snap

Before I went on holiday, I made another one of my belated discoveries - Snap's Preview Anywhere technology.

I found SPA when I was looking around on the we-make-money-not-art blog. I noticed that when I hovered over the link text, instead of flashing up a wee text box, I got a small window with a preview of the site that the link would take me to, if I decided to click through.

I really liked this, and we're considering using something similar on the website I'm involved with at work, to allow people to look at definitions of unfamiliar words or jargon without having to move between pages. However, I'm wary as all get out about downloading code, especially when it comes with riders like this:

"6. Data Collection and Privacy. The Software may collect, store, and periodically send information back to Licensor or third party servers, including URLs accessed by the Software and search queries entered into the Software. In addition, the Software may automatically collect certain information during the installation process and/or indicate to our servers that you have successfully installed the Software. Use of certain feedback features in the Software may require you to submit certain personal information such as your name and email address. Licensor may retain and use for its own purposes all information you provide and all information generated from the operation of the Software (URLs, search queries, etc.). You agree that Licensor may use all such information internally for any purpose and may additionally transfer and disclose to third parties information (including your name, email address, Site domain, URL, and related content) for the purpose of approving and enabling your use or continued use of the Software, including to third parties that reside in jurisdictions with less restrictive data laws than your own."

So best you go to we-make-money-not-art to play round with this.

oh christmas tree

My only holiday-themed post. The Guardian have asked a range of artists - including Martin Creed and Gavin Turk - to create their ideal Christmas tree. Hover over the images to get a drop-down box with the artist's description of the tree (really nice functionality, by the way).

And I really like Creed's note:

"I made the decorations by taking pieces of good quality A4 paper and turning them into balls, using a process known as crumpling. It's like a little cosmos - or lots of snowflakes. And it's cheap, of course."

Christmas trees - Guardian website

Seven rules for corporate blogging

As I noted a few posts ago, my organisation has been thinking a lot this year about going all Web 2.0 and starting blogging.

Over on Rough Type, Nicholas Carr has reposted (as part of his own Christmas top 10 most-read posts) his 'Seven rules for corporate blogging'. Full of sensible advice (or dampening advice, if you're a less cautious person than me) and definitely worth revisiting:

Nicholas Carr - Seven rules of corporate blogging

Bunny hop

At overthenet, Jim Barr and Mary Barr have posted one of Patrick Reynold's shots of Mike Parekowhai's Cosmo, taken to accompany William McAloon's article on the Barr's art collection for Art & Australia.

overthenet
William McAloon's article - Art & Australia website

Dunedin Public Art Gallery has recently closed Reboot, the second exhibition showcasing the Barr's loan collection at the DPAG, curated by Justin Paton. It's a real shame that the exhibition isn't touring. The first exhibition, Good Work, was one of the best survey exhibitions I've seen in New Zealand. And the catalogue - full colour, decent length texts and only ten or twelve dollars- was one of the best bang-for-bucks NZ art publications I've seen.

Image: Michael Parekowhai's Cosmo, at the Melbourne Art Fair, 2006.

I'd really like to ...

go to this conference. And that's not something I say often.

The conference in question is O'Reilly Media's TOC (Tools of Change for Publishing) Conference.
From the Conference website:

"Technology is fundamentally transforming publishing. From generating ideas to packaging information to delivering products and beyond, technology and change are themes in every aspect of publishing. For publishers, these shifts are taking place so rapidly that it's challenging to keep current--let alone create new, profitable opportunities.

The first O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference is being launched to raise the level of technology knowledge and discourse in the publishing industry and to provide a meeting ground for those leading the charge into the future of publishing."

I have often talked with friends and colleagues about how fantastic it would be to have full-text-searchable versions of New Zealand publications like Landfall, Midwest, Ascent and the Journal of NZ Art History (formerly the Bulletin of NZ Art History - BONZAH) available. Dreams are free, but digitisation's not. The thing that interests me about this conference is that it's not just about inspiration, aspiration nd technology - it's also about business models, and that's not something I think we talk about much here.

Zeitgeist take 2

Nicholas Carr, on Rough Type, has posted the top 10 2006 searches for Google, Yahoo and AOL. His conclusion?

"There's only a single overlap: "American Idol" appears on both Yahoo and AOL. That's it. I would have thought that, given the sheer number of searches done through each engine, there'd be a lot more similarity in the results. I guess it means that very different types of people use each of the three engines.

Looking back over the results, I think I can suggest the following market segmentation: Google users are dweebs. Yahoo users are horndogs. And AOL users are geezers."

Dweebs and horndogs - Nicholas Carr

The end of Web 2.0?

A story from the Guardian earlier this week reports on the cancellation of 'Upload 2007' - a conference being sold as an opportunity to the media industry to meet and debate the challenges and opportunities posed by online networking sites like MySpace and Bebo.

Richard Wray's story in the Guardian

Described by conference organiser Terrapinn as a 'two-day CEO-level conference focusing on the development, aggregation and delivery of personalised content', the event has been called off due to lack of interest.

Museum blog survey

Ideum are currently running a survey to collect info about museum-related blogs, for presentation at the Museums and Web Conference in San Francisco in April 2007. The session that Jim Spadaccini (Ideum) and Sebastian Chan (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) are presenting their findings in is called 'Radical Trust: the state of the museum blogosphere'.

Ideum's museum blog survey

More about Jim and Seb's conference session

FYI: "radical trust" here is defined as 'taking the big step to trust (radically) the community online'. what I'd like to see is "radical trust" being defined as 'taking the big step to trust (radically) the community to look at art works in museums and galleries without the need for big ugly barriers'. Maybe I should survey people on that.

The Year in Review

Google have released their 2006 end of year Zeitgeist report - the 10 most common searches in a range of categories.

To reassure yourself of the quality of Time's POTY bestowal on the creators of online content, consider Google's top 10 Google.com searches:

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

And then shake your head in wonder at the top ten Google News searches:

1. paris hilton
2. orlando bloom
3. cancer
4. podcasting
5. hurricane katrina
6. bankruptcy
7. martina hingis
8. autism
9. 2006 nfl draft
10. celebrity big brother 2006

More Google Zeitgeist results

I've found my Dewey Dec

Posted today on a librarians' list-serv discussion about shelving biographies: 920.71/ .72 (men & women of no particular vocation).

Image: the cover of Sadka Dewey's Dewey Colour System: Embrace Hue You Are.

Thank you Arts Journal

Recently, ArtsJournal - my favourite art news aggregate site - reskinned their website, after implementing a new CMS that gave them more design freedom.

I love ArtsJournal. I hated the new skin:

New-fangled ArtsJournal

So I was really glad to see that the ArtsJournal team has listened to its users and introduced 'ArtsJournal Classic'. Thanks guys.

Good old ArtsJournal

It's all about you, baby

Time Magazine's Person of the Year - me and you and everyone we know who gives up their valuable work and leisure time to fill the digital realm with content:

" ... for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."

Read the editorial and much much more at the Time website:

Person of the Year - Time Magazine website