Category: Social Stream
My 10th Anniversary on Facebook
Yesterday I got a thank you from Foursquare for 7 years, and it’s easily been over 8 years on Twitter. Sadly, I miss a lot of the services that started around that time that are no longer with us. Toward that end, I’ll post some thoughts tomorrow about a more pivotal anniversary about which I’m much more excited, and which portends better things for the internet…
Some light poolside reading
Instagram filter used: Clarendon
Photo taken at:Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club
Checkin GreenHaus Cafe and Bakery
Instagram filter used: Normal
Photo taken at: The Green Haus Cafe & Bakery
“Summer” begins with opening weekend at Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club
Just beat the setting sun with my pre-Passover pizza
Physicists Hunt For The Big Bang’s Triangles | Quanta Magazine
“The notion that counting more shapes in the sky will reveal more details of the Big Bang is implied in a central principle of quantum physics known as “unitarity.” Unitarity dictates that the probabilities of all possible quantum states of the universe must add up to one, now and forever; thus, information, which is stored in quantum states, can never be lost — only scrambled. This means that all information about the birth of the cosmos remains encoded in its present state, and the more precisely cosmologists know the latter, the more they can learn about the former.”
How can we be sure old books were ever read? – University of Glasgow Library
Owning a book isn’t the same as reading it; we need only look at our own bloated bookshelves for confirmation.
Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club
Thoughts on “Some academics remain skeptical of Academia.edu” | University Affairs
I find academic social networking sites obnoxious, but I don’t get the fear and loathing. via @EmmMacfarlane https://t.co/jwYJxJsZJt
— Andrew Eckford (@andreweckford) April 12, 2016
His response was probably innocuous enough, but I thought the article should be put to task a bit more.
“35 million academics, independent scholars and graduate students as users, who collectively have uploaded some eight million texts”
35 million users is an okay number, but their engagement must be spectacularly bad if only 8 million texts are available. How many researchers do you know who’ve published only a quarter of an article anywhere, much less gotten tenure?
“the platform essentially bans access for academics who, for whatever reason, don’t have an Academia.edu account. It also shuts out non-academics.”
They must have changed this, as pretty much anyone with an email address (including non-academics) can create a free account and use the system. I’m fairly certain that the platform was always open to the public from the start, but the article doesn’t seem to question the statement at all. If we want to argue about shutting out non-academics or even academics in poorer countries, let’s instead take a look at “big publishing” and their $30+/paper paywalls and publishing models, shall we?
“I don’t trust academia.edu”
Given his following discussion, I can only imagine what he thinks of big publishers in academia and that debate.
“McGill’s Dr. Sterne calls it “the gamification of research,”
Most research is too expensive to really gamify in such a simple manner. Many researchers are publishing to either get or keep their jobs and don’t have much time, information, or knowledge to try to game their reach in these ways. And if anything, the institutionalization of “publish or perish” has already accomplished far more “gamification”, Academia.edu is just helping to increase the reach of the publication. Given that research shows that most published research isn’t even read, much less cited, how bad can Academia.edu really be? [Cross reference: Reframing What Academic Freedom Means in the Digital Age]
If we look at Twitter and the blogging world as an analogy with Academia.edu and researchers, Twitter had a huge ramp up starting in 2008 and helped bloggers obtain eyeballs/readers, but where is it now? Twitter, even with a reasonable business plan is stagnant with growing grumblings that it may be failing. I suspect that without significant changes that Academia.edu (which is a much smaller niche audience than Twitter) will also eventually fall by the wayside.
The article rails against not knowing what the business model is or what’s happening with the data. I suspect that the platform itself doesn’t have a very solid business plan and they don’t know what to do with the data themselves except tout the numbers. I’d suspect they’re trying to build “critical mass” so that they can cash out by selling to one of the big publishers like Elsevier, who might actually be able to use such data. But this presupposes that they’re generating enough data; my guess is that they’re not. And on that subject, from a journalistic viewpoint, where’s the comparison to the rest of the competition including ResearchGate.net or Mendeley.com, which in fact was purchased by Elsevier? As it stands, this simply looks like a “hit piece” on Academia.edu, and sadly not a very well researched or reasoned one.
In sum, the article sounds to me like a bunch of Luddites running around yelling “fire”, particularly when I’d imagine that most referred to in the piece feed into the more corporate side of publishing in major journals rather than publishing it themselves on their own websites. I’d further suspect they’re probably not even practicing academic samizdat. It feels to me like the author and some of those quoted aren’t actively participating in the social media space to be able to comment on it intelligently. If the paper wants to pick at the academy in this manner, why don’t they write an exposé on the fact that most academics still have websites that look like they’re from 1995 (if, in fact, they have anything beyond their University’s mandated business card placeholder) when there are a wealth of free and simple tools they could use? Let’s at least build a cart before we start whipping the horse.
For academics who really want to spend some time and thought on a potential solution to all of this, I’ll suggest that they start out by owning their own domain and own their own data and work. The #IndieWeb movement certainly has an interesting philosophy that’s a great start in fixing the problem; it can be found at http://www.indiewebcamp.com.
Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles presents Bette, Babs & Beyoncé
It was a great buttoned down opening with a free-for-all closing. Standout performances on “Rhythm Nation” and the penultimate song “Maybe This Time” were particularly powerful. The sign language interpreter completely stole the show for me in terms of performance.
Instagram filter used: Nashville
Photo taken at: Alex Theatre
IndieWebCamp Los Angeles 2016 Announced for November 4-6
Join us in LA (Santa Monica) for two days of a BarCamp-style gathering of web creators building and sharing open web technologies to empower users to own their own identities & content, and advance the state of the #indieweb!
The IndieWeb movement is a global community that is building an open set of principles and methods that empower people to take back ownership of their identity and data instead of relying on 3rd party websites.
At IndieWebCamp you’ll learn about ways to empower yourself to own your data, create & publish content on your own site, and only optionally syndicate to third-party silos. Along the way you’ll get a solid grounding in the history and future of Microformats, domain ownership, IndieAuth, WebMention and more!
For remote participants, tune into the live chat (tons of realtime notes!) and the video livestream (URL TBD).
General IndieWeb Principles
Your content is yours When you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have gone out of business and lost all of their users’ data. By joining the IndieWeb, your content stays yours and in your control. |
|
You are better connected Your articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. Even replies and likes on other services can come back to your site so they’re all in one place. |
|
You are in control You can post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. In addition, you share simple readable links such as example.com/ideas. These links are permanent and will always work. |
Where
Pivotal
1333 2nd Street, Suite 200
Santa Monica, CA, 90401
United States
Map
When
Friday (optional): 2016-11-04
Saturday: 2016-11-05
Sunday: 2016-11-06
RSVP
Indie Event
Eventbrite
Lanyrd
Facebook
Guest List
For more details see: IndieWebCamp LA 2016
Tentative Schedule
Day 0 Prep Night
Day 0 is an optional prep night for people that want to button up their website a little bit to get ready for the IndieWebCamp proper.
18:30 Organizer setup
19:00 Doors open
19:15 Introductions
19:30 Build session
22:00 Day 0 closed
Day 1 Discussion
Day 1 is about discussing in a BarCamp-like environment. Bring a topic you’d like to discuss or join in on topics as they are added to the board. We make the schedule together!
08:00 Organizer setup
08:30 Doors open – badges
09:15 Introductions and demos
10:00 Session scheduling
10:30 Sessions
12:00 Group photo & Lunch
13:00 Sessions on the hour
16:00 Last session
17:00 Day 1 closing session, break, meetup later for dinner
Day 2 Building
Day 2 is about making things on and for your personal site! Work with others or on your own.
09:30 Doors open – badges
10:10 Day 2 kick-off, session scheduling
10:30 Build sessions
12:00 Catered lunch
14:30 Build sessions continue
15:00 Demos
16:30 Community clean-up
17:00 Camp closed!
Sponsorship opportunities are available for those interested.