Simon Collister, PhD

Strategy + Consulting

Web 2.0

Breaking down the off/online dichotomy with Winnie the Pooh

by simoncollister 4 Comments

cartoon-279 Ian Delaney has a great post* all about the way we customise – or not as the case may be – our online presence.

Digital natives are much more comfortable treating sparkly add-ons as de rigeur according to this report. Not only that but they don’t differentiate between the online and offline version of the content.

More proof if needed that for those growing up with the internet as a central part of their lvies that there is no on- or offline. Just life.

* well it’s an ok post but I just wanted to display the cool image! 😉

Second Life as pyschotherapy… community… gaming

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I’m not a big fan of Second Life but only in a rather general way. I have yet to see a really good articulation of what works and what doesn’t about it.

Well, I came across this great insight from Tim Pendry who is a friend and nouveau blogger. Tim’s background – I think it’s fair to say – isn’t really tech but I think that’s what gives him the edge I analysing SL.

It is definitely worth reading… here’s a snapshot of what I think is a central piece of his argument:

“SL is confusing at least five different tasks – psychotherapy, gaming, community building, sales promotion and public relations … It is our suspicion that the tool will only become revolutionary when it learns to concentrate on function, much as Web 2.0 products such as Facebook have done, rather than on offering a general platform. 

Virtual worlds are not like simple telephony or e-mail. They have to deal with multiple identity within open societies.  People are guarded.  They will want to restrict access (to themselves) to a community such as friends or associates (as Facebook does) or they will want anonymity – or they will want a platform where there are guarantees exerted by the platform owners on what and who they are facing.” 

His blog is also worth subscribing to for insights into contemporary British and international current affairs and politics…. and and a healthy interest in online communication.

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David Miliband’s blog *will* return

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I posted recently about whether or not David Miliband could break through the diplomatic cordon of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and blog in his role as Foreign Minister.

Simon Dickson reports direct from a live webchat he had with Miliband himself that the blog will return. It’s quite a revealing snippet of conversation.

Simon:

“The new Foreign Sec’s fondness for new communication methods – blogging, YouTube videos, and so on – is well documented. Restarting his ministerial blog was famously his top priority when he took over at Defra: but there’s been nothing out of FCO so far. Has the more conservative (small ‘c’) atmosphere of the Diplomatic Service changed his view of such transparent, direct channels? How can the FCO, whose centralised methods changed little over the course of centuries, respond to the ‘I can’ society he described earlier this year?

His response:

I promise not! I am completely committed to the idea that diplomacy needs to engage the public as well as diplomatic elite and also to the notion that I need to lead that in the Foreign Office. So the blog will be back, supplemented by other tools for discussion and debate.”

It all sounds very promising indeed. A return of the blog and “other tools for discussion and debate” all from the heady position of Foreign minister.

In other news, Simon also flags up Gordon Brown’s apparent commitment to participatory politics. That’s got a ring to it hasn’t it? You read it here first (probably).

Woah! There’s social… and then *social*

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I’ve just read about an astounding Facebook app that probably takes ‘sociality’ to a new, possibly unwelcome level.

The One Minute Friend app works thus:

“you add this application to your Facebook account, give it your phone number (just US and Canada for now), provide some selection criteria, and wait for your phone to ring. You’ll be connected, for free, to another person on Facebook who made matching selections. You talk for a minute and it disconnects. You see their first name and their photo, but no other information, such as your phone number or profile, is revealed. At the end of the call, if both of you so agree, the application will re-connect you for a more extended conversation. Otherwise you can move on to the next person”

I’m not sure I like the sound of that personally. Never does David Weinberger it seems, who admits “I haven’t tried it. I’m not that social.”

[Via  David Weinberger]

Technorati tags: Facebook apps; One Minute Friend

Back from holiday. Anyone else noticed BBC’s new footer?

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Back from my hols and not knowing where to start with 2049 unread items in my feeds. Anyone got suggestions how to make digesting all the important posts as painless as possible?

I also had a look at the BBC’s news pages today and spotted they’ve added a content sharing footer to their news pages:

image

 

I appreciate this may be old news by now… but I thought it was worth a post. It something lots of other media outlets have been doing for a while. The Telegraph was one of the first I came across but since then I’ve noticed even local newspaper websites allow you to share the story about the lollipop lady winning a £500 on the lottery with the world via Digg.

Interesting to see the Facebook icon on their…. not sure what it does yet. I presume it adds a link to your news feed?