I had the privilege of chairing a symposium organized by the Irish Manuscript Commission which invited participants from a variety of Irish cultural institutions to discuss issues arising from the new Europeana Data Exchange Agreement. Presentations from Jill Cousins, Director of Europeana and her colleagues, Georgia Angelaki, Paul Keller and Lucie Guibault sought to bring clarity to the new agreement and the issues emerging from the online presentation of digital cultural artefacts.

Unfortunately I had to leave during what was shaping up to be a very lively roundtable discussion. The presentations laid bare some of the salient points that surround Europeana’s new DEA. The key points of the new agreement are changes to licensing that will open up metadata submitted by contributors to wider and most ominous to many contributors to commercial uses. Metadata submitted must be done under a CC0 license placing it entirely in the public domain. Thumbnails provided are not covered under the CC0 and the contributors have the opportunity to define their licensing. This has alarmed many past contributors who see their data suddenly becoming prey to commercial vultures and open to be radically reused with or without any attribution.

This symposium provided a forum for free and open discussion of these issues as well as the challenges presented by the online. I opened the session with a short welcome which I include here should you be interested:

“The DHO has been privileged to work with the IMC and Europeana over the past two years. We have facilitated some of the technicalities involved in the metadata aggregation process and many of you have worked with Niall O’Leary directly in this. Thanks to many of you who have shared your cultural objects with Europeana in the past. The nature of the relationship has I hope been mutually beneficial.

Europeana has been a powerful initiative during the past decade and we hope it will continue to take a leadership role in increasing the freedom of access to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage. It’s a fluid world though and we are here today because Europeana is changing. The objective remains the same but Europeana is moving from the role of being solely a portal to your collections to service becoming a service platform – dedicated to increasing access to the metadata representing the contributed artefacts.

What does this all mean? Well, today we have an opportunity to find out and to interact directly with the folks from Europeana to get the answers we need to make our own decisions. Each of your own institutions has its own objectives and briefs and you have to make a decision as to whether these coincide or are furthered under the new Europeana offering and their new Data Exchange Agreement. It’s crucial that you do take the time to consider your own objectives around what is presented today and how it is best served in this changing cultural space. In this fluid world there are new challenges to how we do what we have done in the past. The way that we engage with our audiences have changed…your artefacts have become data (and metadata) and more importantly people (through such social media as facebook, flickr or twitter) look to new ways to connect with you. Likewise new services and applications — especially in the mobile arena mean that your cultural objects may find new forms of expression — either by your own efforts — or by someone else’s.

And this is a crucial observation. There is a challenge to how you have carried out your own curatorial and dissemination activities and how you have sought to meet your objectives — but this also provides new opportunities. Europeana offers an opportunity. What you have to decide is whether it is an opportunity that makes sense for your institution.

At the DHO we have spent the last couple years demonstrating some of the ways that working with metadata can positively change the user experience of the digital collection. We have engaged with Europeana and with many of you to explore how people engage with ever larger collections of artefacts. The magnitude of these collections challenges the traditional ways of browsing and in many cases denies the utility of the search function. We have chosen to demonstrate how cutting edge data visualisation techniques can provide a route to discovery. And we have been thrilled with the response. DHO:Discovery has been one our response to the challenges that we have seen Irish cultural institutions facing and we have seen similar efforts undertaken by many of yourselves.

Working with Europeana has been one of those responses many of you have undertaken and we have all shared their objective to provide access to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage. Although Europeana remains committed to this objective their new DEA has asked providers to commit contributed metadata and thumbnails to the public domain. The new DEA is a response to the changes taking place in the cultural sector and we are all called upon to find opportunities in the changes taking place. This has huge implications for existing and future contributors who may worry about others making commercial use of their data. One of the obvious and positive responses here is to be open innovators and to seize the powerful opportunity for you to both share and to draw benefit from what others are sharing to create new ways of meeting your own objectives.

Current EU directives have waded into this nebulous area and have similarly challenged our perceived notions of who has the rights to objects that we present online. And again we come back to this question of how to deal with the challenge.

Today we are all here to ask the questions and the participants from Europeana have come to brief us and to attempt to respond to these queries.”

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Sure enough O’Reilly have introduced a new version of their iPad: The Missing Manual series, aptly named iPad2: The Missing Manual. Like all Missing Manual series, content is at the overview level attempting to cover the complete range of questions a new user might have of a particular technology. The book has all the good stuff when it comes to troubleshooting though and this is a particularly good missing manual.

The bottom-line is that it answers those niggling questions that new users would have and continues to serve as a useful reference source as a user gains familiarity.

iPad2: The Missing Manual is a lively read and the approachability of the volume is enhanced by the use of lots of full colour illustrations, screen shots and diagrams. The chapters are organised very logically and by this I mean that the titles focus on specific actions that you would want to actually *do* with your iPad. I suspect that most users will in fact look to the first two chapters to actually setup and make sure that their iPad is working as it should before mixing and matching with the rest. It’s easy to find the action sought and quickly locate the info desired. Generally individual subtopics are kept to a single page which makes things very easy to access.

One of the biggest criticisms of the book is its very heavy US-centric bias. Prices are all in US dollars, and when it comes to telecommunications options only US providers are dealt with — and done so in great detail. Great book for Americans, but if you live outside the US, a lot of the references seem to be rendered useless — unnecessarily — and frankly for new users to the iPad confusingly so. I can’t see trying to provide telecom provider information for every locale, but wonder if the book wouldn’t be better served to simply say, local options may vary and to provide references rather than just choose one large market and render the others untouched. I started to raise this as a minor quibble, but it rather grew on me. Why are prices even given in a printed book these days. It’s useful and sufficient to provide a URL to the product site, but the inclusion of prices really localalises a book and from my perspective unnecessarily and disusefully so. Moreover, the prices change and why lock the book in time. I think it important to especially warn users that all features aren’t available in all regions.

All in all though I do find this a very useful manual and would recommend it to new users of the iPad. It provides very extensive coverage of all the basics and steps into the breach giving excellent troubleshooting and direction for where one might turn to find additional information.

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Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K Janert is a simply superb, solid and exhaustive synthesis of instruction, workshops and hands-on exercises designed for those serious about conducting professional data analysis. This is not a lightweight undertaking. This is a serious get-down-to-it and do-it-right kind of manual. The author (as has been mentioned elsewhere) is passionate about his subject and it shows. He knows how to convey the most complex concepts in an approachable and effective way.

The title of the book suggests a very hands-on approach and suggests possibly that it is more bout applying known techniques utilising specific tools. The book delivers on this through a series of ‘workshops’ that are attached to each chapter. These sections lead you through specific application of specific data analysis tasks using particular packages (primarily Python and R) in a very useful manner. But don’t be deceived, the book is far more than these workshops and to its credit provides extensive grounding in the theory and principles of data analysis itself so as to ground you in the application.

Whether you are approach first attempts at data analysis and feel unsure about the practise, or you have been using simple tools such as excel to carry out your analysis or are looking to hone your techniques by exploring the power of R is moving to presentation of your analytical findings, you will find this volume a superb choice. Spending time working through the workshops will build a firm foundation of capability to extend the theoretical and additionally provides a superb grounding for approaching courses dealing more directly with the tools themselves, such as the volumes on R that I have explored previously.

Janert uses the progression of presenting the data (to find the patterns) –> modelling the data (to explore) –> mining the data computationally (to understand the data) –> and finally applying the data (to actually use it in real world instances) through the book. He uses examples liberally to maintain engagement and stylistically asks the reader questions and makes reminders constantly to keep you moving through what I remind is pretty heavy material. This is not a book to try in one setting, nor however, is it a reference manual. It is really a course that should be approached over a suitable length of time.

One of the questions the author poses early on is ‘what’s with the math?’ and he assures you that if you do find this intimidating its worth the time to familiarise and gain some comfort with them as they are necessary should you really want to carry out effective data analysis. He’s right and the way the book is structured you do need to take this advice on board. This will limit the book to people that are willing to commit if uncomfortable with the concepts. But as I mentioned above this is a serious book and the author seems to have made a commitment himself to deliver the material and asks for a bit of reciprocation. Now, I (possibly less than fondly) recall much of this from the distant haze of undergraduate statistics or mathematical economics, but there is a collection of great aids in the appendicies to the volume to help you out and these are well presented. I really could have used these 25 years ago when I was struggling through these courses.

All in all, this is a very good book. It actually does more than it promises and delivers a comprehensive and effective course in data analysis with superb hands-on exercises to drive home the learning.

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In The Art of Community, Jono Bacon tackles the task of explaining how to attract, build and maintain productive collaborative online communities. Bacon has had impressive credentials to author such a book and draws from his experience skillfully. With over ten years experience in the open source community he has the hands-on experience with initiatives such as community manager for Ubuntu, KDE and OpenAdvantage.

The book is organised logically with a healthy selection of applied chapters in designing a strategy, understanding the sociological aspects behind community formation, through understanding community health and dealing with issues that arise. Bacon freely admits that this is an absolutely fluid non-science in constant evolution and stays well to the principles couched in his own experience.

I like the lyrical style of the book. Bacon keeps the prose surprisingly light for the nature of the topic (i.e. he could easily fall to using too much jargon to impact a scientific palour — he effectively avoids this). I like his constant interjections from personal experience and informal language. Sections are kept shorter and readable and he has made an attempt to distill learning into a series of specific and focus points. Additionally he carries a useful thread through his narrative reminding the reader at regular instances of what has been covered and where we should be at in the process of understanding. Notwithstanding this he does not attempt to imply that there is a tried and proven process that will lead to success, instead suggesting that he is sharing one path of many. The definition of this path is well illustrated and logically delineated. The basis is provided for each and thus allow for individual adjustment or judgement of whether it is applicable.

This book effectively combines the philosophical with the technical specifics. Although generally aimed at the strategic level in the chapter on ‘Supporting Workflow with Tools’ for example, Bacon provides constructive and useful real world examples of hands-on use with specific tools, and consistently ties these to the larger principles of change management process in light of the wider principles of assessment and response.

This a useful book not just for those directly charged with the the emerging task of community manager, but also those that have the vision to realise the importance of maintaining community whether they are on the financial or marketing side of the organisation.

I would further recommend this book as a less detailed read for those hoping to quickly grasp the importance of the task and the evolution of the marketplace in the era of Enterprise 2.0.

Also…check out the companion website to the book.

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I feared the trackpad. I am not the biggest fan of the trackpad. I gather that my namesake, the CTO at Synaptics is responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs as the trackpad gained laptop cred during the 1990’s and so I feel a little loyalty if only by association. However, my favourite means of input is the TrackPoint — the little red nubby (that becomes less red real fast) that the IBM ThinkPad is most closely associated with. This is a very personal area. I know many users that could just not get used to using a single finger on an ultra-sensitive tiny joystick. The cursor and they could not become friends with the TrackPoint in the equation. Random survey indicates most people still carry a mouse with them and connect it — this is the case for TrackPoint as well as trackpad users. I am glancing around the coffee shop right now and frankly I am the only one relying on the built in tracking device. There’s a lot of users with big mice and small mice, but mice nonetheless. There is even a user carefully balancing one on the arm of an easy chair — that can’t possibly be comfortable.
With apologies to Douglas Englebart, I cannot go back to the mouse. Not for the laptop, and only grudgingly for the desktop. I gave the mouse another try for the last week as I wasn’t convinced that the TrackPad was hacking it. Conclusion, the mouse is even more foreign to me now. I used a nice little Apple Mighty Mouse. Lots of surfaces to associate with different outcomes, but it just doesn’t feel right. There was a time when it did. I used a nice Microsoft laser mouse for the first few weeks with the first ThinkPad I used. And then I got used to the TrackPoint. Very used to the TrackPoint. Heresy of heresies, I actually preferred using it for work in Illustrator and Photoshop, compounding the fact that I was using these applications on a Windows-based machine. My first Apple Portable was the venerable box from 1989? that had a trackball as input device. I liked the TrackBall…and still do. It fits my hand and lets me use my fingertips with percision. My thumb and/or pinky drop down and control the clicking surface. Even Lenovo (just to keep it current IBM actually made the choice) offers all but the small X series with both the TrackPoint and a TrackPad.
Maybe my choice of Point-Pad-Ball is because I don’t touch type. I am proud of the fact that I have a very rapid rate using about 4 digits, I know it doesn’t rival you speed demon TT’s, and that’s probably the majority these days. Its me, I don’t touchtype and that may impact on input device of choice. Maybe the TrackPoint gets in the way of folks having to surrender a digit (but ultimately a full hand) to navigation.
When I got a Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh in 1997, it came with a beautiful leather wrapped keyboard on a tether which I immediately lengthened. In the middle of the palm rest was a decent sized trackpad for input. Apple didn’t ship a mouse with this piece of art. In fact, you could remove the trackpad out of the keyboard and Apple included a leather piece to put in the missing space. The trackpad could then be used separately and had its own cord. It was all very neat. This factor alone convinced my Mother that she wanted one of these as well.
At that time I found the trackpad so, so. It wasn’t my chosen means of input, but the 20th Anniversary wasn’t my main machine, so occasional use was ok.
Input devices have come a long way since then and our haptic transition to gesture-based inductive sensing has created the usual iFrenzy. Its probably the future and trying pinching and the like on an iTouch or iPhone is very cool. Not sure its for me, but haven’t indulged in such toys — yet. But what I can conclude is that I am no longer a mouse kida guy. I probably will always mark the TrackPoint my favourite, but back to the TrackPad.
The PowerBook 12inch has a tiny trackpad. Its far more sensitive and discrete than the trackpads on my TAM or on my PowerBook 540c. I have installed <a href=“http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/” target=“_blank>SideTrack to enable scrolling on the edge of the pad (despite their warning I use it under Leopard no worries). The middle button on the ThinkPad had wedded me to that function. In honesty, Apple’s trackpads and those of other manufacturers have improved much even in these past few years. To the extent that I find myself admitting that I am not dissatisfied with the little trackpad, but its just not quite the TrackPoint — for me at least.

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I make quick note of the announcement of Nokia’s new Haptikos technology previewed at the Red Ferret Journal. The technology takes the touch screen that we all know (and love ;-)) and coordinates audible and tactile feedback that allows for simulation of screen keytaps. The comparison with the iPhone’s multitouch is obvious, but one cannot but wonder how gestures could be vastly improved if you could actually feel the pinch on screen. Seriously. This seems the direction that Nokia is working and this preview explores a few of the little technical details that have challenged engineers thus far and still stand in the way of more sophisticated physical interactions with the screen. ‘Nuff said…this is an amazing technology trajectory. Nokia has very limited coverage at their ‘Way We Live Next’ website.

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Information Aesthetics, a consistently clickable and notable blog, has Fernanda Viégas reporting back from the InfoVis Conference in Sacremento this week. She has posted a geat summary of the keynote address by Matthew Ericson. Brent Fitzgerald blogged yesterday about the panel that he, Fernanda, Martin Wattenberg and Hans Rosling are presenting as well. Taking a look at the conference programme, I could not but wish I was there. Thanks for Fernanda (and hopefully Brent) for giving us an experience as close to being there as possible.

By the way, today is the day of Fig, 7 Brumaire, An CCXVI.

Update: Something local and exciting: Social Networking Week at the University of Toronto. Fernanda is speaking on Friday.

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Perhaps there is an inner historian within me. The latest spate of reviews featuring the iPhone versus this challenger and that has me thinking that at the pace that we move today we don’t take enough time to reach a little further back to consider our forward progress. This case in point, everyone evaluating the iPhone or the iPod Touch (hereafter ITouch — as I am sure Apple would have rather called it) seems to be pitching it against the Nokia N95, HTC Kaiser, or the latest Blackberry. All appropriate for being the current flavour of the market — and when it comes to cell phones, they have such a limited shelf life. How long does the average phone remain current these days? Despite Apple’s slight revamp of the iPhone, I will go out on a limb and suggest that it may have greater longevity than most. However, not because for technical prowess, but to Apple’s marketing panache. Nonetheless, as I look at the comparisons, I am struck that we might best be able to gauge how much of a technical marvel it is by comparing a little further back.

The new AT&T Tilt (aka HTC Kaiser) reminded me in profile of my original Psion 5mx…and I got to thinking that a comparison between the the IPhone and a Newton is not really that far a stretch. My Newtons (culminating in the marvellous 2100) and the Psion are still wonderfully futuristic devices that got rather short shrifts. The Newton apparently for personal Jobs-Sculley reasons and the PSion because it was one of those funny little British things that just don’t get the mass exposure needed for viability.

As we ponder the effectiveness of the on screen virtual iPhone keyboard, one cannot be left unimpressed by the versatility of the technology. Technology that guesses what key you meant to press rather than actually pressed! Yet, for the great leap forward, I wonder why there isn’t a preference that allows you to match the keyboard to your finger size — or whether you are ‘typing’ with your fingers or operating the keyboard via your bug, clumsy thumbs. Mine have been too big and too clumsy every time I have tried the keyboard on the iTouch. While there were some technical flaws with the hinge mechanism on the Psion, that keyboard let one touch type on a tiny, yet powerful keyboard that folded into the device when not needed.

The Newton Keyboard was a little more cumbersome as it was a separate device, but it was a responsive little thing and allowed you the luxury of carry or not carrying.
The interaction with both these devices was surprisingly accommodating. You could be very screen driven very keyboard driven, or find your own combination of the two. With newer entrants I have found that you don’t have nearly the options of finding your best way of interacting with the device. You could hack the OS to your heart’s content and the manufacturer’s worked closely with third parties to develop an array of peripherals and software packages to meet diverse users’ needs.

One of the great pluses of the original Palm Pilot (name very deliberately used) was that it only let you interact in one way — but that one way was simple and solid. You either adapted to the Pilot or you didn’t. I remember experimenting with a paper based version (much in the same way it is legendized that Jeff Hawkins did with a wood block) to see if it would work for me. The reward from this limitation of interaction was an instant-on, speedy address book with calendar. Overtime, the beauty of this simple approach was lost, but there was initial value in the tradeoff of speed for flexibility. Without sounding like the old codger remembering how things were done in his day, I wonder why it is as we have all the processing power of the iPhone running OSX that it isn’t just a wee bit more accommodating of our individual peculiarities. Is it the hubris that smacks of omniscient engineers that will teach us how we should use their devices?

How does an iPhone compare to a Newton or a Psion? I would suggest that there are areas in which the older devices demonstrate that trade offs have been made over time that have taken us down a different road. However, rather than pausing as we proceed down that road, and glance back to ensure that it was the right fork, we have moved along with little regard to where we came from. It like the marathon runners in a clump, taking a certain fork and continuing along, only glancing to their competition to the side to determine that they have taken the right route and assuming that since everyone else is on that path, then it must be the right and therefore best one.

This is all highly subjective of course. As my eye continue to fail, I am increasingly conscious of contrast and screen legibility. So, I come to be appreciative of the wonderfully backlit Newton or Psion (the Newton has served as a flashlight for me a couple times — you can light the room with that wonderful green glow). The screen on the Newton was phenomenal by the 2100 iteration. Unfortunately by the time it reached this pinnacle, it had also become tagged with ridicule for the poor initial performance of the text recognition engine. The history of computing is strewn with those that have rushed to market with underpowered devices to to gain the first mover advantage, only to succumb to harsh reviews that stall its subsequent momentum. Its obviously a close run thing. The 128K Macintosh in 1984 was severely handicapped and it was only through some fancy footwork with the Fat Mac and the subsequent Mac Plus that momentum was both sustained and eventually augmented.

The OS of the Psion was similarly impressive. Now it has evolved in to the Symbian OS of the Nokia phone and possibly been the inspiration for the Nokia Communicator series. The close-run thing is the thing — forgive the repetition. In so many cases, screen brightness is sacrificed for battery life, and we gain in small increments. And in the next iteration we inch a little further in the same direction, often seemingly without regard for the decision that took us down that direction of compromise in the first place.

Lenovo has made an interesting acknowledgment, if only semi-publicly. They had a winner in some of the early ThinkPad X series laptops. To my mind IBM reached a very solid plateau with the X32 and the length of time that this model sat on the price list was testament to the market’s affirmation of this. They reduced size and weight while simultaneously retaining processing power and the on-board graphics capability. Then they took a step too far. They decided that it was the small size and weight that was the crucial component in the balance and they sacrificed machine performance for another pound. The X4X series was a misstep. Small yes, but at too high a performance cost. They admitted there error and let the size of the newer X6X series creep back up and in exchange gave back some of the processing power and hard drive speed that had been lost. They caught their error, admitted their mistake and rectified it. They appear to be monitoring the balance and responding to missteps…a great little business school case.

There is no doubt that in the vision of the iPhone or the N95, one can glimpse the future of mobile computing and as we refine the notion of convergence between our mobile devices, these platforms give us room to grow, but I wonder how often those ever so crafty engineers look a little further back to see the future of mobile computing.

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It’s always amusing and often telling to compare where we are now to where we thought we’d be. Whether through sci-fi novels, advertisements for the house of the future, or in this case prints from an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (bnf), facets of the futurethink can provide a particularly prismatic view of past preoccupations. Paleo-Future Blog has a nice collection of images of life in the year 2000 from the BnF. Natalie has weighed in on how prescient these illustrations actually are.
One thing that springs to my attention is the sense that the future was going to free us from contact with the ground. Flight seems to make so much more possible. In a positive way, with long-distance cruise air-ships, our own personal flying vehicles, or apparatus enabling firemen to fight fires from the air and rescue those in distress. Realistically, the artist also recognizes the need for aerial police to maintain order in the newly crowded sky.
The complex is simplified through magical machines, whether the tailor who has a fully automated measuring machine that feeds dimensions to a second machine that takes fabric and turns out fully finished customized garments, or the barber who simply provides commentary as he manipulates a mechanical variant that cuts several patrons hair simultaneously.
The view of school is very interesting, raw materials (books) are committed to a sausage grinder, where they are transformed into impulses and transmitted directly to learning caps on the heads of the students. (The unfortunate child who has to power the machine raises the question of who he is representing, being denied this pablumized knowledge). Are the books consumed by the process…they don’t seem to be emerging.
Is the architect directly carrying out the construction process a telling comment on the efficiency (and contribution) of the French labourer? Yet, the architect works from a plan, simply punching instructions into console, not merely crafting directly from inspiration.
In all these images, the middle layer of intermediaries seem to be removed. Trades are eliminated through mechanization, but servitude is not. Professionals are empowered by progress, but are those eliminated raised up or cast down, or simply allowed a life of leisure able to indulge in endless frivolity such as the festival of the roses?
Questions aside, these visions suggest some of the problems that the artist perhaps saw as significant enough to warrant rectification.
The firemen with wings seem to speak to a fear of building heights and conflagration.
I am not sure of why, but strolling is expected, but otherwise having to walk is not acceptable. Thus, innovation such as powered skates if one has to mingle in the groundbound milieu. However, optimally streets have become a pedestrian only zone, as mechanized transport has moves to the air. Is this a comment on the initial results of the commingling of the mechanized and the pedestrian. The horse is missing from all pictures, except where it is seen purely as a curiosity.
War has become very automated, and especially mobile, yet, the same French politicians of the time go on to construct the Mobile war…and yet the Maginot line springs from this same era.
There is clearly a sense that communication and transportation will enable and that the then current pace stands in society’s way. More, faster, farther all seem to be demonstrated, but then these are the common hopes and expectations of society’s from early times. Its the other comments that can tell us much about the zeitgeist of 1910.
Check out the full exhibition as I have only chosen a few choice images.

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I attended a wildly animated, wonderfully amusing and thought provoking keynote talk by David Weinberger entitled ’The Business of the Miscellaneous’ at the Annual General Meeting of the CIRA this afternoon. Weinberger claims that society has solved the threat posed by information overload by creating more information. Additionally, he claims, the blurring of the line between the metadata and the actual data has further eroded the authority of the traditional media and given a newfound credibility to sources such as Wikipedia. A credibility that he asserts that comes from trust built on transparency.
He began by looking at the orders of information, the first order being data, the second the metadata to describe and classify the first and the third being the digitization of this information and the agglomeration of the data with the metadata. His exploration started from an appreciation that the traditional print media, where editors and publishers decide the importance of information and impose their own classification system, has claimed ownership of information. It has further assumed an authority (one that was potentially dangerous, and certainly not sacred) that was tough to challenge in the print age. Weinberg contends that the digitization of information has allowed the user to retake ownership of the data through searches that don’t distinguish between the first two orders and thus remove the imposed authority.
He extended this to the booming trend of user-augmented collective information in a repository such as Wikipedia. He asks, why it is that Wikipedia has the credibility it has. Its not that the savvy user sees Wikipedia content as absolutely true, but that by exposing the process of editing and blatantly admitting its own failings (through warnings on data flagged as inaccurate, in need of sources, revision or of a biased nature) it establishes itself as one of us and being of us. Wikipedia gains credibility in a time when other media are losing credibility by being over possessive or protective over information ownership and failing to adequately admit (or even almost revel as Wikipedia does) to their own failings. It’s an interesting take on the collapse of traditional authority as expressed through the classification of knowledge.
The second big thing he identifies as a result of the digitization of information is that the quality of information being exchanged in the public sphere is experiencing a smarting up (as opposed to a dumbing down). As information can be easily and readily shared, mashed up and commented upon, it has gained new perspectives, and new context that allows us to ‘luxuriate in making things complex again.”

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