The full debate on which the last assignment was based is from the Boston review and available here.
Politico article "Rep. David Rivera war with Wikipedia" is a great example of a high profile figure taking-on Wikipedia as part of his PR/ branding strategy. Actually, in Rivera's case, it's more like damage control. Take a look.
The article ends with another amusing anecdote: apparently during 2008 there were fierce edit wars over whether to call Obama "Kenyan-American", and editors changed Hillary Clinton photo to one of a walrus. I love Wikipedia, but don't these people have jobs/ families?!
- sezflom
Just to add on to earlier discussions re ICT in developing countries/rural areas:
I really like the idea of The Internet Wishlist - a platform where people can submit ideas for applications and websites they would find useful. Demand-driven design through crowdsourcing, really.
From the creator Amrit Richmond: "I hope the project inspires entrepreneurs, developers and designers to innovate and build the products and features that people want...I see so many startups try and solve problems that don't need solving... I wanted to uncover and show what kinds of day-to-day problems people have that they want technology to solve for them." (H/T Good)
It would be great to have a similar platform for Data.gov (and similar initiatives), bringing together not just the developers and crowd-sourced ideas, but also people that were familiar with the data/ content that is actually/ potentially available. Of course this could get messy when someone tries introduce IP to blossoming project...
- sezflom
Depressing but fascinating stats over at Fast Company: Despite great gains in house design and electric appliance energy use, gross domestic energy consumption in the US has barely declined since 1978. (latest stats from 2005) The culprit? Innovation. Well, electronic gadgets.
The Fast Company guys said it well: "With all these gadgets, we're burning enough electricity to erase the last 30 years of innovation." Creative destruction or destructive creation?
- sezflom
The Australian Government has just released Data.gov.au. Again, there is a focus on innovation. From the home page:
"We encourage all users to improve government information by using it to develop tools and applications which benefit all Australians. Submitting links to these new applications will enable their promotion through data.gov.au in future enhancements to the site."
- sezflom
