Instead you get a brief warning saying that "Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content" and followed by "Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users."

To double check I tried posting a note that only said "SpeedDate.com" and got the same error. All this says is Facebook users, something difficult to double check. Who is trying to block news of SpeedDate.com from being distributed on Facebook? Considering that they are now an App provider, if I were the paranoid type, I'd say this bordered on conspiracy.

What is the method by which abusive content on Facebook is determined and, if this website has been determined to be abusive by Facebook, why the hell are they letting them put up an app? Is Facebook suppressing news of the app change?

How One University Uses Social Media to Help Make Student Votes Count.

2008-10-05T14:06:00.006-04:00

This election year, George Mason University has been using openly available social media tools to help inform, educate, and coordinate its students. Using websites like FeedBurner, FriendFeed, YouTube, Feed.Informer, Lijit, Yahoo Pipes and Facebook combined with open tools, including WordPress, http://masonvotes.gmu.edu is a website built by students, for students, to create an easily accessible source for the information they need to know that exists in the spaces they use. We use audio and video podcasts , crowd-sourced Twitter reporting , and blog posts to create up-to-the-minute reports on the most important events of the election.

As you may have noticed, there has been a significant gap in my blogging over the past month or so. As promised, there is a reason. I've been working with students and administrators at George Mason University, where I am a student myself, to build a website that provides students with everything they need to know to register to vote and make an informed decision this election. I think what we've created here, a convergence of real-world activism, with the committee behind the website creating on-campus election events, and new media coverage, is something that is quite unique in the education sphere.

The website consists of two components: the front page, and a WordPress-powered blog. The front page has three modes. The regular mode which shows a front page story and a number of other stories. There is a Twitter mode as well, during major election events, such as McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate, the main story area turns into a java-based Twitter window, which shows a team of students' twitter commentary on the event as it is happening. The third mode opens up a div box over the site with a CoverItLive live blog. We use CoverItLive as a live blogging tool for commentary and photos of major election events that have an accompanying on-campus component. For all of the acceptance speeches and the debates, the University has thrown watch parties in our main student center, where anyone can gather and watch the event on a big screen, simultaneously, Mason Votes runs a liveblog online with photos (from Flickr ) of the event and bi-partisan commentary.

Honey, I'm home...

2008-09-24T14:03:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone. I've been very busy, which explains the lack of posts.

What I've been busy on has been a pretty cool project, and just yesterday I put out v1.0. So, stay tuned and I'll be writing all about it.

Don't touch that dial!