Wiki cities

Category: Media & Technology
Published on Sep 12, 2007

My Wikinomics co-author Don Tapscott has an interesting post on Wiki cities over on wikinomics.com. He discusses the “Wiki City Rome” initiative, a project led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that uses data from cellphones and other wireless technology to illustrate the city’s pulse in real time. The project features a giant on-screen display in one of Rome’s main centers that will display a live map of the city. Don says “anyone with an [...]

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Facebook will increase your network, but not your friends

Category: Media & Technology
Published on Sep 10, 2007

British psychologist Will Reader presented research today suggesting that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace do not help users make genuinely close friends. Users may amass hundreds or even thousands of acquaintances, however Reader claims that face to face contact is nearly always necessary to form truly close friendships. The research, based on a survey of 200 social network users, appears to support previous theories that a typical friendship group consists of around 150 [...]

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British citizen engagement exercise unearths some difficult questions

Category: NGOs & Government
Published on Sep 10, 2007

A few weeks ago the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office opened an online forum where citizens can contribute their thoughts on the government’s foreign policy priorities. Several hundred comments have been posted to date. Such forums have become more numerous as governments have slowly awakened to the opportunities that the Internet provides to exercise the democratic muscles that have atrophied after many years of disuse. For those who have become disillusioned with broadcast politics as [...]

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