Reading blogs #7
And we continue reading… Today we got:
- Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations
- Digital Divide
- MICT regulation
- MICT business
- “New” media
- US politics
- Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff
Please let me know what you think!
Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations
“Living and Learning with New Media” – The results of McArthur Foundation funded studdy of what the youths are doing online and what it does to them, are finally out. The original post in the link is from Danah’s Boyd blog and it got links to some summaries of the findings, which are interesting and somewhat controversial. Later I saw the report making wave on the blogosphere, like – “Kids on the internet“, “An antidote to the scare stories“, “New study shows social networking is good for youngsters” – which hint on the direction of the findings. And of course, at some point I also got a note from McArthur Foundation itself with link to their press release about the study.
“Online ad growth slows in Q3” – The title is rather self expanatory, and the post itself has an interesting graph and some numbers about online advertising, which I wanted to look at for a while now.
“Report released on “Broad and equitable access to the Internet” in African region” – A bird-eye overview of some trends in African regulation of internet related issues with an explicit focus on development. You can access the actual PDF of the report here.
“Broadband: Gap between best and worst performing countries in Europe narrowing” – Some numbers about the broadband penetration in Europe, which go hand in hand with the following news – “Global broadband hits 400 million users” – and – “Internet access and use in the EU27 in 2008“. Perhaps it explains why – “Europeans becoming ‘connect-aholics’“.
“Watchdog report tackles the issue of unequal access to the internet and the information society in 2008” – Most of the reports that reach my mailbox are usually about the upside of technological progress; this one is about the downsides.
“EU ‘ICT Work Programme 2009-10′” (PDF of the complete document here) – If you are into ICT related research and are looking for funding in the next couple of years, you may want to check this report out.
“Journalists are economical” – Paul Bradshaw discusses a recent article in “Journalism”, which applies economic thought to journalistic practices. Paul’s post makes you wanting to read the original, but you will need access to Sage publications in order to do that.
“NO: New eCitizen 2.0 report available” – A report that kind of explains what you witness in this very blog – people like to spread information online and the authors suggest that it shuold be taken for consideration by the governments as a factor in forming well informed citizens.
“Creating value for all: strategies for doing business with the poor” (via Eldis) – The link will take you to the full report (PDF) by UNDP, which analyzes 50 case studies of successful enterprises targeting the poor of the world.
“Free Icon-To-Speech” – A story of a utility for the OLPC laptop that allows speech navigation for disabled people.
“BBC Trust rejects BBC plan for Web video” – The UK regulator overseeing the BBC rejected some of its plans to produce local online video news, fearing that it will hurt local competition; apparently, this is a shared sentiment across Europe.
“Bell Canada Wins Clean Sweep in Net-Neutrality Case” and “Canada regulator ruling a blow to net neutrality advocates” – The Canadian regulator takes a much clearer stand on the issue compared to its Southern neighbor (US). For a more detailed discussion of what is going on in Erupe, you may want to take a look at Jasper Sluijs’s recent blog post.
“Individuals, Governments Step Up Internet Censorship” – A rather gloomy overview of current and pending court rulings as well as steps take by various governments to filter/block/sensor online information. It comes at the same time as a report about blocked websites in Iran – “Iran blocks access to over five million websites“. I guess this kind of news is out there all the time, but I feel it is important to keep an eye on those developments.
“Vietnam seeks Google, Yahoo! help to control bloggers” – Another case to test the ideas behind the “Global Network Initiative“.
“ITU launches initiative to protect children online” – A press release about the new ITU initiative, part of the Global Cybersecurity Agenda, bearing an interesting acronym COP (Child Online Protection); I have to read more about it to make up my mind about it.
“FCC-backed free internet promises certain conflict with porn industry, ISPs” – A critical take on the FCC plans to provide free internet and some interesting numbers about the size of the porn industry.
“A national broadband strategy – now” – Google announce that they are joining an effort of lobbying for making broadband a national priority in the US.
“Europe caps roaming cell pricing” – European Commission intervenes in the mobile market pricing.
“Nortel CEO Optimistic; China Viewed as Key Market” – In the sea of negative news of downsizing telecom industry, Mike Zafirovski allows himself to be optimistic by placing his hopes on China; the post has some interesting growth numbers in it.
“PC Magazine goes green, trashes printed version” – In this case “green” is just for the rhetoric; the real motive are the rising costs of print. Nevertheless, it is an interesting move to watch if you are curious about the new-old media industries.
“New World of Warcraft expansion sold 2.8 million in 24 hours” – Spending three days in a row playing Warcraft at some point, and never touching the game again since then, I can understand the enthusiasm. But even then, I am amaized by the numbers of this gaming industry, which I wish I knew more about.
I blogged about my own observations of the Mumbai attacks in the “new” media. Here are some recollections from other online sources:
“Terror Attacks in Mumbai & Overestimating the Potential of Twitter” – A more critical stand on the utility of “new” media, particularly pointing at the information overflow. Also this – “Is Twitter a reliable news source?”
More about Twitter and social activism this time:
“Twitter finds new purpose: drumming up donations quickly” and “Twitter Taste Live Online-Only Charity Wine Tasting Using Ustream and Twitter” – Examples of Twitter being used for social mobilization.
“Web 2.0 and CSR – Getting the most out of virtual communications” – Some thoughts on the subject from Intel’s blog (CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility).
US politics
(finally renamed category)
“Obama’s transition team raises hopes for developing world science” (via Thoughts About K4D) – An article about the team to form Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
“Obama and Change.gov make a smart copyright choice” – Change.gov adopts the Creative Commons license (looks like it was worth it for Lessig to support Obama all that time :). And they also use some neat visualizations from Wordle, which I think is interesting.
“Join the discussion” – This is actually even more interesting! The Obama team is playing with tools that allow instant feedback on their website. This deserves a separate post, I think.
Electoral Tea-Leaf Reading” (via Statistical Modeling) – Some numbers about people getting their political info online.
“A question about the youth vote” – Some general historical and some exit-polls-based observations about ow young people vote.
Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff
“Europeana website overwhelmed on its first day by interest of millions of users” – This is more to draw attention to the Europeana project itself, which is a digital library launched by the EY commision. It is suppose to contain over 2 million of digitized artifacts and It looks really interesting. I am looking forward to relaunch of the project in mid December.
“High-Tech Classroom Desk Inspired by iPhone” – The idea sounds pretty exciting for a technological junkie, but I think that in order for it to work a classroom with these desks will need (1) teachers that are not technophobes, which unfortunately is the case in many (most?) places and (2) change of mindset towards the role of communication in education (I wonder for examples what connectivity will be allowed and what will be blocked in such a device?). What do you think?
“Life Magazine’s photo archive gives Google a sense of history” – This is actually really cool! You can now freely browse and use (non-commercially) over 10 million images previously owned by Life Magazine. Try it out – it feels like a time machine!
“Opening the door to Europe’s archives” – Another archive-related issue. This time it is in Europe and it is a portal that grants you access to archives in five countries. I need to look more into it, but on its face this seems like an interesting initiative.
“Do Try This at Home” – Washington Post guide to some blogs with somre extravagant cooking!
