Today, my Master’s of Professional Communications classes at Royal Roads University officially begin.
I'm excited by the subject matter and by the method of learning. My program is predominantly delivered through e-Learning, with a readings offline and online. There are also two periods of three weeks of intensive classes on campus in Victoria, British Columbia.
There are a lot of criticisms of e-Learning. As a web professional, I'm committed to living as much of my life online as I can, so I'm excited to be so immersed in this aspect of the Internet. Also, I think some of the concerns of e-Learning aren't always legitimate.
Some criticism undoubtedly arises, because e-Learning is new. But it's not that new - even before the Internet was popular, there was e-Learning. Back in 1993, I took a distance course from the University of Guelph that used computer programs (everything was done by exchanging diskettes). The course applications explained concepts, had users interact with the subject matter, answer questions and get feedback, and complete tests. In my case, I found this style of learning worked really well, allowing me more opportunity to work through the particular lesson and put the learning into practice – this just couldn't have happened without individual instruction, something not cost-effective to provide.
While change is no doubt intimidating to many people, I do think some instructors are worried they'll lose their jobs. If universities offer effective e-Learning, there should still be need for a lot of professors and it could grow with the opening of access to education that e-Learning enables (both by removing geographical and time barriers – sadly, as I can attest, not cost barriers though).
Another concern is that e-Learning prevents the Socratic method of learning so beloved by academics, but so lacking in modern factory universities nowadays. I didn’t get the Socratic method in my huge university classes. Even when there were opportunities to ask questions and have discussions, they were usually in sessions led by grad students who were sometimes only a year or two ahead of me. But I do believe that discussions with professors and students is essential (and something campuses really need to improve). Effective e-Learning can counters this concern, through online discussions, wikis, and forums. I have heard of courses using these but unable to get students to participate. I think is due to three reasons: 1) participation needs to be required – as are university "tutorial" type classes 2) language skills – people need to know the language and be able to articulate their thoughts through writing, obviously this will work better in some faculties than others 3) familiarity – it really helps if people feel comfortable with one another, this is hard in online only courses, but I think Royal Roads in-person time will foster a community that will then be able to be transported online.
Cheating is also concern with e-Learning. A colleague is taking an online course and must complete multiple-choice exams online. I did find it troubling that there was no means to prevent her from having help completing her tests or even that she herself did them. But I have had take-home exams before and certainly essay purchasing is not unheard of – so this may be a reality of academic life.
I suspect most people would, if it were feasible, prefer in-class rather than online or other distance learning. Distance learning has been around for ages, but traditional forms (print &/or video/televised) don't seem to be as popular as e-Learning. I suspect e-Learning's advantage is the opportunity to participate and interact. I took distance courses that did make good use of computer programs and videos to supplement what would otherwise be all reading, but there was no interactions with the professors or students. e-Learning greatly enhances distance education, but I still don't think many people prefer e-Learning (with the exception of web geeks, social phobes, mobility challenged, and naturists). e-Learning allows the opportunity to get an education when and where you want it. This allows people flexibility to study at their own time to not have to move or commute and to maintain their otherwise hectic life.
As my courses progress, I'll update this blog on my experiences with e-Learning – good and, hopefully not, bad.
Update: Thanks to Madison Murphy for her help with this post.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Living and Dying Online
Earlier today, I found out via an e-mail that a friend from highschool had died from breast cancer.
While I found the news most upsetting, I didn't find the method of delivery unusual. When my mother-in-law died, we were so physically and emotionally exhausted that the only way I could handle passing on the news to our friends and family was to e-mail people.
Some people still find death the last taboo of online communications. I have no such qualms. The e-mail I received also had a link to a posting on the funeral home's website of the obituary notice. I've also heard of people posting retrospective videos online or having message boards for people to post and share message about the deceased.
I think e-mail and Web can be a great way to help people talk, share and deal with the death than they might be able to in person.
Many of us live so much of our lives online nowadays. I have found out about births, marriages, divorces, coming outs, hirings and firings online.
I think Facebook is great for enabling this by helping us share the details of our lives with a wider circle of friends than we might otherwise be able to. For instance, there's this perception that people don't want to see other people's kid or trip pix. I love seeing them, even more so when I can do it on my own time.
Without the Internet, I never would be this in touch with people's lives. It's definitely a good thing.
While I found the news most upsetting, I didn't find the method of delivery unusual. When my mother-in-law died, we were so physically and emotionally exhausted that the only way I could handle passing on the news to our friends and family was to e-mail people.
Some people still find death the last taboo of online communications. I have no such qualms. The e-mail I received also had a link to a posting on the funeral home's website of the obituary notice. I've also heard of people posting retrospective videos online or having message boards for people to post and share message about the deceased.
I think e-mail and Web can be a great way to help people talk, share and deal with the death than they might be able to in person.
Many of us live so much of our lives online nowadays. I have found out about births, marriages, divorces, coming outs, hirings and firings online.
I think Facebook is great for enabling this by helping us share the details of our lives with a wider circle of friends than we might otherwise be able to. For instance, there's this perception that people don't want to see other people's kid or trip pix. I love seeing them, even more so when I can do it on my own time.
Without the Internet, I never would be this in touch with people's lives. It's definitely a good thing.
Monday, October 15, 2007
More Biggest Canadian Internet Success Stories
Canadians aren't good at trumpeting their own success. Granted, we're a small market so our stories aren't always that big and glitzy (though some are).
I noticed that Canada's Internet history and successes are not well documented and I'm hoping to help improve this situation.
While my list of Canadian Internet Successes is by no means scientific, it is a start.
While some companies are obvious successes (eg. Flickr, StumbleUpon, RIM) there are some I'm not sure about (eg. is Nygard truly a leader in e-Business that one source claims it to be?).
Also, the list is biased towards front-end and B2C companies - this is not intentional, but reflects my limited knowledge base.
Please help me out with any omissions, corrections or details about companies already listed.
Criteria for inclusion:
* doesn't have to be an Internet company, but must use an Internet component (ie. Web, e-mail, FTP, etc.) successfully
* scope or influence extends beyond Canada
* founded or based in Canada
* commercially successful or influential for online offerings, technology, design, research, etc.
Top Canadian Internet Successes
1) Club Penguin (Kelowna, British Columbia)
Disney’s purchase this summer of Club Penguin for $350M US (read Globe & Mail article) must make Club Penguin the biggest monetary success story of any Canadian Internet company. Club Penguin is a gaming and social networking site for pre-teens. I believe they were so desirable not only for their site's stickiness with a choice demographic, but also because they had a viable, profitable model in place that doesn't rely on advertising.
2) Flickr (founded Vancouver, British Columbia)
While Flickr sold out to Yahoo for a paltry, rumoured, 20-30 million, this photo-sharing website is one of the most popular and most used websites in the world. Flickr was a pioneer in the tagging of photographs.
3) Reseach In Motion (Waterloo, Ontario)
While RIM's BlackBerry device is capable of web browsing, its claim to fame is being the first to allow users to retrieve non-wireless email accounts from a wireless device.
4) Kevin Ham (Vancouver, British Columbia)
One of the first and, by some accounts, the best domainer, Ham owns a portfolio of websites worth at least $300M and with revenues of $70M a year. (Read Business 2.0 profile)
5) Archie (Montreal, Quebec)
Considered the first Internet search engine. Archie was created in 1990 at McGill University to search and index FTP sites.
6) CryptoLogic (Toronto, Ontario)
One of the top four online gambling software companies. While tighter online gambling regulations in the States have hurt, they are still doing well and recently done a high-profile partnership with Playboy.
7) StumbleUpon (founded Calgary, Alberta)
Started in Canada, this social bookmarking and recommendation site gets more popular every day. StumbleUpon relocated to San Francisco for financing and was subsequently bought by eBay in May 2007 for $75M US.
8) Open Text (Waterloo, Ontario)
One of the first search engines and an early leader in web-based content management.
9) Lavalife (founded Toronto, Ontario)
While Lavalife didn't invent online dating, they revolutionized it by making it much more fun and thus became North America's most popular dating site. They sold out to an American company for $152.5M CDN.
10) iStockPhoto (Calgary, Alberta)
iStockPhoto is one of the leading royalty-free stock photography websites, and, by their own admission, the "world’s busiest image market", pioneering the use of micropayments. They sold in Feb. 2006 to Getty Images for $50M.
11) NowPublic (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Billed as the world's largest citizen journalism network with thousands of citizen reporters in 140 countries. The company recently received (see CBC article) one of the largest investments ($10.6M) in citizen journalism.
12) William Gibson (Vancouver, British Columbia)
This science fiction novelist didn't work on the Net, but his work predicted the Net - and he coined the term "cyberspace". Gibson has also been a contributor to Wired Magazine and writes his own blog.
13) AbeBooks (Victoria, British Columbia)
The world’s largest used book online marketplace, AbeBooks continues to grow. They have recently bought other book websites and remain a favourite with bibliophiles.
14) Justwhiteshirts.com (Toronto, Ontario)
This company, selling men’s clothing (not just white shirts), was an early e-commerce success. Somehow they managed to lose their head start and went out of business last year.
15) WebKinz (Woodbridge, Ontario)
Owned by toy and gift company, Ganz, this company makes plush toy animals that come with a secret code that let's the owner participate in the WebKinz virtual world. With at least a million registered users and stickiness and loyalty in line with Club Penguin, WebKinz is undoubtedly a goldmine.
16) Naked News (Toronto, Ontario)
Originally a free online website with daily news coverage by stripping anchors. Naked News launched in 2000, before the heyday of high-speed connections but were nonetheless phenomenally popular for awhile, due, no doubt, as they say in Avenue Q - "Grab your xxxx and double-click, the Internet is for porn!"
17) eHarlequin (Toronto, Ontario)
The leading romance story online destination, eHarlequin is a branch of Harlequin Enterprises, the world's top romance book publisher. The popular website was also an early pioneer in web 2.0 techniques.
18) Cambrian House (Calgary, Alberta)
A leader in crowdsourcing via its online community and software to enable peer production.
19) TakingITGlobal (Toronto, Ontario)
TakingITGlobal is a website with an active, international community that enables developers to create IT projects to aid developing nations.
20) 20-20 Technologies (Laval, Quebec)
The leader in software for the interior design industry (according to their own site) 2o-20 Technologies offers a suite of products many using or enabled by the Web.
21) Tucows (Toronto, Ontario - originally Michigan)
I knew this company when it was owned by my first ISP, i-Direct. Tucows was the ultimate site for freeware and shareware downloads.
22) Ice.com (Montreal, Quebec)
Ice.com is one of the largest jewelery e-tailers and certainly one of the nicest looking.
23) Têtes à Claques (Montreal, Quebec)
This French-language humour website, Têtes à Claques started with a series of bizarre animated online shorts. It's the most popular French-language website in Quebec and its popularity is spreading into France.
24) Nygard (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
According to an Industry Canada report , Nygard was a pioneer in the fashion industry in using technology, saving at least $10M a year back in 2002 for its innovative use of e-Business. Apparently, Nygard was one of the first designers to actively display their catalogue online.
25) Weblo (Montreal, Quebec)
I’m reluctant to put this virtual reality site on the list, as it seems to be much ado about nothing. Lots of money was spent here with the hope that audiences will come, but there’s little to draw them in.
26) Simply Audio Books (Oakville, Ontario)
The largest company in the rental and sale of audio books via their website. Simply Audio Books earned revenues of more than $6M last year.
Honourable mentions
Founded, totally or in part, by Canadians living abroad:
These were certainly Internet leaders in Canada:
I noticed that Canada's Internet history and successes are not well documented and I'm hoping to help improve this situation.
While my list of Canadian Internet Successes is by no means scientific, it is a start.
While some companies are obvious successes (eg. Flickr, StumbleUpon, RIM) there are some I'm not sure about (eg. is Nygard truly a leader in e-Business that one source claims it to be?).
Also, the list is biased towards front-end and B2C companies - this is not intentional, but reflects my limited knowledge base.
Please help me out with any omissions, corrections or details about companies already listed.
Criteria for inclusion:
* doesn't have to be an Internet company, but must use an Internet component (ie. Web, e-mail, FTP, etc.) successfully
* scope or influence extends beyond Canada
* founded or based in Canada
* commercially successful or influential for online offerings, technology, design, research, etc.
Top Canadian Internet Successes
1) Club Penguin (Kelowna, British Columbia)
Disney’s purchase this summer of Club Penguin for $350M US (read Globe & Mail article) must make Club Penguin the biggest monetary success story of any Canadian Internet company. Club Penguin is a gaming and social networking site for pre-teens. I believe they were so desirable not only for their site's stickiness with a choice demographic, but also because they had a viable, profitable model in place that doesn't rely on advertising.
2) Flickr (founded Vancouver, British Columbia)
While Flickr sold out to Yahoo for a paltry, rumoured, 20-30 million, this photo-sharing website is one of the most popular and most used websites in the world. Flickr was a pioneer in the tagging of photographs.
3) Reseach In Motion (Waterloo, Ontario)
While RIM's BlackBerry device is capable of web browsing, its claim to fame is being the first to allow users to retrieve non-wireless email accounts from a wireless device.
4) Kevin Ham (Vancouver, British Columbia)
One of the first and, by some accounts, the best domainer, Ham owns a portfolio of websites worth at least $300M and with revenues of $70M a year. (Read Business 2.0 profile)
5) Archie (Montreal, Quebec)
Considered the first Internet search engine. Archie was created in 1990 at McGill University to search and index FTP sites.
6) CryptoLogic (Toronto, Ontario)
One of the top four online gambling software companies. While tighter online gambling regulations in the States have hurt, they are still doing well and recently done a high-profile partnership with Playboy.
7) StumbleUpon (founded Calgary, Alberta)
Started in Canada, this social bookmarking and recommendation site gets more popular every day. StumbleUpon relocated to San Francisco for financing and was subsequently bought by eBay in May 2007 for $75M US.
8) Open Text (Waterloo, Ontario)
One of the first search engines and an early leader in web-based content management.
9) Lavalife (founded Toronto, Ontario)
While Lavalife didn't invent online dating, they revolutionized it by making it much more fun and thus became North America's most popular dating site. They sold out to an American company for $152.5M CDN.
10) iStockPhoto (Calgary, Alberta)
iStockPhoto is one of the leading royalty-free stock photography websites, and, by their own admission, the "world’s busiest image market", pioneering the use of micropayments. They sold in Feb. 2006 to Getty Images for $50M.
11) NowPublic (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Billed as the world's largest citizen journalism network with thousands of citizen reporters in 140 countries. The company recently received (see CBC article) one of the largest investments ($10.6M) in citizen journalism.
12) William Gibson (Vancouver, British Columbia)
This science fiction novelist didn't work on the Net, but his work predicted the Net - and he coined the term "cyberspace". Gibson has also been a contributor to Wired Magazine and writes his own blog.
13) AbeBooks (Victoria, British Columbia)
The world’s largest used book online marketplace, AbeBooks continues to grow. They have recently bought other book websites and remain a favourite with bibliophiles.
14) Justwhiteshirts.com (Toronto, Ontario)
This company, selling men’s clothing (not just white shirts), was an early e-commerce success. Somehow they managed to lose their head start and went out of business last year.
15) WebKinz (Woodbridge, Ontario)
Owned by toy and gift company, Ganz, this company makes plush toy animals that come with a secret code that let's the owner participate in the WebKinz virtual world. With at least a million registered users and stickiness and loyalty in line with Club Penguin, WebKinz is undoubtedly a goldmine.
16) Naked News (Toronto, Ontario)
Originally a free online website with daily news coverage by stripping anchors. Naked News launched in 2000, before the heyday of high-speed connections but were nonetheless phenomenally popular for awhile, due, no doubt, as they say in Avenue Q - "Grab your xxxx and double-click, the Internet is for porn!"
17) eHarlequin (Toronto, Ontario)
The leading romance story online destination, eHarlequin is a branch of Harlequin Enterprises, the world's top romance book publisher. The popular website was also an early pioneer in web 2.0 techniques.
18) Cambrian House (Calgary, Alberta)
A leader in crowdsourcing via its online community and software to enable peer production.
19) TakingITGlobal (Toronto, Ontario)
TakingITGlobal is a website with an active, international community that enables developers to create IT projects to aid developing nations.
20) 20-20 Technologies (Laval, Quebec)
The leader in software for the interior design industry (according to their own site) 2o-20 Technologies offers a suite of products many using or enabled by the Web.
21) Tucows (Toronto, Ontario - originally Michigan)
I knew this company when it was owned by my first ISP, i-Direct. Tucows was the ultimate site for freeware and shareware downloads.
22) Ice.com (Montreal, Quebec)
Ice.com is one of the largest jewelery e-tailers and certainly one of the nicest looking.
23) Têtes à Claques (Montreal, Quebec)
This French-language humour website, Têtes à Claques started with a series of bizarre animated online shorts. It's the most popular French-language website in Quebec and its popularity is spreading into France.
24) Nygard (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
According to an Industry Canada report , Nygard was a pioneer in the fashion industry in using technology, saving at least $10M a year back in 2002 for its innovative use of e-Business. Apparently, Nygard was one of the first designers to actively display their catalogue online.
25) Weblo (Montreal, Quebec)
I’m reluctant to put this virtual reality site on the list, as it seems to be much ado about nothing. Lots of money was spent here with the hope that audiences will come, but there’s little to draw them in.
26) Simply Audio Books (Oakville, Ontario)
The largest company in the rental and sale of audio books via their website. Simply Audio Books earned revenues of more than $6M last year.
Honourable mentions
- Iceberg Radio - one of the largest and first Internet radio portals
- b5media - global blog syndicate
- Chilly Beach - web-based Flash cartoons that transitioned to a TV series
- MegaDox - legal documents
- Long Pen - Devised by Margaret Atwood, now on the board, LongPen enables remote celebrity signing events via online conferencing and robotic signing of books/goods
- Don Tapscott - co-author of Wikinomics and digital evangelist
- Digital Cement - marketing services firm with a specialty in e-mail marketing, acquired by Pitney Bowles in May 2007 for $40M
Founded, totally or in part, by Canadians living abroad:
- SitePoint, publishers of web development books, videos, websites and forums, but although co-founded by a Canadian, they are based out of Australia
- Jeffrey Skoll – first president of eBay and he wrote their business plan
- Thompson Corporation – started in Canada, now headquartered in Connecticut, though largely owned by the Canadian Thompson family (that is, pre Reuters merger). Thomspon, a specialty and trade publisher, was one of the first companies to go into digital publishing in a big way.
- Treehugger.com, founded by Ottawa-native Graham Hill, but based out of New York, this environmental blog was bought this summer for $10M by Discovery Channel.
- Bob Young - from Ancaster, Ontario, Young co-founded Linux distributor Red Hat and he is now CEO of Lulu.com, one of the first websites enabling digital and print micro-publishing.
These were certainly Internet leaders in Canada:
- Chatelaine - one of the first Canadian magazines to really do something with their "companion" website, then were leaders in integrating & cross-promoting print & web
- Sears Canada - made a success out of e-commerce in Canada, while others were giving up on it or just not able to figure it out
- Chapters - before Amazon came to Canada, Chapters' website was doing just fine here
- Grocery Gateway - for a long time they were the only grocery website and it seems still one of the best
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Blah Blah Text - Mea Culpa
I was reading of Jakob Nielsen's most recent Alertbox article, Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?, and within seconds I knew I was in trouble.
When I read the last few words of his opening, I had the uneasy feeling that I had broken a basic web usability principle. Nielsen stated:
I didn't even finish reading the article before checking my homepage. Sure enough, I had a dreadful blah blah text intro. It should have been obvious to me it was bad copy - anything that starts with "Welcome" is a dead give-away - but it took Nielsen's words to snap me out of it.
My excuse for writing blah blah text is that I wrote it on the night of the website relaunch and I been working days and nights and I was genuinely excited and wanted our visitors to be excited by our redesigned website.
No excuse. I quickly rewrote the copy and purged it from 103 words to 65, without sacrificing any meat, only filler. And - this is my redemption - I was able to chop the words down by almost half and yet add another teaser about a new topic!!!
Still I was feeling guilty and ashamed. I felt as atonement I would to do a "Mea Culpa" blog posting here.
Then I went back to reading the remainder of Nielsen's article, when my shame was assuaged by Nielsen's assertion of his own "Mea Culpa". I did feel a bit better that even the divine Nielsen has his moments of weakness.
When I read the last few words of his opening, I had the uneasy feeling that I had broken a basic web usability principle. Nielsen stated:
The introductory paragraph(s) found at the top of many Web pages is what I call blah-blah text: a block of words that users typically skip when they arrive at a page. Instead, their eyes go directly to more actionable content, such as product features, bulleted lists, or hypertext links. The worst kind of blah-blah has no function; it's pure filler — platitudes, such as "Welcome to our site, we hope you will find our new and improved design helpful."
I didn't even finish reading the article before checking my homepage. Sure enough, I had a dreadful blah blah text intro. It should have been obvious to me it was bad copy - anything that starts with "Welcome" is a dead give-away - but it took Nielsen's words to snap me out of it.
My excuse for writing blah blah text is that I wrote it on the night of the website relaunch and I been working days and nights and I was genuinely excited and wanted our visitors to be excited by our redesigned website.
No excuse. I quickly rewrote the copy and purged it from 103 words to 65, without sacrificing any meat, only filler. And - this is my redemption - I was able to chop the words down by almost half and yet add another teaser about a new topic!!!
Still I was feeling guilty and ashamed. I felt as atonement I would to do a "Mea Culpa" blog posting here.
Then I went back to reading the remainder of Nielsen's article, when my shame was assuaged by Nielsen's assertion of his own "Mea Culpa". I did feel a bit better that even the divine Nielsen has his moments of weakness.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Something To Blog Home About...
History has been on my mind today.
History of personal, local and international proportions. Today is the one year anniversary of this blog. I also bought a book today at Word on the Street about a favourite subject of mine, Toronto history. Later in the day, I read a chapters of a book by Tim Berners-Lee on the history of the World Wide Web.
I thought these three events provide an intriguing perspective on where my life stands right now and a look at my future.
I started blogging a year ago as the momentum of recent developments in the Internet had got me excited about the field again. Since starting in this field I have loved it tremendously - no regrets ever. But the dot bomb was hard to live through, having a kid brought a whole new level of responsibility, and frankly circumstances had not handed me exciting online opportunities.
To fill the void over those intervening years, I spent a lot of time reading about Toronto history (I have about a hundred books on local history most of which I've read). I joined Heritage Toronto and maintained their website. I'd even thought about starting my own Toronto walking tours company and started planning some tours. I also started working on a possible print book on famous Torontonians.
Glen 2.0
But last year my life started to change course, back to my love of the Internet. I started really getting excited about some "new" (for me) Internet developments. First del.ici.ous, then blogging, RSS, accessibility, social media, the Semantic Web and microformats, etc. I also had my company's website relaunch that I lead that solidified my views on good web design and allowed me to put some theory and my thoughts into practice. And this blog was a great way for me to share all this.
I wanted to take this knowledge and newfound passion to the next level and as such decided to do my Master's and hopefully PhD focusing on Internet as much as possible.
I was excited to meet others who shared my passion and who I could learn from. And so I made a real effort for the first time ever to go to industry events and try some social networking. This has had some ups (I have met some cool people and got to know some industry friends much better) and some downs (like pretty much all the real world Internet groups in Toronto and I tried out a lot of them. CaseCamp is the only good one for the record. I've been working on a blog about how crappy they are but have been reluctant to as it seems awful to be so negative to people that are trying not matter how shitty of a job they are doing). I attended Mesh last Spring, the first Web conference I had been to - it was amazing! I also spent an insane amount of time on Facebook, reconnecting with old friends and friended some people that I really wasn't friends with (not like I'm the only one guilty of that).
Corny as it sounds I feel like I had a flash of light where one's future is revealed to them. I am certain now that I want to spend the rest of my life working in the Internet - learning about it, talking about it, sharing info, building in it.
I really felt that doing this meant that I had to focus completely on the Net and give up all my old "time-wasters". My Toronto book in progress was transferred to a wiki (one subsequently neglected). Haven't watched much TV in ages - even the box sets of BattleStar Gallatica, Dukes of Hazard or Scrubs. I felt like I had kicked my travel addiction and swore off travel. I stopped all reading other than about Net topics - hence my reading of "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee (a great read and now I'm dying to make a pilgrimage to CERN, the birthplace of the Web).
This weekend I'd planned to get a head start on some online modules for my program and to spend a long time on this blog anniversary (as it is, I'm working on it in the wee hours - so the date will appear as a day off the actual anniversary). But the weather was so damn nice and my daughter was dying to spend time with me, so we decided to got to some cultural events that my wife and I used to go to a lot of before having a toddler made it too difficult. We went to Nuit Blanche and Word on the Street. It was great to participate in something creative and cultural and in complete different spheres again.
The article I wrote for work on Toronto's outdoor art (and posted here last week) got me thinking that I do love Toronto and its art scene and its history. I love spending time with my family too.
So I'm getting the sense that following my passion for the Net doesn't mean I have to wear hard-wired blinders.
I guess I'm feeling lucky that I know what I want to do with my life. I know what things are worthwhile to spend my very finite time on. I also feel happy that I have so many cool things in my life and the opportunity to partake, to various degrees, in them all.
The title of my first blog entry ever was "Nothing to blog home about" but ironically this blog lead to changes in my home, so it was indeed something to blog home about.
Man, this blog was so sappy. Thank God no one reads it!
History of personal, local and international proportions. Today is the one year anniversary of this blog. I also bought a book today at Word on the Street about a favourite subject of mine, Toronto history. Later in the day, I read a chapters of a book by Tim Berners-Lee on the history of the World Wide Web.
I thought these three events provide an intriguing perspective on where my life stands right now and a look at my future.
I started blogging a year ago as the momentum of recent developments in the Internet had got me excited about the field again. Since starting in this field I have loved it tremendously - no regrets ever. But the dot bomb was hard to live through, having a kid brought a whole new level of responsibility, and frankly circumstances had not handed me exciting online opportunities.
To fill the void over those intervening years, I spent a lot of time reading about Toronto history (I have about a hundred books on local history most of which I've read). I joined Heritage Toronto and maintained their website. I'd even thought about starting my own Toronto walking tours company and started planning some tours. I also started working on a possible print book on famous Torontonians.
Glen 2.0
But last year my life started to change course, back to my love of the Internet. I started really getting excited about some "new" (for me) Internet developments. First del.ici.ous, then blogging, RSS, accessibility, social media, the Semantic Web and microformats, etc. I also had my company's website relaunch that I lead that solidified my views on good web design and allowed me to put some theory and my thoughts into practice. And this blog was a great way for me to share all this.
I wanted to take this knowledge and newfound passion to the next level and as such decided to do my Master's and hopefully PhD focusing on Internet as much as possible.
I was excited to meet others who shared my passion and who I could learn from. And so I made a real effort for the first time ever to go to industry events and try some social networking. This has had some ups (I have met some cool people and got to know some industry friends much better) and some downs (like pretty much all the real world Internet groups in Toronto and I tried out a lot of them. CaseCamp is the only good one for the record. I've been working on a blog about how crappy they are but have been reluctant to as it seems awful to be so negative to people that are trying not matter how shitty of a job they are doing). I attended Mesh last Spring, the first Web conference I had been to - it was amazing! I also spent an insane amount of time on Facebook, reconnecting with old friends and friended some people that I really wasn't friends with (not like I'm the only one guilty of that).
Corny as it sounds I feel like I had a flash of light where one's future is revealed to them. I am certain now that I want to spend the rest of my life working in the Internet - learning about it, talking about it, sharing info, building in it.
I really felt that doing this meant that I had to focus completely on the Net and give up all my old "time-wasters". My Toronto book in progress was transferred to a wiki (one subsequently neglected). Haven't watched much TV in ages - even the box sets of BattleStar Gallatica, Dukes of Hazard or Scrubs. I felt like I had kicked my travel addiction and swore off travel. I stopped all reading other than about Net topics - hence my reading of "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee (a great read and now I'm dying to make a pilgrimage to CERN, the birthplace of the Web).
This weekend I'd planned to get a head start on some online modules for my program and to spend a long time on this blog anniversary (as it is, I'm working on it in the wee hours - so the date will appear as a day off the actual anniversary). But the weather was so damn nice and my daughter was dying to spend time with me, so we decided to got to some cultural events that my wife and I used to go to a lot of before having a toddler made it too difficult. We went to Nuit Blanche and Word on the Street. It was great to participate in something creative and cultural and in complete different spheres again.
The article I wrote for work on Toronto's outdoor art (and posted here last week) got me thinking that I do love Toronto and its art scene and its history. I love spending time with my family too.
So I'm getting the sense that following my passion for the Net doesn't mean I have to wear hard-wired blinders.
I guess I'm feeling lucky that I know what I want to do with my life. I know what things are worthwhile to spend my very finite time on. I also feel happy that I have so many cool things in my life and the opportunity to partake, to various degrees, in them all.
The title of my first blog entry ever was "Nothing to blog home about" but ironically this blog lead to changes in my home, so it was indeed something to blog home about.
Man, this blog was so sappy. Thank God no one reads it!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Online Pix Sites Are Something to See
Even before I had a digital camera I posted my photos online. This was back in 1999 and I had to scan each picture (and each scan took at least 3 minutes), optimizing them and then uploading through a dial-up connection (painful) to Excite's photo service. Excite went under and I moved my pictures to Yahoo Photos.
Yahoo Photos allowed good album organization, privacy controls, and simple photo editting. But there wasn't a good way to share pictures. Yes, I could make my photos public and, more recently, you could add friends to your photo network, but there were, and still are it seems, few people that were using Yahoo as a social network. I could email my photos, but over the last three years most of my pix have been of my baby and while I think every little thing she does is photo-worthy (at one point I worried all the flash photography I was doing of her would give her cataracts) I didn't want to inflict endless (and I mean A LOT) pix of her on everyone I knew.
So when Facebook came along, I thought it was a great way to post photos, because if my friends wanted to look at kid pix they could but they weren't forced too. I could also send photos out for people not on Facebook to view - great for grandparents. And commenting is cool too. But otherwise Facebook's photo service is pretty vanilla.
Last month, I got a notice that Yahoo Photos was finally shutting down. They encouraged me to move instead to Flickr, which Yahoo has owned for awhile but ran in parallel to their own service. I was dubious, even though Flickr is one of the biggest Canadian online success stories. So I moved my pix over but didn't bother to check out Flickr at all.
Recently, I had to write an article on Toronto's outdoor art and I needed a way to easily transfer my photos from home to work, so I uploaded them to Flickr. This was the beginning of me falling in love with Flickr.
I love Flickr's organization methods, specifically their albums and tagging (they also have collections which I don't know what they are yet). I love how you can download alternative sizes of the image and reference the photo's URL (as I've done below). I love how it shows all my camera details that I've never seen before.
Flickr also has a way-cool interactive map feature. You can "geotag" your photos to an exact location in the city and view it on a map, satellite image or hybrid. The one problem is that you can't identify the locations as the numbers refer to the number of pix at that spot. Also, it appears there is only one map per account and they can't be divided into sets.
I wish there was a way to automatically post my Flickr pix to Facebook! (If there is let me know.)
Since I spent so long on the outdoor art article and it was this article that started my Flickr affair, I have included it below. All thumbnails are hosted on Flickr and they link to the larger version on Flickr.
Exercise and edification
Downtown Toronto has many works of outdoor art (by outdoor art, I don’t mean that guy outside the Eaton Centre posing as a golden Elvis statue). Here are some sculptures & murals that are fun, famous or freaky.
For locations see the numbers below and view this map Or, I also have a Flickr map of these and other works of outdoor art.
1) Deconstruction Workers
"Monument to Construction Workers" by Margaret Priest and the Building Trade Unions
Each panel in this work represents a facet of buildings. It is located in Cloud Garden Park along with a large waterfall, a conservatory and rowdy skateboarders.
11) Upwardly Mobile
"City People" by Catherine Widgery
A series of mobiles and murals of average people lead up to a raised parkette over part of the Royal York hotel, where one will probably not encounter average people.
2) He Will Rock You
A golden idol of rock god Freddie Mercury to promote the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" at the Pantages theatre.
12) Splitting Headache
"Pi" by Evan Penny
The title could refer to the mind-bending effects of solving Pi. I like to use this as a funky bench.
3) Toronto’s Most Controversial Artwork
"The Archer" by Henry Moore
One of Toronto’s first public artworks and the public wasn't happy to fork for it, ultimately losing an election for the then-mayor. But after this tumultuous beginning arose a beautiful relationship with the City and Moore, resulting in the AGO having the best Moore collection.
13) Moove Over
"The Pasture" by Joe Fafard
This beloved herd of cattle, a reminder of our agrarian roots, is a humourous counterpoint to TD Centre's bleak minimalism.
4) Gumby Goes to Heaven
"Per Ardua Ad Astra" by Oscar Nemon
Toronto’s most criticized outdoor artwork. Meant as an air force memorial (the actual title is the motto of the RCAF), it looks like Gumby in one of his trademark elastic stretches.
14) (Dis)Honouring Capitalism
Toronto Stock Exchange frieze by Charles Comfort
Built during the Depression to praise capitalism, it subtly critiques it, however, with such images as a stockbroker with his hand in a worker's pocket.
5) You Support Justice
"Pillars of Justice" by Edwina Sandys
Built by Winston Churchill's granddaughter, it symbolizes citizens' role in the justice system with a missing pillar for you to assume your role in helping uphold justice.
15)Rampaging Elephant
"Tembo, Mother of Elephants" by Derrick Hudson
Lifelike elephant with two babies in tow. I have no idea what this is meant to represent.
6) Shadow of Himself
"Lineal Order" by George Boileau
This pathetic man and his spindly shadow serve to scare one to attendance at the church next door.
16) Market Crash
"Encounter" by William McElcheran
Two fat cat businessman so absorbed in their affairs they only connect when they crash into one another.
7) Fountain of Useless Information
"The Poet, The Fever Hospital" by Bernie Miller
Neat fountain, cool location and intriguing name though as one art historian puts it "interpretation is open to all" or in my words "it defies explanation".
17) Shrine to Hockey
"Our Game" by Edie Parker
Two sculptures by the Hockey Hall of Fame commemorate hockey's hallowed status, including the legendary 1972 Canada-Russia series.
8) Killer Freaky Bunnies
"Remembered Sustenance" by Cynthia Hurley
These strange creatures are for the site's daycare and a reminder of childhood imagination - however nightmarish and traumatizing that may be.
18) Happy Face Icon Is Now Art
"Immigrant Family" by Tom Otterness
The happy face icon has a body, a wife and child, though his current circumstance are nothing to smile about.
9) Another Crazy Glenn
"Glenn" by Ruth Abernethy
Famous pianist Glenn Gould's infamous eccentricities are reflected in this statue in front of the CBC.
19) Whaling Wall
"Heavenly Waters" by Wyland
This huge mural located on a Redpath Sugar building on the shores of Lake Ontario, show whales swimming about, which I've yet to see in said lake.
10) Simcoe Monument
"Campsite Founding" by Brad Golden & Lynne Eichenberg
One of the only monuments to our history, it documents our City and Province’s founder John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma.
20) Beer O'Clock
The wall of P.J. O'Briens displays a frothy beer and a clock with the wrong time, as if to say time doesn’t matter, it's always beer o'clock.
Yahoo Photos allowed good album organization, privacy controls, and simple photo editting. But there wasn't a good way to share pictures. Yes, I could make my photos public and, more recently, you could add friends to your photo network, but there were, and still are it seems, few people that were using Yahoo as a social network. I could email my photos, but over the last three years most of my pix have been of my baby and while I think every little thing she does is photo-worthy (at one point I worried all the flash photography I was doing of her would give her cataracts) I didn't want to inflict endless (and I mean A LOT) pix of her on everyone I knew.
So when Facebook came along, I thought it was a great way to post photos, because if my friends wanted to look at kid pix they could but they weren't forced too. I could also send photos out for people not on Facebook to view - great for grandparents. And commenting is cool too. But otherwise Facebook's photo service is pretty vanilla.
Last month, I got a notice that Yahoo Photos was finally shutting down. They encouraged me to move instead to Flickr, which Yahoo has owned for awhile but ran in parallel to their own service. I was dubious, even though Flickr is one of the biggest Canadian online success stories. So I moved my pix over but didn't bother to check out Flickr at all.
Recently, I had to write an article on Toronto's outdoor art and I needed a way to easily transfer my photos from home to work, so I uploaded them to Flickr. This was the beginning of me falling in love with Flickr.
I love Flickr's organization methods, specifically their albums and tagging (they also have collections which I don't know what they are yet). I love how you can download alternative sizes of the image and reference the photo's URL (as I've done below). I love how it shows all my camera details that I've never seen before.
Flickr also has a way-cool interactive map feature. You can "geotag" your photos to an exact location in the city and view it on a map, satellite image or hybrid. The one problem is that you can't identify the locations as the numbers refer to the number of pix at that spot. Also, it appears there is only one map per account and they can't be divided into sets.
I wish there was a way to automatically post my Flickr pix to Facebook! (If there is let me know.)
Since I spent so long on the outdoor art article and it was this article that started my Flickr affair, I have included it below. All thumbnails are hosted on Flickr and they link to the larger version on Flickr.
Exercise and edification
Downtown Toronto has many works of outdoor art (by outdoor art, I don’t mean that guy outside the Eaton Centre posing as a golden Elvis statue). Here are some sculptures & murals that are fun, famous or freaky.
For locations see the numbers below and view this map Or, I also have a Flickr map of these and other works of outdoor art.
1) Deconstruction Workers "Monument to Construction Workers" by Margaret Priest and the Building Trade Unions
Each panel in this work represents a facet of buildings. It is located in Cloud Garden Park along with a large waterfall, a conservatory and rowdy skateboarders.
11) Upwardly Mobile"City People" by Catherine Widgery
A series of mobiles and murals of average people lead up to a raised parkette over part of the Royal York hotel, where one will probably not encounter average people.
2) He Will Rock YouA golden idol of rock god Freddie Mercury to promote the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" at the Pantages theatre.
12) Splitting Headache"Pi" by Evan Penny
The title could refer to the mind-bending effects of solving Pi. I like to use this as a funky bench.
3) Toronto’s Most Controversial Artwork"The Archer" by Henry Moore
One of Toronto’s first public artworks and the public wasn't happy to fork for it, ultimately losing an election for the then-mayor. But after this tumultuous beginning arose a beautiful relationship with the City and Moore, resulting in the AGO having the best Moore collection.
13) Moove Over"The Pasture" by Joe Fafard
This beloved herd of cattle, a reminder of our agrarian roots, is a humourous counterpoint to TD Centre's bleak minimalism.
4) Gumby Goes to Heaven"Per Ardua Ad Astra" by Oscar Nemon
Toronto’s most criticized outdoor artwork. Meant as an air force memorial (the actual title is the motto of the RCAF), it looks like Gumby in one of his trademark elastic stretches.
14) (Dis)Honouring CapitalismToronto Stock Exchange frieze by Charles Comfort
Built during the Depression to praise capitalism, it subtly critiques it, however, with such images as a stockbroker with his hand in a worker's pocket.
5) You Support Justice"Pillars of Justice" by Edwina Sandys
Built by Winston Churchill's granddaughter, it symbolizes citizens' role in the justice system with a missing pillar for you to assume your role in helping uphold justice.
15)Rampaging Elephant"Tembo, Mother of Elephants" by Derrick Hudson
Lifelike elephant with two babies in tow. I have no idea what this is meant to represent.
6) Shadow of Himself"Lineal Order" by George Boileau
This pathetic man and his spindly shadow serve to scare one to attendance at the church next door.
16) Market Crash"Encounter" by William McElcheran
Two fat cat businessman so absorbed in their affairs they only connect when they crash into one another.
7) Fountain of Useless Information "The Poet, The Fever Hospital" by Bernie Miller
Neat fountain, cool location and intriguing name though as one art historian puts it "interpretation is open to all" or in my words "it defies explanation".
17) Shrine to Hockey"Our Game" by Edie Parker
Two sculptures by the Hockey Hall of Fame commemorate hockey's hallowed status, including the legendary 1972 Canada-Russia series.
8) Killer Freaky Bunnies"Remembered Sustenance" by Cynthia Hurley
These strange creatures are for the site's daycare and a reminder of childhood imagination - however nightmarish and traumatizing that may be.
18) Happy Face Icon Is Now Art "Immigrant Family" by Tom Otterness
The happy face icon has a body, a wife and child, though his current circumstance are nothing to smile about.
9) Another Crazy Glenn"Glenn" by Ruth Abernethy
Famous pianist Glenn Gould's infamous eccentricities are reflected in this statue in front of the CBC.
19) Whaling Wall"Heavenly Waters" by Wyland
This huge mural located on a Redpath Sugar building on the shores of Lake Ontario, show whales swimming about, which I've yet to see in said lake.
10) Simcoe Monument "Campsite Founding" by Brad Golden & Lynne Eichenberg
One of the only monuments to our history, it documents our City and Province’s founder John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma.
20) Beer O'ClockThe wall of P.J. O'Briens displays a frothy beer and a clock with the wrong time, as if to say time doesn’t matter, it's always beer o'clock.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Second Dot Bomb To Hit Any Time Now
I’m reading a good book, dot.con by John Cassidy - see below to give it a read, on the heyday of dot coms and the Internet bubble of the late 1990s. The events described in the book seem to be happening again, with surreal valuations of Internet companies and hair brain online schemes coming out of the woodwork.
But the book has made me nostalgic for those glory days – the obligatory Fussball table, open and flowing bars, business meetings at Playdium, extravagant launch parties, expensive marketing campaigns, new technologies to learn every month, long hours and fat expense accounts.
While I’d like to think I was more level-headed than the others that got swept into the Internet insanity avalanche, I suppose my decision to go into the Internet field was influenced by rampant hyperbole in the media and business world.
At least I had good reason to go into the Net field. A friend at the time, however, quit her accountant career and took an Internet course to get into the then red-hot field (like many others she was back to her old career soon thereafter). For me though, I was working in dead-end jobs and had little luck putting my Film & Video degree to use. Still going into the Internet was rather crazy, as I didn’t have a computer, no email address, and had only been on the Net about 2 or 3 times before I decided to pursue a career in the field (I did work briefly for an Internet company earlier, by temping for Macromedia in their big launch of Dreamweaver). I almost went into eco-tourism instead as I loved travel so much. But I thought my media education and interest would be more suitable to the Internet. I also thought that television would be on the Net soon and my Film & Video degree would finally pay off!
After the dot bomb things kept chugging along and I thought there was much more sanity in the field. But the excitement over web 2.0 seemed to have history repeating itself again which is bad enough except that it’s happening again so soon!
Yes lately there’s been great reason for excitement (eg. social networking, participatory media, RSS, tagging, the semantic web, etc.).
But a news item today sums up the return to insanity. (As if the purchase price of Club Penguin wasn’t loopy enough, see my prior post on this.)
In MediaPost’s Just an Online Minute Wendy Davis describes the situation of Internet startup Eons. I hadn’t heard of it before, probably as it’s geared to baby boomers, but it was yet another social networking website. There are a gazillion already and really Facebook (& possibly MySpace) and LinkedIn, plus a handful of others are all that will ever be useful.
Eons, as recently as last March, received $22 million dollars plus another $10 million last year. Unsurprisingly, they have not delivered and the company is laying off one third of its staff.
Perhaps dot.con should be mandatory reading for anyone working or investing in the Net.
But the book has made me nostalgic for those glory days – the obligatory Fussball table, open and flowing bars, business meetings at Playdium, extravagant launch parties, expensive marketing campaigns, new technologies to learn every month, long hours and fat expense accounts.
While I’d like to think I was more level-headed than the others that got swept into the Internet insanity avalanche, I suppose my decision to go into the Internet field was influenced by rampant hyperbole in the media and business world.
At least I had good reason to go into the Net field. A friend at the time, however, quit her accountant career and took an Internet course to get into the then red-hot field (like many others she was back to her old career soon thereafter). For me though, I was working in dead-end jobs and had little luck putting my Film & Video degree to use. Still going into the Internet was rather crazy, as I didn’t have a computer, no email address, and had only been on the Net about 2 or 3 times before I decided to pursue a career in the field (I did work briefly for an Internet company earlier, by temping for Macromedia in their big launch of Dreamweaver). I almost went into eco-tourism instead as I loved travel so much. But I thought my media education and interest would be more suitable to the Internet. I also thought that television would be on the Net soon and my Film & Video degree would finally pay off!
After the dot bomb things kept chugging along and I thought there was much more sanity in the field. But the excitement over web 2.0 seemed to have history repeating itself again which is bad enough except that it’s happening again so soon!
Yes lately there’s been great reason for excitement (eg. social networking, participatory media, RSS, tagging, the semantic web, etc.).
But a news item today sums up the return to insanity. (As if the purchase price of Club Penguin wasn’t loopy enough, see my prior post on this.)
In MediaPost’s Just an Online Minute Wendy Davis describes the situation of Internet startup Eons. I hadn’t heard of it before, probably as it’s geared to baby boomers, but it was yet another social networking website. There are a gazillion already and really Facebook (& possibly MySpace) and LinkedIn, plus a handful of others are all that will ever be useful.
Eons, as recently as last March, received $22 million dollars plus another $10 million last year. Unsurprisingly, they have not delivered and the company is laying off one third of its staff.
Perhaps dot.con should be mandatory reading for anyone working or investing in the Net.
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