ASIST SIG Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting

Unconference on wiki communities

Was anyone at the RecentChangesCamp 2006?  I'm on the east coast and would love to see the campproceedings as they're posted.  But what was your feel, review of the event?  http://recentchangescamp.org/

Premise?  Ideas cross-pollinate when you gather caretakers of primarily online communities with technologists that supply such tools.  Sounds like a very free market activity.  Supply and demand in a room.  Helping to develop a future that serves demand.  What's not to like?

New magazine on podcasting

The first issue of "PodcastUser Magazine" can be downloaded from the magazine's website. The issue contains news, reviews, articles and tutorials. According to the short editorial,

Podcast User is the result of a dozen or so podcasters and listeners, all passionate about podcasting and talking about all manner of subjects in the field. Each contributor has given their own time freely and eagerly.

Get me hooked, and charge me later?

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060202/20060202005728.html?.v=1  Who would have thought it?  Adding NY Times quality podcasts to the iTunes store would have rung the chimes of all.

I love the highlights, most emailed, and book review snippets! So do others since the top 5 most requested downloads of the top 100 are NYTimes.   A very wise and generous move to my mind.  Although you wonder what the future business model will be to pay all those reporters and staff.

Get me hooked, and charge me later? 

Ok, my cell has better video anyway.

Hang on Apple, my cell has better video capabilities than your IPOD.  And now I can view podcasts from MobilCast (powered by Melodeo) through my North American wireless system. http://www.mobilcastnetwork.com/

Remind me, why should I upgrade my IPOD?  And frankly carrying my cell around is plenty.  I don't need to always tote the pod now.

Pigeon blog on the environment

Sounds a bit like taking a canary into the mine shaft, doesn't it?

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18925376.000  Perhaps unfeathered... make that unfettered..... ideas on monitoring the environment have forced us to recruit outside our species for data collection. 

Don't pigeons spent a lot of time on the ground?  What kind of data will you retrieve on the environment other than a call for street sweeping at Hollywood & Vine.

Think there's extra feed in it for someone?  Or is this a job for the unions; equal pay for equal feed.

S

Reexamining the way we do business

Interesting reminder from USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review of good practices in wikis http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060201grieselhuber/

The six steps to improve Wikipedia (recall their recent problems with rogue, unattributed postings)

1. Apply standards 

.... Or were they put forth just to say you have a policy?

2. Require attribution

..... with few exceptions, it's important to know who said what.  A much different impact if an elected official says there will be a coup rather than a teenager.

3. Edits will have references and give reasons why they were made

.....  although I could always say "because I felt like it" as the reason

4.  Make Citations clear

...... and even provide fields for the citation to make it easy

5.  Allow Ratings of contributions

....... trust and use the world participation to highlight inaccuracies.  Some people live for this!

6. Use good processes for copyright issues

......... again, the world will help you if you let them

Congratulations to Ray Grieselhuber for this clear, rational commentary.  It minds all of their roles and responsibilities. 

So, ASISTers, what do you say?  Shall we adopt these rules on our next wiki, bliki?

WikiLaw

Via ResearchBuzz

WikiLaw is a new wiki for building an open-content legal resource database. From the "About" page:

Currently, there are roughly 1,000,000 lawyers in the United States. If every lawyer in America contributed a fraction of their legal knowledge to this site, Wikilaw would become one of the largest libraries of legal information in the world.

However, unlike other libraries, there would be no barrier to accessing this information. Everything on this site is FREE!

Thinking about the role of technology, human agents and social relationships in stimulating participation and quality of resources in wikis, I wonder what would make lawyers contribute to it.

Fun, even without the proof behind it

Yes, according to Wikipedia editor, over 1,000 edits were made by Internet addresses allocated to the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives. http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6033082.html

Wonder if classes for incoming freshmen in future might read:

Controlling the release of information on wikis

How your staffer can destroy bad press!

Hard truths on the internet: Here today, gone tomorrow

                                                                         

Exactly why wikis will work

Another good use for wikis to promote pre-publication collaboration.  Seems like the folks that contribute to the google wiki "Fun with Google Maps" will add their hot tips, fun ways to use the product and appear as authors in this chapter of an upcoming book. http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-01-30-n59.html

How we toil to contribute and share ..... expecting little in return.   : )   At least in library school the oft spoken question was "But you didn't become a librarian to get rich, did you?"

So people don't want to share what they know?  Replace that rumor with a new alliteration ... Why Wikis Will Work!

Blogs as team work tool

Reporters aggregating bits of information, posting opinions and impressions in real time .... all a teamwork effort creating a blog ... so that a final story can be written from these initials flows and first drafts. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/technology/30riots.html

Very ingenious use of a team tool for the purposes of a shared notebook, shared workspace.