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MySpace lied to us all….and no one cares!
The blog world has been pumping out stories over the last week related to the "scandal" surrounding Tom, one of MySpace’s cofounders and our first "friend" when we set up an account. Apparently, Tom, like most Americans over the age of 30, has been lying to us all these years about how old he really is. When the site launched four years ago, Tom’s listed age was 27, but as first broken by TechCrunch last week and later legitimized by Newsweek, Tom either had temporary amnesia when filling out his profile, or he’s just really, really bad at math. It turns out the old geezer was actually 31 back in 2003 when MySpace launched.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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No Rights Reserved: The Role of the University in Student Copyright Infringement
It’s been a particularly active month in the four year saga of the Recording Industry Association of America’s legal assault on direct copyright infringers.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Emerging Issues in Educational Technology
I just wanted to take a quick moment to draw gnovis readers’ attention to the EDUCAUSE 2007 Conference that has been taking place this week in Seattle. Covering a huge range of topics related to education and technology, the conference has been receiving fantastic coverage by the Chronicle of Higher Ed on their Wired Campus blog, plus a number of posts on the EDUCAUSE blog.
One of the most compelling stories from the conference is a huge challenge to the popular belief that Wikipedia is less rigorous than the Academy.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The death of a “second life” – overreaction or cause for concern?
The Times (London) published an article last month titled “Facebook suicide,” describing an increase in users canceling their accounts with social networking sites for a variety of reasons, including jealous boyfriends, disconnection with the real world and concerns about prying employers. The article even references a user group on Facebook’s site, the Facebook Mass Suicide Club, for those who have such an obsession with the social networking site that the only way to correct the situation is to sever all ties.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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It's Comcastic: So much for Net Neutrality
Network neutrality may be an unattainable ideal. And many people may not even know what it means, perhaps even the people directly involved. I certainly don’t feel that I know what net neutrality truly means, because it’s much more complicated on a practical level than it might seem.
From simple pricing structures that effectively regulate content access, to outright monitoring and blocking, "neutrality," can be affected in many ways.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Disclosure vs Consent: What Software Can Learn From Medicine
Each time that you install a piece of software, or register an account on a new website, you are entering a legal agreement. You are presented with an EULA (End User License Agreement), Terms of Use, a Privacy Policy, or some other document and, if you are anything like me, you scroll down as fast as you can and check the ‘I Agree’ box without reading a word.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Fight Improvisation with Improvisation: Open Source Explosives
Every war has its "signature" weapon: the machine gun in World War Two, Napalm in Vietnam, AK-47s in ethnic conflicts. I suspect the 21st Century weapon of choice will be variations on the IED (improvised explosive device). Since the war in Iraq began nearly 81,000 IED attacks have caused nearly two thirds of American deaths. According to Pentagon estimates nearly 300 IED attacks occur each month beyond the borders of Iraq and Afganistan.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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The Academy Goes Digital
Yesterday morning, Nicole and I had the pleasure of attending The Georgetown University Libraries Scholarly Communication Team’s fifth symposium, Scholarly Communication and the Web: Creation and Collaboration. An impressive panel, moderated by William Olsen, discussed their groundbreaking integrations and interactions with digital media in their respective fields.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Fox "Biz"
Like Sportscenter, But for Finance.
Everyone’s favorite media mogul, or favorite one to hate, could have reason to frown.
Rupert Murdoch has certainly demonstrated his ability to dominate the news business. But harnessing business news may prove more risky, and possibly less proftable.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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A social networking site for everyone – but at what costs to privacy and security?
In recent years, Web 2.0 has assimilated itself into our daily lives with a vengeance, and no other trend within this movement has made more of a statement than social networking websites. First were the general sites – Friendster, MySpace and Facebook – which by now we are all familiar with (unless, that is, you have chosen to live under a rock). In today’s world, however, you can also find the social networking site that not only lets you connect with old friends, but you can hone in on a very specific group of individuals. There are social networking communities for dog lovers (Dogster), flirts (Flirtomatic), Christian churches (MyChurch), car enthusiasts (CarDomain) and even Goths (Vampire Freaks), to name just a handful.
Category: The Gnovis Blog