Thursday, February 15, 2007

First footage of the web 2.0 concept

It's not new new, but I still like it a lot! Creative guys down there at BridleFilms. Also have a look at: "Off the beaten track" More on: Leo Bridle's website For an ethnographic perspective on web 2.0 have a look at Web 2.0... The machine is us(ing us) Or have a look at someone presenting web 2.0 based on wikipedia content on web 2.0

Monday, February 12, 2007

Missing: a web2.0 addressbook

Tim O'Reilly's Radar, a must read as far as I'm concerned, came up with an interesting write-up. He echoes what a colleague and I were thinking last week when working on a project in the UK:

What really needs to be done is not just to connect the various social networks that do exist in internet network-of-networks style, but also to social-network enable our real social network apps: our IM, our email, our phone. Where, I keep asking vendors, is the Web 2.0 address book?
When one of the big communications vendors (email, IM OR phone) gets this right, simply by instrumenting our communications so that the social network becomes visible (and under the control of the user), it seems to me that they could blow away a lot of the existing social network froth. That being said, when I've had this conversation with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, he's pointed out that he's well aware of that possibility, and has been working for years to layer additional value on top of the raw social network data. And he's very right about that.
Tim's Radar caught this on Jon Udell's blog.

Popularity of tagging

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has published the results of recent research into the popularity of tagging. To quote:

A December 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 28% of internet users -- and 7% on any typical day -- have tagged or categorized online content such as photos, news stories or blog posts.
These are people who responded "yes" to the following question: "Please tell me if you ever use the internet to categorize or tag online content like a photo, news story, or a blog post." The survey wording was designed to capture the growing use of tagging on sites such as http://del.icio.us/ (a site for sharing browser bookmarks), http://www.flickr.com/ (a photo sharing site), http://youtube.com/ (a video sharing site) and http://technorati.com/ (the blog search engine).

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Cumbria revisited and clubbin' with the Geordies

My colleagues and I have been working with our customer in Cumbria again for a week. Meaning two days of knowledge management masterclass in the Ennerdale Country House Hotel in Cleator, one day on site and a day of auditing. I cannot disclose details on the project itself, but let me tell you about our travels and places in the UK we visited. Monday afternoon we went from Amsterdam to Newcastle with jet2.com rented cars from Avis (normally we have Hertz' cars, but someone took the executive decision we wanted Avis this time, sorry Gary Christie, your services have been excellent, we didn't want to change!). I got a Ford Focus 1.4, the others had a Ford Mondeo - brand new cars, but didn't like them anyway. Sluggish, no torque whatsoever, trees love these cars most probably. The steering was OK though, quite different from the Ford Siesta we had to our disposal some months ago.

The Siesta had no engine, like other Fords, but the steering rack was quite different. Turning the wheel did not immediately lead to the car moving left or right, it rather felt like whisking double cream until it sets to a firm mass leading to the wheels actually turning.
Anyway, I got lost finding myself driving in the direction of Edinburgh on the M1, again somewhere between Hexham and Carlisle on the 68, again in Carlisle's suburbia (I apologise deeply to the driver of a Mondeo I followed to his front door, thinking it was my colleagues car), finally finding the road to Whitehaven and the Ennerdale in Cleator. Also apologising for speeding on the 595 from Cockermouth to Cleator and to the people asleep at The Larches for waking them up by revving the engine to obtain some speed (a full-scale Judas Priest concert would have been unable to compete). On arrival Eelco came out of the hotel to check if it was me and got back in to order me a pint of John Smith's...sheer heaven. During the week we enjoyed supper at The Waterfront in Whitehaven, savouring balsamic vinegar glazed goat cheese and cod stuffed with seafood with a saffron sauce all combined with a fresh and dry Chablis, the well known white Burgundy wine from the Yonne area. To top it of, we had an espresso, an essential the Ennerdale doesn't offer. On the Friday I worked at the hotel, the others worked with the clients' team nearby Cleator auditing a part of the business. We were given the advice to dive into the city centre of Newcastle on the way back home. So we did! Newcastle turned out to have a lively nightlife. Diner at Sabatini's was superb: Bruschetta, Gamberoni Livornese, Fegatini Burro e Salvia, Scaloppine di Maiale Pizzaiola and Scaloppine di Maiale Sassi. Accompanied by a Abbruzian Trebbiano. Ending with, yet again a espresso ristretto. Newcastle club scene we are ready! The Attic (25-27 Mosley Street, City Centre, Newcastle) seemed to be attracting the kind of people we liked to be around with (impressionable ladies). We spent some time on the top floor being amazed yet trying to look like as-if-the-devil-cares-about-bungee-jumping kind of blokes. Ethnographic participative research one might call it. Minding our own business I was suddenly being shouted in the ear by a young lady dressed in flimsy fabric. After having repeated several times whatever she tried to convey to me, she went away. Similar phenomena kept repeating throughout the evening, sometimes ending up into being photographed with one of them, mostly leading to one of us looking baffled by the Geordie dialect.
Howay man! Me is gan hyme, yous noot foony at all. Ye knaa what ah mean leik?
Wye aye! Tara now, pet. A cannit wait till a get back hyem te see wor lass.