Thing 24

still playing around. My guess is that it will take a while for me to be happy. Getting some of the widgets to hold has been a bit annoying.

I am also playing around with HTML to manipulate the margins etc. Man, HTML is not intuative to thickheaded people like me. Maybe because I'm really bad at language HTML doesn't come naturally.

On another Blogger page I have, I link to a Google Calendar so my friends can see the schedule of when we are getting together. That works really well but it was a pain in the keaster to get up and running.

I'll keep modifying but I think I'm going on to step 25 at the same time. This "thing" looks like an on-going project.

not thing 23 just news... or is is it?

The microcosim that is my world is finally slowing down. With birthdays, family events, housing sales and the end of school this is the first time I've had to just sit. Wow. Summer really does start at the solstace. :)

Anyway. I'm getting back into this blog for the new 23 and thought I would share some nerdy news.

Not sure if your a Face book or a My space fan. If you do Myspace then look out... Major cuts and thinning of the ologopoly that is social blogging/journaling/networking.

My space is going to have some trouble....

Last week, MySpace trimmed 30 percent of its staff in the US as the social network looks to become a more “efficient and nimble team-oriented company.” Apparently that goal also includes massive cutbacks abroad, as the company announced this morning that it is trimming a whopping 2/3rds of its international staff.

MySpace will eliminate 300 of its 450 staff members outside the US, as well as close “at least 4” of its international offices. Although the social network remains a big player overseas, today’s news comes as no surprise, as much like in the US, MySpace has fallen behind Facebook in most other countries.

For its part, MySpace blames the cut backs on the organization having become too bloated under its past leadership. CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement:

“With roughly half of MySpace’s total user base coming from outside the U.S., maintaining productive and efficient operations in our international markets is important to users worldwide and our immediate financial strength.”

“As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions. Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.”

While that sounds like the typical reasoning for a layoff, as anyone who follows the numbers knows, the truth of the matter is that the staff only became too large because the social network started shrinking. Layoffs will help get costs more in line with reduced revenue, but for the site to save itself, it needs to define what exactly is going to “transform” it back into a winner. And that remains far from clear.

Thing 23: Recap and reflection

I really liked the variety of technology that we were introduced to.  Even though I thought they had spread out some of the issues where there needn't have been.  It was a great way to discover and an excuse to play with some features I had never had time to play with.

Thank you, Mike, for your patiance with my venting about some programs.  I am quite open minded and like to try a whole slough of new software/webaps but when I have already spent a year or more playing with one and don't like... I let people know.

I wish we (as a class) spent more time commenting on other peoples blogs.  That would have been nice to see what other were doing.  I am to blame as well.  I commented on other for steps 1-4 but then stoped.  Perhaps because I got just a tad busy this summer, or because there was really no reciprication, or like most people I started working and didn't engage the others around me.  Not sure.. something to ponder about.

I say we keep challenging each other to try new software.  I'll keep sending out my e-mails over the school year and lets hope people keep sending them to me.

Thanks Mike.

Thing 22: Keeping Up

I had to laugh at this post.  The idea of being able to keep is neigh impossible.   There are thousands of new widgets, tools, software, webapps per year.  However, by having a high interest and the willingness to try new programs one can at least be on the front end of things.

I attribute on-line tool development to be sort of like writing novels.  90% of them are terrible, they are written poorly, bad plot etc.  So you have to wade through all the bad books before you find the gems.  The same is true for new computer technology and development.

By continuing to challenge ones self and trying to utilize the tools found in the classroom puts you on par with the person who likes a genre of literature and so reads everything they can.  They put down a lot of books, finish others but don't like... but with the ones they really like, they spread the word.

That is sort of our charge.  We need to pick up that new piece of software, try that new application and most of them we will uninstall, or stop using.  But the few that we find and really like we will spread the word.  No matter how good we are at doing this, a colleage will find something that we missed and share it with us.  Thus that sharing (thus the usefulness of comunicating via e-mail or network sites like ning).

Keeping up is about:

• trying
• evaluating
• sharing
• staying on line
• comunicating

I promise that I will continue to do all of these things and more.

Thing 21: Beyond Myspace

Although crude in its appearance and user interface, I am having larger hopes for Ning.  

The fact that it self filters by definition will help.  This will limit the number of lurkers and "false friends" from being part of the system.  It keeps people of like issues together, I like that.  Not only that, but it has better privacy for setting up "by invitation only". 

The interface is really crude and visually it is terrible.  However Ning has some potential.  I will continue to play with it and see what is available.

I didn't really spend much time with Gather or with Webjunction.  There is this whole time, signing up for one more accunt, one more password, setting up another avitar... account information etc.  So I let them go.  But Gather is looking like an even better option than Ning.  I'll have to do some more exploring to see what is looking good to me.

Perhaps my attitude will change...

Thing 20: Social Networks

My hatred of Myspace has been a pent up volcano waiting to burst.  You have let me unleash my anger and so now let me rail against this cancer.  I can quickly sum my thoughts on the topic up:

• It is ugly. Really, really ugly. Letting 100 million people with no formal design training loose on your eyeballs is not an enjoyable user experience.
• The place is basically a dive bar/meat market at 1:45am- everyone’s ugly, wasted, and desperate to hook up. The band playing (loudly) is terrible, and there are a few mostly naked girls taking pictures of themselves standing on the bar. And the bouncer at the door sucks, so there’s some 12yr olds running around making a lot of really annoying small talk. (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything)
• The spam accounts/messages/comments/bulletins are unbearable

For the above-stated reasons, I started using Facebook just to try it out and to see what all the hubub was about, and I genuinely liked it at first. The UI is clean and your network is closed and protected, so you really do only know the people in your friends list- no fake accounts or rampant stupidity or annoying bands. Then they opened the site up to 3rd party developers, and the whole thing just went to pieces (for me at least).

I started getting all kinds of messages, invites, etc that all require me to install some idiodic 3rd party application to my own profile just to even see what the message is. Imagine if you got an email that required you to install a program before you could read it. Yeah, you’d be pissed too. So instead of an awesome thing, these 5000 or so Facebook apps are making it worse than Myspace, a gigantic feat I previously thought impossible. I ignore the hell out of those invites, because I am not a Zombie, Pirate, or Vampire Hunter, nor do I need to share movie ratings or have a superwall. And here is something nobody is taking about- in order to use the apps, you need to allow it to access your profile information. I predict there will be a Facebook app in the near future that is caught harvesting marketing data, even spamming users. If you think I am a lone man in a shack in the woods howling at the moon on this, I’m not alone, there are many concerns about the potentially massive privacy violation potential that Facebook is building towards.

To expand on this... Face book is in holy $h!t on this one. Not to mention this is the second time that ceo Mark Zuckerberg has had to apologize for rolling out a privacy decimating feature with little warning, no explanation, and no way to opt out (at the time of release).

I hate the new Facebook- it’s like Vegas in there now, and I find the majority of what is happening to be counterproductive to staying connected with your friends. Social networks are an interesting thing, but I have decided over the past year or more, ultimately, they are not anything I feel like wasting my time on. I use email and aim more than ever now to keep in touch with friends and family, and I like that kind of communication better.  Besides, can you really call someone a friend you have only met on Facebook?  Rediculous.

At some point someone will create the killer social networking app, and my guess is that it will look like this: a website or application that syncs automatically with your photo, calendar, IM, email, addressbook, and office programs, and allows you to easily post, edit, tag, etc. any personal data you want to, on any site. It will basically act like an RSS aggregator, pulling in and pushing out messages, comments, emails, IMs, photos, videos, calendar events, documents, etc. from Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, and all the like, as well as Flickr, your own site, etc. etc. etc. A sort of one-stop shop to managing your online presence. Hell they could even roll in forum posts, news and other RSS feeds, podcasts, you name it. Having one central hub means one login, entering your personal info one time, and tracking any news in one place.

Imagine a system that makes the following possible: you boot your computer to find out that there is a party next weekend. It gets added quickly to your calendar, you IM the host to ask if you can bring anything, they email you a list, which is added to your todo list. You go to the party and take some pictures, uploading them automatically to the group pool for the party and adding a few tags to them. You met someone new at the party, and using some profile browsing you find them, add a comment to their profile and get an IM back and add each other’s details to your address books and go from there. Now imagine all of this in one application, and having that application sync with a mobile device so you can update and check things on the road. Nothing I just listed is impossible, but currently to do all of that would require a bunch of different programs, a lot of manual data entry, and way more hassle than is necessary in 2008.  Oh... I forgot to include twitter in there as well.

Thanks to Andy Cochrane for your words for they helped to express mine

Thing 19: The Podcast

I must say, I LOVE the podcast.  I have multipul subscriptions to different podcasts.  Some are just rebroadcasts of radio shows:

Wait, wait don't tell me

This American Life

AM Marketplace

Sound oppinions 

etc. etc.

I also listne to podcasts that are podcast specific.  Meaning they are published a made exclusivly for computer podcast viewers.

CATO institue

The Tome (yea.. super geeky you may want to stay away)

Hatchling animations

First Amendment Center

etc.etc.

Can I just say that I love my iPod.

Podcasts are one of the great inventions.  I can link a key speech, presenter or expert to a moodle page.  Students listen to the whole podcast or to a select portion and then they go on to moodle and discuss the podcast (following set prompts).  

When I'm in the car and only catch half of a really great story, or interview.  I can podcast it.  expose my students to it and my friends.

I absolutly LOVE podcasts.  

Admitatly I don't have my kids make podcasts in the classroom.  They make videos and that takes enough work as it is ;).   I however could start making podcasts.  That would be pretty cool.  

Hmmmmmm it gets me a thinking!