An article on the BBC reported Friday that a college professor at Bradford University in the UK has replaced classroom lectures with podcasts. Professor Bill Ashraf feels that the quality of his lectures is compromised by the large size of his classes, some of which contain as many as 250 students. ...
Continue ReadingAfter finishing our 2006 study of political web campaigns, we became curious as to how American politicians’ campaign websites compared to those in other countries. We looked at similar studies conducted in the UK, Germany, Australia, Finland, Hungary, and Sweden, and drew some conclusions:
Countries with parliamentary systems of government tend to have websites that are highly centralized. ...
Continue ReadingAmong many, there seems to be a belief in the intrinsic value of online conversations. The world is flat. Ordinary people are being empowered. Governments and corporations are being held accountable.
It is all true to an extent. But I think the story that isn’t being told enough is how divisive and pointless much of the online conversation really is....
Continue ReadingWow. Just read a great essay on Edge called “DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism” by computer scientist Jaron Lanier. The essay is a massive broadside against the trend towards collective editing and decision-making that is taking hold online (the Wisdom of Crowds trend). Lanier takes aim at the use of collectivism in venues as diverse as Wikipedia (and all Wikis really),...
Continue ReadingWe recently took a closer look at the 2006 Senate candidate’s blogs in an attempt to judge the overall quality of blog quality and blog offerings. Here is what we found:
78 percent of the 18 campaign blogs included RSS feeds.
Only 33 percent of blogs included a blogroll or links to other blogs....
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