Tonight wrapped up my Film 240 class here at Queen’s University called “Media & Popular Culture”. One question asked was “Do you use RSS?” and the poll came to about 15% saying yes (which is not far off from the recent 11% RSS adoption rate that was researched). [No, I didn't count hands raised. The poll was done using electronic clickers so the percentages are shown instantaneously on screen.]
If these are the numbers for the more functional and popular tools, I’m expecting the figures for other avenues of web2.0 in education (wikis, social bookmarking, blogs, document collaboration) to be much lower.
So my questions tonight to you are:
1) Do you think these numbers are generally reflective, or should they be higher or lower?
2) If you don’t know about these tools, do you wish someone would teach you how to use them?
3) If you do know about these tools and discovered about them yourself, do you wish someone had introduced you to them earlier?
4) What aspects of education would you be most keen to utilise social media tools?
5) Do you even think such Web2.0 tools have a place in education?
6) If you’ve heard of tools like RSS, Twitter, Wikis, etc, what’s stopping you from using them?
I really, really wanna hear from you, so help me out. If you already know the tools, pass this post on to someone who doesn’t, and ask them to answer the questions!
On a personal note, if you’d like to collaborate with me on an SMU project similar to the one Hack College did, drop me a line!
If needing to take notes is my personal benchmark for how good a book is (like Joseph Jaffe’s Join The Conversation), then Andrew Keen’s Cult Of The Amateur falls firmly in the opposite category. To be honest, for the first half of the book I was waiting for the “haha gotcha!” moment, because no one could be this blind towards the benefits of Web2.0 and community and collaboration.
But I soon discovered it would never come.
Keen fancies his book a polemic, but what it really is, is a rant. After reading the first chapter, every subsequent chapter was merely a repetition of what was said before, albeit with different examples and/or research.
Speaking of research, that is the one thing that Keen does well. I enjoyed reading the statistics, but not the conclusions drawn. for example he gives a timeline for the decline in music sales and says something to the effect that is no coincidence that this happened at around the time of the internet’s birth.
Keen loves the old world. He loves the “cultural gatekeepers” like reporters, news anchors, editors, movie reviewers and the like. Maybe crowdsourcing doesn’t always work, but I would almost always rather determine whether I want to watch a movie based on what people say online, than that one singular review in the newspapers by a “cultural gatekeeper”. In fact I’m working on a deck talking about “The New Gatekeepers”, so obviously I am in direct opposition with Keen here.
One thing Keen does do well, is highlight the problems the internet has brought. Online gambling addiction, pornography, plagarism, not watching one’s online identity. I’m in agreement with these social ills, but the way he writes the book, it sounds like these eclipse everything good about Web2.0 (democratisation of media, more choice than ever via the long tail, experiences that we’d otherwise never have, collaboration, discussion, community, the list goes on). And he makes it sound that these are so terrible that we should just get rid of the internet entirely, although he stops just short of saying that.
Keen also points to Viacom suing YouTube as a “powerful message”, but my bet is that Viacom (who owns MTV, VH1 and Nickleodeon) is wishing they had bought YouTube instead of Google. Just think of the possibilities if Viacom owned that media channel.
All in all, I did not enjoy reading this book at all. Not just because it goes against everything I believe in about social media and community, but because the arguments are one sided. He talks about the money lost by Frito-Lay choosing to go with an amateur advertising campaign, and makes it the fault of social media. But is it anyone’s fault that “professionals” failed to deliver better content and creativity than the “amateurs”? He simply takes one side of the coin and runs with it.
For people already in this space, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book because it isn’t going to change your mind. The arguments are just not strong and/or compelling enough, and your money will be much better spent going towards a book that will help improve your social media life.
But hey don’t take my word for it, check out visual bookshelf on Facebook for many similar reviews, or just check out at this user-generated content by another reviewer (which I found while looking for the cover image). I bet Mr. Keen hates all these “amateur” review and wishes it were all done by a “cultural gatekeeper” instead.
Taking a page out of numerous social media sites, this blog post has the sole intention of asking you to subscribe to my rss feed so you can get content delivered straight to you, and never miss a post!
If you have no idea what an rss feed is, I have a nifty little guide to get you started (complete with images). If you’re already subscribed, do you have a friend who’s into social media? Facebook? Vimeo? Twitter? Plurk? Or just trying to figure out this whole Web2.0 space? Why not recommend this blog to him/her?
Here are a few posts which generated some interest recently, if you’d like to pass them along:
I noticed that after I posted how to use RSS, the number of people subscribed to the blog increased by a decent amount (up around 50%).
My blogroll has been sorely neglected since I first put up the blog, so if you’re someone subscribed to the blog and want to be added to the blogroll, let me know who you are either via email (uniquefrequency[AT]gmail{DOT}com) or comment below.
Maybe tell me a little more about yourself and what you’re into. That way if I stumble across information that may be relevant to you, I can pass it along.
If you’re not a subscriber, not to worry. If you’re involved in this niche of social media, community marketing, web2.0 etc, I’d be happy to add you to the blogroll too. Drop me an email or comment and leave some similar information.
At the end of the day, I really want to know who the readers are and who this community is made up of. So make yourself heard!
One thing I really enjoy about Web2.0 is how you can meet and connect with people so easily, even when you don’t have any intention to.
Case in point? Adventure #1.
I was driving home listening to Six Pixels Of Separation #89, when I heard a distinctively Singaporean accent in an audio comment on Apple. So I got home, checked out the show notes and got to Sui Generis, Derrick Kwa’s website.
A little probing around later, I realised that I should get into direct contact with Derrick because he’s an Arsenal fan, clearly has a thing for marketing and new media and even has a post on the same JJ Abrams video at TED that I posted about awhile back.
In short, as mentioned so many times in social media discussions, Derrick is an example of “people like me”.
As a result Derrick is now on my MSN, we’re mutual friends on Twitter, and followers of each others’ blogs.
Now, this whole story has a point. I’m not trying to tell you about the serendipity of Web2.0 and that you’re going to find a soul mate online.
What I am saying is that the internet has so many people interested in so many things (literally anything) and you can very simply reach into that Long Tail, find your niche and find one person or a handful or many people who are just like you and share your common interests and/or passions.
So now you know this, what’re you going to do about it? Or do you already have similar stories to share? I want to hear from you!
Adventures in Social Media #2 will be coming next week, with some implications for this blog. Keep reading.
I’m a relative newcomer to Twitter, but I’ve been looking for ways to use it better than just a Facebook status updater. Lo and behold, out comes a post on my Del.icio.us feed (actually I think it could’ve been my Readburner feed) on 17 Ways To Use Twitter.
Another article that got pushed to my feed is Newbie’s Guide To Twitter from Webware, which has guides to Facebook, Flickr and Google Reader too. Definitely a must-visit for newcomers to Web2.0 like myself
In other news, I’m really upset about the bandwidth limitation for Flickr. (100mb a month, and that’s not space, that’s bandwidth). I’m not annoyed enough to stop using it because I really like the sharing options, but I’m doing some research on other sites like Photobucket, Webshots, Picasa and maybe even Shutterfly. Let me know if you have opinions on these or any other photo-hosting sites.
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