Flickr Groups - Is there really a community? September 28, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Community, Flickr , add a commentFrom a public discussion in one of the meta groups in Flickr.com
Flickr: FlickrCentral
Flickr Groups - Is there really a community?
Some interesting quotes:
Yolise:
Who says every group has to be a community anyway?
Andreas Helke:
“There are more than 100,000 groups on flickr.I would wish it where lot less. But the current reality is a very fragmented and cryptic group system. As a result I am a member of 900 of them and administrator or coadministrator of 60 groups”
Violentz:
To me the Flickr “community” are my own contacts and friends who comment on my photos and me on theirs.
shhexycorin:
Some groups are communities, some groups places where people go to look at pictures, some groups are utterly pointless. A lot of them are all 3.
iansand:
flickr is the community, not the groups. Groups add something to the community. There are other things that go into the mix.
Noël Lee:
It’s interesting to read this discussion on community because my closest friend and I were just saying yesterday that what makes flickr so addictive is not the photos but the world-wide community.
Sellaband discussion September 26, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Long Tail , comments closedIn the comments on my recent blog post about Sellaband, (see below) some criticisms from Mike and a response from Johan Vosmeijer, Managing Director of the startup.
Making More Wikipedias (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought) September 24, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , add a commentI would probably have voted for this candidate in the Wikimedia 2006 Elections except that I haven’t made 400 accredited Wikipedia edits to qualify as a voter.
Making More Wikipedias (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
Building a community is pretty tough; it requires just the right combination of technology and rules and people. And while it’s been clear that communities are at the core of many of the most interesting things on the Internet, we’re still at the very early stages of understanding what it is that makes them work.
…
If we take radical collaboration as our core, then it becomes clear that extending Wikipedia’s success doesn’t simply mean installing more copies of wiki software for different tasks. It means figuring out the key principles that make radical collaboration work. What kinds of projects is it good for? How do you get them started? How do you keep them growing? What rules do you put in place? What software do you use?
These questions can’t be answered from the armchair, of course. They require experimentation and study. And that, in turn, requires building a community around strong collaboration itself. It doesn’t help us much if each person goes off and tries to start a wiki on their own. To learn what works and what doesn’t, we need to share our experiences and be willing to test new things — new goals, new social structures, new software.
SellaBand September 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Long Tail, Music , 7commentsI really like the “long tail” business plan of this new unsigned musicians site.
The idea is that if you are a songwriter or a band, you upload a few demo mp3s and then try to get lots of people to sponsor the recording of an album. ‘Believers’ can buy stakes of $10 each which entitle them to a small slice of the ad revenue from the eventual professionally recorded music, which is provided free for download. The Artists get a stake as well, of course, and the website retains a percentage for themselves. That’s clever.
I heard about it on BBC world service radio in the middle of the night, (I had been kept awake by the excrutiating symptoms of Tomato Flu) and the spokesman from the website sounded sufficiently clued in and modest with it. They don’t expect anybody to raise the full $50,000 anytime this year, but they’ve been really pleased with the amount of trust which fans of unsigned bands have shown already. What they are providing is a mechanism which can be used as a roadmap for writing, financing and producing an album, and one which builds a really good relationship with a loyal fanbase at the same time, which can then be used as a springboard to greater things.
My only reservations are that you have to sign over forever, a proportion of the royalties for the songs which are recorded, so you might not want to put all of your best songs on the first album and then be left with ’second album syndrome’ for the real deal.
For research purposes, I created my own profile on the site here:
http://www.sellaband.com/andyroberts/ (It’s not often I get to beat all the other Andy Robertses to a user name)
So is there anybody out there who wants to ‘believe’ to the extent of $50,000?
No? Ok, it’ll have to be $10 each then.
Zippo Lighter - American Embassy Paris September 22, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : randomness , 6commentsI’m selling my ‘American Embassy Paris’ zippo lighter by eBay and the bidding has reached £50.02 already, but that’s not enough to match the reserve and there’s only 23 hours left.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280029086630
It was Frankie’s idea:
This Zippo lighter features an American Embassy of Paris logo, and dates back to 1973. These lighters were given only to American Embassy of Paris staff - this lighter was given to my father (on whose behalf I am selling the item) by a young girlfriend (at the time) whose father was working at the embassy (perhaps as a Spook??). The lighter is in good, working condition, although will be shipped without any fuel.
Douglas Adams - Hyperland September 21, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : video , 1 comment so farI’ve been exploring YouTube a bit recently, mainly because my initial experience was a positive one, uncovering more and more rare bonzo dog band footage. This one was found on google video though, and I missed the ability to save it to favourites within the application, so the best option seemed to be to blog it.
This archive BBC video has everything.
Multimedia, Hypermedia, Micons, Douglas Adams, Tom Baker, Kurt Vonnegut, Bach, Picasso, Gernika. Shape, Language, DNA, Non linear fiction, virtual reality.
The future looked good in those days, perhaps. (date?)
But as commented, the dream has not become reality yet. Who was supposed to make all the media clips, link it all together and provide it for free. Instead all we have is Wikipedia and blogs. And YouTube, of course.
17 years old according to Epeus’ epigone
Communities of Practice for Pirates September 19, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentArr, tiz today the day, true and right enough.
It’s the annual open day for the international community of practising pirates. Normally by nature a secretive bunch, they tend to operate away from the public glare behind the password protected environment provided by the high seas.
Andrew Roberts - History of English Speaking Peoples September 18, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentOne of my namesakes has a new book out…
“A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900″
40% discount at Amazon
In 1900, where Winston Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Meanwhile, the British Empire was in decline, but did not yet know it. Any number of other powers might have won primacy in the twentieth century and beyond, including Germany, Russia, even possibly France. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-Speaking peoples who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser’s Germany, Axis aggression, and Soviet Communism, and are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Andrew Roberts brilliantly reveals what made the English-speaking people the preeminent political culture since 1900, and how they have defended their primacy from the many assaults upon them. What connects those countries where the majority of the population speaks English as a first language—the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Ireland—is far greater than what separates them, and the development of their history since 1900 has been a phenomenal success story.
Authoritative and engrossing, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an enthralling account of the century in which the political culture of one linguistic world-grouping comprehensively triumphed over all others. Roberts’s History proves especially invaluable, as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest, and most dependable allies.
Andrew Roberts writes: “As the first rays of sunlight broke over the Chatham Island, 360 miles east of New Zealand in the South Pacific, a little before 6:00am on Tuesday, January 1, 1901, the world entered a century that for all its warfare and perils would nonetheless mark the triumph of the English-speaking peoples. Few could have suspected it at the time, but the British Empire would wane to extinction during that period, while the American Republic would wax to such hegemony that it would become the sole global hyper-power. Assault after assault would be made upon the English-speaking peoples’ primacy, each of which would be beaten off successfully, albeit sometimes at huge and tragic cost. Even as the twenty-first century dawned, they would be doughtily defending themselves still.”
“A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900″
40% discount at Amazon
Participants in this blog September 18, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : blogs and community , 1 comment so farFollowing a pattern for blogging practice which I read about a while back on somebody’s blog, but cannot retrieve through searching for the life of me ( to be updated later perhaps) …
..here is a list of links to recent (since August) people who have contributed to this blog by leaving comments:
So thanks to the above for your support through commenting, which is much appreciated, and thanks also to the people who may read but haven’t felt like responding. You can expect a similar roundup in a couple of months I suppose.
Do Not Adjust Your Set September 16, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Music, video , add a commentYouTube allows the rediscovery of highlights from very distant memory, in this case the seminal TV series ‘Do not adjust your set” featuring the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
Here they are performing “Hunting Tigers Out In Indiah”:
“I really did see them in black and white!”
Somebody called ‘Dormouse’ in the alt.fan.bonzo-dog newsgroup put me onto these videos, but with YouTube it takes no time at all to browse around and find more rare gems. The live concert in Belgium, extracts from films, interviews, alternative performances and outakes - they are all there.
Incidentally, alt.fan.bonzo-dog was the first online group I ever founded, in February/March 1998 the the process of which I learned a lot. Here is the original charter:
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 20:46:11 -0000 Organization: ESBI Lines: 54 Sender: richard.bryant@ukonline.co.uk Approved: richard.bryant@ukonline.co.uk Message-ID:NNTP-Posting-Host: p81-as2.dubexs.tinet.ie Summary: Newgroup message X-Newsreader: Anawave Gravity v2.00 Xref: news.isc.org control.newgroup:17319 For your newsgroups file: alt.fan.bonzo-dog The Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band: Neil Innes, Viv Stanshall etc DISCUSSED IN alt.config: proposal for alt.fan.bonzo-dog posted by andyrobts@aol.com on 19th March 1998. reply from Sysop 20th Mar. Justification posted, various contributions demonstrated strong international interest and traffic in newsgroups. Name finalised without -band. Richard.Bryant suggested posting a Charter, charter posted No further objections. JUSTIFICATION: A dejanews search on bonzo+dog indicated 2100 matches. There is a mailing list with 65 subscribers which is intended strictly for low volume informative posts. It is envisaged that this would continue and the ng will attract wider ranging discussion, probably medium volume traffic. References to the Bonzo’s regularly crop up in alt.fan.capt-beefheart, alt.fan.frank-zappa, alt.comedy.british, alt.fan.monty-python newsgroups. Also in rec.music.beatles, rec.music.dementia, rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1960s. CHARTER: A forum for fans of the ‘The Bonzo Dog Band’ previously known as ‘The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Topics might include the recorded output of the Bonzo’s, TV shows and videosand the careers of former band members. No commercial advertising allowed unless for goods or services related to the subject of the group. Private individuals may advertise their Website or business in their signature files . Binary postings are forbidden. All Binary files should be posted onto the relevant group with a pointer to them in this group Format: Text files only, HTML , graphics and sound files should be placed on the Web with a pointer to them in this group Moderation: The newsgroup will not be moderated. We are an anarcho-syndicalist collective with a rotating chair.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
