Google Alliance vs. Facebook&Microsoft

Via Ton Zijlstra (btw Ton has an excellent blog)

An article in The NY Times today announces:

Google and some of the Web’s leading social networks are teaming up to take on the new kid on the block — Facebook.

On Thursday, an alliance of companies led by Google plans to begin introducing a common set of standards to allow software developers to write programs for Google’s social network, Orkut, as well as others, including LinkedIn, hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning.

The strategy is aimed at one-upping Facebook, which last spring opened its service to outside developers...The start of OpenSocial comes just a week after Google lost to Microsoft in a bid to invest in Facebook and sell advertising on the social network’s pages outside the United States.

The new alliance’s platform is called OpenSocial (URL will go live on Thursday). Michael Arrington on Techcrunch writes:

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

CUELC meeting in Cairo

Over the next couple of days I´ll be attending a CUELC seminar in Cairo. I´ll accompany 4 of our best bachelor and master students to meet other students from Cairo University and INT Evry, France. The main goal of this seminar is the give students from different institutions the opportunity to get to know each other and exchange their experiences in the area of technology enhanced learning. Since the semiar will bring together students from different cultures, intersting would be to study the impact of different cultures on TEL. I´m looking very much forward to this event.

jQuery vs. Prototype

Via Dion Almaer - Ajaxian

A comparison between the jQuery and Prototype Ajax frameworks by Remy Sharp.

| View | Upload your own

Blogs Are the Long Tail of Media

Chris Anderson pointed to a book called Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers by Mike Banks. This book is not more than a collection of short interviews with some famous bloggers. One of the interviews was with Chris Anderson who was talking about his "The Long Tail" blog experience. The interview is availabe here (.pdf). The author summarizes the interview as follows:

To better serve the low-demand niche markets (or just to increase the quality of your own blog), consider these points:

• There is no one “blogosphere.” There is an infinite number of blogospheres, each shaped by the tastes and experiences of individuals.
• A blog is a thinking tool, a means of collecting, composing, and amplifying your thoughts—while getting useful feedback. Ideas are enriched by the experiences of blog readers.
• A personal blog presents a better platform for communicating honestly and transparently than a company blog, where a writer is constrained by commercial considerations. However, remember that self-promotion is more effective when it includes a value-added element.
• A blog, especially one with a large community, can function as a distributed research project and become an efficient marketing platform.
• A carefully selected set of feeds can make blogs function as an information filter.
• When blogging, focus on specific interests. You don’t have to appeal to an overly diverse audience. Focused blogs are self-selecting, in that they draw readers who have a legitimate interest in the blogs’ subjects. Such readers are more likely to forgive errors and omissions, and will contribute more than someone just passing through.
• Every blog, and every blogger, can be improved. To maximize your blog’s audience, focus with laser precision on your subject.
  

Knowledge Management Video

Via Samuel Driessen.

Knowledge Management is about people...