Crowdsourcing is one of the slew of neologisms that the past year or so has thrown up – and like a lot of neologisms, everyone who uses it seems to have a different idea of what it means. WIRED attempted to put theory into practice in the field of ‘citizen journalism’ by crowdsourcing a series of articles on crowdsourcing – very meta. While they got some pretty interesting articles out of it, including an
interview with Douglas Rushkoff in which he writes off the term as a way for corporations to get work done for free, it didn’t work out to be the bed of roses they had hoped – the dissection of the project is well worth reading.
Tag Archives: internet
Real Time Flight Tracking
O’Reilly Radar reminds me of FlightAware, a resource that combines great pragmatic utility and pure geeky fun. FlightAware shows you exactly where just about any commercial flight is at this moment. With airport Wi-Fi and a laptop, you can know more about when your delayed flight will arrive than the gate crew.
MySpace For The Literati
The phrase “jump the shark” has probably jumped the shark, but if I can be indulged in its use one last time, I’ll point out that social software has jumped the shark when you need a MySpace for people to talk about books. Or maybe I’m just cranky about the slickness factor: somehow LibraryThing doesn’t set my teeth on edge in the same way. [mefi]
Nobel winner writing new novel online – and giving it away for free
The science fiction genre is full of authors who, with a few exceptions, understand the value of giving content away for free as a marketing ploy (and we love them for it, too). The same attitude is less prevalent in the world of ‘proper’ literature, but the literary cachet of Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, combined with her enthusiastic adoption of a new publishing paradigm may change that fact. A recluse in real life, Ms Jelinek feels more able to communicate with people online, describing the internet as “the most wonderful thing there is. It connects people. Everyone can have input.” As an experiment into using the internet to raise an author’s profile, I’d say it’s been a success – Nobel Prize or no, I’d never heard of her before now. I wonder if the story’s any good?
Booktour.com Launches
Chris Anderson’s latest project is now live. BookTour.com is:
…a free online service that connects authors and potential audiences of all sorts, from book groups to civic organizations, from bookstores to corporate events. Authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance.