»internet«

Ulf von Rauchhaupt features in FAZ (26.1.2006) Web 2.0 ideas and identifies two categories where the so-called wisdom of the crowds sums up for a better knowledge: an Ebay-style and a Wikipedia-style mechanism. With Ebay an economic supply and demand scheme leads to the best price, a statistical average by the many users. With Wikipedia, statistically, mistakes average out. But there are further problems like the credibility of sources. Rauchhaupt comes to the conclusion that Web 2.0 applications are powerful tools to foster knowledge but they only work with a sound base of (public funded) science.
BTW: Rauchhaupt's article is essentially a Web 2.0 product as Internet users could add comments and inspiration to a pre-print web version of his article scheduled for print in the daily FAZ.

Florian Rötzer comments at the Telepolis website (27.12.2006) about Nature magazine's trial to install an open peer review process. In parallel to the conventional peer review Nature editors published the submitted paper at their website for comments. Five percent of the authors (71 in total) agreed in doing so. Out of the 71 articles only 38 received comments. Out of 92 comments 49 comments addressed 8 articles. As an intermediate result Nature stops the process and tries something new: People may comment on published papers _after_ the peer review process. Coming soon in 2007.

ps. In an editorial (21.12.2006) - this time free accessible - Nature denies what we ever thought of "It would be misguided indeed for Nature to have any competitor's sense of Schadenfreude over Science's experiences with two papers on human embryonic stem cells by Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues. It is possible that we at Nature would have published the papers had they been submitted to us instead."

Best of Pogue (I guess, a free registration is required.) David Pogue explains wannabe trolls and pills how to turn to best performance and receive maximum audience. A daily annoyance of critics and columnists like Pogue.

Pogue: "WHEREAS, 95 percent of all the e-mail received by critics and columnists is civil, friendly or respectfully constructive;

"but WHEREAS, this is the Internet age, and we're all anonymous and can avoid making eye contact forever;

"and WHEREAS, there's so much information overload, a little heat and drama on your part may be necessary just to be heard above the din;

"and WHEREAS, many of those who fire off potshots are missing out on some of the best techniques for effective snippiness;

"THEREFORE let us now post the rules for membership in the Pills of the American Internet Neighborhood Society."

In his code of conduct for trolls and pills he gives nine rules.

A research paper by American and Dutch computer scientists shows that the newly introduced RFID technology is vulnerable to computer viruses, reports John Markoff for the NY Times (15.3.2006). RFID, short for radio frequency identification tags, are tiny electronic circuits that may be attached to goods, consumer products, generally everything for identification purposes. They are supposed to replace bar codes. The chip is irradiated remotely with microwaves by a scanner. The microwave provides energy for the workings of the chip and code. The chip now replies with processed or stored data, for instance, best-before date information of food. Because anything may be labelled with these tags and thus recorded and tracked RFID technology is compared with an 'Internet of goods.' The security issues are presented at http://www.rfidvirus.org (if the page is offline, check out Google's cache.)

Stefan Niggemeier (Bildblog) fasst ein einem schönen Text für die FAZ am Sonntag mal zusammen, wie die klassischen Medien auf die neuen Kommunikationskanäle im Internet reagieren. Insbesondere, wie sie eben nicht oder falsch reagieren. So gibt's wohl immer noch reihenweise blogs (Süddeusche Zeitung), in dem Journalisten nur einmal im Monat einen Text absondern, und auf Kommentare noch nicht einmal reagieren.

Zitat Niggemeier: "Diese Blogs sollen Interaktivität suggerieren und demonstrieren das Gegenteil. Echte Interaktivität wäre aber auch ein wahrhaft revolutionäres Konzept. Der amerikanische Journalist und Vordenker Jeff Jarvis beschreibt es so: >Das Problem mit der Art, wie die Medien Interaktivität definieren, ist, daß es immer um kontrollierte Reaktionen auf die Tagesordnung des Mediums geht: Kommt und redet über unser Zeug. Sie wird gestaltet wie ein Museum für Kinder, mit Knöpfen, die man drücken kann und die einen beschäftigen sollen. Das ist die Botschaft, die alle Foren und Chats und Blogs vermitteln, die sich mit den Veröffentlichungen der Medien beschäftigen. Bei Interaktivität geht es um mehr als ums Reagieren. Es geht ums Gestalten. Es geht nicht um kontrollierte Autorität. Es geht um geteilte Autorität.<"

Wäre natürlich zu ergänzen, dass auch der Bildblog des Autors keine Interaktivität im Sinne von Kommentar und Diskussion bietet, also Quer zur Definition eines Weblogs steht.

Hier das Posting von Jeff Jarvis
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/interact/

The Guardian (27.3.2006) praises the European particle research facility Cern for its achievements, recall the World Wide Web as a sideline, and much more interesting results to come. The next generation particle accelerator LHC is nearing completion, and scientists are heading for answers on the nature of mass or hidden dimensions in space-time. With dozens of countries collaborating, the site in Switzerland is a nucleus for eminent international research and networking. "Even the US abandoned a bid to build a rival," writes the Guardian.

Interessanter Beitrag zur Web 2.0-Diskussion aus der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung
http://www.nzz.ch/2006/01/13/em/articleDHFG7.html

Ein Wesensmerkmal des Web 2.0, auf den auch der Begriff des Read-/Write-Web verweist, hat mit sozialen Aspekten, mit der Techniknutzung, zu tun. Es geht um die Interaktivität. Einen "Distributionsapparat in einen Kommunikationsapparat zu verwandeln" hat schon Bert Brecht gefordert, zu Beginn der dreissiger Jahre, als das Radio noch zum Nachdenken anregte. Seither sind Dialogfähigkeit, Interaktivität, Partizipation unverzichtbare Textbausteine jeglicher Form von kritischer Medientheorie.

Bloggen heißt eben nicht nur eigene Texte, Erlebnisse, Erfahrungen niederzuschreiben, sonderen auch Teil eines neuen, virtuellen Netzwerks mit Blogeinträgen, Kommentaren und Diskussionen zu sein.

Insbesondere seit dem Aufkommen von Weblogs gibt es im Web möglicherweise bereits mehr Schreiber als Leser. Technorati, eine Suchmaschine, die sich auf das Durchforsten von Blogs spezialisiert hat, beobachtet gemäss eigenen Angaben 24,7 Millionen Websites. Täglich würden 70,000 neue Blogs eröffnet, täglich würden 700,000 neue Blog-Beiträge publiziert. Das ist die Blogosphere, das ist der "Triumph der Amateure", ein Slogan, mit dem der deutsche Blogger Wolfgang Sommergut etwas Wesentliches von Web 2.0 treffend beschreibt.

Schönes Fazit am Ende: Web 2.0 ist doch nur Web 1.0.

Creative Commons is a licencing system to spread copyrighted work on the Internet. http://www.creativecommons.org
"Creative Commons may not prevent theft, but it does allow owners to define the terms on which their content can be used. It also makes it harder for offenders to claim that they ignore the rules because they don't understand them," writes John Sutherland in his article for the Guardian (16.1.2006). He talked to Lawrence Lessig, the man behind the idea.

Saul Hansell and John Markoff write about hardware and computer centers used by Google (NY Times, 3.7.2006). It's nothing off the shelf, but tailor-made for Google's needs -- we would have already thought that. However, Google is according to an analyst the fourth biggest maker of servers, behind Dell, HP and IBM. Even more, Google invested in "technologies it designed to reduce its ravenous need for electricity. These computers in turn use software developed with advanced tools that Google also designed itself. There are signs that Google is even preparing to create its own custom microchips," write the authors.

Often acclaimed, now picked up again by Christopher Schrader in Süddeutsche Zeitung (24.2.2006): The sex industry is a major player for technological breakthroughs. Starting with book printing, photography, video recorders, DVDs, and now and in future videocasts or video phones got a major boost by their use for adult content. Honestly, the sex-sells again-message of the article is all but new.