JOMC 191.3 Blogging, We the Media and Virtual Communities

The latest E-Media Tidbits from Poynter is filled with information about the recent Beyond the Printed Word conference. The Ifra/WAN/FIPP/World Digital Publishing Conference was held last weekend in Spain and was attended by Rupert Murdoch and Peter Bale (Online Editorial Director, Times Online, UK) and Ken Riddick *Vice-President, Interactive Media, Startribune.com, USA). They even came up with some evidence that magazines are more profitable online than they were a year ago. The programme looks really interesting. Wish I could have been in Madrid last weekend!

- Robin

the Triangle Bloggers Blast

Who: Bloggers, podcasters and anyone who wants to socialize with us.

What: A reception at the new WUNC studios and a happy hour with free drinks.

Where: American Tobacco Historic District, Durham (across from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park)

1. Start at new WUNC studios for tour, talk about podcasting and reception with catered food. Short welcome messages from Joan Siefert Rose and Keith Weston of WUNC, Michael Goodmon of ATHD, Stephen Fraser of Lulu.
2. Then move next door to Tyler’s Speakeasy for drinks and socializing. Short welcome messages from John Conway of WRAL.com and Henry Copeland of blogads.

When: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 7-9 p.m.

Why: Why not? Let’s meet and greet each other, talk about blogging, or not, and share a few drinks.

How: Sponsors and supporters include: Blogads, WRAL.com, Lulu.com, ibiblio.org, mistersugar.com, WUNC, ATHD and podcastercon.

Here’s a quick comment on the reading from last week. I talked with my brother about blogs the other night. He said, as a physical therapist, he doesn’t like his patients going online to get medical information. A lot of times they don’t know how to judge the credibility of a site, he said, and they will take the information as gospel. I thought this spoke to the reading from Preece on the medical info communities online. I admitted to him that I had done the same thing and looked something up and then told the doctor I read about it online. [I went to the doctor when I hurt my foot recently.] I think he may have cringed (the doctor, not my brother). Don’t know if this adds anything to the discussion, but thought it was relevant. Would any of you be likely to look up medical information online and share it with a doctor? Preece points out that it can be empowering, as well as dangerous. My problem is I’m a hypchondriac, but as it turns out, the doctor gave me exactly the same information I had found on about.com.

Frappr is like Flickr but with Google Maps and Social networking (well only sorta on the networking). Here’s Dave Winer’s network/friends/images and here is Anton Zuiker’s maps and pictures of the Zuiker family worldwide.

When you are reading the section in Preece on Cooperation in Chapter 6, you will see (Walther) more than once. You’ll also see his ideas and/or discoveries in the Summary. Last year about this time, Sri brought Dr. Walther here to give a research talk in which he talked about his work with virtual teams and cooperation. I blogged about it and have several links to his papers in “A Picture Erases a Thousand Words.” If you are interested in trust-building online and in online group work, Walther’s papers and the ideas that I hope I managed to capture will be very useful to you.

But is he right? Do groups work better with less rich media or in a very rich media environment? Afterall Jakob Nielsen’s Top Ten Weblog Usability Mistakes include as the first two “mistakes” No Author Biography and No Author Photo. Who is right and to what degree?