Wikipedia is one of the largest, multilingual, web-based, free content and non-profitable reference Web sites and encyclopedia on the Internet since 2001. I am using Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica most of the time when I need to know any kinds of article. My observations on these two encyclopedias are as follows:
Free content
Wikipedia is a web-based, free content encyclopedia and it is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Users do not have to pay while accessing Wikipedia but EB does not allow unpaid users to access their sources.
Organization
I found Wikipedia is more organized than Encyclopedia Britannica. In Wikipedia all the topics and articles are listed with the proper content and heading. So users do not need to read the whole article if they are searching for a specific content on an article. For instance, if someone is interested to read the Second Life protocol then he/she does not need to read the whole article about Second Life to get the information. The users can easily find the item under the content of Second Life and they just only need a single click to reach there.
Easy Access
For a user, Wikipedia is very easy to access and it takes less downloading time to the browser than Encyclopedia Britannica. Users do not need to signup to Wikipedia to get resources. They just only need to type their searching item in the searching box and they will have it with the one click.
Easy writing and Editing
Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which in principle anybody can contribute from any part of the world. People can write and edit an article without any sort of problem. The name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. The word ‘wiki’ means a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content. Every day millions of visitors make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the amount of knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Visitors do not need any specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles and people of all ages therefore can write Wikipedia articles. Besides, the articles of the EB are aimed at educated adult readers, and written by the staff of Encyclopedia Britannica. Users are not allowed to add a single word in it.
Reliability
I have found Encyclopedia Britannica is more reliable than Wikipedia because EB has 19 full-time editors and over 4,000 expert contributors. EB is called one of the most reliable encyclopedias on earth by the scholars. On the other hand Wikipedia has over 75,000 active contributors working on more than 5,300,000 articles and most of them are amateurs. And No Original Research (NOR) is one of the three content policies of Wikipedia because It is not the place for original research.
I have chosen an article named Short message service (SMS) and searched about it on Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. My findings were as follows in the two encyclopedias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service
http://search.eb.com.miman.bib.bth.se/eb/article-9403611
Short message service (SMS) is described in an excellent way in thw Wikipedia than Encyclopedia Britannica. I did not find the article in EB in the same name. I found it as “Text Messaging: WAN2TLK?”. The article in Wikipedia is very rich in context and easy to understand. Users could easily have the idea, technical details, popularity, and utility about SMS while they read it.
On the other hand, in EB the article starts and ends with only the using information of Text Messaging. It is very tough to get the complete idea about text messaging. For instance, what a text message is, the technical information, how does it works etc are absent in the article.
Wikipedia as Social and intellectual experience
Wikipedia is not only an encyclopedia but also a digital culture for us. People from all over the world can contribute by writing and editing an article in Wikipedia. By working and joining in such kind of platform writers and readers are developing a culture and getting involved it day by day and having the social and intellectual experience.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Digital, Internet and New Media Art & Literature
The “About” page of Whitney Artport
artport.whitney.org is the official gateway or web portal of Whitney Museum. This portal is about net and digital art, and also an online web space for commissioned net art projects. In the about page of Whitney Airport, they describe their different areas and services that they are offering to the artists and visitors. Everyone can have an idea bout the design and lunched information of Whitney artport from their about page.
The “About” page of Rhizome
Rhizome developed in 1996 as a platform for the global new media art community. It is a place for the new media art and discussion, exhibition, review, critic of it. Whitney and Rhizome are quite similar as both of the sites are about digital artwork and project. The only difference between these two is their services. Rhizome is much more advanced with their services than Artport.
Wikipedia: Digital Art, Internet Art and New Media Art
Digital art could be a computer generated sculpture, painting, and drawing or could be a scanned photograph. An art or artwork that uses the internet as a primary medium is called Internet Art. The New media art is quite broad than Digital Art and Internet Art. New Media Art covers almost all kinds of art including Digital Art and Internet Art.
I Love Bees
I Love Bees (ILB) is considered one of the most popular alternate reality game served as a real-world experience computer game. To play ILB, players need to log on to the each week to find the latest clues and a list of the pay phones that will be called. When a player correctly answers a pay-phone question then the player will be treated to 30 seconds of new material. The most interesting thing of this game is that some players could have the possibility get one of the rare live calls in which the drama’s actors talk and then incorporate the conversation into the show itself.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/10/65365
Implementation
The idea of the “Implementation” is very interesting to me as it is a serial novel printed on sheets of stickers. I would say implementation is a New Media Art rather than a Digital or Internet Art. The installed art could be digital art or Internet art but with the combination of all these media it becomes a New Media Art to me.
http://nickm.com/implementation/description.html
artport.whitney.org is the official gateway or web portal of Whitney Museum. This portal is about net and digital art, and also an online web space for commissioned net art projects. In the about page of Whitney Airport, they describe their different areas and services that they are offering to the artists and visitors. Everyone can have an idea bout the design and lunched information of Whitney artport from their about page.
The “About” page of Rhizome
Rhizome developed in 1996 as a platform for the global new media art community. It is a place for the new media art and discussion, exhibition, review, critic of it. Whitney and Rhizome are quite similar as both of the sites are about digital artwork and project. The only difference between these two is their services. Rhizome is much more advanced with their services than Artport.
Wikipedia: Digital Art, Internet Art and New Media Art
Digital art could be a computer generated sculpture, painting, and drawing or could be a scanned photograph. An art or artwork that uses the internet as a primary medium is called Internet Art. The New media art is quite broad than Digital Art and Internet Art. New Media Art covers almost all kinds of art including Digital Art and Internet Art.
I Love Bees
I Love Bees (ILB) is considered one of the most popular alternate reality game served as a real-world experience computer game. To play ILB, players need to log on to the each week to find the latest clues and a list of the pay phones that will be called. When a player correctly answers a pay-phone question then the player will be treated to 30 seconds of new material. The most interesting thing of this game is that some players could have the possibility get one of the rare live calls in which the drama’s actors talk and then incorporate the conversation into the show itself.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/10/65365
Implementation
The idea of the “Implementation” is very interesting to me as it is a serial novel printed on sheets of stickers. I would say implementation is a New Media Art rather than a Digital or Internet Art. The installed art could be digital art or Internet art but with the combination of all these media it becomes a New Media Art to me.
http://nickm.com/implementation/description.html
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Simulated World and Second Life
I am quite familiar with the word “Simulated World” after watching the movie “The Matrix”. This is not because of I liked the movie; I liked the concept “Simulated World/Virtual Reality”. The “Virtual reality” is the idea that reality could be simulated to a degree indistinguishable from “true” reality. For instance, Second Life - an Internet-based simulated world.
I tried to enter in Second Life several times but could not make it due to restart problem in my computer. While I entered in Second Life the computer restart itself after a while. Maybe the computer does not like Second Life. I entered the virtual world in another computer and started to move around by foot. I was just stacked in an area after a while and could not come out. As I know that in Second Life there are two kinds of communication methods such as local chat and instant messaging (IM). I found some people over there and asked for help with the help of IM but failed. I could not understand what to do and was unable to get any direction from others so I signed out from Second Life then. I re-entered in Second Life again but with a female login name “Sania Carter” and I was getting instant message from others especially boys. I made it possible with a fake identity.
In a virtual world the main problem is fake identity, fake gendering. It is very easy to make a person fool and it is also very tough to trust anyone there. It is very important to verify the identification of the residents in Second Life. It could be done with their valid credit card, card or PayPal account number, or by responding to a cell phone SMS text message. Second Life could be a place for sex freak because most of the people I know are only looking for sex in Second Life. I would rather prefer the real world than a virtual world and Second Life could not be a replacement of a real world.
If anyone asks me do you want to live in a simulated world permanently with all the things that you want? He will have then my quick answer “No, thanks. I am quite happy with my real world”.
Work Cited
Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. 2007. 10 Apr 2007.
I tried to enter in Second Life several times but could not make it due to restart problem in my computer. While I entered in Second Life the computer restart itself after a while. Maybe the computer does not like Second Life. I entered the virtual world in another computer and started to move around by foot. I was just stacked in an area after a while and could not come out. As I know that in Second Life there are two kinds of communication methods such as local chat and instant messaging (IM). I found some people over there and asked for help with the help of IM but failed. I could not understand what to do and was unable to get any direction from others so I signed out from Second Life then. I re-entered in Second Life again but with a female login name “Sania Carter” and I was getting instant message from others especially boys. I made it possible with a fake identity.
In a virtual world the main problem is fake identity, fake gendering. It is very easy to make a person fool and it is also very tough to trust anyone there. It is very important to verify the identification of the residents in Second Life. It could be done with their valid credit card, card or PayPal account number, or by responding to a cell phone SMS text message. Second Life could be a place for sex freak because most of the people I know are only looking for sex in Second Life. I would rather prefer the real world than a virtual world and Second Life could not be a replacement of a real world.
If anyone asks me do you want to live in a simulated world permanently with all the things that you want? He will have then my quick answer “No, thanks. I am quite happy with my real world”.
Work Cited
Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. 2007. 10 Apr 2007.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
YouTube: Broadcast Your Idea
Honestly speaking, I am not very fond of folksonomies because of bad experience. I do not want to share my email address with those people or groups that I do not really know. When you share your email address in group email then you could have problems sometimes. For instance, I opened my first email address at the end of 1998 and I got a very nice email address named abdul@connectbd.com. The most important thing is that I got the email address with my name and it was completely free. One day I joined with my friend’s email group and then the mess started up. My friend added me in his friends group and his friends added me, him and his friends in their group. After a few months I found the group members crossed more than 300. I was getting at least 50 worthless emails everyday and as a result I had to abandoned the email address.
I like video.google.com and youtube.com very much as they serve us almost the same service but if any one wants me to choose one from these two then I will rather choose youtube than google video. I like YouTube very much because of its free uploading, viewing, and sharing video clips and definitely users could rate video and add comments on it. This site is the most user friendly video sharing site on the internet. The most flexible thing is that you do not need to be registered to watch most of the videos and the only thing you have to do type whatever you want to see in the search box. You are allowed to upload unlimited videos on YouTube but you have to be registered with YouTube when you are going to do it. According to YouTube, a 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.
However, Google video and YouTube are theoretically same thing. For instance, in two sites users could upload, share and watch videos but I think YouTube is better than Google. In YouTube, users could comment on videos, rate videos, make friends, create favorites, play lists and embed videos into their blogs. The videos have tags associated with them and for this action user have the results within the query and from the result they could see the search related videos, most popular, most viewed and also the top rated videos. The most important thing is that YouTube does not contain any nudity and as a result it becomes popular to all aged people. All these advantages make YouTube a excellent and user friendly video sharing websites on the World Wide Web.
With the advantages of YouTube, users can post their own videos on the web but today people are publishing others movies, music videos etc. without their permission. Even though YouTube has some lack in it but with the proper step it can be fixed easily.
I like video.google.com and youtube.com very much as they serve us almost the same service but if any one wants me to choose one from these two then I will rather choose youtube than google video. I like YouTube very much because of its free uploading, viewing, and sharing video clips and definitely users could rate video and add comments on it. This site is the most user friendly video sharing site on the internet. The most flexible thing is that you do not need to be registered to watch most of the videos and the only thing you have to do type whatever you want to see in the search box. You are allowed to upload unlimited videos on YouTube but you have to be registered with YouTube when you are going to do it. According to YouTube, a 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.
However, Google video and YouTube are theoretically same thing. For instance, in two sites users could upload, share and watch videos but I think YouTube is better than Google. In YouTube, users could comment on videos, rate videos, make friends, create favorites, play lists and embed videos into their blogs. The videos have tags associated with them and for this action user have the results within the query and from the result they could see the search related videos, most popular, most viewed and also the top rated videos. The most important thing is that YouTube does not contain any nudity and as a result it becomes popular to all aged people. All these advantages make YouTube a excellent and user friendly video sharing websites on the World Wide Web.
With the advantages of YouTube, users can post their own videos on the web but today people are publishing others movies, music videos etc. without their permission. Even though YouTube has some lack in it but with the proper step it can be fixed easily.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Twitter Account
Hi all,
I have added Christian, Jennie, Jonas, Susanna, Eve and Mia but I could not add others to my twitter account. My twitter id is digcult_abdul and email: arman2swd2@hotmail.com . Please add me in your twitter account.
I have added Christian, Jennie, Jonas, Susanna, Eve and Mia but I could not add others to my twitter account. My twitter id is digcult_abdul and email: arman2swd2@hotmail.com . Please add me in your twitter account.
Blog search engines
I have found a few blog search engines and I think it would be helpful for us to find different types of blog.
http://www.bloglines.com/
http://www.icerocket.com/
http://www.sphere.com/
http://technorati.com/
enjoy!
http://www.bloglines.com/
http://www.icerocket.com/
http://www.sphere.com/
http://technorati.com/
enjoy!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Digital culture and my observation
The term “Culture” means the custom, behaviour, beliefs, values, experience, attitudes, and meanings that are developed by the society and transmitted from generation to generation through learning. For the definition of “Digital Culture” we have to go little bit further.
The digital culture describes the relationship between human and technology. Nowadays we are almost dependent on digital technology. We are surrounded by the technology wherever we are in schools, work places, markets etc. People are adapting to it very rapidly and transmitting it to others. It is like think digital, be digital.
I am chatting and conferencing through the messenger on the Internet with friends and family who are living in different places of the world. Some one started it once but now we adapt it and making it popular day by day and already has been developed it as a digital culture. Not only in chatting we find the digital culture, but also we find digital culture in computer, on TV, on the news and even in iPod.
Second Life is a 3D virtual game that has been built by its users. Second life is a digital formed world with the participation of real life people. My experience in second life is quite frustrated and boring because Second Life does not represent our first life properly. The cultural aspect in second life is something individual than combine.
To conclude, I would say there is no doubt that digital culture could be found in the most mass media nowadays and I hope that one day we will be drifting in the digital world physically.
The digital culture describes the relationship between human and technology. Nowadays we are almost dependent on digital technology. We are surrounded by the technology wherever we are in schools, work places, markets etc. People are adapting to it very rapidly and transmitting it to others. It is like think digital, be digital.
I am chatting and conferencing through the messenger on the Internet with friends and family who are living in different places of the world. Some one started it once but now we adapt it and making it popular day by day and already has been developed it as a digital culture. Not only in chatting we find the digital culture, but also we find digital culture in computer, on TV, on the news and even in iPod.
Second Life is a 3D virtual game that has been built by its users. Second life is a digital formed world with the participation of real life people. My experience in second life is quite frustrated and boring because Second Life does not represent our first life properly. The cultural aspect in second life is something individual than combine.
To conclude, I would say there is no doubt that digital culture could be found in the most mass media nowadays and I hope that one day we will be drifting in the digital world physically.
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