Posts from — May 2008

Google LatLong let us know that Google Earth has now teamed up with Google News to create an informative ‘mashup’ — Extra! Extra! Discover the world’s news in Google Earth:

… Google Earth now shows an ever-changing world of human activity as chronicled by reporters worldwide. Zoom into areas of personal interest and peruse headlines of national, regional and, when fully zoomed in, even the most local of interest. From school menus to global warming, there is now literally a world of information at your fingertips.

To activate the Google News layer, navigate to the “Layers” menu on the left-hand side of Google Earth. Expanding the “Gallery” node in the layers tree will expose the “Google News” layer. Check the box next to the Google News layer and start zooming into the places on the globe in which you’re interested. Each story is represented by a Google News icon on the globe. Clicking on the news icon opens up the news story’s snippet, along with links to learn more about the event.

It’s only logical really, but shows the power of what we can achieve if useful tools are allowed to work together cooperatively.

How can your organisation make use of this new view of world news?

[Via : @MiramarMike .]

Caution: experimenting with the techniques described in this post may lead to the ‘loss’ of several hours. You have been warned.

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Britt Bravo wrote recently in her Have Fun • Do Good blog about compassion:

Thing is, you can sign petitions, make donations, organize rallies, and spread the word about do-good things all you want, but if you’re not being kind to the people around you, are you really a changemaker? …

[Via Have Fun • Do Good: 29-Day Giving Challenge Takeaway: Compassion is Hardest to Give.]

And she included this 4.5 minute YouTube video — one that I think we could all do well to view. I hope that next time I’m aggrieved at the neighbours who park inconsiderately or the hoons who race their cars nearby at midnight I think of this video. Thanks Britt.

And what a good way for the organisation who created this video to both spark a change in the world and arouse interest in themselves. Note the subtle, but clear credit at the end of the movie, and consider also the ‘get service’ message that shows up (appropriately) a couple of times in the video itself.

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For some Twitter is a useful and important tool for maintaining contact with friends and colleagues, and for staying connected to news and events in the world at large, or locally, or as it relates to their hobbies and interests.

One of the good things about Twitter is that you can engage with it just as much as you like: follow one person or organisation and never say anything, interact with a small group, follow hundreds and spend all day tweeting yourself — it’s up to you.

As Twitter develops and increasing numbers of people use it, trends are starting to emerge. Recently ReadWriteWeb teamed up with Summize to look at what people are talking about in the Twitosphere:

What we found is that there are three main types of conversations going on. First, there are status updates of every day occurrences such as, “getting coffee,” “check out this post on X,” “going to sleep,” or other mundane life things.

Second, there are short term memes where many people talk about some event before, during, or after it. These conversations are usually short lived — ranging from a few minutes to a few hours. For example a TV show like “Lost” will have some buzz, before, during, and for a short time after the show airs, but will drop out of the stream very quickly. We saw that happen with “LSD” when the drug’s creator Albert Hoffman died last week.

The final type of discussion we see on Twitter, are long term memes. These are topics of interest that people talk about for days, weeks, or even months. Politics or new video games are great examples of these longer term discussions happening on the platform.
…

Conclusion

While technology, politics, and geekery (sci-fi movies and video games) tend to dominate the long term memes, people are discussing all sorts of things on Twitter — from sports to pop culture to cooking.

[Via : What People Say When They Tweet - ReadWriteWeb.]

People love to talk about the mundane, the trivia — it’s the stuff of daily life; it keeps us connected. Then the ‘buzz’ emerges: the new movie, the latest episode of Coronation Street. But gradually and occasionally the long-term or important topics arise.

Could your organisation use Twitter? Could you stay in touch with colleagues? Monitor breaking news? Arrange for your ‘clients’ to support one another (an example might be quitting smoking)?

See the Webguide Tools: Twitter section for more information about what Twitter is and how to use it.

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I’ve long been disillusioned with news and current affairs as brought to us by traditional news sources. I find them generally lopsided, lacking in analysis, and just generally untrustworthy.

But maybe we’re not as badly off as the Americans (how would we know?).

— Miraz

Watch this shockingly informative 5 minute video from TED by Alisa Miller called Why we know less than ever about the world (requires broadband):

Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why — though we want to know more about the world than ever — the US media is actually showing less. Eye-opening stats and graphs.

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Courtney Johnston of the National Library has a post about how to (productively) spend time on the web. Here’s what she suggests if you have 5 minutes:

Got a spare 5 minutes a day?

My top tip would be to set up some RSS feeds of Technorati tags and Google Blog Alerts, using the name of your institution / website / blog / exhibition / service / product as the keyword. Then every day, try to respond to or act on something you see being said online (remembering that not everyone wants to hear from you).

[Via LibraryTechNZ: Time is on my side: What could you do on the web in 30 minutes per week?.]

Find out more about RSS feeds by viewing Keeping up with the Joneses — Miraz’s workshop notes from the Engage your Community conference, or at What’s this about RSS?.

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