ASIST SIG Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting

Blogs around the world

Global voices online provides an interesting international perspective on what's going on in the blogosphere. Bloggers of various nationalities and languages work as "bridge bloggers" - they write in English about what blogging communities in their countries have been talking about recently. Here are some of the "roundups" from this site (short news posted in addition to more detailed accounts):

Ukraine: Neeka marks the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Georgiy Gongadze.
Kyrgyzstan: Amira of The Golden Road to Samarkand writes about community based tourism in Kyrgyzstan, a model that is both inexpensive for travelers and that provides direct benefits to local populations, and laments that similar options are not available in neighboring countries.
China: China Herald posts a photo from last night’s meeting of Shanghai bloggers, linking to participant Brocco Li’s account of the event.
Somalia: Inside Somaliland reports on two political rallies held to mark the start of campaigning for parliamentary elections in the internationally unrecognized territory, at which Somalia is urged to learn from Somaliland’s example.
Pakistan: Metroblogging Lahore has a delightful post on the world of puppets and tv shows for children in Pakistan.

The site's motto is "The world is talking. Are you listening?"

Notes from OurSocialWorld

Notes from Our Social World conference can be found on Ross Mayfield's blog. Notes are quite detailed so they give a good sense of the scope and direction of discussions at the conference.

Blog search engines

The Wall Street Journal's feature article New Search Engines Help Users Find Blogs gives an overview and a comparison of various services designed specifically for searching blogs:

"For those who want just a small taste of what prominent bloggers are saying, DayPop is a good place to go. It culls its search results from fewer than 60,000 blogs chosen by editors. That means it's likely to offer up relatively few links to well-known bloggers like Andrew Sullivan and Dan Gillmor. Sites like Technorati, Feedster, IceRocket and BlogPulse scour far more blogs -- between 15 million and 20 million each -- so searches on those sites deliver far more results, often from obscure sources. While Technorati and BlogPulse focus exclusively on blogs, other sites -- Feedster and IceRocket included -- offer the option to bring in mainstream news sources."

via Lois Scheidt

Podcasting as business

The September 2005 issue of First Monday (vol. 10, N 9) has an article "Podcasting: A new technology in search of viable business models" by S. Crofts et al. The authors provide a brief historical overview of podcasting, discuss why it was so successful and talk about business models that can be used to make podcasting a profitable enterprise. Interesting facts: around 22 million people in the US own iPods or other MP3 players; around six million of these people have downloaded podcasts. Podcasting is expected to reach 12.3 million households by 2010.

Even though there are no particular insights in this article, it provides a good overview of issues related to podcasting.

Hurricane Katrina: Blog for Relief Day

At the suggestion of Instapundit September 1 was declared a "blog for relief day" aimed at raising awareness and funds to help those affected by hurricane Katrina. A page on the TruthLaidBear created for this purpose asks bloggers to spread the word and encourage the readers to "give, give and give some more to the Katrina relief charity of your choice". So far there are  821 blog from 12 countries and the number is growing. The TLB provides a list of suggested charities. Another list as well as some tips for donating money can be found on Instapundit's flood aid page.