A couple of recent reports from Free Press and Ovum consulting reveal a couple dramatic trends in broadband penetration and access. Ovum issued a report on September 4 which shows that within a year China will soon be the largest broadband market, with 79 million users in 2007 and 179 million in 2010. No wonder…
Category: Information Society
Harvard Law class taught in Second Life this Fall
In May I had the honor of hearing Dr. Charles Nesson, head of the Berkman Center at Harvard, map out his conception of educational institutions in an internet era: From Harvard’s point of view, this is a new world of education we are entering. Stressing open access to knowledge. The core value of a university…
Fake conference scam: “International Conference on Child Labour, Abuse and Neglect”
It’s been awhile since I got a decent scam email from a UN or NGO pretender. These burn me because they play upon people’s good hearted nature, wanting to do something about racism or the environment or child labor. Today I got one ostensibly from the "YCIO," a group who’s acronym was never spelled out…
Governor Warner speaks on Iraq, Democratic Party, Abortion in Second Life
As some predicted, it wasn’t more than a publicity stunt, but Governor Mark Warner’s appearance in virtual form in Second Life still was a historic occasion. When a possible contendor for the US Presidency makes a pit stop in a virtual world, you have to think that something new is in the air. Others, particularly…
“Play Money” and the ethics of MMORPG cheating
I just finished Julian Dibbell’s informative and entertaining new book on virtual economies Play Money. If you will recall, I purchased both the virtual and real world versions of the book last month, opting to read the dead tree edition. It’s a quick read, told from the wry and clever personal perspective of the author,…
“Virtual Poetry Slam” for the environment: Win $500!
My friends at Citizens for Global Solutions have created a number of innovative campaigns and contests on various global issues. Their last effort to come across my in-box was a "Better than Bolton" home video campaign, urging people to send in short videos saying why they oppose the re-nomination of UN-basher John Bolton to the…
Andy Carvin heads to NPR
After a few weeks of silence, veteran blogger, Digital Divide activist, and cool dude Andy Carvin just announced that he has accepted a position with National Public Radio as "senior product manager for online communities." Andy writes that NPR is basically hiring him to be their Web2.0 strategist, which is a position he is perfect…
Smithsonian photo archive goes Web 2.0-ish
Yesterday, the Smithsonian Photography Initiative released 2,000 rare photos to the public on their website. Okay, 2,000 photographs is not that big a deal. But much more interesting is how they released them. The Smithsonian built into their site several cool ways to search, tag, and group the photos — and share those tags and…
Google Flight Sim: Hey, I can see your house from up here!
This is just silly and cool. Clever flash programmer Mark Caswell-Daniels has taken the Google Maps API and added a very simple flight simulator to it he calls Goggles. You can scroll through the listing of major cities to flyover, which is fun if you happen to live there. Or you can do a slight…
The Virtual Lounge : Where all the cool kids log-in
Yesterday I was reading a Clickable Culture blog entry about a pop music-oriented virtual environment called "The Lounge," developed by "adverworld" creators Doppelganger. I decided to go check it out.