By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Federating Social Networks: Open-Source Project in the Making
The core of the post is here: "Pulling RSS feeds every 30 minutes is not going to cut it, ever. We need something that pushes, and XMPP is the way to do it." Well, is this true? It depends. If you want something real-time, like instant messaging, then you need something (selective) that pushes. Like, well, instant messaging. Like Twitter, for that matter. But if it's not time-sensitive, then you don't want to be bothered or interrupted by it. This is when pull works. Like, well, RSS. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mining Group Gold: the Art of Learning
Interesting: "The arts discipline is emerging as a role model for business. Writing, reflecting, collaborating,...it's an art and it can lead to great innovations." Not just business. This model also describes the Educamps we just held in Colombia. "Why pursue writing, reflection, and collaborative learning in the workplace?" asks Janet Clarey. "In a word: innovation". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Makes A Message Compelling?
I have been thinking a bit more recently about the role of reason in society - perhaps as a result of some of the stuff Vicki Davis has been writing, perhaps as a consequence of reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series. So this post stands out. "Videos critical of the official immunization program were more popular and more highly rated." The irrational and unreasonable, it appears, is more popular. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Augmented Evolvement Architecture
Julia Pichler introduces a new blog that will slowly, over the course of weeks and months, reveal a project about storytelling in augmented media. The project started with an introductory post a couple of weeks ago and has progressed through the introduction of Lila in Second Life, an avatar that isn't exactly the persona of her creator. Lila, you'll find, writes in the light text. The project also includes resources such as Ning and Facebook - see the full list in this post. It's complicated, but I really like the creativity, the visual elements (especially the drawings). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Immersive Education: Education Grid
Harvard University recently hosted a event to highlight an initiative developing a "platform that combines interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat (Voice over IP/VoIP), Web cameras (webcams) and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms." There are suggestive diagrams on the site describing a layer of common code that will connect Wonderland, Croquet, Second Life and World of Warcraft. There is already a consortium of institutions that have joined this project. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. TV Download Battle Finally Begins in Canada
Content - including television and sporting events - is being licensed for sale via iTunes in Canada. I will continue to watch those few shows I want to watch for free, on television. If they take the shows off television, well then I guess I won't know what I'm missing, and won't buy it anyway. More from the Globe and Mail, which looks at the even more ridiculous prospect of selling video iPods in Canada with absolutely nothing available to view on them. Goodness. Google should sell a simple video viewing device and hook it up to the free video on YouTube. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dokeos
I hadn't seen this before it turned up in an email from Stuart Yeates. Dokeos is an open source learning management system "used in more than 600 companies and public administrations to manage e-learning and blended learning programmes." The application is written in PHP. There is also a Java application that is used to add Flash-based audio and video streaming to the videoconferencing application. It also adds an audio recording feature. This extension depends on OpenLaszlo. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Interoperability for the Discovery, Use, and Re-Use of Units of Scholarly Communication
This is a useful, though quite technical, paper discussing how to reuse common resources - like images and videos - that appear on academic and educational web pages. The core of the proposal is a 'resource map' that basically identifies an HTML page (known as the 'splash page') and the resources (like images, videos, etc.) linked or embedded in that page. These resource maps resemble the tables I would use in Edu_RSS when trying to identify 'conversations' between bloggers (and if I could simply use such a map produced by someone else, it would save me a lot of processing). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. New Copyright Law Starts Web Storm
Short article documenting the online criticism mounted against proposed copyright legislation in Canada. The legislation will likely "mirror the DMCA with strong anti-circumvention legislation - far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties," according to michael geist. It will likely contain no protection for "flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content
I don't like the title - unlicensed copying is not theft, no more than fraud and impersonation are murder. Still, as the article says, with the proliferation of Google-financed spam weblogs, your content will be copied without any regard for your licensing or intentions. And while I support open content, this is not what I support - indeed, these sorts of spam weblogs are just the sort of thing that motivate my desire to use a non-commercial clause in my license. More...