henrikharsbo.dk

Low-Cost Computers For Third World

MIT's Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to produce a cheap computer for every kid in the third world. The computer is to cost less than 100 dollars and is said to automatically network with other computers of the same type creating a giant network in poor countries all over the world.

It's all very cool but also a very techno-centric thought. Are computers really what is needed most in the third world? What about low tech things like text books that are up to date, funds to educate more teachers and so forth.

At the very least the plan to give every kid a computer must be backed by a giant investment in general computer education.

Is Blog Design Important?

How important is the look and feel of a weblog? Well, if we can agree that good and user friendly web design in general is of relevance then I'm sure we can agree that good and user friendly blog design is also pretty important ;;-)

What strikes me though is that most discussions about blog communication are about the content of the blogs and not the design itself. Most bloggers never even have to worry about design because they are offered some sort of generic template when signing up with a blog service. This gives most blogs (including the one you are now reading) an aesthetically somewhat pleasing but pretty predictable look and feel. Is this a problem?

Are blog templates helpful or harmful? And why the heck don't we discuss blog design more than we do? I would love to hear your comment on these and related questions.

Technorati: Weblogs |Design

Fear Of Citizen Journalism

Are citizen journalists stealing work from freelance journalists? A question that was recently discussed in The London Freelance Branch of the British National Union of Journalists. The discussion apparently didn't really bring forth any real evidence of user-generated content (gotta love the phrase) costing jobs among journalists. But it appears fear still prevails among London freelancers.

This strikes me me as rather odd. Journalism is a craft and like any other craft it cannot be properly carried out by people who are not trained. Thus the buzz about citizen journalism mainly stems from extreme incidents - the London tube bombings for instance - where the immediacy of the eye witness account ousts any call for a strictly journalistic approach.

Journalists still have a major role to play as mediators of events and the importance of that role only increases as the number of sources in the shape of citizen journalists, bloggers and laymen commentators continue to grow.

Technorati: Citizen journalism |Journalism

Love Thy Mac Hate Thy PC!

Kathy Sierra in her latest post:

»Forgiveness is relative. We diss Windows with impunity, but when our Mac does the same thing, well, geeez nobody's perfect. When Clinton lied, US conservatives were morally outraged. When one of their own lies, "This is just a partisan stunt... perjury is a technicality." When Office crashes, I swear at it. When InDesign crashes, I empathize with it.« 

Sweet explanation of the mac-pc paradox!

Technorati: Apple |Microsoft

Not All Corporations Need A Blog

I attended a talk on corporate blogs by Rebecca Blood at the IT University of Copenhagen yesterday and found it quite informative. In my opinion the most interesting thing she said was that not all organizations need a blog!

"Only implement a blog if it is exactly what is needed to do the job!," she said.

Good point Rebecca! I applaud it because this is one of the main problems with many corporate blogs today. Blogs have become so hot that most corporations want one. Thus they implement it without the necessary strategic frame work. This results in blogs that are little more than press releases in chronological order. Rebeccas point is that not only will this not do the job for your organization, it will also work against your goals by tiring or angering readers who expect a real blog.

Check out Rebecca's blog

Technorati: Corporate blogs |Rebecca Blood |Weblogs

Wake-Up Call To Mainstream Media

They create, they publish and they rule the web! Who, you might ask. The newspapers? The network stations? The ad agencies? Nope, I'm talking about American teenagers half of which today create and share their own media creations online.

According to a survey from Pew Internet Studies a mind-boggling 57 percent of US-teens who use the Internet have a blog or web page or have posted original artwork, photography, stories or video online.

»Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of this tech-savvy cohort,« writes Pew on its web site.

Wake-up call to Mainstream Media: Hello, you're looking at your audience of the not to distant future! They wont be satisfied by web pages that read like a book. And forget about trying to tell them what to think. They want to form and communicate their own opinion. In short: They're not taking any non-interactive cr..

So get your act together and communicate in a fashion that appeals to this web savvy audience!

...End of wake-up call :-)

Technorati: Blogs |Media

New iPod Targeted by Porn Seller

Got your hands on the brand new iPod that displays video? Wanna download a news cast from the web or maybe check out a music video? Forget about it! If it's up to American company Guba you'll be watching porn on that iPod.

This month the subscription based service starts to offer porn footage in the iPod video format H.264 reports Danish tech site Computerworld.
- We could lie to ourselves, but I'm sure that people will want to watch porn on the new iPod, says Guba CEO Thomas McInerney to Reuters.

Hmm.. as I see it this once again sadly proves the truth of the tech-porn equation: New technology + man = more porn.

Technorati: iPod |Media

Get Your News By Map

Do you want to be able to find your news according to where on the planet it has happened? Well, then GeoNews might be your kind of news outlet. The service is brought to you by a group of Italian reporters who have fused Google News and Google Maps in an attempt to visualize the news geographically.

Although it's a fun idea, I'm not sure the method of organization appeals to me. If you want an overview of what has happened around the planet the geographical approach takes a lot of navigation. Luckily GeoNews also offers you the alternate method of finding your news by category.

Technorati: News |Journalism