Fade to Play

Matt Mullenweg photo courtesy of flickr user Kris Krüg

I just found out (through his blog) that Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, is the keynote for Northern Voice in 2 weeks. Although I have never met him, I have become of a fan of WordPress since I switched in 2006 and I am looking forward to hearing him speak.

This is awesome news and I would like to offer thanks to the organising committee.

Those that are undecided should register and book your flight today. It will be a great networking and social experience.

See you there!

Relevance: I <3 WordPress and I am interested in hearing about his ideas regarding tagging, social media, and the future of blogging.

As Americans are voting across the nation, Twitter, Twittervision, and Google Maps have combined to create a Google Super Tuesday Map of instant updates. According to the Official Google Blog,

We’ve joined forces with Twitter to give you instant updates on Super Tuesday. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, you can send a simple text message about your voting experience. Huge turnout? Taking too long in line? Did you just vote for the first time? We want it all, if you can keep to 140 characters or less. (And if candidates can keep their posts to 140 characters, anyone can.)

Google News has also participated today through a special election section.

A special gadget tracks how the candidates in both parties are progressing through the night.

found via Laughing Squid and Miss604

Relevance: It is exciting to watch the power of the participatory process through the world using mobile and web 2.0 technlogies. Maybe next time flickr or utterz could be integrated as well.

Recently Susan Reynolds found out she had breast cancer so today is Frozen Pea Friday. She has created a blog called Boobs on Ice where she is sharing her experiences.

This is a really cool example of the Twitter community coming together as I first heard about this from Robert Scoble’s tweet which he expanded on in his blog.

There are a number of ways you can stay involved and show your support.

Twitter: Follow PEAple
Flickr: Change your avatar to frozen-pea inspired and upload to the Frozen Pea Friday group (must be a Flickr member)
Website: Join the Official Frozen Pea Fund and the proceeds go to Making Strides against Breast Cancer from the American Cancer Society.

Although I do not know her personally, I can identify with her struggles.  Stay strong Susan and all the best. Cancer is touching more and more of us these days either indirectly or directly. I wish you luck with the tough days ahead.

Relevance: Social Media comes together for a cause.

Darren Barefoot, who just co-wrote a book about Social Media has began a blog to become a primary source for information about the Google “Knol” Project. It is called Write Great Knols.

I’ve started this blog to gather information about Google Knols, a new product from Google that seems, at first glance, to compete with the Mahalos and Wikipedias of the web. I’ll cover Knol-related news, provide tips and tricks on writing effective knols and point to some great examples.

According to the Google Blog:

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

You can view an example of a Google “Knol” below. I wish Darren success with this endeavor.

Relevance: How will academic institutions treat Google “Knol” citations? Are you encouraged to create a “Knol” yourself?

Darren Barefoot and Julia Szabo have edited written an e-book entitled “Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook.

I have first met Darren at Northern Voice last February and we spent time chatting at Barcamp Vancouver when he flew in from Malta this summer.

This week they published an e-book and it would be a good purchase for anyone interested in social media from the perspective of research, business, or general marketing knowledge.

I was fortunate to be consulted for the section on Facebook, part of which is below:

Phillip Jeffrey, a University of British Columbia grad student researching social media and user-generated content, says the most popular applications are “visibly social”. That is, they display interactions with your friends and other users on your profile. But another way, visibly social apps provide con- stant, unmistakable evidence of your popularity. They’re the virtual equivalent of flowers from your boyfriend on your desk.

Please view the website and Facebook fan page for the book and share this information with others that may be interested in Social Media.

Relevance: An informed opportunity to learn about Social Media through case studies and expert opinion from a various of perspectives.

I’ve been on Facebook since 2005 and it has been fun to watch my fellow students join and quickly become attached to this social utility. The reason I enjoy Facebook so much is that it has enhanced some of my real world friendships as I am more aware of what is happening in their lives, without having to call each one nightly. As students, it is easy to get bogged down in school stuff without taking time to meet up and spend time with our friends.

I don’t use it to replace my real world interaction but find I am attending social events that I discover through the News Feed of my friends, which I ordinarily might have forgotten about. I am also realising that I don’t use Facebook nearly as much as I did in 2005/2006. I don’t surf profiles anymore really and find I am spending time elsewhere online. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I just don’t find it as fun as I used to since it went public.

What was really cool is that I ran into my first Facebook friend yesterday when I was working out in our fitness centre and it brought back memories to my first day on Facebook. At the time Facebook was accessible only to students and you could only see the students in your own college/university unless they were 1) your friend 2) their school had also been accepted into the Facebook community. When I searched the list of students from my school only one friend was on Facebook. I was very happy when she accepted my request, although I didn’t really understand anything about social networking at that time.

Yesterday, the Toronto Star has an article entitled “1 in 4 Canadians on Facebook” that provided information on an unpublished study by the Toronto-based Solutions Research Group regarding Facebook use in Canada.

Despite the recent flurry of bad press over the popular social networking site’s privacy practices, nearly 8 million Canadians – more than one in four – have a Facebook profile page, according to an upcoming study by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group, highlights of which were obtained by the Star.

That makes Canada among the most plugged-in Facebook places in the world, boasting the most users of any country outside the United States and a nearly 15 per cent share of Facebook’s total subscriber base of 57 million.

The survey of 1,000 Internet users, completed in November, also found that about 85 per cent of Canadian Facebook accounts were added in the past year as the popularity of social networking has exploded on the Web.

Considering our population is about 33 million it is pretty incredible that so many Canadians have embraced Facebook over the last year. If you view the one page summary provided by the Solutions Research Group there are some interesting findings about Canadians:

• average user has 81 Facebook friends
• 57% of users 12-29 have 100+ friends
• 15% of users 30+ have 100+ friends
• 900 000 (Sept 2006) –> 7.8 million (November 2007)

I think one of the reasons why we have the most users outside of the United States is that there isn’t a made in Canada social network such as Bebo which was created in Britain or studiverzeichnis which was designed in Germany. Facebook then filled the vacuum here over the last year as it became the ‘it-thing’ for students and non-students alike.

I am curious to see what 2008 holds for Facebook users in Canada. I have met a number of students that get weirded out by friend requests from non-student strangers. I know myself I have had problems with strangers from other countries sending me repeated friend requests when it is clear that they just found my name randomly.

I would also like to read more about how Canadians are using Facebook such as memorial pages for slain teens or the reuniting of a mother with her son given up for adoption through Facebook. Does our use mirror Americans and other Western countries or do we use Facebook differently? How common is Facebook use among our French-speaking population?

Relevance: Facebook is popular in Canada. Who are the Canadians conducting research in this social networking area? Is there a Canadian equivalent to the Pew Research Centre?

I have been using a new mobile social networking site for the last few days. Basically you take your mobile phone and call in and describe what you are doing. Automatically it is posted on your page. In addition, you can use your phone to take photos or create a video and they can be uploaded directly to your site.

It is fun and I think I will be using it daily for the immediate future. I like how easy it is to share what I am doing with the Internet.

I’ve been uttering.

Relevance: I haven’t used many mobile social networking sites. My phone doesn’t have any video capacities so I was using my Canon SD400 point and shoot. I want to experience how I can use mobile technology to create a holistic experience about my life that I can then instantly share.

As many of my friends are active users of digital media or emerging technology, I hope that you will all consider coming to Northern Voice 2008. It started in 2005 and I attended last year and the year before.

It gets better each year, the organisers are a creative bunch and it is a great place to network and meet cool Vancouver people that are involved in a variety of cool meetup sessions such as Democamp, Launch Party, and Barcamp. We get attendees from the States and across Canada so mark the dates now.

Northern Voice is a two-day, non-profit personal blogging and social media conference that’s being held at the Forestry Sciences Centre, 2424 Main Mall, UBC main campus, Vancouver, Canada on February 22-23, 2008.

And although it is a weblog conference, the range of topics may involve anything that webloggers are interested in… that is, just about anything. Previous years have had plenty of geekery mixed with panels on how blogging interacts with family life, education, travel, photography, community building and establishing professional profiles. Speakers range from the big names at the top of the Technorati rankings to first-time presenters with a passion to share.

Cool hosts: Darren Barefoot, Kris Krüg, Brian Lamb, Cyprien Lomas, Boris Mann, Dale McGladdery, Lori Pike, James Sherret, Travis Smith, Julie Szabo, Roland Tanglao, Lauren Wood.

Call for speakers (this means you) is here.

Ideas on interesting keynotes/topics/discussion speakers, submit here.

Facebook event is here:

It will be alot of fun and I look forward to chilling with my Vangroovy friends, The City people, and maybe even some intraweb people IRL for the first time.

For the next 3 days (Oct 18-20) I will be attending and occasionally blogging from Internet Research 8.0. It is the first year I will be attending and I am excited.

The annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers is one of the premier opportunities for scholars and researchers of all things Internet, as well as related new media technologies and practices. It is a forum to meet, present research, network and share ideas in a cooperative, multidisciplinary environment. IR 8.0 Let’s Play will build on seven previous successful conferences and, for the second time, will be held in Canada.

You can view the program pdf here.

I will be low-key at the conference because I need to focus on paper/thesis writing as well as other digital commitments I have. I will be in all the Facebook and tagging sessions for sure. If you see me, peering over my macbook pro, trying to figure out how my camera works, or wandering around looking lost with a Starbucks latte, please stop and say ‘hi’.

Relevance: Excellent opportunity to find out about top-quality Internet research.

I am still feeling the warmth of my weekend at Barcamp Vancouver (Aug 17th -18th) . I had been excited to attend this un-conference since Northern Voice back in February. There are really alot of interesting and creative people in this city and attending meetups and -camp events here provide an informal opportunity to chat and discuss our common interests regarding the Internet and digital technologies.

As this was my first Barcamp, there were a number of highlights for me. As I had for some unknown reason woken up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, I spent the morning drinking lattes on the couch to stay awake. The benefit of this is that I had some really interesting conversations, although I did miss some cool sessions (sorry Todd). I chatted with Darren Barefoot whom I hadn’t seen since Barcamp and was able to learn about life in Malta, a fascinating European country.

It was very cool to meet Todd Sieling from ma.gnolia and be able to tell him what I love about this social bookmarking service. I have been using ma.gnolia from early summer and I like that I can give someone thanks that shares a bookmark that I like. I also trust Tara Hunt and Chris Messina and like being kept up-to-date on relevant content that they bookmark. I also feel that the community is tighter and I have more friends in Vancouver and San Francisco that use it. Thomas Vander Wal sums up his appreciation for ma.gnolia quite nicely.

In the afternoon I attended Todd’s session about ma.gnolia and twitter which was informative in helping me understand how ma.gnolia uses twitter to keep users informed about status updates. I didn’t even know ma.gnolia was on twitter until his talk. I also attended Kris Krüg’s photography session although I could only stay for half of it since it overlapped with Todd’s talk.

The day ended with 2 sessions on Facebook. First, I had planned to spend 30 minutes talking about Facebook applications from a socio-cultural perspective and then spend 30 minutes answering questions. However, I was bumped to 30 minutes total, so I decided to forgo the talk and to post the powerpoint slides and talk online as I believed people would rather get questions answers about Facebook that see slides. The slides still aren’t up yet, but I will post then along with the talk I was going to give sometime in September. Following my session, Greg gave a cool talk on Facebook applications from the perspective of a developer.

I will be putting my slides and the text of the talk I was going to give later in the month.

Relevance:

I enjoyed attending -camp events because I can meet interesting people and I can improve on my public speaking skills.

technorati tags: barcamp barcampvancouver barcampvancouver07