Monthly Archives: July 2005

Rambling Thoughts On Convergence, Communities & Passion

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Part I: Convergence
I’ve noticed a few interesting announcements in the media world over the last couple of days.
– Morgan Freeman & Intel have partnered in a new venture to distribute movies over the Internet before the same releases hit theatres. This is partly an attempt to circumvent piracy and perhaps moreso, an attempt to profit from the growing appetites of consumers for rich home media centres and content.
– It looks like Apple’s iTunes latest release has more than just Podcasting support. It looks as though there will be iTunes access through new Motorola mobile phones. Of course, competitor Sony Ericcson has also been working on a digital music enabled, Walkman-branded phone.
– The Spoken Alexandria Project has been launched which is a “library of spoken-word recordings consisting of classics in the public domain and modern works (with permission)”. Rick Schwier, who blogged the announcement, writes “the group’s dedication to free and open access is just the kind of thing that makes me think that we may be witnessing a very profound shift in how our society manages information.”

So Rick’s idea gets me thinking. I really do think we are witnessing this shift, but it’s interesting how it’s coming down. The first two of the examples noted above are based upon media convergence in the way the big companies would like you to see it … paid, proprietary content. And really, the companies (especially Apple) have been very successful in this respect. And in contrast, the third example is based on open content, and structured around a community of content. While all three announcements have been featured in the news over the last few days, they feature very different philsophies around content distribution.

So now off on a bit of a tangent … and really, I don’t actually know where I am going with this (it’s late).

Part II: Open Communities
Alfred Essa recently wrote a post titled, “Immanuel Kant Meets Flickr And Open Source“. It’s an interesting piece where Essa contemplates open code/content in academia and projects a formula for the development of a community. After some deliberation, he writes:

Open Code + Open Content + Open Services = Community

While I think it’s a neat idea, and certainly supports a lot of what I have been looking at in open source communities, it’s missing something … it’s missing something big.

Yet another tangent …

Part III: Passion, Advocacy & Good Will
I have had a blast with my on-going open source research project. It’s been an absolutely incredible experience. What’s made it so incredible is the amazing willingness of people to talk to me about their beliefs around open source and open content, and the advocacy many of these individuals lead in their own communities. There is a huge advocacy movement within this environment and many of my readers partake in this incredible activity. For example, a participant I have been hoping to interview for some time now is driving from Edmonton to Regina (almost 800 kms one-way) just to speak face-to-face about open source/content with me. The response, the passion, the advocacy and the good will of people who I see as a part of the open movement never fails to impress me. While much of the discussion is done over networks, through blogs, wikis, VoIP, etc., this is primarily a human movement and a mechanism for humans to work together on shared pursuits for the betterment of society. I strongly believe this.

Part IV: Conclusion
So how does this all tie in together? As for the struggle between proprietary and open content, the battle will be long, but I hope that the outcome will be clear. Openness, and open thinking especially, will win out, as long as we continue to see the strength, passion and advocacy of people supporting, developing, sharing, collaborating and making all of this happen. Content will be shared, rather than captured and controlled. As for “Open Code + Open Content + Open Services = Community”, let’s not forget the human element. It’s the key difference between corporate forms of knowledge control, and open forms of collaboration.

It’s late, this is likely incoherent, and I think I’ve ranted enough.

Learn Morse Code Subliminally

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With a busy routine, who has time to learn anything consciously anymore? So, I thought I’d try a bit of subliminal learning and since Morse code is still king, why not start there.

I think this has been around for a while, but check out this little audio file of the Morse alphabet with verbal cues. Of course, it’s now on my iPod, and may be downloading to yours as you read this, so we can now both groove to the beat of Morse as we learn new (old) ways to communicate electronically. :-)

See the complete resource from VE1VAC here.

Additionally, if you want to hear the “world premiere Morse code podcast”, it’s found here. Yes, there’s a real message there.

The “Next Big Thing”: Educational Context

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Blake Ross has me thinking. A couple of weeks ago, Ross wrote a short post on his experience with reporters asking him about his predictions on the “the next big thing.” In his act of stonewalling the Press, Ross replied “the next big thing is the one that makes the last big thing usable.” He continues:

I’m not trying to be stubborn or difficult. I’m just disgusted by the status quo. I’m disgusted by what the average person has to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and I can’t imagine a more irresponsible way to spend my time than to sit around pontificating on how else we can widen the gap between the people who actually understand computers, and everybody else.

Here’s what I mean: put a digital picture and an instant message window side by side and ask Mom to share the picture. Even though the windows are approximately five pixels apart, sharing them is about as intuitive as a W2 form. It’s actually easier to share a picture sitting on a server in China than it is to share your own stuff. And you want me to gush about podcasting?

The issue of software usability is incredibly important as the “average” user, in the educational context, is also often the “average” teacher. As I’m reminded of the perceived ease of use of Macintosh systems over the years, I recall my own arguments that many open source software projects are still just too difficult for adoption for the non-techie. I certainly shouldn’t complain as I’m not a software developer, nor have I participated in the development of any open source projects directly, but I do see that there is gap to usability that will continue to slow adoption. Sure, there are many other reasons that open source software isn’t easily accessible in schools (e.g., politics, administration, marketing), but I think that software usability represents the ultimate “point of contact” between product and user. Even if we can get past all of the barriers to the greater adoption of FLOSS in education, usability will be crucial and may be the final deciding factor for teachers.

Podcasting from CNN … Disney … ESPN … CBC …

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I just noticed that CNN is offering Podcasts, and of course the new iTunes Podcast directory offers many more of commercial type podcasts. So not that I ever really believed that Podcasting was really the new pirate radio, but what happens to the format when the market becomes so saturated this quickly? D’Arcy Norman certainly begins to ask the right questions about the relevance of multiple iPod directories, but I guess I am thinking even beyond this … the old question … what happens when ‘x’ becomes too commercial?

I know this question has been asked before re: blogging and RSS, however, in my opinion, listening to a podcast, due to the audio format, requires much more attention and time from me than it takes from scanning through my RSS feeds, looking for what catches my eye. If Goldhaber was correct in his classic article, “The Attention Economy and the Net“, it would seem to me that Podcasting in its current incarnation as an attention-heavy format may still be at a long-term disadvantage. I’m not writing off the format, however, but I certainly see some major changes necessary in the short term.

The Infiltration Of Advertising

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For a second, I thought I was reading The Onion, until I realized, this may very well be true. It seems that Kari Smith, an American, recently sold her forehead as an “advertising billboard” to the Golden Palace Casino. The words “GoldenPalace.com” have been tatooed on her forehead as a promotion for the Ontario-based casino.

Walking Billboard

The transaction was made through an eBay for a reported sum of $10,000. Smith is quoted as saying, “I really want to do this … To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like $1 million. I only live once, and I’m doing it for my son.

See the full story at here. Also, here’s an interesting precursor to this story from back in March by CBS News.