Here’s the latest Storytelling Engine from John Seavey. Click here to read John’s description of what a Storytelling Engine IS, anyways. Check out more of them at his blog, Fraggmented.

Storytelling Engines: George Romero’s “Dead” Films

Normally, when I talk about a series’ storytelling engine, what I’m really doing is trying to take a look at a long-running (or occasionally short-running) series from a different perspective. Instead of just seeing the elements of the series as part of the story the writer is telling, I’m looking at them as story-generating components–the supporting cast fulfills this function, the setting adds this potential, the protagonist moves the plot this way, and so on. But it’s very rare that I think that writers consciously consider their status quo as a machine that generates plots.

In the case of George Romero’s seminal zombie movie series (”Night of the Living Dead”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “Day of the Dead”, “Land of the Dead”, “Diary of the Dead”), though, that’s pretty much exactly what they are. Romero starts with a set of postulates that function as his “engine”, and then takes other stories and runs them through the engine to see what the result will be. It’s a storytelling engine that takes the world as it is, applies a major change, and observes the logical result.

The change is, of course, the dead coming back to life. Romero postulates an event (never explicated, but hinted as some sort of radiation wave released by a returning satellite) that causes every recently-deceased corpse in the world to re-animate and seek out living humans with an instinct to consume their flesh. (Their bite is invariably lethal, although Romero never makes it clear whether this is an effect of their status as zombies, or just due to the normal infections that would result from being bitten by a septic, rotting corpse.) They retain traces of their former personality, but generally have limited intelligence and diminished physical capacity (they’re slower, but stronger.) Being dead, they’re pretty much immune to pain, and the only way of permanently killing them is with damage to the head. But more importantly, the event affected living humans as well, even if it doesn’t show. Anyone who dies in the series re-animates within minutes of their death as a zombie, unless that death is due to head trauma.

Romero’s movies (and the various comic and novel spin-offs) focus on the consequences of this event for different groups. He never returns to the same set of protagonists (which allows him a lot of freedom when it comes to killing off characters), but the world is always the same. Humans find ways to survive the zombie apocalypse, some of which are co-operative (as in the small community of survivors in “Land”) and some of which are competitive and counter-productive (as with the nihilistic end to “Dawn”.) Different people cope with the psychological stress of the event in different ways (most of which aren’t good–if Romero’s movies have a common theme, it’s that people tend to come unglued in crisis situations.) And the zombie horde always gets larger–in fact, with the span of time separating the movies, the size of the zombie horde provides the only definitive timeline for the series. “Diary” might look like 2005 and “Night” might look like 1968, but the two both occur early on in the zombie plague.

Romero’s “zombie rules” provide a very interesting storytelling engine, precisely because they’re the only real element of an engine with very loose continuity from installment to installment. This faithfulness to the rules has meant that the entire zombie sub-genre of horror has found itself defined by Romero’s rules and the ground-breaking films that provided them, to the point where many zombie movies are essentially Romero movies in all but name. Some of them are loving homages, like “Shaun of the Dead”, others are rip-offs, like “The Dead Next Door”, and still others are deliberate reactions against or alterations of the Romero rules, like “Return of the Living Dead” or “28 Days Later” (or, for that matter, the James Gunn/Zack Snyder remake of “Dawn of the Dead”.) But the Romero rules now provide a practically inescapable framework for everyone following in Romero’s footsteps, a storytelling engine that has escaped its creator and run wild throughout the genre. Its simplicity is also its strength, something that is constantly proved with each new zombie movie, comic, or book that comes out.

Vlingo™ Corporation today announced availability of its vlingo for iPhone application on the Apple App Store. This voice-powered application eliminates the need for typing and gives users the ability to dial their contacts, search the Web, access Google Maps, and send status updates for Facebook and Twitter with the power of voice. "The iPhone offers an innovative multi-touch user interface that is fundamentally transforming the wireless industry," said Dave Grannan, CEO of vlingo. "We're proud to debut our breakthrough voice recognition technology on iPhone, taking simplicity one step further by reducing much of the reliance on typing, making mobile data and applications easier to find and use." To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/vlingo/36253/

Auteur : multivu
Tags : vlingo iphone voice-powered application facebook twitter apple app store search map typing recognition multivu 36253
Envoyé : 03 décembre 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

pimg alt="Deadline" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/imgDeadline.jpg" width="150" height="44" /You've got enough to do. And learning a new task management system - as helpful as that might be - is rarely on your list of tasks to complete. But what if there were a task management system that was simple and intuitive, enabling you to scratch that "get organized" New Year's resolution off the list a little early? a href="http://deadlineapp.com/"Deadline/a may be that app./p pDesigned to take natural language commands via Web, email, and IM/Jabber, Deadline exudes task management simplicity. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12795amp;cb=12795' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12795amp;n=12795' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p pTo use Deadline, simply establish an account and start populating it with your tasks and - of course - the deadlines for those task. But don't worry about some arcane nomenclature. Deadline has enough intelligence to understand common date formats as well as simple, natural language commands like "tomorrow," "next week," and "next Tuesday." And if the command is too cryptic, the app will ask you to clarify./p centerimg alt="Deadlines" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/imgDeadlines.gif" width="600" height="393" //center pNot into the Web interface? No problem. You can also send tasks to Deadline via a unique email address. Simply address the email to Deadline and fill out the subject with the task and date. Or add Deadline to your GTalk/Jabber friends and start loading up your tasks via IM./p pGetting reminders is just as easy. They arrive via IM and email, alerting you that you have tasks due. And if you're into a little more warning, you can track your tasks via an authenticated RSS feed or add your task list to an iCal compatible calendar. There are even top secret feed URLs for adding open RSS feeds to systems - like Google Calendar - that don't support authentication./p pAdmittedly, the simplicity may be far too simple for some. But for those who are looking for a straightforward task management system, Deadline seems to satisfy a number of common requirements. What's more, if you're a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/i_want_sandy_open_source.php"a former Sandy user/a, I think you'll find Deadline picks up right where Sandy left off. /p pTo try the application for yourself, register for a href="http://www.deadlineapp.com"Deadline/a. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/deadline_task_management.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iph2ihBxgmD7z2HfHEfiMdTo64A/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/iph2ihBxgmD7z2HfHEfiMdTo64A/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=OG0HW9N1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=Vi7jJ7ga"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=3GTCIGKP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=3GTCIGKP" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=lA1857ZA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=lA1857ZA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=nPzS0G0r"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=nPzS0G0r" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=vvgRzMS9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=bbpF7sdE"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/afDif86OmEk" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/dvdcoach.png" width="494" height="302" /Windows only: Free application DVDCoach burns any video file (like DivX or Xvid videos you've downloaded off BitTorrent) to a playable DVD. The application provides a simple front-end for converting the files to the proper format (using the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5058888/five-best-media-converters"very popular media conversion tool/a ffmpeg) and burning the results to a DVD. DVDCoach Express doesn't have many advanced featuresmdash;for example, you can't create custom DVD menusmdash;but what it lacks in features it makes up for in simplicity. Just drag and drop the videos you want to burn to DVD into the application, set the few preferences available (PAL or NTSC, aspect ration, and quality), and get burning. If you're looking for a more robust feature set, check out a href="http://lifehacker.com/5082262/how-to-burn-any-video-file-to-a-playable-video-dvd"how to burn any video file to a playable video DVD/a using other free apps. DVDCoach Express is a free download, Windows only. div class="related"a href="http://www.kibisoft.com/"DVDCoach Express/a [via a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/"Download Squad/a]/div /p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=7ZwVenAX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=IWYPRASA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Jhwn4Mfa"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Jhwn4Mfa" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=z3fKMe5O"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=z3fKMe5O" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/MmCpiWAaIvs" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/dvdcoach.png" width="494" height="302" style="display:block;" /Windows only: Free application DVDCoach burns any video file (like DivX or Xvid videos you've downloaded off BitTorrent) to a playable DVD. The application provides a simple front-end for converting the files to the proper format (using the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5058888/five-best-media-converters"very popular media conversion tool/a ffmpeg) and burning the results to a DVD. DVDCoach Express doesn't have many advanced featuresmdash;for example, you can't create custom DVD menusmdash;but what it lacks in features it makes up for in simplicity. Just drag and drop the videos you want to burn to DVD into the application, set the few preferences available (PAL or NTSC, aspect ration, and quality), and get burning. If you're looking for a more robust feature set, check out a href="http://lifehacker.com/5082262/how-to-burn-any-video-file-to-a-playable-video-dvd"how to burn any video file to a playable video DVD/a using other free apps. DVDCoach Express is a free download, Windows only./p div class="related"a href="http://www.kibisoft.com/"DVDCoach Express/a [via a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/"Download Squad/a]/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=iLWxXvGn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=VlQCv48X"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=bz5i2wto"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=bz5i2wto" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=OtxprXQi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=OtxprXQi" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/X1mNJ71O6PA" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/dvdcoach.png" width="494" height="302" style="display:block;" /Windows only: Free application DVDCoach burns any video file (like DivX or Xvid videos you've downloaded off BitTorrent) to a playable DVD. The application provides a simple front-end for converting the files to the proper format (using the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5058888/five-best-media-converters"very popular media conversion tool/a ffmpeg) and burning the results to a DVD. DVDCoach Express doesn't have many advanced featuresmdash;for example, you can't create custom DVD menusmdash;but what it lacks in features it makes up for in simplicity. Just drag and drop the videos you want to burn to DVD into the application, set the few preferences available (PAL or NTSC, aspect ration, and quality), and get burning. If you're looking for a more robust feature set, check out a href="http://lifehacker.com/5082262/how-to-burn-any-video-file-to-a-playable-video-dvd"how to burn any video file to a playable video DVD/a using other free apps. DVDCoach Express is a free download, Windows only./p div class="related"a href="http://www.kibisoft.com/"DVDCoach Express/a [via a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/"Download Squad/a]/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=480399ff1b70823089567d6af9c77e39" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=iLWxXvGn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=VlQCv48X"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=bz5i2wto"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=bz5i2wto" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=OtxprXQi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=OtxprXQi" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/X1mNJ71O6PA" height="1" width="1"/

div align="center"a href="http://www.kibisoft.com/"img hspace="4" height="244" width="400" vspace="4" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.downloadsquad.com/media/2008/12/dvdc.jpg" //abr / div align="left"br /One of the most frequent questions I get asked by retail customers is "Where can I get a program that burns my movies?" Nine times out of ten they actually mean "the movies I downloaded with Limewire."br /br /If you're in the same boat and need a nice, simple app to convert and burn your downloaded video files to DVD, take a look at a href="http://www.kibisoft.com/"DVDCoach Express/a.br /br /It's a free application for Windows that utilizes a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/08/07/flipping-the-linux-switch-zomg-ffmpeg/"ffmpeg/a to handle conversion duties. The process is straightforward: drag your videos onto the file pane, set your encoding options, and start your task. Options are kept to a minimum: you can select PAL or NTSC, 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio, and the encoding quality.br /br /DVDCoach's simplicity is key, because I've already got enough software support calls to answer.br /br /On the high setting, four 150mb clips converted and burned in about 40 minutes. It runs on XP and Vista, and didn't have any issues on my x64 install./div /divp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/"Burn downloaded videos easily with DVDCoach Express/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com"Download Squad/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.kibisoft.com/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/forward/1388517/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/02/burn-downloaded-videos-easily-with-dvdcoach-express/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ygZCcVANL4qhYCR-TorASHQeXLw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ygZCcVANL4qhYCR-TorASHQeXLw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/downloadsquad?a=iHfg2l1s"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/downloadsquad?i=iHfg2l1s" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/downloadsquad?a=Mrux0Zyf"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/downloadsquad?i=Mrux0Zyf" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/downloadsquad/~4/wPf-0Xvl3UM" height="1" width="1"/

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"When Microsoft, Mozilla, or a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Apple+Inc."Apple/a comes out with a new version of a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Microsoft+Internet+Explorer"Internet Explorer/a , a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Mozilla+Firefox"Firefox/a, or Safari, it makes news -- mainly because most of us use one or more of these three Web browsers. In fact, with the exception of a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Google+Chrome"Google#39;s Chrome/a (which made a big splash, mostly because it came from Google), most of the alternative browsers out there tend to get lost in the shuffle./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"And it#39;s too bad, because some of these relatively unknown browsers are good -- and could be better for some users than the ones they#39;re using now. We asked three of our writers to take some lesser-known browsers out for a spin and see how they do./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[ Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the a href="http://www.infoworld.com/testcenter/?source=fssr"InfoWorld Test Center/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"They chose six candidates: Camino (for the Mac), Maxthon (for the PC), OmniWeb (for the Mac), Opera (both the Mac and the PC versions), and Shiira (for the Mac). Which is the best? It all depends on what you need from a browser./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"For example, Camino is for those who want a simple, basic browser, while Maxthon is overflowing with every power feature in the book. OmniWeb offers speed and an interesting approach to tabbing (but, at a base price of US$14.95, is the only browser in this roundup that isn#39;t free), while Opera brings with it a number of features it has pioneered over the years, along with a strong fan base. Finally, Shiira has an interface that is more Mac than Apple#39;s own Safari./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"It#39;s possible that none of these will do what you need better than the browser you#39;re already using. But as we all know, sometimes you have to step outside of the tried and true in order to find something really great./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Check these browsers out -- one of them may work for you./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"strongCamino 1.6.4br//strongCamino, an open-source browser based on Mozilla#39;s Gecko rendering engine, is clearly designed to be a simple, easy-to-use, yet fully functional browser. With a look and feel very similar to Safari and Firefox, almost anyone will find it easy to work with in seconds; I found myself completely at home with Camino from the second I launched it./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"One major difference between Camino and Firefox is that Camino was designed and programmed specifically for the Mac instead of ported over as Firefox was (so it#39;s less likely to a href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;articleId=9099959"quot;feelquot; like a Windows application/a ). In addition, one gets the impression that the developers of Camino didn#39;t try to duplicate all the features of Firefox and focused on the core browsing functionality, which probably results in leaner code overall and thereby increased performance and stability./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Camino isn#39;t big on flashy features. It does have a few that, while not unique, are nice to have. For example, Camino lets you save the URLs for all pages currently opened in tabs as a set that re-opens all of them -- in the same positions. This is a pretty nifty feature if you repeatedly open the same set of pages every morning when checking sites (or if you use a number of Web-based applications every day)./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Beyond that, the features and preferences options are pretty standard browser fare, though I do have to commend Camino#39;s developers for including a Web features tab in the browser#39;s preferences that includes the options to block Flash animations and advertising as well as to prevent Web animations from repeating./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Given that many Web browsers now try to implement too many features, some of which are better left to separate applications (RSS being a common example, which Camino eschews), I found Camino#39;s straightforward focus refreshing. The approach leads to a simple design that implements the core features in an uncluttered fashion. Combined with the Web features options that put a user in control of just how much distracting Web content he wants to see, I couldn#39;t help thinking that this would be the perfect browser for people like my father -- you know, the type of person who wants a cell phone that#39;s nothing more than a phone./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Since Camino keeps its feature set small and targeted, I was not surprised to find it to be very stable; it renders content both well and quickly. As with Shiira, Camino handled Flash, scripting and other complex Web technologies very well. When I compared it to Safari, Firefox and Shiira on the Mac, it outperformed those other browsers in rendering some pages. Sites heavy with Flash content and animations, in particular, seemed to load, render and function faster when I used Camino./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"I should note that some a target="_blank" href="http://pimpmycamino.com/"Camino add-ons/a are available. Like the add-ons available for Firefox, these tools offers various capabilities, from backing up bookmarks to changing the look using themes or skins, though the choices for Camino are more limited./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"All in all, Camino is probably not the perfect browser for everyone. If you#39;re looking for a more full-featured browser, you may want to opt for Firefox, Safari, or Shiira. But if you want a stable, simple and no-nonsense Web browser (or one that can easily limit distracting content) Camino is a good choice./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"em-- Ryan Faas/em/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"strongMaxthon 2.1.4br//strongIf you#39;re looking for a browser that bristles with power features, and don#39;t mind a somewhat unattractive interface and some confusing configuration, then Maxthon is the browser for you. It#39;s got just about every feature built into competing browsers, and many that you won#39;t find anywhere else -- such as a quot;file snifferquot; that makes it easy to download YouTube videos and a pop-up notepad for pasting or dragging text you want to save. Power users will love it. Those who like sleek design will turn away./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"The interface is quite cluttered, with a file menu, Address Bar, Favorites Bar and other toolbars, and stray icons near the top and bottom of the screen. Think of it as the un- a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;articleId=9114048"Chrome/a . But there#39;s a reason for the clutter: The browser has so many features, they need to fit somewhere. And you can customize the interface, if you like, to cut down on the clutter./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Maxthon has far too many features to cover in a short review, but among my favorites is its great tab and window handling. You can, for example, create two side-by-side browser instances, each with their own tabs; you can create tab groups; you can quot;tear offquot; a tab into a separate browser instance and then recombine it; you can assign a shortcut key to any URL and visit that URL just by pressing the key -- and that#39;s just for a start./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"The browser also uses quot;mouse gestures,quot; so that you can navigate forward, backward and so on by moving your mouse in a certain way. It has a great tool for filling out Web forms, a built-in screen capture tool, and an innovative search screen that lets you do a search and then click on tabs in that screen to see the results from various search engines. And there#39;s a CPU Saver mode that minimizes Maxthon#39;s processor use, freeing up your CPU for other tasks./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"All that is to the good, but there are some problems, mostly because Maxthon uses the same Trident rendering engine used by Internet Explorer. For example, click Tools --gt; Internet Options, and you#39;ll come to a familiar tabbed Internet Options screen. In fact, it looks like the screen for changing Internet Explorer#39;s options -- because that#39;s exactly what it is./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"There#39;s far more than all this, and there are a target="_blank" href="http://addons.maxthon.com/en_US"plug-ins available as well/a . You simply won#39;t find a browser with more features./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"In fact, when you make a change to the Maxthon Internet Options screen, you#39;ll also make changes to Internet Explorer. And while this screen has an option for setting your home page, it won#39;t work for Maxthon -- you need to select Tools --gt; Maxthon Setup Center and make your changes there. I contacted Maxthon, and a rep told me that the Options screen is used to control the Trident rendering engine only, and doesn#39;t affect other Maxthon options such as setting the home page./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"Still, if you#39;re a power user, you can get used to those eccentricities. If you#39;re looking for the most features in a browser, live with Maxthon a while, and you may learn to love it./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"em-- Preston Gralla/em/pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"strongOmniWeb 5.8br//strongOmniWeb has been around longer than Mac OS X, dating back to the NeXT platform of the 1990s. Throughout its history, OmniWeb has always been an excellent citizen of technologies specific to the NeXT -- and later, OS X -- platform, and the polish shows through in even minor details./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"Even though OmniWeb was one of the first native browsers to grace OS X, with an interface that has remained top-notch, it has faced rivals such as Firefox and Camino that are powered by speedy Gecko-based rendering engines -- not to mention Apple#39;s own Safari browser, which has been integrated with OS X since 2003. That#39;s kept OmniWeb#39;s browser share limited to a fairly small audience. However, the advances seen in OmniWeb since its rendering engine revamp in 2004 may mean it#39;s time for surfers to give this browser another serious look./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"OmniWeb, now at Version 5.8, is easily one of the best examples of a properly implemented interface on the Mac today. The Omni Group has always taken care to make sure that its products feel like native Mac applications instead of ports from other platforms, and the attention to detail makes using OmniWeb a joy./pp page="3" class="ArticleBody"Some of OmniWeb#39;s best features include extensive (if not zealous) ad-blocking, auto-saved Web browsing sessions and site-specific preferences. From the unique tab drawer -- more on this later -- to support for browsing Web pages using OS X#39;s built-in Speech Recognition, OmniWeb#39;s embrace of Mac-specific technologies wrapped in a clean and uncluttered interface makes the product a delightful browser alternative./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"It renders Web pages quickly, easily on par with the fastest of the competition, right up there with Safari and Firefox. That#39;s significant because rendering speeds used to be a major source of disappointment, something that changed with Omni Group#39;s embrace of Apple#39;s own open-source a target="_blank" href="http://webkit.org/"WebKit/a frameworks. WebKit is used by Apple itself in several of its software packages -- Mail, Safari and Dashboard, to name a few -- and the Omni Group#39;s adoption of this technology allowed it to focus on designing an elegant user interface instead of worrying about updating its rendering engine with every new Web standard./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"Among the interface niceties is the aforementioned tab drawer. Instead of offering up a layout like its competitors -- with small tabs displayed horizontally near the address field -- OmniWeb shows a resizable window pane attached to the browser. The pane, which can be displayed on the right or left side of the main browser window, previews tabs as mini-Web pages rendered in real time. The real-time page rendering allows you to skip on to other sites when one is loading slowly, while still keeping an eye on the site#39;s progress./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"OmniWeb#39;s user experience is top-notch and Mac-like -- something that can#39;t be said about competitors like Firefox -- but that experience comes at a price. At a time when most Web browsers are free, a license for OmniWeb 5.8 costs $14.95, while an upgrade license from earlier versions costs $4.95./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"Even if you don#39;t want to pay for a browser, I still recommend downloading the software and taking it for a free 30-day test run. The thought of paying for a browser probably won#39;t sit well with those accustomed to free alternatives -- especially since the alternatives themselves are good -- but after using OmniWeb for a few days, you might decide it#39;s worth the price./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"em-- Mike DeAgonia/em/pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"strongOpera 9.6br//strongOpera is a Windows-based browser that has been ported to many different platforms, including most Unix variants such as Mac OS X and Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris; cell phone operating systems, including Windows Mobile, PalmOS, BlackBerry OS, and even the popular Wii gaming station. But despite its ubiquitous nature, Opera has so far only captured 2% of the browser market. That#39;s something of a surprise, because it isn#39;t as though this browser lacks ability or features./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"Version 9.6 for Macintosh is a fast, option-laden browser that represents a formidable entry in an extremely competitive product category. Opera uses its own proprietary rendering engine called Presto to display Web content; this engine is almost as capable at rendering code as the Gecko engine used by Firefox and Camino, and nearly as fast as Safari and OmniWeb#39;s WebKit engine. In fact, there were some sites that Gecko had trouble rendering accurately, but Opera displayed most sites properly./pp page="4" class="ArticleBody"There are many things to like about Opera, including customizable skins, live preview of Web pages when you mouse over tabs and a welcome full-screen mode -- especially useful for recent Windows converts who are accustomed to viewing Web pages using every bit of screen real estate possible./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"One of Opera#39;s standout features is the Speed Dial startup page. Speed Dial lets you customize a page with up to nine different sites, with each site#39;s content displayed in miniaturized format. Clicking on the mini-page brings up the site in a full browser window./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"Another Opera plus is the extensive search engine support built into the browser. As well as the usual suspects like Google and Yahoo, Opera also supports Ask, Wikipedia, eBay, and Yahoo Shopping. Interestingly enough, Opera also supports Bit Torrent searching and downloads, as this browser doubles as a Bit Torrent client./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"Opera also offers support for widgets. Although similar in function to those found in Mac OS X, Opera#39;s widgets are freed from the restraints of the Dashboard, instead floating on the desktop like any application window./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"The Opera interface is a little more cluttered than some of the other browsers I#39;ve looked at, but skin support in concert with the ability to alter interface details means you can customize to your heart#39;s content. With the addition of Mouse Gestures, it#39;s entirely possible to browse pages without using any of the interface elements at all, relying instead on mouse or trackpad swipes to navigate pages./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"The bottom line is that Opera is a good example of healthy competition in the browser market, and the price of admission -- free! -- is certainly worth giving this program a once-over./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"em-- Mike DeAgonia/em/pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"strongOpera 9.6br//strongThere was a time, years ago, when Opera seemed to be giving Internet Explorer and Netscape a run for their money. Now it#39;s the great forgotten browser, rarely mentioned or used./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"And that#39;s a shame. Opera sports a clean interface with easy access to its innovative capabilities, and is a model of simplicity and elegance, with attractive icons and tabs, and plenty of features within easy reach. If you#39;re looking for a powerful alternative to your existing browser, you won#39;t go wrong with Opera./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"Much has been made of browser Address Bar tools such as Chrome#39;s Omnibox and Firefox#39;s Awesome Bar. But no one bothers to mention that Opera has already been there and done that. As with those browsers, type parts of a URL into Opera#39;s address bar, and you#39;ll get a list of likely matches. Better yet, type in search terms, and Opera will do a Google search for them./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"That#39;s just one of the innovative features you#39;ll find in Opera; there are too many to mention them all. What Opera calls quot;Speed Dialquot; is also useful. When you open a new tab, Opera opens a page with space for multiple thumbnails of Web pages. Click on any blank thumbnail and enter a URL, and from then on, when you open a new tab, it will open to a page with those thumbnails. To visit any page, click it./pp page="5" class="ArticleBody"Opera also features an excellent download manager that lets you pause and resume downloads, and then open any files you#39;ve downloaded. For each download, you#39;re also shown information such as where it was downloaded from, where you downloaded it to, file size and so on. There#39;s also a progress indicator showing you current download speed./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"Useful for anyone who fills out Web forms (which pretty much means all of us), is the Wand, which not only remembers passwords and fills them in, but also fills in other information, such as name, address, e-mail address and so on./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"Opera sports many other features as well, such as a quick way to turn off all images on a Web site with the single click of a button, and a way to view every single link on a Web page./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"Opera#39;s main drawback is that it doesn#39;t have add-ins as Firefox does, so you won#39;t be able to extend the browser#39;s features. You can download Opera widgets, but they aren#39;t really add-ins -- they#39;re instead gadgets that live on your desktop./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"Apart from the lack of add-ins, though, you#39;ll find Opera an excellent browser. If you#39;re looking for a great blend of simplicity and features, it#39;s well worth the download./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"em-- Preston Gralla/em/pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"strongShiira 2.2br//strongShiira is a relatively new entrant to the Mac Web browser market. Like Apple#39;s Safari and Google#39;s Chrome, Shiira is based on WebKit./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"One of the first unique interface elements that I noticed was Shiira#39;s PageDock. The PageDock provides the same functionality as tabbed browsing, but with complete thumbnails of every page that is opened./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"At first, I saw this as something that took up valuable screen real estate, but after a little use, I found it to be an invaluable addition to the browser experience -- making it easy to see not only what each quot;tabquot; was (beyond just a name), but also what was happening on each page, which proved particularly nice with any page that sported dynamic content (from Facebook chats to sites featuring animation elements). For those who prefer traditional tabbed browsing, the PageDock can be turned off./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"As I explored Shiira, I noticed that many of its features and interfaces took cues from Apple#39;s Mac OS X interface. There#39;s a button that displays all open pages next to each other like Apple#39;s Expos? feature, making it easy to pick one page to work with. Bookmarks, history and RSS feeds can also be browsed from floating translucent pallets reminiscent of Apple#39;s iLife and iWork applications./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"The preferences dialog borrows heavily from the look of the Mac#39;s System Preferences application. Even the bookmarking tool that Shiira refers to as the Shelf offers column and list views patterned after the Mac#39;s Finder window (as is the customizable window toolbar)./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"All of these made Shiira seem more Mac-like to me than Apple#39;s own Safari browser. What I found particularly nice was that, much like the PageDock, these features all served useful functions rather than just being eye candy./pp page="6" class="ArticleBody"I also found a couple of unusual features that seemed so intuitive that I couldn#39;t believe they weren#39;t more common in other browsers. These include menu items for automatically e-mailing the URL or entire contents of a page with a single click, and a very effective full-screen-mode option that would be perfect for presentations or watching video./pp page="7" class="ArticleBody"As far as performance, I found Shiira to be very solid. It loaded pages of all kinds, rendered Flash animation with no problems, and even beat out Safari and Firefox in terms of rendering speed on a couple of pages (albeit not by a particularly noteworthy margin). The browser was also very stable. All of this is important because, bells and whistles aside, the most important piece of a browser to me is that it can actually surf the Web painlessly and quickly./pp page="7" class="ArticleBody"Unfortunately, I did see some unfinished aspects of this open-source browser. Some of Shiira#39;s preference options seemed unfinished. For example, the RSS feed preferences pane refused to open at all (even so, the built-in RSS reader functioned fairly well -- though being used to full featured stand-alone RSS readers, I#39;m not sure it would be my first choice). In addition, the pane in the preferences dialog called Key Mappings, which should allow users to assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items, does not seem to be implemented yet (though I was able to open the pane itself)./pp page="7" class="ArticleBody"Even so, the combination of good features, Apple-inspired interface and overall performance left me convinced that, with a little more development, Shiira could easily give other Mac browsers a run for their money. Without a doubt, Shiira is definitely worth a look, but be prepared to spend a little time getting used to its interface./pp page="7" class="ArticleBody"em-- Ryan Faas/em/pp page="7" class="ArticleBody"a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/index.jsp"emComputerworld/em/a emis an InfoWorld affiliate./em/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=441148379d17113dca789008e7c0a466p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=441148379d17113dca789008e7c0a466p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=441148379d17113dca789008e7c0a466 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

Every Piece of Information Is a Latent Community
December 2, 2008

Clay Shirky’s keynote talk to open the 2008 Online Information Conference

“group action just got easier” = 5-word summary of his book Here Comes Everybody

the ways the media environment is being transformed now that consumers are first-class participants
the overlap of all of the patterns in one environment is the big transition we’re all living through and trying to figure out

showed a picture of a truck in a parking lot at sunset on Flickr - HDR photography (technique, not just software)
don’t need to see what’s going on in the comments to understand what’s going on there
people start inserting photographs into the comments, which turn to a technical discussion
a user group is assembled on the fly
used to be gather then share - used to have to identify the people who would be interested first and then organize/share
Flickr reversed the pattern - share and then gather
they didn’t identify themselves before they saw this page
Flickr had the infrastructure to let these people create a community on the fly
once the users created this, it wasn’t evanescent anymore - it was permanent now

shows that every URL is a latent community - potential value that people looking at it might find value in it
not all will see community grow, but the potential is there
can have many more communities of practice at much lower cost because the old distinction between conversation and publication is no longer true
why pick? Flickr gets more value out of not having to decide in advance what a piece of information might be used for
even on the Flickr picture, other conversations can take place in parallel

Flickr gives users the tools to add value

there are large patterns we see (not every service on the internet has these, but some large ones do)
- share
- collaboration
- collective action
in this order, because how much does the individual have to give up to get value?
takes more effort the higher you go on the ladder

showed Bronze Beta - the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan club site
back when WB sold the rights to Buffy to UPN, UPN didn’t want the community group online, so they shut down the server (UPN: we don’t want it because we’re in the television business)
the users, however, wanted the community to continue, so they raised money and commissioned a new service to move to
they explicitly decided they didn’t want any “features” - no ratings, rankings, etc.
they just wanted to type in text, and now it’s just a giant scroll of conversation
the community is still going

these new social technologies are the first time where later generations of technology have fewer features than older versions
the simplicity in the tools has to do with a mindshift of the computer as a box to a door
for individually-oriented software, a long list of features is good (Photoshop, Word, etc.)
but when we want to collaborate, fewer features is better; we need the same mental model of what’s going on
the complexity is in the user, not the software
in Bronze Beta, the complexity is in the very long list of rules created by the users (”no colored fonts”)

showed the Wikipedia entry for Doctor Who - it’s been edited almost 9,000 times by more than 3,000 people
the breadth and depth of participation is quite extraordinary

“hive mind” - people that use this term almost always don’t understand what’s happening
these folks aren’t part of a community in any sense because most have only edited it once or twice
someone, though, has edited it thousands of times; every article he’s touched on Wikipedia is about Doctor Who
there is no coherent average behavior, although the commonest behavior is one edit, one user
we’re used to counting noses - how many people watched my TV show, read my book, etc.
but here, there is no one common user behavior; instead, there’s this tiny group of fantastically engaged users
imagine going to your boss and trying to convince them to plan this
it’s not everybody pitching in like a barn-raising; it’s not collaboration
it’s like a small, self-appointed editorial board

collaboration involves real synchronization
it’s not just you share and I share
collective action is the most difficult pattern to get going because the whole group has to commit to it and either stand or fall together

two examples - HSBC

they recruited college students with penalty-free checking accounts
proved to be popular, but then they changed their minds and added a penalty
gave users 30 days to get their money out
thought they had the information and coordination advantage
in the summer, the students should have been outclassed by HSBC’s tools
but they didn’t count on Facebook
a user starts a page, which goes viral
for the first time, college students are dispersed but active
they started sharing documentation - good banks to move to and how
once one person solved the problem, the information was available to everyone
goodbye to HSBC’s information advantage
then they organized a real-world protest, but it never happened because by then HSBC had caved in
HSBC backed down because the students were upset AND coordinated

“thinking is for doing”
there is an analagous transformation that publishing for acting
the newspaper could only report HSBC had changed the deal, while Facebook could actually encourage users to do something
publishing and action is no longer a choice - can do both
now have a response without managerial control

example two - flash mobs
they were promoted in “emails by bill”
wanted to prove that hipsters would do anything you told them to
hits belarus - eating ice cream in Minsk Square
the police showed up - the group became a problem (not the group eating ice cream)
it had been made illegal to act in concert - to be a group
when they entered the square, they weren’t a group
the livejournal page led to action - it’s a full cycle; they didn’t just bring their ice cream - they also brought their cameras because they wanted to document the state’s response

in less than 3 years, flash mobs went from being something to mock a certain class to political protest
we tend to underestimate the potential of these tools because they tend to look frivolous
we don’t understand their potential
anything that allows group formation is political
so much of the meaning of the tool is in what the user does with it once it becomes social

what is all of this doing to the media landscape as a whole?
we’re living in the middle of the largest increase in the social expression of the human race

1 - printing press/movable type
2 - point-to-point communications (telegraph, telephone)
3 - capturing sound and video
4 - broadcasting spectrum (radio, television)

curious asymmetry to them - the ones that are good at creating conversations are not good at creating groups and vice versa
there was no medium for creating two-way conversation among groups (many-to-many) until now
there is no longer a distinction between consumer and producer
giving someone the ability to receive email means they can send email
the audience grows and becomes varied
the 5GB generated this year will be at the edges

the internet is also the mode of carriage for all previous media as it’s digitized
it’s also adding social dimensions to all existing media

to produce something for a lot of people to watch, read, etc., I have to take on a big burden for production costs
if I’m wrong, I lose a lot of money
in an era of gutenberg economics, I decide which books are good and I publish them
all following media have had the same economics problem
filter and then publish becomes the model - see what’s good and then publish it

now, anyone can publish to anyone with a marginal cost of zero
it’s the first medium we’ve had that works with post-gutenberg economics
anyone can say anything to anybody and they frequently do
it’s too much content to filter in advance, and there’s no economic reason to do so

the question for a 15-year old today is not “why publish” but “why not publish?”
many of the huge businesses built on the back of the internet have at the core of their business model a post-publication filter
get to the good stuff after the fact, not before

the users are now well and truly engaged in the publishing environment

the user as publisher model:
1- Gnarly Kitty
a fashion-obsessed Thai student who posted about a fishing game
why would anyone publish that?
because she’s not talking to us - she’s talking to her friends
we’re not used to seeing things that are public but not in the public
then a coup happens in Thailand, and the government tells the media not to report about it
but Gnarly Kitty publishes the first picture of tanks in front of the parliament house and she is now the go-to source
people are now flooding in and she becomes a global resource
then she posts about a phone she’d like to own
the users get upset and want more about the coup
she responds with a post that it’s *her* blog and it’s about her life

zuckerman: journalism has gone from being a profession to being an activity
she committed acts of journalism; she just did it while she was a concerned citizen
not connected to self-definition
this model is new
she doesn’t need the money to be a global publisher
she gets thousands of new readers and she tells them if you don’t like her content, then leave

2 - Howard Forums
early blog about cell phones
can”t answer people’s questions about their phones, so he says hey, you all talk to each other and he puts up a forum
is up to a billion pages this year because the expert users are solving problems for the new users
tech support reps from phone companies will refer callers to the Forums
they have access to “reality,” which the engineers don’t
the kinds of questions that can only be answered when A has part of the answer and B has the other part and they collaborate
users creating detailed technical documentation
it’s not all tech all the time, because users have gotten to know one another and they hang out here together (they post pictures of their pets)
as a publisher, it’s easy to see that you’d get rid of the pictures of cats
but that misunderstands what is going on here
that both of these things are coming from the same web
they’re not doing one in spite of the other, but rather because of it
it’s the fact that the users care about each other is what gets them to do all of this
communities have to be for the members
the satisfaction comes from membership and recognition from the communnity
hosting that isn’t amenable to crowdsourcing solutions
communities need to get to know each other and share all kinds of things in order to do the technical documentation

3- showed a still shot from Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse
fan experience is that his shows get canceled, so they’ve already created a site to save it from cancellation before it even airs
in the past, they’ve organized protests
they don’t trust the marketing department to explain to people why they should watch it, so they do this themselves
there is no aspect of the information industry that users aren’t crawling into, including the marketing department
users don’t always do this well
the pattern is usually extract the signal after the fact
they do always do it differently, though
grappling with that difference is the big question we have to deal with now

one of the big changes is that anybody in any part of the information business is now part of the entire information business
no longer i work in television and you work movies - it doesn’t matter anymore
no longer that we produce the content and then the users go off and talk about it somewhere else
creating community and arranging action are now part of production
not every organization should get into every part of the business, but publishers can now be conveners of community
can allow amateurs in to extract value - that’s what we’re grappling with
it’s not a move from A to B but from one to many
the landscape itself is expanding

when the printing press came out, it wasn’t that people looked at it and said, oh now we need a printing industry and this is what it will look like
little things turn out to be big deals
making books smaller meant more people could carry them (creation of octavo size)
if it’s hard for a thief to get a book out the door, that’s a feature
that little intuition sparked a revolution

everybody is everywhere and all the walls have fallen
everybody can see each part of the business; it’s all horizen and no barriers
what’s the next good thing to do?
the answer is most certainly to explore
experimenting our way into the future is what will show us what works
there is no roadmap for the period we are entering

q: what is the role of the professional librarian
a: liz lawley says libraries are “happiness engines;” the whole of the world that deals with traditional publishing is now dealing with the split between lovers of the page and lovers of the book; it’s easy to see the role of librarians as hosts of books, but if you see sociable libraries as happiness engines, then the question becomes what set of things done in libraries now would increase the happiness; one of the obvious answers is “collaborative filtering” - helping the user find the next thing to read, watch, etc.; libraries have typically serviced users one-to-one, but there are groups of people coming together and talking with each other in the library; ideas make people happy, so what resources do we have to extend that; one of the big resources we have is that we have “convening power” - it’s unmatched in civil society; the cross-section that goes into a library is quite extraordinary; it doesn’t have to be one-to-one, and there is a great deal of potential in experimenting with many-to-many; even in the corporate world, libraries can join up people who should be talking with each other; IBM example - “DogEar” plus a one-way mirror; allowed researchers to tag URLs, although they’re not sharing the tags back to the world; two geographically-dispersed research groups there discovered each other because they were tagging the same resources, clearly with the same ideas; they actually called each other and then pooled their efforts; this would never have happened from the top-down; “research is a famously upside-down problem” so there’s no way one person at the top could have said these two groups in two different countries will work together; when the users can see what each other think (don’t apply the ontology in advance), people with similar world-views can be connected; connecting users because they’re looking at the same information

q: if we spent our lives organizing information as a community, how do we tackle all of the new information being created?
a: you can’t; you only have 2 chances to actively organize things - moment of creation and moment of use; at creation, can try to add metadata, but at use stage, you can involve the user and have them modify or verify the metadata; the problem becomes a little bit of effort gives you a high degree of leverage, so have to find the right point where this happens; there’s no way to apply the metaphor of the shelf to cyberspace; they have to do with automatic extraction, inviting users to upgrade metadata at the point of use

q: what does this tell us about human nature that we might apply to things we do?
a: that is THE question, in part because it’s the one we need to answer but can’t; used to think that the world was changing because technology was changing, but now thinks we’re just not used to explaining human behavior without being paid or other extrinsic motivation; we used to think the market was the public sphere and the household was the private one, but that’s changing; Wikipedia makes no sense at all; what critics have missed is that human nature contains an enormous amount of Gnarly Kitty motivation;public and private sphere are existing side by side, can’t be explained purely by the market

q: the idea of expertise as opposed to popularity
a: if your skull is going to be cut open, you want it to be done by a trained professional; the reverse is that you don’t need to buy music only in the presence of a record store professional;
the closer things to come to life and death and one-off decisions with no reversability, the more we want expertise; the places where there is an obvious right answer that is independent from the social view; changes here are coming about in the end of the spectrum where what people believe changes what is true; are SUVs a truck or a car? that decision was socialized, which got us to a better answer than letting Washington decide; there’s no general “get ouf jail free” card for experts; very often, the really interesting hybrids are where professionals and amateurs come together; in most but not all cases in the information industry, it’s headed to hybridization because it’s not the critical one-off decision; how many different strategies can we apply to see where the cost versus value curve is

q: should we be worried about efficiency? should we be worried about experts? one of the problems of community is that there are maturity issues that affect newbies (keep learning or does everyone become an “expert”)
a: the social origin of good ideas; putting experts and amateurs together improves both groups because when the expert has to teach, he learns; it’s the conversation between the two turns out to be more powerful than pure amateur aggregation or pure expert knowledge; these systems work not because they’re efficient because they’re effective after many fruitless tries at low cost; resources don’t get tied up in the failures because it’s easier to identify them; we’ve all been in that meeting where we realize we’ve expended more energy talking about the idea than we would have if we’d just implemented it; most Flickr pictures don’t have comments but it doesn’t cost Flickr anything; that’s why these new systems look so strange to us

clay shirky, community, media, online2008, onlineinfo2008, user generated content

table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" trtd rowspan="2" valign="top"a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=d924b8b30e7e166db9eb4c09caa2d5e5amp;p=4"img src="http://images.pheedo.com/icon-c915c7482d484777b7d9badbecf652ab-1224177827.png"//a/tdtd rowspan="2"nbsp;nbsp;/tdtd valign="top"Mobile productivity meets simplicity in the new Treo Pro. It comes unlocked with Microsoftreg; Windows Mobilereg; 6.1, Wi-Fi, GPS, and other one-touch shortcuts. So now standard issue is no longer an issue./td/tr trtda href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=d924b8b30e7e166db9eb4c09caa2d5e5amp;p=4"www.palm.com/a/td/tr /table div style="font-size:xx-small; padding-top: 1em;"span style="border-top: 1px solid" br style="display:none"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/"Ads by Pheedo/a /spanimg alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=d924b8b30e7e166db9eb4c09caa2d5e5amp;p=4"/ br/ /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zdnet/ITFacts/~4/472648587" height="1" width="1"/

Category: Music
Released: Oct 25, 2008
Price: $3.99

Description:
"An extraordinary piece of sound art"(The Wire) "Beautifully useless" (New York Times) "Mesmerizing" (Pop Matters) "Defiantly rough" (Wall Street Journal) "I can't stop playing with it" (Pitchfork) The Buddha Machine is a palm-sized box that plays nine ambient loops composed by Beijing-based music duo FM3. But the Buddha Machine is not just another relaxation device; it�s an artwork that straddles the line between musical album and must-have object. Featuring music designed to create a calming presence in today's fast paced world, the machine�s colorful charm provides an experience that is hard to define. Essentially, It's a box with a life; a tool for living, and to many, a friend. Founded in 1999 by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, FM3 are considered pioneers of electronic music in China. Virant teamed up with Jason Forrest and Agile Partners for development of the iPhone/iPod Buddha Machine application. This virtual Buddha Machine replicates the no-nonsense simplicity of the original, while boasting significantly-improved sound quality. Buddha Machine 1.0 Features: - All 9 original Buddha Machine loops in High-res Audio - All 7 original colors - Touch Sensitive (and give it a shake!) - 3D graphics - All the comforts of the original

Website: http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com
Support Website: http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: Buddha Machine

Twitter competitor Pownce is no more. We’ve followed the story yesterday: it was acquired by Six Apart, but not to develop the service further: simply to acquire the talented people that worked on Pownce.

I’d like to quickly revisit the story because I’ve been following Pownce from day one, I’ve actually used it more than Twitter, and I’ve been bullish on the service because I thought it offered a compelling feature set when compared to other services in the space. I was wrong.

First of all, less is sometimes more. We all know that, but it was really obvious in this case: Pownce was the Twitter fan’s dream come true, adding groups, file sharing and several other highly requested features without cluttering the service with too many options. However, sometimes simplicity and lack of options are what differentiates a service and makes it worth your while. Twitter devs may be slow when it comes to adding new features, but they’re slow on purpose, because they understand that Twitter is good, for the most part, as it is.

Secondly, sometimes even being much more reliable than your competitors isn’t enough for success. When you think of it, Pownce was positioned very well: it had the features, it had solid backing (it is, after all, Kevin Rose’s baby), and - although it wasn’t without technical issues itself - it came to the scene at a time when Twitter struggled with frequent downtime. And despite the fact that Twitter’s problems with downtime lasted for month, users did not move over to other services, except perhaps FriendFeed (to a certain extent).

The main lesson is probably this: if you’re not first to the game, but perhaps second or third, you need to do your research very thoroughly; sometimes being bigger, better and faster than the competitors simply won’t do.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Pownce Invites Increased: Please Invite Others
Pownce Adds RSS, Support For More Video/Photo Sites
Pownce To Launch Public API
Pownce Releases Public API
Pownce Invites on eBay
Pownce Gets New Features
Put Pownce on Facebook

</