TechCrunch reported that Yahoo! launches a new exciting live streaming video service called Yahoo! Live, but unfortunately “the servers are smoking”, as the message said when I first visited the site. Now, they’re taking a “breather”. But the tiny first glance looked promising, but I won’t hold my breath while waiting for the service to re-open, or maybe re-launch.

Why is it always fun when “the mighty fall”? Like when Microsoft.com was down some months ago.

Åbo Akademin Informaatiotutkimuksen oppiaineen Library 2.0 – a new participatory context –tutkimusprojektin järjestämä seminaari ja työpaja. Seminaari kokoaa asiantuntijoita Pohjois-Euroopasta keskustelemaan kirjasto 2.0- ja web 2.0-ilmiöistä sekä niiden vaikutuksista kirjastojen ja tietopalveluiden toimintaan ja informaatiotieteellisen tutkimukseen. Seminaarissa esitelmöi joukko kansainvälisesti tunnustettuja asiantuntijoita mm. professori Aira Lepik (Tallinnan yliopisto), Kari A. Hintikka (Jyväskylän yliopisto), Mats Hernvall (Kööpenhaminan digitaalinen kirjasto) ja YTT Kimmo Tuominen (Eduskunnan kirjasto).

Seminaaria edeltävässä työpajassa esitellään kirjasto 2.0 ilmiötä ja tekniikoita demonstraatioiden ja harjoitusten avulla. Työpaja on suunnattu kirjastonhoitajille, tietoasiantuntijoille ja informaatioalan ammattilaisille sekä muille kirjasto 2.0- ja web 2.0–aiheista kiinnostuneille. Työpajan järjestävät Isto Huvila ja Kim Holmberg (Åbo Akademi).

Aika: 3.-4.4.2008

Paikka: Informaatiotutkimus, Åbo Akademi, Hämeenkatu 13, Turku

Hinta: 50 € (seminaari sis. 2 kahvitaukoa, 1 lounaan ja päivällisen)
           30 € (työpaja sis. taukotarjoilun)
           80 € (seminaari+työpaja)

Ilmoittautuminen: www.library2pointoh.fi/registration
Viimeinen ilmoittautumispäivä 14.3.2008. Tämän jälkeen korotettu osallistumismaksu.

Yhteyshenkilö: Katarina Grönqvist tel. +358-2-2154564  ja kgronqvi@abo.fi

I tried to stay out of this topic, but I can’t anymore. From a web researchers point of view it has been very interesting to watch how the web has been used in campaigns and also to predict the outcome of the election. The last few days before the so called “super tuesday”, the blogosphere has been full of news related to the election (ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, Mashable, Webometric Thougths, …). An analysis of the blogosphere with Blogpulse suggests an even battle between the top democrat candidates Obama and Clinton. In fact, on February 4th, they are both neck-in-neck in the race, leaving republican McCain a bit behind. While this doesn’t tell us whether the candidates have been mentioned in a positive or a negative tone in the blogs used for the analysis, it is still interesting how well the results correlate with the reality.

Another thing that I find interesting about this campaign is how the web has been used by the supporters. Especially Obama’s supporters have been very active. Barely Political has some great (?) videos and YouBama is a YouTube + Digg + Obama video campaign.

But from another point of view, let’s say an european point of view, it has been incomprehensible to watch how the campaigns have been run and how the characteristics of the candidates seem to be far more important for the voters than the candidates capabilities to do something good in the office. The candidates are trash-talking one another, in stead of concentrating on real issues. Does that really influence the voters? I guess so. I also fail to understand what religion has to do with politics. How could someone that goes to the church every week make better decisions for the country compared to an atheist? In Finland and many other european countries religion is separated from government and politics, even in practice. I actually don’t even know the religious standpoint of our president, if she even has one. And another thing is the personal life of the politicians. What has a politicians personal life got to do with how well he or she can do his or hers job? To be a politician or a president is a job and how well a candidate can do that job should be the only criteria when deciding who to vote for, not if he or she goes to church or swears in public or always remembers to end his or her speeches with “God bless America” or whatever. Of course politicians “mistakes” and affairs get into the newspapers even in Finland, but never would these raise the question whether that politician is still capable to do the job.

And finally, am I the only one who sees how ridicolous it would be if Hillary Clinton would be the next president? If Clinton was the 44th president of the United States, then for over 20 years there wouldn’t have been any other presidents than Bush or Clinton. In a country with over 300 million people, how is it possible that the presidents come from two families? These two families can’t be so special, at least the Bush family can’t be that special, well, not in a good way. Having said that, I guess my opinion is clear: ”change we can believe in“.

Flock, or the “social web browser”, or “the browser for people who like to be connected”, is something that I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now and I have to say that I like it so far. Once you have entered all your account details to all the social networking sites you might use, you can access them from Flock and you don’t even have to visit the web sites. All status updates from Twitter or Facebook can be viewed from a sidebar in Flock. Photo or video streams from YouTube, Flickr or PhotoBucket can be viewed in a topbar in Flock. All rss feeds that you monitor can be checked from Flock. You can edit and update all your accounts from Flock and you can use it to upload any media you want to publish. There’s not much on the social web that you couldn’t monitor, edit or update with Flock. I’m actually writing this with Flock. Hope it knows how to publish this in the right place…

This is the startscreen or the “My World” screen on Flock

But having first praised Flock I have to point out that the browser can be a bit slow from time to time. All the sidebars and topbars take a lot of space, so if you want to have these open all the time (just to be sure that you would immediately know if someone of your friends would post something somewhere on the web) you should have quite a large screen.

To sum it up… Flock is a good tool for anyone that has got loads of accounts and profiles on different social networking sites. You will never have to remember your passwords again, and if you wish, you don’t ever have to visit the sites again. You can do all the updating with Flock. Flock is definitively not a “minimalistic browser”, it’s more like a toolbox for social networking. I like it.

Oh, and you can view web pages with it too. How cool is that?

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Flock, browser, social web, social networking

How is Twitter different from jaiku?

Twittering on Twitter

I felt somewhat unpatriotic when I for first time in my life bought a mobile phone that wasn’t Nokia, but I have to admit that I haven’t regreted it since. I fell for HTC TyTN II, a.k.a. Kaiser, and I have to admit that it is the best phone I’ve had (and I’ve had my far share of Nokia’s before). So this was my first Windows Mobile based phone. Kaiser has WM6, which has proven to be a quite good and quite reliable platform. And WM6 also means that there are plenty of software (both free and commercial of course) with which you can enhance the functionality of your phone.

Kaiser has a connectivity that covers all your needs. You can connect through HSDPA/UMTS, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi®, and Bluetooth®. The Wi-Fi is quite good and it picks up even weaker signals. The built-in GPS is fast and sensitive. The GPS uses a “Quick GPS” application which allows you to download your location data from the Internet, which speeds up the GPS. The 2.8 inch touch-screen is fine, but the resolution of 240 x 320 is way too small, and this is the only real complaint I have with the phone, or PDA, or handheld, or mobile computer, or … what ever you want to call it. Most mobile web browsers can show web pages almost fine, but a higher resolution would definitively make browsing the web on the go more satisfactory. It’s not really efficient to scroll long pages, although you can do it on Kaiser just by moving your finger on the screen. Kaiser also hides a full qwerty-keyboard which slides out when you push the edge of the phone. The slide was very loose on TyTN I, but not in Kaiser. So a definitive improvment to the previous version. When you have slide the screen to the side, you can also tilt it 45 degrees, a function that still fails to impress me. Personally I don’t have any use for that. The keys on the keyboard are quite small and close to each other, but with a little bit of practice you could write a thesis on Kaiser. Maybe I’ll do just that . Kaiser has two cameras, one vga camera for video conferences and Skype calls, and another 3 megapixel  CMOS camera on the back. The camera is good in good lighting, but not so good in not so good lighting. Not so surprising I guess, but it’s good enough to take some random snaps or to read some QR-codes with. Kaiser doesn’t have a flash, which is a bit surprising because the earlier TyTN I had a flash.

I use my Kaiser mainly to check my e-mails on the go and to maintain my calendar on. Both of these functions are very easy to use either with the qwerty-keyboard or with the pen (or any sharpish object) and the touch-screen. Typing in your appoinments or writing e-mails with just number keys is not very efficient, and I’ll probably never return to that anymore. So at least until Nokia’s comes up with something better than a Communicator that has a full qwerty and/or a touch-screen, I’ll stick to HTC.