In other news, which you may have already seen on Facebook, an article I co-authored with Erik Nisbet and Tarleton Gillespie got published in The Information Society and we got some press coverage in Cornell Chronicle. Here is the abstract of the paper:

Addressing the reasons for—and the solutions to—the “digital divide” has been on the public agenda since the emergence of the Internet. However, the term has meant quite different things, depending on the audience and the context, and these competing interpretations may in fact orient toward different policy outcomes. The goals of this article are twofold. First, the authors unpack the term “digital divide” and examine how it has been deployed and interpreted across a range of academic and policy discourses. Second, through a framing experiment embedded within a nationally representative survey, the authors demonstrate how presenting respondents with two different conceptual frames of the digital divide may lead to different perceptions of who is most accountable for addressing the issue. From this, they discuss the dynamic relationship between the construction and communication of policy discourse and the public understanding of the digital divide, as well as implications for effective communication about the digital divide and information and communication technology policy to the general public.

Feel free to contact me if you want to read the entire piece and don#8217;t have access.

So, here are the DIY projects that I liked.  It is sort of repository for myself and also for anybody who has an interest.  Please feel free to suggest more ideas.

• Micro Maestro hexapod robot

and a larger and rather different variation

• Winduino

• Remote-Controlled Camera Mount (more here)

• The Frustromantic Box


• R/C plane from trash (lacking detailed instructions)

I will stop here for nowhellip; more may follow later :)

If you are celebrating, I hope you will have a tasty one!

Here is a very interesting opportunity for those of you who have a leadership bend to their academic aspirations and fancy studying in UK:

Launched in March 2007, the Weidenfeld Scholarships and Leadership Programme seeks to cultivate the leaders of tomorrow primarily from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa. The scheme provides outstanding university graduates and young professionals from the wider European neighbourhood with the opportunity to pursue graduate studies at Oxford University. The Weidenfeld Scholarships cover all tuition, college and maintenance fees as well as the costs of extra-curricular activities for the length of the studentsrsquo; chosen course.

The programme includes intensive leadership, mentoring and networking activities, which develop the scholarsrsquo; capacity to contribute to public life in their countries of origin, be it in the public or private sectors, and build lasting professional linkages across continents, ethnic, cultural and religious lines. Co-chaired by Sir Ronald Grierson and Mr. Michael Lewis, the Weidenfeld Scholarships Advisory Board includes leading figures from international academia, business and politics.

It would be great to hear from anyone who decides to apply.

Good luck!

Now, spending the summer at Berkman, makes me more conscious of the online materials the center is releasing.  For example, about a week ago Jonathan Zittrain (JZ) gave a really interesting talk about the history of the internet through the lens of domain name regulation.  Unfortunately, that one was not documented, but then, when I came across the video below, I did sit down to watch (most of) it.  I donrsquo;t think I would do it unless I had the opportunity to listen to JZ ldquo;liverdquo; just a couple of days before, but now I know that there is a good explanation of the basics of the Internet out there that I can use.

Same goes for other items, such as the luncheon talks.  For example, this week, Eszter Hargittai presented her new data about disparities in Internet-related skills among college students.  Although I am following Eszterrsquo;s blog and try to read what she publishes, I doubt I would have a chance to spare an hour watching her recorder talk.  Now, after actually being there, I would encourage you to watch both, her talk from this week and another one she gave about a year ago (below).

Of course I am the first one to think about the importance of being there.  The idea has been around for a while, especially in the business world.  However, it is always fascinating to reach a similar conclusion based on your own observations.  It seems that the ability to attach a ldquo;facerdquo; to the content has an aura effect, beyond the immediate enhancement of communication between the people involved.  It shifts onersquo;s attention towards other information produced in the same space, and most interestingly, it extends to the online environment.  I think that so far I was paying attention only to the reverse dynamics (when online communication enhances the following offline interaction).  It is interesting to now how it works in the opposite direction as well.  Being there focuses you on the materials produced by the people and institutions invovled, while probably taking away from your attention to informatin produced elswhere, even if that is a place where you have previously spent a lot of time at.  Some food for thoughthellip;

Enjoy :)

So, what Irsquo;ve been up to?  Here is a short update.

I am spending this summer at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society working in the Internet and Democracy project.  Berkman is a really interesting place where seemingly unlimited (primarily intellectual) resources are combined with a really comfortable environment for people to let their inner geek/nerd out.  I am an ldquo;internrdquo; and there are about 30 of us working all over the yellow house on Everette street (and thanks to Cathrine White, we now go by Berkterns - Berkman interns).  The summer is only at the beginning, but it looks promising.  So, if you are in the Boston area, please feel free to touch base.  I will be here until early August.

Please note that Irsquo;ve started reworking this site a little bit in terms of content, structure, and infrastructure (I really need to upgrade the platform).  I am using Wordpress and I am now also looking for a new theme.  The theme should be widget ready and also to have tabs.  If you have any ideas, please let me know.

As to actual cooking, please check out a new initiative Veronica and I have started.  It is called ldquo;Cooking Travelsrdquo; and the basic idea is to explore various cultures through their food.  We are looking for people who would be interested to contribute to it on a casual basis.  So please let me know if you would like to take part.

In the next few days, I plan to release some of the post drafts that have been sitting there for a while.  Hope at least some of the are still relevant :)

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

ldquo;The state of the news mediardquo; - The PEW report is out (as well as a renewed website) and it seems that the basic thrust of it is that the traditional media are trying to catch up with technological, social, and financial developments, but only with partial success.

ldquo;Enemies of the Internetrdquo; - The report from ldquo;Reporters without bordersrdquo; is out (link to the PDF). Aside from the ldquo;usual suspectsrdquo; there is also a list of ldquo;countries under under surveillancerdquo;, which includes two democracies Australia and South Korea.

Some country stats:

• India - GSM subscribers


• Moldova - Broadban


• Moldova - Mobile


• Nigeria - Telecom market


• Pakistan - Mobile subscribers


• Uruguay - Telecom market


• USA - Mobile internet


• Worldwide - Mobile broadband

ldquo;Three-Quarters of All Electronic Messages are Sent Via Mobile Phonesrdquo; (via ICT stats) - Interestingly, email is still more popular in the developed countries, but that is not the case in the emerging economies.

ldquo;How many top-level domains are there?rdquo; - A little visualization from the recent ICANN meeting showing the number of top-level domains out there.

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

ldquo;We Need A National Broadband Standardrdquo; - What do you think a national broadband standard should look like in the US?  Geoff Daily asks some good questions on the topic.

Tim Berners-Lee at TED. He is now talking about ldquo;linked data, or a web of data, meaning a network of not just content, but what this content is about. Does it make sense? Take a look:

I can relate to his call for ldquo;raw data nowrdquo; as it is often frustrating to find raw data out there. So, here is a link to the dbpedia he mentioned in his talk.

Digital Divide

The NY Times Bits had a series of interesting articles comparing broadband deployment worldwide. Here are the links to the articles, which I hope you will find interesting:

• ldquo;The Broadband Gap: Why Is Theirs Faster?ldquo;


• ldquo;The Broadband Gap: Why Is Theirs Cheaper?ldquo;


• ldquo;The Broadband Gap: Why Do They Have More Fiber?ldquo;


• ldquo;The Broadband Gap: Your Take on the Issuerdquo; - A collection of readerrsquo;s reactions to the series.

ldquo;Landscape Analysis of Low-cost Computing Devicesrdquo; (via OLPC news) - An interesting overview of the recent netbooks phenomena questioning whether or not they are suitable for developing countries.

ldquo;The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009rdquo; - A report produced by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with INSEAD that focuses on the link between technology and development.  I have not read it all, so I am not sure if it goes into the details of the mechanism or just provides the rankings.

MICT regulation

ldquo;Europe looks to wrest control of the web away from the USrdquo; - By now this is old news, but I think it is important to note at least for archival purposes. Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for Information Society, urged the Obama administration to let go of the US control of ICANN.

ldquo;Economic realities push German broadband providers to infrastructure sharingrdquo; and ldquo;EC approves plans to open broadband access (Denmark)rdquo; - I would not call it a trend, but these are interesting examples of how information infrastructure starts being shared.

ldquo;British government considering Digital Rights Agencyrdquo; - This is a really interesting example of how various issues of internet governance (in this case copyright and network neutrality) are intrinsically intertwined.

MICT business

ldquo;Social-Networking Sites to See Slower Ad Growthrdquo; - In itself I find it interesting that the volumes of advertising are growing in social networking websites. Unfortunately though, FB for example started also embedding adds in a more disguised manner in the news feeds.  I wonder if change in practices will not chase people away from social networks.

ldquo;Newrdquo; media

ldquo;An automatic talkbackrdquo; (HE) - An Israeli startup Qerta came up with technology that can automatically leave comments (talkbacks) on various content websites.  In the last Israeli election paid commenting on news websites became a widely spread phenomenon.  According to the article, this product can do the same job automatically using some fancy AI algorithm.  Food for thoughthellip;

ldquo;Social not-working: Facebook snitches cost jobsrdquo; (via AoIR mailing list) - A collection of stories from people in Australia, who lost their jobs over Facebook comments that their employers did not really appreciate. I think all of those whose age is mentioned, are in their 20rsquo;s and it is really interesting to read their comments about how they view FB and online privacy.

ldquo;Liberiarsquo;s Blackboard Bloggerrdquo; - Well, this is not really ldquo;newrdquo; media, but a story of an ldquo;analog bloggerrdquo;, a man in Liberia, who is supplying information in a blog-like fashion on a regular blackboard.  It is interesting how we start interpreting things in a technology-related way.

ldquo;Whatrsquo;s Killing the Newspaper and Who Will Save It?rdquo; (video) - A 50 minute long conversation held by journalists and entrepreneurs in the field of ldquo;newrdquo; media about the current state and direction of journalism and the newspaper industry.  I currently donrsquo;t have the time to watch it all, but from sampling, it seems like an interesting piece.

ldquo;Why itrsquo;s dangerous to compare print figures to website statsrdquo; - Some interesting thoughts on comparing the ldquo;oldrdquo; and the ldquo;newrdquo; media.

ldquo;Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkablerdquo; - A really well written (though long) post from Clay Shirky analyzing the last couple decades when newspapers were coping with the Internet.  I like it when he said: ldquo;That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.rdquo;  Havenrsquo;t thought about it in those terms before.

ldquo;News Corp will charge for newspaper websites, says Rupert Murdochrdquo; - And here is a slightly different take on the things.  I think the title communicates the gist of it clearly.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

ldquo;Sixth senserdquo; - Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry of MIT demonstrate an interested, yet potentially controversial, technology at TED (check out some of the comments on the original TED post).

So here is the update: a group of Cornell undergraduate students won a grant from the OLPCorps scheme and in a few weeks they are going to Tidjikja, Mauritania, to distribute 100 XO laptops to children and tutor them for about two months.  I am trying to help these guys with some advise, but they are doing great in spite of that :)

If you are interested, you can take a look at a wiki with the details of their proposal (PDF) and you can follow a blog they have recently started.  As I said, they received 100 XO laptops, USD 10,000 for expenses, and a week long training in Rwanda.  So, just two members of the team are actually going to Mauritania, but nevertheless they are still about USD 1,000 short.  If you happen to have an idea where they can apply for money on such a short notice, please share.  If you wish to contribute yourself (not necessarily the entire sum), you can do that as well (thank you in advance!).

I am really excited for the guys and I am sure this is going to an interesting experience from which we all will learn a lot.

As many other similar events (such as the IGF) the forum is not aimed at producing binding resolutions.  Instead, its explicit aim is to set the agenda for the global telecom policy making.  Here is how it is described on its website:

It (WTPF-DE) is not designed to produce prescriptive outcomes with the binding force of an international treaty; rather, it strives to foster productive debate and build multi-stakeholder consensus on constructive ways forward.

This is why I think it is particularly fascinating event and this is why it will be interesting to look at how its outcomes describe MICT, priorities of related industries, and the associated regulatory principles.  Preparing for the trip I was pleasantly surprised to discover a wealth of information that the ITU made available online.  For example, there is a repository of all the iteration of the ldquo;Report by the Secretary General of ITUrdquo;, which is the pivotal document of this meeting.  In its preamble, the report states:

Decision 9 of the Antalya Plenipotentiary Conference states that arrangements for the fourth WTPF shall be in accordance with applicable Council decisions. In accordance with Decision 498 of the 2000 session of the ITU Council, discussions at the WTPF shall be based on a Report from the Secretary-General, incorporating the contributions and comments of ITU Member States and Sector Members (available at: http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/wtpf/wtpf2009/report.html) which will serve as the sole working Report of the Forum.

Since I am interested in words and in discourse, I thought to play a little bit with what was available.  Together with Veronica, and with the help of the Many Eyes project, we created the following visualization of the current Report by the Secretary General of ITU - the report that is at the basis of the upcoming discussion.  Here is what we got:

This image shows the 150 most common words in this 53 pages long document and the relative size of the word signifies its popularity.  As we can see from a quick glimpse, this forum is going to be about ITU, Internet, networks, services, issues, international, ICTs, countries, use, resolutionshellip;

The decision in 2006 called for convergence to be the main topic of this forum, yet, as we can see in terms of popularity, the word ldquo;convergencerdquo; is loosing to many other concepts.  This is not to say that the discussion cannot focus on convergence using different terms, but I find this detail interesting.  it is particularly interesting, because if you look at visualization of the first draft of this report (before numerous comments by stakeholders were absorbed in it) the word ldquo;convergencerdquo; was much more dominant (you can see visualizations of drafts 2 and 3 in the links).

These visualizations do not tell us much about the substantive content of these documents, but I think they are a nice way to have a brief glance at the terminology that is dominating this debate.  I hope to continue following and blogging more on this subject.

Your comments will be highly appreciated!

While I found the overall conversation interesting, one particular phrase caught my attention.  When he was defending Google against allegation of being parasitic (i.e. they do not produce content, but only provide access to it), Matt Brittin said that it is an: ldquo;easy criticism to level, particularly in a really tough downturn, which is affecting media companies all over the world including Googlerdquo; (emphasis added).

Of course this is not a trend (yet?), but I find it really interesting that Google high-level executive  talks about the company in terms of media.  I think it further contributes to our growing realization that information and communication technologies (ICTs) as social factors are becomming more and more amalgamted with content.  This is a really interesting contribution to the argument that it is important to consider content related aspects when we talk about technology or in other words that we are talking about media, information, and communication technology (MICT) and not just ICT.

Just a note I wonted to take and to share.

Leaving aside the particularities of the video, the competition itself looks like a good opportunity for those of you who are interested in getting their ideas heard and perhaps even make it to the upcoming World Telecommunication Policy Forum in Lisbon in April.

In a nutshell, you have to have something visionary to say about the future of media, information, and communication technology, you have to be between the ages of 18 and 26, you should speak in English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French or Russian, and you need to know how to shoot and upload videos to YouTube.

The deadline for your submissions is March 31.

Currently there is only one video response published on YouTube, so I guess there is still room to compete.  Here is the link again (you should read the conditions carefuly) and good luck!

Here is the gist of the initiative:

What?

OLPCorps Africa is a unique grant program focused specifically on learning in Africa. Student teams are equipped with the tools, resources, and know-how to develop grassroots learning environments in an African country of their choice. OLPC is drawing upon the worldrsquo;s student leaders to spark a university-led grassroots initiative in this global learning movement. Through OLPCorps Africa, OLPC is creating a global network of student leaders who will create a lasting impact at the local level, build a network of student activists, and initiate a grant program that will become renown.  (source)

Eligibility? - Undergraduate and graduate students, over 18 years old, from any country.

How?

$3,500,000 for 100 teams of college students to get $35,000 in support for 10 week projects in Africa. Each group gets 100 XO laptops, assorted hardware, a $10,000 stipend, and 10-day training in Kigali, Rwanda, before being sent out to projects. (source)

When?

The workshop will begin June 8th and end June 17th. Teams should arrive at least 1 day before. However, teams are encouraged to arrive as early as the 6th in order to adjust to the time-difference and leave room for flight-delays or any other unexpected circumstances which may arise. (source)

The duration of the Grant Program is 10 weeks (June - August), including the orientation in Kigali. Teams should arrange with their local partner to stay for at least 9 weeks. (source)

Proposals deadline is March 27th.

Please consult the wiki of the project for further details.  Note that there are many people there who are looking for local partners to form a proposal team.  So, if you are in Africa, you may find good partners there.

I was also excited to see that there is a group of Cornell students who have applied for this opportunity.  I hope to get in touch with them and offer them my help.  If any of you is applying, I would be also glad to hear about that!  Please let me know if I can help, particularly with linking people who are looking for partners.

Good luck everyone!

Here is the gist of the initiative:

What?

OLPCorps Africa is a unique grant program focused specifically on learning in Africa. Student teams are equipped with the tools, resources, and know-how to develop grassroots learning environments in an African country of their choice. OLPC is drawing upon the worldrsquo;s student leaders to spark a university-led grassroots initiative in this global learning movement. Through OLPCorps Africa, OLPC is creating a global network of student leaders who will create a lasting impact at the local level, build a network of student activists, and initiate a grant program that will become renown.  (source)

Eligibility? - Undergraduate and graduate students, over 18 years old, from any country.

How?

$3,500,000 for 100 teams of college students to get $35,000 in support for 10 week projects in Africa. Each group gets 100 XO laptops, assorted hardware, a $10,000 stipend, and 10-day training in Kigali, Rwanda, before being sent out to projects. (source)

When?

The workshop will begin June 8th and end June 17th. Teams should arrive at least 1 day before. However, teams are encouraged to arrive as early as the 6th in order to adjust to the time-difference and leave room for flight-delays or any other unexpected circumstances which may arise. (source)

The duration of the Grant Program is 10 weeks (June - August), including the orientation in Kigali. Teams should arrange with their local partner to stay for at least 9 weeks. (source)

Proposals deadline is March 27th.

Please consult the wiki of the project for further details.  Note that there are many people there who are looking for local partners to form a proposal team.  So, if you are in Africa, you may find good partners there.

I was also excited to see that there is a group of Cornell students who have applied for this opportunity.  I hope to get in touch with them and offer them my help.  If any of you is applying, I would be also glad to hear about that!  Please let me know if I can help, particularly with linking people who are looking for partners.

Good luck everyone!

Recent news related

Gfail.  My past nightmare was recently shared by many others who could not access their Gmail accounts and faced a rather annoying 502 error.  TechBlorge wrote - ldquo;The Gmail is failing, the Gmail is failing!rdquo; - Bits told about - ldquo;Four Hours Without Gmailrdquo; - and VentureBeat asked - ldquo;Where were you during the great Gmail outage of February 2009?rdquo; (more here).  Now I am even more eager to figure out if it is possible to back it up with the offline version.  In the meantime, Google has offered a compensation to its corporate (read ldquo;payingrdquo;) costumers - ldquo;Paying GFail victims get 15 days of free serviceldquo;.  Google also published their official explanation to the blackout.

And as long as we are on Google, here is another piece of news - ldquo;Google Switches Approach to Philanthropyrdquo; - now it is going to be more focused and more technology oriented.

[Image by anonymonk]

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

ldquo;The Atlantic Century: Benchmarking EU and U.S. Innovation and Competitivenessrdquo; (via Thoughts about k4d) (PDF of the full report) - The Information technology and Innovation Foundation has released a report comparing the climate of innovation in 40 countries.  In fact, for me, the findings were not as interesting as the methodological part, because it is not an easy task to measure innovation.  Here is a NY Times article about this report.

ldquo;Job Seekers Turn to the Webrdquo; - As the unemployment skyrockets, Hitwise show that more and more people turn online to look for jobs.

ldquo;Telegraph.co.uk top of Digg leaguerdquo; - A post with a graph showing the frequency of digged stories from different outlets; my sense though is that it accounts for only British newspapers.  Kind of expected, but still interesting to see some numbers attached to it.  Also, they highlight the growth of traffic to LinkedIn, which may suggest some new, social-networking-heavy, trends in job searching.

ldquo;Is a Plane More Fuel Efficient Than a Prius?rdquo; (via FlowingData) - Apparently the answer is ldquo;yesrdquo;.

ldquo;Ephemerisrdquo; (via FlowingData) - You have probably heard about a recent collision of two communication satellites, this is a neat visualization of the various garbage floating around the earth.

Some country stats:

• Bosnia - mobile subscribers base


• Greece - broadband penetration


• India - web traffic


• Russia - information technologies and services export


• World - internet domain names

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

ldquo;The Future of Internet Regulationrdquo; (via Information Policy) - Phil Weiser from the law school at the University of Colorado published a working paper where he outlines a model for internet regulation, focusing primarily on the US case.

ldquo;The lsquo;Black Boxrsquo; of Peer Reviewrdquo; - If  you are in the academia, you may be interested in reading this review of Michèle Lamontrsquo;s book ldquo;How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgmentrdquo; or maybe even the book itself.

Digital Divide

ldquo;Surprise: America is No. 1 in Broadbandrdquo; (via LIRNEasia, full report PDF) - Even though LIRNEasia kind of dismisses the idea that adoption of technology can (or perhaps even should) be measured not only by the number of links or the speed of connection, I find the approach described in this report an interesting step in potentially right direction (need to read it in more detail to form a clearer opinion).  On the other hand, here is a critique of the report and in fact of any kind of measurements.  I am not sure what exactly was the aim of the critique apart from suggesting that if everybody is connected and uterly technolgically literate it will be very good.  But the author does not suggest any ways of assessing the process of getting there, which I think this whole measurement debate is about.

ldquo;Industry pitch that Smartphones belong in classroomrdquo; - The more smartphones become like computers, the more sense it makes to integrate them in the classroom; but I wonder if there is a $100 (or less) smartphone coming any time soon and what its operational costs would behellip;

ldquo;German Government Introduces National Broadband Strategy, Pledges to Auction Digital Dividendrdquo; - Irsquo;ve mentioned it in a previous digest and here is more info.  I just wonder what does ldquo;growth friendly regulatory environmentrdquo; meanhellip; ideas?

ldquo;Vint Cerf: We Still Have 80 Per Cent of the World to Connectrdquo; (via Information Policy) - The ldquo;father of the internetrdquo; is referring to some technical aspects of ldquo;bridging the digital dividerdquo;.

MICT regulation

As I have mentioned in one of my previous digests, the Internet Governance Project is publishing - ldquo;A Field Guide to the ICANN Reformsldquo;.  So far they have published two parts.  First part (which is actually second :) - ldquo;September 2006 Diagnosis: The GNSO Needs Fixing ldquo;. And the second part (which is actually third) - ldquo;The Boardrsquo;s Plan to Reform the GNSOldquo;.

ldquo;We Should Only Subsidize Wireless And Next-Gen Wireline Broadbandrdquo; - In general, I think this makes sense, as investing in technology that is going to be outdated by the time the infrastructure is in place may prove to be counterproductive.

ldquo;Turning Universal Service Funds into Agents of Changerdquo; - Andres Maz on Ciscorsquo;s blog is calling for reviewing the ldquo;good oldrdquo; universal service policy.

ldquo;Obamarsquo;s deficit plan hikes tax on carried interest for VCs, hedge fundsrdquo; - I believe this is one of the first criticisms of the recovery plan and the way it was passed.

MICT business

ldquo;How Does WordPress Make Money?rdquo; - I find this rather inspiring how a company like Automattic (WordPress) are making money by being good and not just by exploiting human weaknesses or simply by taking chances.

ldquo;Lehman Brothers Spins Off Venture Capital Armrdquo; - Just a note to self about some post-bankruptcy changes.

ldquo;Newrdquo; media

ldquo;Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wikirdquo; - In case you wondered which of the Fortune 500 companies have blogs, this is an attempt to pull them all together.  I am not sure I completely understand what is that site that hosts this list and who stands behind it, but it has some cool stuff like - ldquo;Big Questions Wikirdquo; - which attempts to answer questions such as ldquo;Why do we sleep?rdquo;.  Does anyone have a clue who stands behind this project and what is its purpose?

ldquo;Facebook and Bebo risk lsquo;infantilisingrsquo; the human mindrdquo; - Susan Grrenfield gave a rather scary talk to the British government, which reminded me the early reactions to television (more here and here).  Even though she is a scholar researching the brain, I didnrsquo;t see her pointing at any research to have a meaningful debate.  What do you think?

ldquo;Primates on Facebookrdquo; (via Inside Facebook via ICT4Peace) - On a related note, this is a glimpse at the social dynamics on FB; I wish there was more data available.

ldquo;*Social* media literacy: The new Internet safetyrdquo; (via Eszterrsquo;s Blog) - Some interesting thoughts about ldquo;softrdquo;approaches to online safety (contrary to ldquo;hardrdquo; approaches such as filtering).

ldquo;Netflix streams already rushing past DVDs in 2009?rdquo; - In the midst of HD-DVD vs. Blue Ray war I remember reading an argument that it may not be at all relevant because we will be able to stream high definition video pretty soon.  I wonder if that day is coming closer.  Here are some more thoughts on the subject.

MICT and politics

ldquo;A new era of fiscal responsibilityhellip; and bloggingrdquo; - The Obama administration is blogging about budget and I wonder if we start seeing some gaps emerging between the ways things are presented at the White House blog and the media.  What do you think?

ldquo;All eyes on Obamardquo; - On a related note, Alexa blog is showing a retrospective on Obamarsquo;s web-presence, comparing the popularity of his campaign site, change.gov, the website of the White House, and the recent recovery.gov.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

ldquo;Tasks Written in Easy to Read Fonts Are More Likely to be Completedrdquo; - Now, if that actually holds water, it make sense to switch to Arial permanently; it may particularly interest those of us who need to hand out exams and assignments.

ldquo;Musicthatmakesyoudumbrdquo; (via Digital Inspiration) - An exercise by Caltech PhD student, Virgil Griffith, where he correlates music tastes of students with SAT scores of the schools they go to.  Apparently, he also did a similar exercise with books and posted some interesting insights on his website.

ldquo;Working landscapesrdquo; - A post about photography that is trying to capture industralization - beautiful in its special way.

ldquo;Skype 4.0 VoIP Servicerdquo; - I am using this version for probably a week or two now and am starting getting used to the new interface.  I am not sure why they needed such a drastic interface change though.  Maybe it is trying to compete with the sliker designs of their competitors such as - ldquo;ooVoo VoIP Serviceldquo;.

Microsoft and Lenovo have launched ldquo;Name Your Dream Assignmentrdquo; competition.  They are going to give $50K to one of the top 20 photography projects that will win the popular vote on their website.

I just submitted mine and you can find it here (there is also a badge on the main page that is linked to my project).  Since there are space limitations for project descriptions, I also created a page here, on ThinkMacro, that has more details.  Please feel free to explore.

If you are reading this, I would really appreciate if you take a few minutes and vote for my project!

Please PIC IT!

So I decided to share a couple of insights I have learned from (and about) my students.

Insight #1: Last semester I TAed for an intro communication class.  At some point (somewhere in late October) we were talking about the upcoming election and the use of MICT in election campaigns.  Specifically, the students were presented with a way of assessing political websites in terms of interactivity, hypertextuality, and social presence.  At the end of the class the 102 students were polled about what aspect of the website would be most important to them.  Thanks Laura and Sue, who agreed to actually count all the votes, I am able to share them with you:

• Interactivity - 35.3%


• Hypertextuality - 34.3%


• Social presence - 27.5%


• Combination of a number of aspects - 2.9%

If I recall the discussion in class correctly, this means that (1) the students appreciated an ability to ldquo;talkrdquo; to the candidates, express their opinions, and get involved in discussion, and (2) they appreciated an option to learn more and in depth about the subjects presented on campaign websites.  Needless to say that this is not by any means a rigorous or comprehensive study and we cannot really learn anything substantive from it, but nevertheless I think it is an interesting indicator.

Insight #2: The class I am TAing for this semester has a blog where the students have to post weekly assignments.  In the last assignment they had to observe their own usage of their mobile phones for a couple of days and then discuss issues that bothered them the most.  I have no numbers to provide this time, but here is what I learned from reading their reflections:

• They are connected! Not that this needed any proof from me reading the blog posts (PDF), but it is really amazing to read about the central role this device is playing in their social life.


• They are very responsive. One of the most common complains was about phone calls and text messages interrupting their studies, their sleep or their class sessions.  On the face of it, what can be easier than simply turning your phone off, but it turns out that missing phone calls or taking too long to response to text messages is not very socially acceptable.


• They want control.  As one of the common solutions, many students offered to have an equivalent of tagging so that they could catalog people in order prioritize phone calls and text messages as they arrive (note that this is different from assigning different ring tone to individual contacts).  Another popular feature they have advocated for was an ability to link their calendars to their mobile phones, so that the phones would ring, vibrate, or turn off according to their schedules.


• They donrsquo;t like uncertainty. Another commonly suggested feature was status notifications.  On the one hand, they want to let people know why they are not responsive or signal to people when it is appropriate to contact them.  On the other hand, they want to know why somebody is not answering their calls or text messages.


• Mobiles are social. Anther common complain was that the phone rings in inappropriate times (class, library, etc.).  It turns out that people really care about this and it is considered very embarrassing even to the digital natives.

Again, none of those observations is subject to any rigour, but I found reading these blog posts really interesting and insightful.  Hope you will find those interesting too and I wonder if any of the mobile industry players is actually working on developing some of the features the students have advocated for.

We Report, We Decide: Civic Mediarsquo;s Impact on Mainstream News

In recent years, civic media projects have increased in numbers around the world. Ordinary people armed with inexpensive production equipment are using the web to share news and information with others in their communities and beyond. What can mainstream media learn from these experiments in community news-gathering?

NeighborMedia, a civic media project at Cambridge Community Television, invites you to attend this special discussion. Veterans in the fields of print, television and Internet journalism will share their views and take questions from a live studio audience, of which we hope you can be a part.

The even will take place on Monday, March 16, 7pm, Cambridge Community Television, 675 Massachusetts Ave. If you want to go, you need to RSVP by Thursday, March 12, by emailing colin@cctvcambridge.org.

More information is available here.

Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-43)

January 5-8, 2010 Kauai

Digital Divide/s and Inclusion/s Mini-track

The mini-track calls for papers that study digital divide/s, inequalities and inclusions in different levels, methods and perspectives. Possible focus may be on international, national, local, sector, communal, and individual level. Both empirical and theoretical papers are invited. Potential contributions may be in the subjects, but are not limited to the following:

• 
  
  Conceptualization and theory of digital divide/s, digital spectrum and eInclusion
  
  


• 
  
  Indigenous communities and technologySocio-demographic factors– gender, age, education, income, ethnic diversity, race diversity, language diversity, religiosity
  
  


• 
  
  Social and governmental support – for example the use of supportive initiatives, policy and applications to bridge the gap, or how society and community impact eInclusion
  
  


• 
  
  Access and technology – infrastructure factors
  
  


• 
  
  Affordability
  
  


• 
  
  Use – skills, frequency and time, locus, autonomy of use, what do users do online and for what purpose
  
  


• 
  
  Accessibility focusing mainly in populations with special needs
  
  


• 
  
  Measurements indices
  
  


• 
  
  Comparative analysis of policy
  
  


• 
  
  Comparative cross-country or cross-region research
  
  


• 
  
  Country or region specific case studies
  
  

Contact Information for Mini-Track Chairs:

Karine Barzilai-Nahon [Primary Contact]

University of Washington

The Information School

Suite 370B Mary Gates Hall, Box 352840

Seattle, WA 98195-2840

Phone: (206) 685-6668

Fax: (206) 616-3152

Email: karineb@u.washington.edu

Narcyz Roztocki

State University of New York at New Paltz

School of Business

75 S. Manheim Blvd.

New Paltz, NY 12561-2443

Phone: (845) 257-2935

Fax: (845) 257-2947

Email: roztockn@newpaltz.edu

Important Deadlines:

• 
  
  Abstracts -Authors may contact Minitrack Chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content at anytime.
  
  


• 
  
  June 15, 2009 - Authors submit full papers to the Peer Review System, following Author Instructions found on the HICSS web site. All papers will be submitted in double column publication format and limited to 10 pages including diagrams and references. Papers undergo a double-blind review.
  
  


• 
  
  August 15, 2009 - Acceptance/Rejection notices are sent to Authors via the Peer Review System.
  
  


• 
  
  September 19, 2009 - Authors submit Final Version of papers following submission instructions on the Peer Review System web site. At least one author of each paper must register by this date with specific plans to attend the conference to present the paper.
  
  

Instructions for Paper Submission:

• 
  
  HICSS papers must contain original material not previously published, or currently submitted elsewhere.
  
  


• 
  
  Do not submit the manuscript to more than one mini-track. If unsure which mini-track is appropriate, submit the abstract to the Track Chair for guidance.
  
  


• 
  
  Submit your full paper according to the detailed formatting and submission instructions found on the HICSS website. Note: All papers will be submitted in double column publication format and limited to 10 pages including diagrams and references. HICSS will conduct double-blind reviews of each submitted paper.
  
  

HICSS conferences are devoted to advances in the information, computer, and system sciences, and encompass developments in both theory and practice. Invited papers may be theoretical, conceptual, tutorial or descriptive in nature. Submissions undergo a double-blind peer referee process and those selected for presentation will be published in the Conference Proceedings. Submissions must not have been previously published.

For the latest information visit the HICSS web site at: http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/

Please read on and share your thoughts!

Recent news related

When i first took note of the Facebook changing their terms of service, I posted it under ldquo;New Mediardquo;.  However, during the week, the item became widely debated around the web and new developments took place.  So, I decided to move it to the ldquo;newsrdquo; section.

I first read that it looks like you ldquo;belongrdquo; to Facebook even if you choose to abandon them on Michael Zimmerrsquo;s blog - ldquo;Facebookrsquo;s New Content License Extends Beyond Closure of Accountrdquo; (also here).  Tech.Blorge posted a similar sentiment - ldquo;Facebook owns youhellip; foreverldquo;.  VentureBeat, on the other hand were less alarmed - ldquo;Is Facebook really using its new terms of service to own your data?ldquo;.

Reacting to the buzz, Facebookresponded - ldquo;Zuckerberg on Privacy: This is Just the Beginningrdquo; (you can also read the original - ldquo;On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Informationrdquo; - from Mark Zuckerberg).  However, later in the week it decided to step back and withdraw the proposed changes - ldquo;Facebook Recants (Again)rdquo; - ldquo;Facebook faced down: new TOS tossedrdquo; - ldquo;Facebook U-turn on privacy changesrdquo; - ldquo;Recapping the Three-Day Facebook Firestormldquo;.  In Mark Zuckerbergrsquo;s post on Facebook, he announces a new group on the website that is dedicated to drafting ldquo;Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilitiesrdquo; - ldquo;Update on termsldquo;.  Later on, I saw on one of the blogs - ldquo;Facebook to Users: We Are Sorry, Please Donrsquo;t Delete Your Accountrdquo;

Somehow I fell this is not the last time we hear about Facebook, privacy, and experiments in governance online.

What do you think about this story?

Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations

ldquo;The Global Agenda 2009Prime; (PDF via MIT Center for Future Civic Media) - A 325 page report summing up the World Economic Forum in Davos.  I find it particularly interesting, as similar to the discussions I intend to study, these outcomes have no binding implications, but they are important factors in defining how we talk about issues and what those issues are.  I have not read the entire document, but found comments from Florence Gallez of MIT interesting as well as the portion about the Internet.  For example, if you wondered why Internet Governance debates would be an important question for stufy, here is how Davos participants viewed it:

ldquo;Comparing Search Data Retention Policies of Major Search Enginesrdquo; - Michael Zimmer reproduces a comparison chart from MS and Siva Vaidhyanathan is posting - ldquo;A slice of the introduction draftrdquo; - for his book about Google.

ldquo;Guide to Online Advocacyrdquo; - I think the title says it all; according to the post, this guide covers four areas: ldquo;informing and communicating; documenting and visualising; mobilising and coordinating; and bypassing and accessingrdquo;.  Could be great to know if anyone found it useful.

ldquo;Keep it officialrdquo; (via LIRNEasia) - The Economist is taking a critical stand on a pending law in Kazakhstan, that is aimed to limit the freedom of online expression; this is despite the fact that the Prime Minister himself, happens to be a blogger (and his blog is bi-lingual in Kazakh and in Russian - it turns out the Russian is the second official language in the country, something I did not know).

Some regional information:

• Caribbean - Review of the telecom market


• France - Mobile subscribers


• Iceland - Review of the telecom industry


• India - GSM subscribers


• Japan - Review of the telecom sector


• Morocco - Telecom industry stats


• Spain - Mobile subscribers


• UK - Text messaging


• USA - Review of the telecom market

For those who still wonder what this whole financial crisis is about, here is a rather well done visual explanation (via Digital Inspiration):

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions

There was a seminar in Washington DC this week that I wish I could attend.  It was organized by the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and now I understand also by Georgetown University.  The seminar focused on the portion of the stimulus plan dedicated to the broadband and its potential to contribute to economy rehabilitation.  Unfortunately, I donrsquo;t have much account of the event. There is this article which states that the primary focus was on the contribution of all this spending to job creation (here is the paper it is referring to). The App-Rising blog discussed the need for national broadband strategy and expressed general enthusiasm about investment in the broadband, while pointing at some still unanswered questions about the implementation of the stimulus.  Hope there will be more material soon, particularly the papers that were discussed there or maybe even transcripts of the sessions or even their video footage.

The alternative energy discussion keeps on coming on my radar and some of the ideas seem interesting.  This week I read about deep water wind turbines and even a combination of utilizing wave power with the offshore turbines.  I agree with author of the second post that the next step seems to add solar to these constructions.

ldquo;The Computer as a Road Map to Unknowable Territoryrdquo; (via Thoughts about k4d) - A Washington post article about computer simulations of social phenomena.  I find it pretty intriguing, regardless of the obvious limitations.

John Markoff of NY Times is concerned with security of the web and is raising a question - ldquo;Do We Need a New Internet?rdquo; Andrew LaVAlle of WSJ Bits is following with - ldquo;Do You Want a New Internet?rdquo; - And what do you think?

ldquo;Tough times require different approach to innovationrdquo; (via CommunicationsDirect) - A call to rethink ways to innovate in the technology-driven industry in times of economic recession.

Digital Divide

ldquo;Was the Sugar User Interface a Mistake?rdquo; - Actually I would like to leave it as a question and ask those who have used the system: what do you think?

ldquo;I.B.M. Delivers Rural Broadband Over Power Linesrdquo; - Irsquo;ve been hearing about similar technologies for many years now, but this is the closest I see it coming to actual deployment.

ldquo;German Government Introduces National Broadband Strategy, Pledges to Auction Digital Dividendrdquo; - They want to have 100% of the households connected by 2010 and 75% of the households have 50 MBpS by 2014.

ldquo;Bill Gates helping to bring mobile banking to the poorrdquo; - In fact, the idea is to bring banking to ldquo;the 1.7 billion people globally that have a mobile phone, but no bank accountrdquo; (more here); perhaps this is another face of the digital divide.

It was probably not random that I also saw this piece of news - ldquo;Telcel partners with Banamex to launch SMS-Mobile Banking (Mexico)rdquo; - and this commentary - ldquo;E-mail, Mobile Phonesndash; and Microfinance?rdquo; - it looks like the mobile banking emerged as a hot topic last week.

MICT regulation

ldquo;Field Guide to the ICANN Reforms (Part 2)rdquo; - Milton Mueller continues explaining the politics of ICANN on the Internet Governance Project blog.

ldquo;Changes on the way for US telco environmentrdquo; - Another analysis of the broadband stimulus in the US and its potential repercussions.

MICT business

This week passed under a sign of positive news about the venture capital market.  For example, Bits have published that in 2008 - ldquo;Venture Investment Climbs in India, China and Israelrdquo; - and VentureBeat reported that another initiative that aims at doing well while doing good managed to raise some money - ldquo;World of Good raises $1.1M for socially conscious shoppingldquo;.

ldquo;Is the mobile phone industry really turning itself green?rdquo; - Review of some green-oriented innovations in the mobile industry.

ldquo;Newrdquo; media

ldquo;Medpedia: A Collaborative Encyclopedia for Health Carerdquo; - I think we are facing a new trend of wiki-based encyclopedias that are more focused and are concerned with professional credentials of the contributes.

MICT and politics

Recovery.gov - Another communication innovation from Obama team. This time it is aimed at increasing transparency regarding spending of the stimulus package (which also includes limiting employment of H-1B visa holders).  In the meantime, there is not much information on the website, but it is naturally generating some buzz - ldquo;Visit Recovery.gov to learn how the government spends $787Brdquo; - ldquo;Obama Launches Recovery.gov - Your $787 billion at Workldquo;.  At the same time it is also attracting criticism - ldquo;Can Obamarsquo;s Online Hotline Deliver?rdquo; - which is new to the coverage of Obamarsquo;s ldquo;new mediardquo; initiatives.

If you are interested to hear more about the online strategies of Obamarsquo;s campaign, you may want to read this interview with Thomas Gensemer - the man who is credited with its success.

Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff

ldquo;Top 10 best open source gamesrdquo; - Although I used to enjoy computer games, I was never fanatic about it.  This is probably why I found this list and the concept itself as rather interesting and amusing.  I should try some of thosehellip; After the A-exams of course :)

ldquo;Single Google Query uses 1000 Machines in 0.2 secondsrdquo; - A short post and a video about how Google works.  And if we are on Google - ldquo;Google Earth finds Atlantis off coast of Africardquo; - which may be cool, but I wonder though, why it happened only now if it was that easy?  After all, these images are not new to the world.

ldquo;Download, install and drive - the future of automotive softwarerdquo; - An aspect of the automobile industry that I usually donrsquo;t think about.

ldquo;The Universe in lsquo;09rdquo; (via FlowingData) - SEED Magazinersquo;s mosaic of interesting and provoking ideas.

ldquo;The Trilogy Meterrdquo; (via FlowingData) - Levels of enjoyment from some famous trilogies - just for fun!

A really cool video about how amazing the nature is - a group of scientists capture the structure of an ant colony (thank you, Julia!):

I am writing this because I just learned from the Good Neighbors blog about a new initiative by Wharton (I assume MBA) students, called LendforPeace.org. The initiatives seems to be a close replica of the Kiva, which I think one of the most innovative projects combining micro-finance with possibilities opened up by technological progress.  The main difference between Kiva and LendforPeace is the geographical focus.  In their own words:

LendforPeace.org is a not-for-profit Internet platform that allows individuals like you to make small loans to specific micro-entrepreneurs in the Palestinian Territories.

Our mission is to use micro-lending to promote economic opportunity and political stability in the Middle East.

The website was officially launced at the beginning of this month with a grant from Clinton Foundation after a pilot set of loans ($5000) was successfully returned in about half a year (you can learn more about it on their blog).

One of the ldquo;selling pointsrdquo; of the project is that it is established by two Jewish and two Palestinian students.  I presonally think that it would be even cooler if it these were two Israelis and two Palestinians in the team. Nevertheless I find these kinds of joint ventures encouraging.

Here is their first call for papers (PDF version here):

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII), the Policy Studies Organization (PSO), and Berkeley Electronic Press are proud to announce Policy and Internet, the first major peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary journal investigating the implications of the Internet and associated technologies for public policy.

The Internet is now embedded in social, economic and political life, bringing with it new practices, norms and structures. The societal shift enabled by the Internet enables new kinds of policy innovation and creativity: and raises new challenges and risks for policy-making and analysis. It requires rigorous empirical investigation, theoretical development and methodological innovation across academic disciplines. Policy and Internet will become the premier arena for advancing policy research and shaping the policy agenda in the digital era.

Policy and Internet invites papers reporting world class research and scholarship on any aspect of the relationship between the Internet and public policy. The journal is fully multi-disciplinary in scope. Topics will range across policy sectors and regions of the world, including generalised, sectoral or country-specific policy effects.

Find further details and make submissions at:

http://www.bepress.com/pso_internet/

I thought some of  you may be interested.

Here are some highlights:

• 95% of the students have access to computer with an internet connection.


• Most parents donrsquo;t really care what their kids are doing online or how much they spend there.  For example, 67% of the parents do not limit the time their kids can spend online, 53% do not express any interest about what they are doing there, and only 22% are using filtering software.


• Most of the students are rather pragmatic in their use of the internet.  81% of the students are looking for any information online (not surprising, but interesting number), 77% are playing online games, 68% utilize the web for their studies, 66% use it to communicate with their peers, and 63% download music.


• It also looks most of the students are rather thoughtful in their use of the internet. 72% explicitly stated that they are aware of the dangers of the internet and ldquo;consult or checkrdquo; before giving away identifiable information (71% are using a screen name) and 14% of the students admitted that they are exposed to adult content.


• Online ethics and copyright awareness are not as strong.  30% of the students are convinced that they can download anything they want from the internet and similar proportion of the students are convinced that they can download papers from the internet for class submission (this one is rather worrying result in my eyes).


• Some results are not as clear.  For example, 40% of the students are convinces that internet is a free place where you can copy or use anything you want. I am not sure what exactly the Ministry people were trying to achieve in this question and how we should read it, but they presented it as a negative phenomenon.

As I said, the report is released in the context of ldquo;internet safety day.rdquo; As such, it is framed so that we would appreciate the dangers children are exposed to online.  This is particularly evident in the emphasis on the fact that parents do not care much about what their kids are doing online and an explicit attempt to emphasize that significant percentage are exposed to adult content, as well as to suggest that the kids are not careful enough in online interactions.

However, I think the results actually show that the Israeli youth are very thoughtful users of the Internet.  I have no tools to judge how many teenagers are exposed to adult content in the offline world, but 14% does not seem like a frightening figure (of course it is self reported, so the actual figure is probably higher).  At the same time, the main uses of the medium are mostly positive and most of the youths are careful about how they behave online and how they expose themselves to strangers.

The Ministry of Education is taking credit for the positive trends (even though longitudinal data would help) and probably rightfully so .  I think it is an important argument in the discussions about internet filtering under the claim of protecting the kids.  First, we can see that the situation is not as horrible as some proponents of filtering suggest (unless, of course, looking for information online is considered negative/dangerous behavior in some communities).  Second, if the Ministry of Education is right that the current situation is a result of educational efforts, it shows that resources spent in that direction do bear fruit.

Having said that, it is important to note that my entire discussion is based on a press release from the ministry. In other words, all the data above was selected and framed by the ministry to serve a purpose.  It would be of course much more useful if the ministry would publish the detailed report, including the instruments theyrsquo;ve used and the responses theyrsquo;ve got.  For example, it would be really interesting to see age difference in the attitudes and uses of the internet.  It would be also interesting to see how different socioeconomic groups interact with the medium.  Finally, as I have mentioned above, presenting longitudinal data (if it exists) would be very helpful. Do you think it is too much to ask for a complete report?  Or perhaps it is available somewhere out there and you could point me to it?