Tag: Snnprofit

A civil spat – the Youtube way.

I have masses of blogging to catch up on, but thought I would start with one of our local councillors here in Birmingham who is using youtube to tackle graffiti. In the process Martin Mullaney appears to have sparked an intergenerational brushfire.

On January 5th 2007 this Liberal Democrat Councillor for Moseley and Kings Heath popped up a video in which he talks about specific tags and taggers and tells us that many of these young people are from ‘good homes’ and good schools. 10 days later it has provoked more than 170 (often vociferous) comments, essentially a conversation between the taggers concerned and the councillor.

[youtube]hVf1AP6EBW4[/youtube]
As Pete Ashton points out the councillor is clearly determined to confront the taggers. On his own blog we also find out that this particular politician gave police evidence which he says led to the arrest of 3 taggers before Christmas.

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Toast falls butter side up

nameontoast

Yournameontoast is a great reminder of some guiding principles for attracting attention online: It’s a simple idea and a good one; the people who had it (Belfast’s Atto) also had the confidence to see it through and make people smile – or at least the hundreds of millions who harbour an abiding affection for toast. On top of that Atto are giving the profits to charity – which is a key wallet opener for many. It’s not social networking per se, it’s marketing and it works.
Thanks to beth and nancy.

The Tyranny of Online Crowds – beyond Crazy Frog?

Writing at www.edge.com Jaron Lanier warns us of the dangers of mass online anonymity.

In the last few years, though, a new twist has appeared. Along with all the sites that encourage individual expression, we are seeing a flood of schemes that celebrate collective action by huge numbers of bland, anonymous people. A lot of folks love this stuff. My worry is that we’re playing with fire.

There are a lot of recent examples of collectivity online. There’s the Wikipedia, which has absorbed a lot of the energy that used to go into individual, expressive websites, into one bland, master description of reality. Another example is the automatic mass-content collecting schemes like DIGG. Yet another, which deserves special attention, is the unfortunate design feature in most blog software that practically encourages spontaneous pseudonym creation. That has led to the global flood of anonymous mob-like commentary.

On the face of it he has a point. Crowds can be stirred, or manipulated, to act in ways which later may appal or shock the individuals involved. If we believe that collective action online is possible – and that it can make a ‘real world’ difference – then we have to worry about online mob action. In my opinion Crazy Frog is one proof of how mass psychology and technology blight our lives.

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School of Everything – except for choice?

A few weeks ago I showed a friend how to use predictive text. He was delighted. So was I. Teaching and learning are precious and potent means to connect.

Charles Leadbeater (writing in Prospect Magazine) mentioned something new to me: the School of Everything. It’s an online/offline project still in dvelopment, being created with support from the Young Foundation. The site they are working on is intended to be a place where we can all connect to share knowledge; a combination of wiki, classroom, coffee shop and workshop.

They set out their principles here, which (if you don’t mind) I’ll repeat:

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