Group items tagged

It has been 10 years since the Millennial Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by United Nations member states with the aim of eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics and developing a global partnership for development by 2015. At the same time, the world has experienced the maturation of the information web, and more recently, the meteoric rise of the social web.

The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed. This is a fairly techie presentation, but the first 32 slide are well worth viewing. This presentation is about building a true web experience for phones. For our DSN projects we don't necessarily care right now. We can take advantage of web accessibility on non-smart phones and Twitter and FB apps that don't even need an Internet connection.

Web 3.0 is mostly to do with the massive amounts of active and passive data we are generating. An example of passive data is phone calls from mobile devices. Bandwidth is increasing, which enables video, audio and graphic sharing and data. Hoffman advocates thinking hard about it and acting to protect data. Think about what kind of future we want to create.

Free, teach-yourself-web-development materials covering a wide range of topics including HTML5, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby on Rails

Smartphone users are using mobile apps more than the mobile Web or voice service, and are close to using them more than mobile messaging apps like email and messaging. 70% or more site I personally visit from my phone are not mobile optimized, which is one of the reasons I prefer apps. Also, they are easier to navigate and use compared to to web versions, desktop or mobile.

Very interesting concept.

Technology Review published by MIT, describes an experiment which shows bots may not simply be a form of irritation. The research project started when a group of freelance web researchers created "sophisticated Twitter bots, dubbed 'socialbots,' that can not only fool people into thinking they are real people, but also serve as virtual social connectors, speeding up the natural rate of human-to-human communication."

Facebook has been making an effort to attract journalists through its subscribe feature. Apparently it has had some considerable degree of success. Those using the tool have reportedly seen an average increase of 320% since it was launched in November. Naysayers suggest this increase is more to do with quantity than quality and Twitter remains a better tool for journalists. Elsewhere, funnily enough, teenagers seem to be saying something fairly similar. Conversation is better on Twitter. The Next Web describes how some journalists are complaining that they are collecting thousands of followers through their Facebook "Subscribe" buttons who appear to have no interest in their work. These new subscribers, they say, leave comments that are irrelevant, "spammy" or even obscene.

A Weavr is essentially a smart avatar, a fictional character that you create, with any attributes you like. You then set your character free online, to roam the internet for information relevant to those attributes. According to the parameters you have set, it will return with images, tweets, blog posts and even venue details as it lives its digital life. "It started really as a wild idea," says David Bausola of Philter Phactory. "The biggest users of the internet are bots, so we wanted to give people their own bots. One of my early ones is based on Inspector Morse. The internet's full of stuff about Morse, so my bot constantly trawls the internet for mentions of Oxford, or the murder scenes, or Morse's favorite pubs, and brings them back to me. It's creating its own narrative."

This quote sums up one of the hidden values of social integration on the web: "Twitter's value to consumers is due to the relevance of the tweet stream - we rely on our friends and contacts to curate interesting and relevant content to us, in real-time. Media and entertainment sites can replicate this experience by incorporating social content. For example, The Huffington Post curates relevant site content based upon the articles that a user's friends read or comment on, and Yelp streams business reviews, profile updates and other user-generated content to members from their friends on Facebook."

Families that can't afford to pay from $30 per month for Comcast's Internet access services now have a less expensive alternative. The cable provider launched a new plan dubbed Internet Essentials, which will cost low-income families only $10 per month for Web access.

Google launched its most ambitious social-networking effort yet, broadening a battle with Facebook Inc. to grab the attention of Web users and future advertising dollars. The new service, a top priority for new Google Chief Executive Larry Page, is aimed at exploiting what has been considered a weakness of Facebook-that by default people using Facebook share all their information with a big group of friends. The new Google social network, called Google+, was released Tuesday in a "field trial period," meaning it is an invitation-only product and will be available more broadly later.

Some great points on social media from the New Zealand State Services Commission wiki. Make it findable. Search is good, but tangible evidence that the discussion is happening is better. 'Most viewed' or 'latest discussions' are simple ways of showing that evidence, and are based on how people click their way through your site. Make it navigable. Create linkages between related contributions, so that one contribution leads to another, which leads to another, and so on. This breaks down isolation between participants, gives them a sense of discovery and encourages them to respond to new things they've found. Tagging and tag clouds are one great way of making user-generated content navigable, by helping people see connections between their ideas and the ideas of others. Make it portable. Prompt people to bring the discussion into their own context -- at home, at work, or on other sites. This will draw in more people to the discussion and help everyone feel connected to what's happening on their own terms. APIs, widgets and gadgets are key tools for doing this. Make it personable. It's important to know that there is a someone -- not a something -- behind the ideas. Social media, like blogs, are compelling because they have personality and a sense of authenticity behind them. Seek ways for people to add personality to their contributions.

From SEO to design, to forms and social media -it's all here in this online customer service guide for websites and business online.

Alternative to GoToMeeting and WebEx

List of 50 new apps that can help you shoot better smartphone photos or catalog your bottle-cap collection. You may have dozens of apps on your phone and scores of websites bookmarked on your laptop, but that doesn't mean you have all the latest tech tools at your fingertips. New mobile apps, services, social networks and other digital tools pop up so frequently that keeping up with them is a nearly impossible task. Just when you think you're up to date, something newer and hipper comes along.

Crowd Accelerated Innovation. Think about how mobile affects this concept.

The mobile era is not coming, we're already it in.

I think it going to happen much sooner than that! The wave has begun. Interview With Mark Zuckerberg On The "Facebook Phone"

Looks similar to BlogTalkRadio. They have apps for iPhone and Android.