Live blogging and live twittering, in my humblest opinion, are unnecessary. I can see why the idea is appealing. After all, you’re providing the first scoop as the event happens.

Here are a few reasons why I’m not too keen on the idea.

As a member of audience, my attention is diverted away from the speaker to everyone else’s laptop screens as they twitter or blog. Especially when you can’t help noticing a quite a few people are checking emails, working on a business card design, reading the news, etc. Clackity, clack, clack, clack, clackity, click, clack, click, spacebar, click, clack, tap, tap, tap all around you. It’s like hearing a cellphone conversation going on.

How can you pay attention to the presentation if you’re focusing on typing away? It’s also disrespectful to the presenter. “Am I that boring? Is my fly undone?”

Not that I’m telling you what to do (well, ok, I’m beseeching you), however, if you feel the need to live blog and twitter, I think it’s best to do so at the back of the room.

Live blogging and twittering gives you no time to reflect on the information presented. Good writing needs time to germinate. Not that I’m old skool, but I prefer writing in a notebook throughout the day and then blogging at night after the party’s over when I can provide my own thoughts on what I’ve learned. I don’t think you can really get that from quick bursts of sound bites put together from someone who didn’t pay full attention.

Live twittering becomes spam. Or at least bacn. A pet peeve I have is logging into Twitter to see full pages of tweets by the same 2 people giving me moment-by-moment updates on a conference they are at that I couldn’t care less about. The tweets make no sense. “Everyone hates the coffee”… “@someguy said something profound” so I go to his page hoping for a new person to follow who I could learn from but see a bunch of tweets about pizza… “technical troubles”… “someone offered their microphone”

Riveting.

I won’t remove the person from my following list because it’s too much hassle and I usually enjoy their tweets. It’s gotta be hard to make a proper judgment call on what’s worthy of a tweet when your full attention isn’t on the presentation.

The brain just isn’t capable of multitasking. It wasn’t made for it.

What are your thoughts on live blogging and twittering? Or for that matter, the clickity, clack, clack, spacebar, clack of notetaking on laptops (I am suddenly crotchety).

Do you like live blogging and twittering? I hope I haven’t offended anyone—it’s just that when I go to a presentation for the purpose of learning, I end up with all these distractions for the sake of using technology because they can. I don’t hate you, I just need to learn. I CRAVE EDUCATION!

Anywhoo, tell me your thoughts.

I had the pleasure of attending the Talk Is Cheap social media unconference for PR professionals back on November 15^th here in Toronto.

Social media has been the big thing these days really because it’s been reported in the traditional media (newspapers, tv, magazines, etc.).

Sure, items on Digg’s homepage get widespread notice and buzz around the blogosphere can make or break a politician or corporation but for true maximum impact, the rest of the world needs to hear about it on the news.

I don’t think Lonelygirl15, that crazy bride, cyber bullying, YouTube, even online dating and Facebook wouldn’t have be as huge if they weren’t reported offline. Social media is still not truly widespread but it’s getting there.

Take for example, the carbon footprint campaign WWF Canada had in Toronto in November 2006. Long story short, they wanted to promote their saveourclimate.org website and show people what 3,000 of greenhouse gas looks like. 3,000 balloons were filled up (yes, they’re biodegradable) and were placed on the street during the morning rush to work.

The usual social media integration was done: blogosphere buzz before the event, live blogging on the day of the event as well as uploading videos on YouTube and photos on Flickr. I liked their idea of using del.icio.us as a media kit. Their media advisory used a catchy headline (“Huge black cloud invades Toronto”).

WWF Canada also had an on-site booth so they would be able to speak to the public directly. The mayor was invited (and videoed), the media reported it on the news, t-shirts and chalk drawings were made and to their advantage, CBC television personalities stumbled upon the event and included it on their shows (Rick Mercer did some funny stuff with the balloons and a bicycle while pretending to be Kim Jong-il).

That day, the event received 11 media impressions, 10,000 views on YouTube and1,600 hits on saveourclimate.org. Bloggers were blogging about it and the whole shbang was declared a success.

The surprise of the campaign is the huge demand for the t-shirt they made. The t-shirt had the words, “Hotter than I should be” and WWF Canada ended up selling them on their web shop. The shirts were such a success that they were given out to celebrities at the Toronto International Film Festival.

You know you had a successful campaign when it creates a life of its own after the fact.

Kudos to the BBC News website. I get most of my OLPC news from them. Anyhoo, I stumbled upon this article with a lot of positives listed from the One Laptop Per Child project. And of course, a few expected negatives.

The best benefit of the project I’ve seen is in this line: But it is not only in the school they make use of the laptop. They use it at home and even help to teach their parents.

How does that saying go? Teach a man to fish…

I came across this interesting article on the BBC News website a few days ago. It was written by Michael Geist, Internet law professor at the University of Ottawa. He talks about how the next billion users of the Internet will influence the Internet.

The article is best summed up in the last 2 paragraphs (emphasis mine):

…the next billion is an enormously positive story. A tale of improving economic condition that will allow for much broader participation in the communication, culture, and commercial opportunities most Canadians now take for granted.

As we welcome the next billion, we must recognise that they will do more than just use the internet. They will help reshape it in their own image and with their own values, languages, and cultures.

You see why bringing Internet technology is important for developing nations? Of course, food, water and shelter (and non-corrupt government—actually, the rest of the world needs that, too) are important and they will never be replaced by technological aid :p However, the technology will help them grow food, water, etc., as described by Nii Quaynor, professor of computer science at the University of Cape-Coast, Ghana. After all, it works for us in the West.

Internet use is growing rapidly in developing nations and will make up the majority of the next billion users. These users won’t be speaking English as a first language (or at all?) and they will have different views about online issues such as privacy, copyright, free speech, etc.

They’ll also be using cheaper (free) open source software programs. Well, we all know Microsoft is going to try to change that.

They’ll also be using mobile technology (cellphones, XO laptop) and satellites for access. Actually, they may even have mobile wireless access points. Michael mentions that this will affect the way we code websites. Imagine trying to code your website to display properly across even more multiple platforms.

Imagine the way social media would look like then? You can play Scrabulous with a friend in Africa.You can use your iPhone clone to not only download music in the middle of the rain forest (what’s left of it),you can also chat with your family back home.

A school kid living in the desert can meet other fans from around the world of his (or her) favourite band. Imagine the videos on YouTube!

I just got notice today that one of my Paris photos on Flickr has been shortlisted for inclusion on Schmap’s Paris Guide. I am not familiar with Schmap but after a quick looksee, it seems to be a pretty cool site! Photos of various places (hence the shortlist) along with a place on the map of where they are. Immediately I can think of a good application for this— knowing where to find a hotel in a city where you have never been before :)

PodCamp Toronto 2008 will be happening on February 23 and 24^th at the Rogers Communications Centre at Ryerson University. I am very excited that it’s happening again— I had a great time and learned a lot from people who share the same interest in podcasting as me and I made a lot of contacts and new friends*.

I registered as soon as I heard it had been announced (I’m #20 on the list of registrants). Take a look and it will come to as no surprise to you that I’ve listed superspud.com as my website as well as another site called stutteringiscool.com.

Stuttering is cool is the name of my new podcast which was soft launched a few weeks ago. Regular listeners to my SpudCast will remember episode 9 where I devoted an entire episode about my stuttering (a stuttering podcaster? WTF?!). Now it has grown into a podcast of its own! You can check it out at stutteringiscool.com.

*Same thing happens at Podcasters Across Borders. Next one takes place on June 20-22, 2008. Not to be missed!

What happens when you live in a country which controls the media and culture while also allowing access to the Internet? Specifically, providing access to a site like Facebook which offers instant gratification such as the ability to set up your own discussion group in a matter of seconds.

I came across this interesting post from the SacredFacts blog which describes how “Facebook has become a virtual civil society in Syria. Many civic groups sprung up overnight and became popular with thousands; groups about preserving the old city, getting back the Golan Heights, supporting civil marriage, women’s groups, art associations, and you-name-it…” (quote from blogger Joshua Landis)

Check out the post. It provides a breakdown of the social and political experiences of Facebook users by country.

It’s remarkable that we (in the west) forget or not realize how simple features on a deceptively pointless website can have quite an impact. In a way, Facebook is another reminder of how we tend to take our freedom for granted.

I don’t mean to trivialize this phenomenon, but it reminds me a lot about the unnecessary fearful attitude corporations here in the west have of offering features on their intranet like employee blogging. Trust issues? Anarchy paranoia? Loss of control fears?

I attended CaseCamp Toronto 6 and one of the presentations was about Levis’ “What’s Your Style” campaign.

Long story short: glorified model search for Levis ads at various youth festivals; on-site RV change room to try on Levis clothes; take photo; get vote ID; tell your friends to vote for you so you can win and become the Levis model; photo of you with vote ID saying ‘vote for me’ are downloadable to mobile phones; they can also be forwarded; great success; lots of contestants; high stats; everyone’s happy.

What intrigued me was the fact that some contestants continued the campaign after the festivals. On their own initiative. Levis didn’t tell them to do it (which was a good thing). Contestants made their own Facebook groups and MySpace pages hoping to get votes. One contestant put her photo and vote ID on a t-shirt and wore it around the festival.

So keep this in mind if you have elements of voting in your campaigns. Say you have 50 contestants and 5 of them creates a Facebook group with about 200 members each. You’re reaching an extra 1000 without having to ask.

Students are pretty resourceful as ever.

Finally, it’s been ages, a new episode of SpudCast. Well, it was recorded a while ago but here it is in all its glory! I talk about the importance of having a creative workout. That is, going outside to new places which is a great way to get a new perspective on things and come back with a lot of new ideas.

I mention my trips to both Parises. France and Ontario :)

Bill Thompson wrote on the BBC News website about the nay sayers of the One Laptop Per Child project which I blogged about a few days ago. He reiterates what I feel: the nay sayers are sour grapes.