Why Embrace Technology?

Erin Pierce discovered this video clip, one of the participants of the Cafe Brainstorm. It answers the basic question with facts and figures. Why embrace technology? The video is called “Did you know” and it is about the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman.

Erin is an innovate web developer and designer in the Seattle area.

Visit Erin's Website

Looking for Jefferson's Moose: The State of Cyberspace

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson put a stuffed American moose in the lobby of his Paris residence. As the U.S. minister to France, Jefferson displayed the moose to powerfully symbolize the enormous possibilities of America.

The new world of the Internet has equally vast possibilities and, like North America in Jefferson's day, its landscape remains largely unexplored.

In his new book, In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, David Post draws remarkable and entertaining parallels between the Internet and the natural and intellectual landscape that Thomas Jefferson explored, documented, and shaped.

Creatively drawing on Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Post describes how the Internet functions technically and applies Jefferson's views on natural history, law, and governance to the unfolding complexities of cyberspace.

Jefferson's Moose is a book for both fans of Thomas Jefferson and for fans of the Internet, each of whom should know more about the other topic.

The Brainstorm Questions

As we now hit the final stretch of the event this Friday at 2pm at Mosiac Coffeehouse, I have prepared five or six start off questions to get the ball rolling. If there is time, we will take questions from the audience (if we have any) and answer those.

THE FIVE OR SIX WEB 3.0 QUESTIONS

1) What in your mind is Web 3.0 and what projects are you currently developing that you feel would qualify as a gateway to the new web.

2) How will the Nintendo Wii interface (as well as the portable iPhone) change the way we browse the web?

3) There seems to be a tug-of-war between creatives and technicians when it comes to the web. What can be done to help cooperation between the left and right brains to meet in the middle and being the steps to the creation of Web 3.0?

4) In 1996, Nicholas Negroponte speculated that it may be difficult for human beings to justify spending money on ones and zeros (bits of data). Chris Anderson Editor of Wired recently speculated that one of the secrets to finance in the future will be to give web content away for free. With the exception of the adult industry, most still find little value in buying web content. What is the future of buying content on the web, if there is any, and how will Web 3.0 change the way we look at the value of online information.

5) Too much information, the web has become over-saturated with content, much of it spam, mis-information, and gossip. What will be the checks and balances of Web 3.0, and will the organic qualities of the web have the ability to influence third world countries and oppressed nations?

6) What is the future of blogging on the web and is there a way to make the blog content more memorable, thus making the information easier to retain?

Growing Up Online: Frontline PBS Special

This is a must watch for anyone working in the internet.

"FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the private worlds that kids are creating online, raising important questions about how the Internet is transforming the experience of adolescence. At school, teachers are trying to figure out how to reach a generation that no longer reads books or newspapers. Fear of online predators has led teachers and parents to focus primarily on keeping kids safe online. But many young people think these fears are misplaced. Online media has also intensified the social dimensions of adolescence as teens create and play with identities on sites like MySpace and Facebook and encounter intense peer pressure in a variety of virtual worlds. Parents are confused about how to respond to the increasingly private worlds inhabited by their children, lacking an understanding of both the creative potential and the genuine risks of this new dimension of our cultural environment."

Watch Growing Up Online On PBS

The Next Digital Experience

Social networking applications and sophisticated mobile devices are combining elements of the real and virtual worlds, and delivering an augmented experience of reality.

How is this digital experience changing consumers and communities? - World Economic Forum

From The Offical Google Blog.... Google Learns to Crawl Flash

Google learns to crawl Flash

6/30/2008 09:26:00 PM

Posted by Ron Adler and Janis Stipins, Software Engineers

Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we've improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe's Flash Player technology.

In the past, web designers faced challenges if they chose to develop a site in Flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. They needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find.

Now that we've launched our Flash indexing algorithm, web designers can expect improved visibility of their published Flash content, and you can expect to see better search results and snippets. There's more info on the Webmaster Central blog about the Searchable SWF integration.

Read More From the Google Blog Here...