http://www.clappingtrees.com Using Google apps, blogs, wikis, other social media for business and education in Asia Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:48:10 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en ACCORDING TO USABILITY GURU Jakob Nielsen (Alertbox June 9, 2008), the differences between print/TV and Web can be summarized as lean-back vs lean-forward: Print/TV is a passive medium. While reading publications or watching TV, readers/viewers want to be entertained. They are in relaxation mode and vegging out; they don't want to make choices. People expect you to construct ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/06/writing-style-for-print-vs-web/ STUDENTS, DO YOU GO ONLINE while attending a face-to-face (f2f) class? Where do you surf and what do you use? So far, has going online helped or hindered you (the learner), other learners and/or the instructor? What happens when your phones have Internet access too? Most likely, your class is NOT ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/06/going-online-in-a-f2f-class-help-or-distraction/ YOU'RE PROBABLY LEADING Singapore's transition to a fully wired and mobile nation... if you are a teenager. According to a survey by PEW Internet & American Life Project in 2005 (the numbers must be significantly higher today): 87% (21 million) of U.S. teens aged 12-17 use the internet (online teens), up ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/05/if-you-are-12-17-years-old/ "In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action." - Jakob Nielsen FOR SOME TIME I'VE BEEN WONDERING: What're the best ways to encourage comments on one's blog? And not just any ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/techniques-plugins-to-encouraging-comments/ "Study history, not the media. The truth is not to be found in a television broadcast." - Chris D. Nebe, director-producer-screenwriter of the "Mysterious China" documentary series which showcases the epic cultural heritage of China FRANKLY, I DON'T KNOW what to make out of the Tibetan protests. I've not spent significant ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/truth-not-found-in-tv-broadcast/ SAD NEWS INDEED: At the recent olympic torch relay in Paris, pro-Tibetan protesters attacked a wheelchair-bound girl (an ex-paralympian fencer) who carried the olympic torch, with a blind boy pushing the wheelchair from behind. The good news: They didn't succeed. Thanks to YouTube, I can see what happened: Reminds me of ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/tibetan-protest-strike-with-hatred-journey-to-dark-side-is-complete/ HAVE THE TOP 20 POSTS CHANGED in Tomorrow.sg and Ping.sg this year, when compared with those of last year? Are "sex", "money" and "controversies" still top reads? . As of today, the Top 20 (most read) posts in Ping.sg (2008) are (tags appended in the list below are my comments): v1.80 is Here: ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/top-posts-in-pingsg-tomorrowsg-one-year-later/ WILL SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISTS CHANGE the face of politics in Singapore in one or two years' time? Will the US Elections voting patterns correlate closely with the subscription, viewership and interaction patterns on YouChoose 08 (on YouTube) and other social media such as Facebook? Last month (March 25), in a report ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/will-social-media-change-singapore-politics/ WHAT ARE THE 25 SITES WE CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IN 2007? According to Time magazine, they are (in alphabetical order): Amazon.com - a great place to shop for virtually anything (Zappos.com) BBC.co.uk - World news, sports, radio, articles and audio in 33 languages (PBS.org) CitySearch.com - find the right restuarants, bars, nightclubs, hotels and ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/times-25-sites-we-cant-live-without-in-2007/ “...for love is stronger than death, passion fiercer than the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” -- Song of Songs, 8:6-7 THESE DAYS, THE WORDS "Love is stronger than Death" keep coming to mind. Four reasons: ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/04/love-is-stronger-than-death-in-memory-of-jpii/ WILL PING.SG FOUNDER Uzyn Chua become the next "Kevin Rose" (Digg.com founder) in Asia? When I gave a talk on Web 2.0 & Its Business Impacts at COM1, NUS last month, I cited various real-life examples of how the blogosphere “chatter” could affect a company’s corporate image positively or negatively. Also ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/03/uzyn-the-next-kevin-rose/ GAVE A TALK ON WEB 2.0 & Its Business Impacts for the Computer & Information Science Alumni Association at COM1, NUS last month. Cited various real-life examples of how the blogosphere "chatter" could affect a company's corporate image positively or negatively. Also discussed briefly the people (how they get younger ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/03/web-20-talk-at-cisaa-nus/ A HEARTWARMING MOVIE on the volunteers of the upcoming Olympics 2008 in Beijing, China -- thanks to Kevin Liu! The English translation is rather funny though. :-p By the way, the interface of the YouKu.com site looks very like YouTube.com! In the spirit of Web 2.0 and open-source, let's hope YouTube ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/03/a-chinese-youtube-movie/ LOOKING FOR WIFI HOTSPOTS IN SINGAPORE? Do you know that there's three quick and easy ways? 1. If you have online access: Search online in the Wireless@SG - Coverage Areas section of the Infocomm123.sg portal. 2. If you are online AND looking for WiFi spots in a specific area: Search ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/02/wifi-wifi-everywhere/ LATEST ALERT from usability guru Jakob Nielsen: A list of 10 usability violations that are both particularly egregious (conspicuously bad or offensive) and often seen in a wide variety of applications: Non-Standard GUI Controls 1.a. Looking Like a GUI Control Without Being One Inconsistency No Perceived Affordance 3.a. Tiny Click Targets No Feedback 4.a. Out to Lunch ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/02/top-10-application-design-mistakes/ DO YOU HATE PUBLIC SPEAKING? Whether your answer is "Yes" or "No", I think you would enjoy this cute video as much as I do. ;-) HERE ARE SOME PRACTICAL TIPS from a very interesting girl called June (a.k.a. princessgx on YouTube): http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/02/public-speaking-rant-and-tips/ IF YOU ARE ANYBODY OF IMPORTANCE, looks like it's high-time you set up a channel in YouTube. As Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins has written recently on Mashable: First, the American presidential candidates, then (reportedly) the outgoing Australian Prime Minister. Then the Queen of British Empire. Now the Japanese Prime Minister. It seems now ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/01/youtube-us-presidents-uk-queen-now-jap-pm/ FYI: THAT WAS NOT ME. Some Internet scammer started spoofing my NUS email address (blanked out below) while send out some crappy marketing messages. And I received one of them last night: I'm continually amazed by how low (or high) spiritually one can get! However, this shall be as far as ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2008/01/scammer-spoofing-my-email-address/ A BLESSED CHRISTMAS AND A JOYFUL NEW YEAR TO YOU! CWNews: Instead of the familiar scene of the Baby Jesus laid in a manger, the Vatican's Nativity scene this year will show the infant Jesus in a home that also includes his father's workshop. No reason has been given for the change. Does ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/12/christmas-begins-with-work/ GOOGLE'S NEWLY UNVEILED OpenSocial, "a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites", has been adopted rapidly by social networks such as Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. Here's a summary of a post with a ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/11/6-essential-things-to-know-about-googles-opensocial/ JUST FOR THE RECORD: According to ReadWriteWeb, starting last Monday (17 September), Google Presentations is ready for use. Therefore, Google Docs users can now: Create and keep presentations in one place on the web that's accessible anytime, from any Internet connected computer. Manage, update and share presentations with colleagues by sending them ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/09/ready-for-google-presentations/ WHAT WILL A BLOGGER DO when s/he gets an amazing offer to do a joint research project with an overseas professor AND joins a management council in her estate AND works almost full-time around the same time? S/he could choose to spill it all, complete with names, juicy bits, rumors, ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/09/taking-a-break/ THANKS TO A G1:1 MESSAGE FROM YISHAY MOR, a researcher with London Knowledge Lab, I got this special chance to read a very focused and balanced review of one of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) machines -- by SG, a 12-year-old! He wrote like an adult (and many say, ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/08/great-olpc-review-by-a-12-year-old/ READING LEGAL ANDREW'S LATEST POST on Facebook has just gotten me worried. He wrote (summarized): "...have you bothered to read Facebook’s Terms of Service (”TOS”) or Privacy Policy? What legal relationship have you agreed to? Who has access to your data and personal details? I waded through their terms and policies. ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/08/8-legal-things-to-know-about-facebook/ MARGE SIMPSON DECIDES TO GOOGLE HERSELF and finds something shocking in the backyard of her house. ;-) Another fun Simpson video: After this video ends, choose the fourth video from the left: "World of Warcraft in the Simpsons". http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/08/simpsons-video-why-we-should-google-ourselves/ TEDFOX AND COBALT PALADIN SUGGESTED that we try using map.gov.sg instead of StreetDirectory.com. So, I decided to try looking for "Rochester Park" on map.gov.sg AND StreetDirectory.com and found that: I cannot simply enter "Rochester Park". I must enter a block number. So, I plucked a number from the air: "9". After x ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/08/can-mapgovsg-replace-streetdirectorycom/ I FEEL VERY PERPLEXED READING this report in The Straits Times (H2) this morning: "A district court yesterday ruled that Virtual Map (Singapore)'s online maps on StreetDirectory.com had breached the Singapore Land Authority's (SLA) copyright. The judge also ordered the company to destroy or deliver up all infringing material." I've been referring ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/08/is-this-the-end-of-streetdirectorycom/ HOW IMPORTANT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA and how widespread is the usage of social media among educational institutions and commercial organizations? Two recent studies by Dr Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson, as reported on Robin Good's site, suggest that: The Inc. 500 companies know far more about social media than one might ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/educators-more-social-media-savvy-than-business/ MY RESULTS:You are Yoda . Wise and all knowing you are…yes. Tall, dark, and handsome? Not so much I'd say. . Which Star Wars character are you? Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/i-am-yoda/ "NOT ANOTHER TWITTER CLONE!" was my response when I heard of Jaiku and more recently Pownce. Thanks to Google search, I managed to find the results of a Jaiku, Pownce or Twitter poll and read a really useful review on all three by Grace at the bottom of all the ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/twitter-jaiku-or-pownce/ LAST THURSDAY, AT THE GEEK TERMINAL CAFE, I announced to all present at the BNI Crescendo meeting, "I am an Internet Coach. I am also the one who started the 'R-C-G fire' at Geek Terminal." "R" is for "Renaissance". On June 11, I suggested to the leader of BNI Renaissance, to ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/how-i-started-the-r-c-g-fire-at-geek-terminal/ THANKS TO WEB 2.0 AND CHILLYCRAPS, I managed to follow this morning much of what had happened at the Ping.sg's first anniversary celebration at the Geek Terminal yesterday afternoon on 07/07/2007 -- even though I couldn't be there at all. ;-) First, I read Chillycraps' Pinging Party post and found the ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/a-video-guide-to-the-pingsg-celebration-by-an-absentee/ "... ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD (OLPC)... it's about eliminating poverty," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman emeritus of MIT Media Laboratory and chairman of the OLPC project, while giving a keynote presentation at NetEvents Press Summit last December. He continued: "And that's the reason we do it, that's why everybody who's involved ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/07/can-olpc-eliminate-poverty/ FOUND 50 GREAT TIPS ON WRITING just now while browsing a few sites: Fried Beef's Tech, then LifeHacker.Org, then to the archived version on Poynter Online (a publication of a school for journalists) and then to the recently posted Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List (May 2007). So, here they are, ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/50-writing-tips-from-school-for-journalists/ SOMEONE IN TEXAS, DALLAS has been trying to hack my K2 account since 7am this morning (and s/he is still trying), according to messages from the K2 Community Forums: A quick check on the IP address (70.86.138.114) suggests that this hacker is located in Texas, Dallas (USA) -- more specifically, along ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/texan-hacker-trying-to-crack-my-account/ JUST WHO'S SCAMMING? 33-year-old Ewen Chia, dubbed the #1 Affiliate Marketer at the World Internet Mega Summit last month, was featured in The Sunday Times' Invest section (page 24) on April 29 2007: Curiously, another Internet marketer 23-year-old Adam Wong apparently listed six telltale signs on Ewen Chia's website (in ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/scamming-ewen-chia-adam-wong-both-or-neither/ ONE MYTH STARTED BY A "GURU" during the WIMS 2007 seminar was: Google does not index the blogs on Google Blogger! To prove this point, the speaker said he had scanned through the Top 100 blogs on Technorati and found that not a single one came from Blogger. This is definitely ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/no-bloggercom-blog-in-technorati-top-100/ DO INTERNET MARKETERS MAKE MORE MONEY on the Internet or off the Internet? This is one of the many questions that came to mind at the end of the recent World Internet Mega Summit (WIMS 2007) at the Singapore Expo. My ex-boss, now a corporate client, had given me a ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/internet-marketing-successes-or-scams/ ABOUT TWO MONTHS AFTER STARTING the Asia Social Media directory, map and network, the percentage of Asian visitors (excluding Singaporeans) to my site has now jumped from less than 5 % in March to almost 20%. For example, the Geo Locations for this blog in March were: And the Geo Locations ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/asia-social-media-projects-2-months-later/ GOOGLE HAS BOUGHT FEEDBURNER apparently for $100m, according to Techcrunch some time ago and confirmed by recent news on various sites. So far, by early June 2007 alone, Google has made at least nine acquisitions (see Wikipedia's entry): January: Xunlei, a Chinese P2P file-sharing network that allows users to download music ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/google-buys-again-feedburner-at-100m/ ACCORDING TO TWEETVOLUME, recently announced by Biz Stone, many Japanese seem to love Twitter: A Japanese IT journalist confirms this in an online article in April, Twitter booms in Japan / Twitter from Skype. Nobi has been seeing more and more early adopters getting on board with Twitter. He wrote: "I also ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/06/influential-japanese-love-twitter/ MAYBE I SHOULD BE REJOICING, but I'm not. I'm in fact rather dismayed that a number of Internet marketers have been compiling and re-compiling lists of blogs that apparently use DoFollow and therefore have been linking to my blog just because I had announced earlier that I used the DoFollow ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/05/stop-linking-to-me-d-listers/ RECENTLY, CHINESE BLOGGER KESO published an interesting series of articles discussing Baidu.com (百度) and four of its competitors: Google China, Sina, Tencent QQ, & Alibaba. This has made me very curious: What's so great about Baidu? According to a New York Times report in September 2006 (quoting Bloomberg stats), Baidu is ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/05/baidu-its-competitors-in-china/ A WEBCAM WILL BE TRANSMITTING LIVE happenings of an upcoming flea mart at Far East Plaza from 11am to 8pm this coming Sunday (6 May), according to organizer APLink. "Visitors to the Ping.sg website will be able to see what is going on at the fair and chat online with the ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/05/live-coverage-of-flea-mart-on-pingsg/ AFTER WATCHING THIS VIDEO, I'm glad to be Chinese and bilingual. （看了这影片，我庆幸自己是双语皆通的华人。） Chinese version （中文版）: English version （英文版）: "Did You Know? Shift Happens - Globalization & the Information Age" 《你知道吗？环球与资讯的转变》 Created by: Karl Fisch (apparently a high school teacher/admin in the USA) Modified by: Scott McLeod; Content remixed from: David Warlick, Thomas Friedman ("The World is ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/05/did-you-know/ IS THIS NORMALLY DONE? I received an email message a few days ago from someone who calls himself/herself "DMOZ Editor", asking for a sample/test username and password + access code to the courses on my elearning portal. The message was as follows: From: DMOZ Editor <xxx.dmoz@gmail.com> Date: Apr 28, 2007 9:05 AM Subject: ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/05/do-dmoz-editors-ask-for-your-site-password/ I'VE JUST CREATED a bilingual blog on Baidu Spaces «百度空间» called «拍掌丛林» (hehe "ClappingTrees" as usual, not literal translation though ) and using "descendent of DongShan" «东山后裔» for my pen name. My experience with Baidu had been such a breeze. So many beautiful templates to choose from. Modules which are ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/my-chinese-blog-on-baidu-%c2%ab%e7%99%be%e5%ba%a6%c2%bb/ JAPANESE ARE READING BLOGS more than Americans, Koreans, British, and French, according to survey results announced by Japan’s premier international PR consultancy Edelman and reported in the Blog Herald in late March. The poll conducted by StrategyOne over 1,000 Japanese, with accompanying studies conducted in different countries, showed that: In ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/japanese-loves-to-read-blogs/ I WAS TAGGED BY CHRISTY of Christy's Coffee Break to this "Gotta Get Goals" meme. Christy is a warm and friendly lady who also maintains a cool blog called "A Hint of Poetry". Check out her sites! Now, my 9otta 9et 9oals (aka "9 Worthy 9oals Before I Expire") are: Complete ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/tagged-9-worthy-goals-before-i-expire/ SOME PEOPLE STILL DON'T GET IT: Web 2.0 is about "We" -- "us", "our", and "ours" (the wisdom of many) -- and NOT about "I", as in the word "Idol", -- "me", "my", and "mine" (the uber-coolness of a select few). Perhaps two of Kathy Sierra's excellent graphs below (modified ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/web-20-is-about-we-not-i/ HELP! THIS IS JUST A FRACTION of the spam messages that are suddenly flooding my mailbox from 4.53pm, shortly after my previous post on the Top Posts in Ping.sg & Tomorrow.sg: http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/spammers-attacking-my-mailboxhost/ A QUICK REVIEW of the Top 20 posts in Tomorrow.sg and Ping.sg this year seems to reveal a lot about the things/subjects that occupy the minds/hearts of the readers in these two communities. (Tags appended in the lists below are mine.).As of today,the Top 20 (most read) posts in Ping.sg ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/top-posts-in-pingsg-tomorrowsg-reveal-that/ LIKE TSTAR, I'M ALL TIED UP -- lots of work and non-work waiting for me to do right now. So, this is just a very short post: To thank all who came for the meetup last night, to thank fellow pingster Ebie from Essential Brew for giving us two free ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/thanks-for-the-meetup-bombe-company/ HERE'S A FUNNY VIDEO REPLY to the excellent point that Estee (Geek Goddess) has been making while giving feedback on Nexus 2007 in her blog and later on the Nexus wiki: "Very disappointing at Nexus today. Lo and behold, as always at events of such nature, girls are totally under ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/a-video-reply-to-geek-goddess-lament/ I HAVE A "SECRET" BLOG SINCE 2003 which I've hardly publicized over the years. I don't even ping any Web services such as Pingomatic or Technorati or Ping.sg. There are a few reasons (be forewarned): I'm a rather private and introspective person, which may come as a surprise to certain people. ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/my-secret-blog-a-garden-where-my-feelings-flow/ WHICH ARE THE TOP BLOGS IN ASIA? How does one measure the success of a blog? In China, Ya.IYee came up with a list of “Top 40 Chinese blogs” based on stats given by RSS reader Zhuaxia抓虾 (apparently most popular in mainland China right now, with around 30% or 60,000+ users). In ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/top-blogs-in-china-malaysia-philippines/ THIS MORNING, I'M LAUNCHING the Asia Social Media Directory -- a strictly non-partisan and non-competitive wiki-based (and so community-managed) directory. This directory has been modeled after Rambling Librarian's Singapore Social Media Directory AND enhanced with a Frappr map, a Recent Readers log and more concise writeups. (More interesting widgets coming ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/introducing-asia-social-media-directory/ AS OF 10 MARCH 2007, although Asian Internet penetration is only 10.7% of total Asian population (compared to 25% for the rest of the world), Asian Internet users already comprises 35.8% of world internet population, according to Internet World Stats (based on data compiled from World Gazetteer, Nielsen/NetRatings, ITU, and ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/over-50-internet-users-to-be-asians-soon/ PING.SG'S RANKING IS ABOVE TOMORROW.SG -- according to Alexa. AND Ping.sg is among the top 100,000 sites now! ;-) I know that Ping.sg is NOT competing with Tomorrow.sg. And I know that Alexa statistics are based on the visits of people who have installed and are using Alexa toolbar. Still, out ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/04/alexa-ranking-pingsg-above-tomorrowsg/ NINE TYPES OF BLOGGERS (slightly adapted from Collis' 9 Essential Posts Every Blogger Should Know About, thanks, Lucas): Speedlinker: Roundups, Comments, Trackbacks, etc of interesting posts. E.g. Problogger.com Quoter: Blockquoting an interesting point of view, extract or news snippet and add a short bit of opinion and sourcing information. E.g. Susan Mernet's ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/9-types-of-blog-posts-which-ones-are-yours/ ONE GREAT IDEA that I took away from Nexus 2007 is what Nathan Torkington (O’Reilly) calls Continous Partial Attention. Not that the phenomenon is new, but because it describes succinctly what I've been (and still am) experiencing. Finally, I can name it. This is a new design challenge in this age ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/saying-no-to-say-yes-web-of-mass-distraction-ii/ TIM O'REILLY, one of the web's most influential thinkers, has just told BBC Radio Five Live that it could be time to formalise blogging behaviour: "I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn't come through any kind of [legal/government] ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/oreillys-call-for-bloggers-code-of-conduct/ FINALLY, I CAN CLAIM MY BLOG ON (after at least a few months to almost a year... I simply lost count). Just received an email message from a support guy. He wrote: Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We've been experiencing a backlog ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/claiming-my-blog-on-technorati/ JUST WHAT DID I SAY at Nexus 2007, the special Web 2.0 event last Saturday? A quick look at the writeups of several bloggers suggests that different people heard and saw different things. First, Benjamin Koe, in Almost social media (Nexus 2007), had been most flattering: "Although the speaker line up included ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/what-did-clappingtrees-say-at-nexus2007/ [Submitted this request, slightly edited, to Twitter this morning:] This is what I DID: I added another username, hoping to have TWO CHANNELS (or usernames) on the SAME PHONE LINE: One for business subscribers and one for friends/fans/family. This is what I EXPECTED to happen: I truly hope that Twitter would give TWO CHANNELS ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/an-open-twitter-request/ IT HAS BEEN A "Twittering" weekend for me. First, read Beth Kanter's post on Twitter for Nonprofits: Waste of Time or Potentially Useful? where she quoted Chris Brogan's 5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good. Now, let's see: Quick Human Answers, Conference / News Briefings (or news flash), Friendsourcing, Micro-Attention-Sharing, Direct ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/insight5-twitter-twitterami-twittervision/ Nine good reasons given by Luis Suarez and quoted by David Guerteen. I totally agree, especially on the parts concerning my current and potential blog visitors (audience). That's why from one or two days ago, the Comments, Commentators and Recent Readers sections are displayed prominently on this blog's sidebars. ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/9-reasons-to-use-mybloglog/ JOHN EDWARDS, presidential candidate in the USA, added me as a friend on Twitter last night. Something like this in Singapore -- say, PM Lee did this -- would definitely make headline news. It's probably nothing in the States by now? So now, on my Followers page, I have the honor ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/john-edwards-a-new-twitter-friend/ SOMEONE SNEAKED into my blog and turned my "Insight#4: Of Alexa, Dmoz & Technorati" post private! Who's that? Why did s/he do that? How did s/he do that? How to stop her/him from doing the same thing again? http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/darn-an-intruder-in-my-blog-again/ Tony Targonski has just highlighted a new worldwide social experiment on the Internet: An open appeal to all to shutdown their computers for 24 hours on 24th March (Sat), the day of Nexus 2007!! The online challenge: "Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?" Here's a humorous video made ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/shutdown-day-24th-march/ HAVE YOU HEARD of Nexus 2007? Organized by a local Web 2.0 startup called The Digital Movement, the one-day conference will be held at the NTUC Center (1 Marina Boulevard) on 24 March (Saturday) at a very low fee of $15 per person. Nexus promises to be "a highly interactive conference ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/nexus-2007-will-it-lead-web-20-in-sg/ INSPIRED BY THE REASONING and examples of Lucas McDonnell (To Follow or Not To Follow) and Loren Baker (13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck), I've installed two plugins: DoFollow and ShowTopCommentators. I truly hope to encourage more meaningful discussions on my posts and at the same time reward commentators with ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/comments-links-here-dofollow/ PIN TUMBLER LOCKS CAN BE PICKED through a series of taps (known as "lock bumping") with a specially crafted bump key, according to Wikipedia. Apparently, one bump key will work for all locks of the same type. And this Action News 5 video illustrates how: (Found this on CESBloggers.com who in ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/lock-bumping-can-open-locks/ ALEXA RANKINGS ARE BIASED, reported Loren Baker in Search Engine Journal last week. Apparently, Google's Director of Research Peter Norvig recently compared his site’s Alexa score with those of Matt Cutts, Paul Graham, Jeremy Zawodny and Greg Linden and found a definite reporting difference for sites that are search or ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/perspective4-of-alexa-dmoz-technorati/ I'VE BEEN BLOGGING CASUALLY since 2003, that is, until four months ago. At that time, I decided to start offering training workshops on blogs. So, towards the end of last year, I actually revamped my blog and the way I blog. Recently, it occurred to me that Google's PageRank for ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/perspective3-whats-my-pagerank/ FIRST, Sister Judith Zoebelein, editorial director of the Vatican website, was interviewed by Robert Scoble and friends at the recent LIFT conference in Feb. They discussed the relevance and challenges of using Web technologies for a 2000-ish-year-old organization like the Catholic Church.   SECOND, the Podcast Awards for 2006 are out. Among ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/03/roundup4-running-the-vatican-site-best-podcast-shows/ THIS IS A REACTABLE, a multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Looks futuristic, tactile and based on physics laws. (Thanks to Chris Sessums' post on this.) According to the designers, this instrument is intended to be: collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely) intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions sonically challenging and ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/composing-music-with-physics/ LINKEDIN CAN BE ADDICTIVE! It's truly tempting to go on and on... :-p Although I've been a LinkedIn member since August 2006, I've not published my LinkedIn profile to the Web NOR tried to connect with anyone there. That is, until Lunar New Year's eve three days ago. Now that I'm ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/linkedin-after-three-days/ "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves..." -- Genesis 11:4 "OH NO! NOT ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORK!" Don't you get this feeling nowadays? Social networks seem to be sprouting like wild grass every week. Perhaps you ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/perspective2-solutions-for-social-babel/ A summarized list of 2007 Web predictions made by Richard MacManus, Ebrahim Ezzy, Emre Sokullu, Alex Iskold and Rudy De Waele on the Read/Write Web blog: Structured Data: RSS integrated into Microsoft's new Vista OS, Yahoo Mail, Google Base. Interesting RSS services. More e-commerce and multimedia widgets expected. Google forging ahead ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/roundup3-2007-web-predictions/ Yes, it's already Feb. Still, over here, utility is much more important than "the latest and the coolest". So, here's a handy list of the best Web 2.0 software in 2006 from Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 blog: Social Network: MySpace. Runners up: Bebo, Facebook, Vox, XuQa, MyBlogLog (Me> IMHO, MySpace seems ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/roundup2-best-of-web-20-in-2006/ Is this how the actual Google "office" is like? I wanna be there too! Note: Found this video because someone from Harro left a note on the shoutbox on one of my websites. So I checked out his/her website. It happened to be Harro Channels which has a link to ping.sg, ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/02/google-the-best-place-to-work/ Zoho Notebook, currently in alpha, looks amazing -- just what I would want. Hope it'll be available soon and that it'll work as expected. Key Features (extracted from the Zoho Notebook site itself): Intuitive user interface with white boarding and custom layout capability Quick “add” buttons for adding text, graphics, photos, audio, video, ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/zohos-all-in-one-notebook/ Here's a wonderful speech by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple & Pixar, at the Stanford Commencement 2005 ceremony. Yes, it is not new. I myself have read the three real-life stories that he told the young graduates about two years ago. Still, I find what he said very moving and ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/steve-jobs-dropping-out-getting-fired-facing-death/ SIX INVESTORS told The Straits Times recently said they would: (1) Advertise a website, (2) Buy index futures, (3) Buy growth stocks, (4) Go on the Silk Road, (5) Buy an apartment and (6) Switch to Reits respectively. Personally, I would drop everything, apply for an assistantship and pursue further ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/how-would-you-invest-a-50000-windfall/ “The advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed the sum total of human knowledge, are the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research.” -- Terry Vessels FOR A LONG TIME, I've believed in the free culture espoused by Lawrence Lessig and the open sharing of ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/perspective1-to-open-or-not-to-open/ Noteworthy news over the past week or so: FIREFOX 3 will go beyond HTML rendering to provide Information Broking services based on microformats (which add semantics to markup). For example, "the contact information you see on a Web site will be associated with your favorite contacts application, events will be associated ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/roundup1-microformats-32gbssd-ucla-moodle/ Hello, World. ;-) A very happy new year to you! Today, I'm publishing online two wiki research proposals which I'd written for a Masters in Instructional Design program at the National Institute of Education, Singapore: "The UTAUT and Electronic Brainstorming in a Wiki": This proposal was written in April 2005 for "Implications ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2007/01/wiki-research-on-clappingtrees/ For all of us on Christmas, may this day give us all new birth. —The Blessing Candles: 58 Simple Mealtime Prayer-Celebrations http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/12/silent-night-holy-night/ A noteworthy post in Healthbolt  (thanks to ProBlogger): Healthbolt has done some nice analysis of the layouts of top 10 blogs at Technorati and comes up with the following Composite Map. It gives a unique insight at how a small group of top blogs arrange themselves. See it at full size ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/12/layout-of-top-10-blogs/ Moodle 1.7 is fresh off the oven , announced founder Martin Dougiamas on Nov 8. Of special interest to me are the big names behind the headline features: Roles - Moodle has a complete new architecture for assigning people permissions. It's very flexible, allowing you to give just a single person the ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/11/now-sponsoring-moodle/ FIRST, while browsing Stephen Downes' "OLDaily", I found http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/11/not-english-math-or-web-studies/ An interesting post by EE Kim, Why the French Hates Wikis : At WikiSym last August, Ward Cunningham showed some regional trends  comparing Google searches for "wiki" and "blog." Overall, searches for "blog" (in red) steadily outpace searches for "wiki" (in blue), although the rate of growth is about the same for ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/11/why-the-french-hate-wikis/ LATEST: Google has acquired Jotspot. Gosh! What else would it buy next? Here's my diagrammatic overview of Google's complete offerings in the near future -- extrapolations in bold, dark blue text, and assuming that all Google services will eventually be accessible from within Google Groups: Most users will never need ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/11/if-i-were-google/ http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/a-time-to-blaugh/ Great summary of the case for corporate blogging, the impact of personal blogging on corporate marketing, how blog monitoring can be done, the different types of corporate blogs, and finally, how blogvertising can be done. Interspersed with a few amusing comic strips. (Note: Half the slides are in Dutch, but ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/corporate-blogging/ A slide presentation by Matthew Haughey on SlideShare about three weeks ago, giving tips on how to blog well and make money at the same time. Very well designed visually -- interesting graphics taking centre stage (filling up the whole slide space) while the large concise wordings are peripheral, like ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/making-money-blogging/ This is not new. Seth Godin, author of six marketing bestsellers (including "Permission Marketing" and "All Marketers are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World"), gave a great talk at Google in February this year. I watched the video only this month. Can't help but be ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/all-marketers-are-liars/ Check out Google for Educators. Launched about a week ago, this site includes how-to guides and lesson plans for various Google apps, such as Blogger, Earth, Docs and Spreadsheets, Web search, Book search, Maps, SketchUp, and Picasa (photo-sharing). In particular, Infinite Thinking Machine, a partner blog site, looks set to ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/google-for-educators/ Here's a podcast on the "who" and "how" questions of podcasting from The Podcast Academy (a sister channel of IT Conversations): Curious about who’s listening to podcasts in general, or do you need to know who your particular audience is so that you can attract the right sponsors? The panel fields ... http://www.clappingtrees.com/archives/2006/10/podcasting-who-how-many/