Yes, first snow arrived a couple of days ago. Nothing to do with webometrics or the web even, but it’s still nice

I’ve been meaning to blog about Google Lively for some time already and now I have to do it, before it’s too late. Google has announced that they will shut Lively down at the end of this year. Not much to say about Lively then… It WAS yet another chat room and I think it was sometimes wrongly compared with Second Life. Lively and Second Life wrestle in totally different weight classes. Lively is/was not a virtual world. It is/was a nice graphical chat room. Kind of reminded me of the early 2D rooms, like the Palace, that has been around for ages. Well, at least I got a screenshot from Lively:

Participation and consumer created created information are the core of web 2.0 and social media. Sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr and Facebook rely on users to contribute with content. Even Google uses user created data when it uses hyperlinks to rank the search results. We have also seen different kinds of mashups that bundle data from two or more sources creating a new service. Unfortunately most of the mashups yet have been built on Google Maps. I have nothing against Google Maps. I think it’s a great service and whenever I’m going somewhere abroad I print some maps from Google maps with me. But I’d like to see some more innovative mashups that would use some other source of information than maps. We have seen Flickr photos on Google Maps. We have seen Twitter posts on Google Maps. We have seen local transportation in real time on Google Maps. We have even seen real time emergencies mashed on Google Maps. Maps, maps, maps… I think there’s potential for a lot more than just put everything on Google Maps.

Schmap is a site that uses consumer created information, and doesn’t put it on Google Maps. Schmap provides guides, information and mapping solutions for different devices. I first came to know about Schmap when I got an email from them. They emailed me because they had found my photo on Flickr. On the photo is the TV tower in Prague. Schmap wanted to use one of my photos in their guide of Czech Republic. What a brilliant idea! This is actually exactly what I do when I’m planning a trip abroad somewhere, to a conference or a holiday. I go to Flickr, search for the city and see what other people have taken photos of to see what is worth seeing in that location. Schmap uses Flickr photos to add value to their service, and it doesn’t cost them a cent.

So, there are ways to use consumer created information and take advantage of users participating in content creation and NOT (just) to mash it up on Google Maps.

Osäker på vad och hur ? Ivrig att pröva på? Nu har du din chans: utbildningsdagen
Biblioteket 2.0 – nya former av interaktion och deltagande den 21.11. bjuder på föreläsningar, praktiska övningar och handledning. Deltagarna får bekanta sig med bloggar, RSS prenumerationer, wikin, sociala OPAC, sociala nätverk på webben, social indexering av informationsresurser på webben och bibliotek i virtuella världar …

Vi kommer att lägga upp ett eget socialt nätverk för deltagarna i NING. Nätverket kommer att användas som plats för diskussioner och som samlingsplats för information som har med dagens tema att göra. Deltagarna kommer också att få en praktisk ”hemläxa” där nätverket kan fungera som stöd.

Utbildningsdagen pågår mellan kl. 10.00-16.00

During the last year or two we have seen a huge uprise of different “virtual worlds” or at least that’s what they call themselves. There’s a brilliant video on YouTube that goes through the most famous ones. ExitReality is one of the newcomers. ExitReality is a browser plugin that “lets anyone view any web page in 3D”. Big promises.

ExitReality reminds me of s startup in Finland three or fours years ago. It was called Bubble Finland or BubbleOne. You have probably not even heard of it. I was invited to their dinner party where they launched the service. The launch was done with big money. They had a Fogscreen on which they showed their service. The food was brilliant and they had hired several top artists for the event. But then came the next morning and I never heard of Bubble Finland again. What was Bubble Finland?

Bubble Finland was a 3D mall created with VRML. Users could through their web browsers walk around in a mall and enter the stores there. Clicking on items in the store took them either to Bubble Finland’s web store or the shop’s own web site. Sounds like a good idea, you might think, but then you would be wrong. It was poorly designed and it lacked any interaction with other shoppers. You were alone in the mall. ExitReality looks a lot like Bubble Finland did, but you can “meet” other people there. Communication is done in a separate window for text chat, which to me seems like a very oldfashioned way of doing it. What does ExitReality have to offer then? Nothing, as far as I can see. It’s just another startup semi-virtual world among tens of others. I might return in a year or two, but for now I’m just glad that I finally had time to blog about it, because now I can remove it from my computer.

DCL eli Digital Competence and Learning konferenssi alkaa huomenna. Lisätietoja ohjelmasta löydätte osoitteesta http://www.eoppimiskeskus.fi/. Keskiviikkona järjestettävä Virtuaalimaailmat ja yritystoiminta sessio tullaan samaan aikaan esittämään myös Second Lifessa EduFinlandin alueella. Tähän virtuaalisessioon on vapaa pääsy. Tervetuloa!

Keskiviikon 5.11 sessio alkaa kello 10.15 jolloin Jukka Ruponen IBMltä kertoo miten IBM on kehittänyt liiketoimintaa virtuaalisissa maailmoissa. Lounastaukoa pidämme kello 11.00-12.30. Ohjelma jatkuu sekä Hämeenlinnassa että EduFinlandin alueella Second Lifessa kello 12.30 jolloin minä ja kollegani Isto Huvila tulemme kertomaan Second Lifen mahdollisuuksista koulutuksesta. Tulemme muun muassa näyttämään käytännön esimerkkejä miten tätä virtuaalista maailmaa on jo käytetty opetuksessa, ohjauksessa ja koulutuksessa. Kello 13.15 Franck Tetard Åbo Akademista tulee kertomaan sähköisen liiketoiminnan kurssista joka on juuri alkanut. Kurssilla osaanottajat saavat pienen pesämunan jonka avulla heidän tulee käynnistää liiketoimintaa Second Lifessa. Kahvitaukoa pidämme kello 14.00-14.30, jonka jälkeen kuulemme Metaversal Arts liiketoimintaverkoston perustajien Darleez Decuirin ja Yolanda Hirven (aivan oikein, heidän avatariensa nimet) kokemuksia liiketoiminnasta Second Lifessa.

@interactiveweb Testing something else

#interactiveweb Testing again