mpasiewicz's blog

OCLC has issued a new report that sounds like a must read for those interested in navigating the waters of the social web and I look forward to delving into it. I, personally, have mixed feelings about what I've skimmed of the report. I'm particularly vexed about a call from OCLC to "relax the rules of privacy" ... I haven't read the report yet, but that's an interesting call to action. Personally, I'd love to see a call for a more research and experimentation into alternative approaches to the social web that might find a way to protect privacy and raise awareness of why it might be important.

NPR's Andy Carvin recently joined Talk of the Nation to cover social networking and sites like Facebook and MySpace. During the recording, they covered a number of issues related to their use in education.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14993512

First Monday is starting up a new series of podcasts. The current recording features an interview with Ian Bogost about his new book, Persuasive Games. Next up is Siva Vaidhyanathan ... I was forwarded a preview of the very interesting recording, but they haven't linked it up yet.

http://www.firstmonday.org/podcasts/

Sick of social networks? Need a Luddite-style retreat? :)

Take a look at NOSO.

http://nosoproject.com

Funny, weird & crazy - I like it.

Back in February, I pondered the future of OpenID in higher education. Earlier this week, I commented on Theresa Rowe's blog entry about managing online identities and provided a pointer to the Appalachian FireFox add-in from MIT's SIMILE project. While it was top of mind, I did a quick scan to see if I could find any new and interesting uses of OpenID in higher education. I happened to run across an experimental provider from Case. So, after a little digging, Lev directed me to Jeremy and he was gracious enough to share a little background. Apparently, the effort evolved from curiousity in the spec and remains "experimental," but it is very, very interesting.

The morning keynotes hinted at the [d]evolving state of DRM. Hopefully Bill McCoy will touch on his interest in Social DRM at his session tomorrow. Michael Jensen, Peter Brantley, and Ale de Vries hosted an interesting session on DRM too. In my estimation, they mostly talked around the idea of DRM and the problems one can encounter when approaching the topic. I got a late question in regarding the music publishing model and the potential for using performance rights organizations to introduce an new form of renumeration for the book trade. I approached the same topic with Brewster Kahle in our interview from 2005.

I'm in San Jose at O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein kicked off the event will a fun look back at publishing over the years.Brian Murray was next and talked through the HarperCollins strategy. They're pursuing a heavy focus on digitization and control. He also talked up their new embeddable widget which I've included here for kicks.

“Grava” is the codename to a new set of tools from Microsoft’s Education Product Group that will allow the education community to create and assemble materials that will increase discovery and allow learners to go at their own pace and learning style. Grava tools are slated for release in the Fall of 2007.