Two unrelated stories indicate that there may be a large shift in the way in which we consume media, which could have implications for policy (if only policy was informed by empirical evidence). The first is that 2005 saw a drop in movie attendance, despite being a year that saw Read more…
According to The Register, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is to launch an alternative Wikipedia that combines the best of both worlds: wide public input edited by hired experts. This is definitely something to be curious about and it will be interesting to see how this approach works out. Arne
This week Nature published a study on the reliability of Wikipedia in comparison to the Britannica encyclopaedia. 50 science articles were chosen from both encyclopaedias and send for “blind” peer review. The result from 42 returned usable reviews: Britannica turned up 123 errors, and Wikipedia 162. In regards to this Read more…
(Thanks to Arne for the link) After the news that ICANN is to remain in control of the web (was there ever any doubt they would?), there are people out there asking whether this should be the case. There is an alternative, build your own root nameserver. The internet currently Read more…
(via Boing Boing) The latest viral video to hit the Net is a video by the “Back Dorm Boys”, two kids from Guandong Arts Institute, and that is making the rounds and wasting bandwidth around the world. My favourite is still the tremendously funny Numa Numa Dance. There’s no doubt Read more…
Wikipedia is holding a donation rally asking for user support. As far as internet causes go, it doesn’t get any bigger than this. Your donation can save a wiki article from ending up at the bottom of Google’s cache, so please give generously.
Wikipedia is fast becoming one of those great internet ideas, something that helps to define the web, just as Google, Amazon and eBay have done in the past. But I think that Wikipedia is much more than a mere site, it is the living example that open source works. When Read more…
French research firm Xiti Monitor has released some data about Firefox’s share of the market (if you haven’t been using Firefox, what are you waiting for?). Global figures for Firefox remain low, while Europe is the continent with the highest percentage of Firefox users at 14%. Of those European countries, Read more…
Citeulike lets you browse what people are reading. You can list academic articles that you find interesting so that the community can read them. Another great resource to see what is new and to attempt to stay up to date in this difficult field. Off to spam the list with Read more…
2004 has been the year of the blog. The BBC reports that the word “blog” has now been included in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The definition reads: “BLOG noun [short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by Read more…