confused of calcutta

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,
That I love London so.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner
That I think of her wherever I go.
I get a funny feeling inside of me
Just walking up and down.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner
That I love London Town.
Hubert Gregg, 1946 
I’m consistently bemused by some of the things I see happening in [...]

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Recently I was reading an article in First Monday headlined Rearchitecting the Music Business: Mitigating music piracy by cutting out the record companies.
I haven’t had the time to read the article in its entirety, nor for that matter have I really done the whole issue the justice it deserves. But something stood out in [...]

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So said Clay Shirky in  this article over four years ago. I remember reading it shortly after it came out, and feeling excited about the promise that social software held. Headlined Social Software and the Politics of Groups, here are a few extracts to try and encourage you to read the original:
Because there are so [...]

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This is a very provisional post; even as I write it, I have this sense of having to tread barefoot very gingerly across a landscape strewn with broken glass. Not sure why. But sometimes that’s what blogging’s for. To expose what you’re thinking to other people so that you can learn from their comments, an [...]

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Cadbury’s used to make a chocolate bar called a Wispa. Some four years ago it was withdrawn, for some enterprise reason or the other. You know how these things happen.
Anyway, since its withdrawal, fans have clamoured for its reinstatement, but to no avail. Their voices lacked coherence, they weren’t visible.
In the post facebook world all [...]

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I should have checked there first, more fool me. Howard Rheingold’s Syllabus for Virtual Communities and Social Networks at Stanford. As you would expect, it contains some of the references that have come up in my posts and in the comments received, and a whole lot more besides. I am told that Hillery’s definitions of [...]

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In part 2 of Facebook and the Enterprise, I raised the issue of Bloomberg and yelled for Sean’s help. I cannot be sure that Sean actually saw that yell for help, but he’s responded anyway, making the crucial connection I wanted him to make. Part of me expected that he would do so anyway, he’s [...]

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This story warmed the cockles of my heart, and made me realise yet again the true extent of disenfranchisement. It also made me continue to dream about the ways in which Web 2.0 can accelerate re-enfranchisement. It’s a story about a man who’s been hand-writing a paper for the past 21 years, photocopying it and [...]

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How else would I have come across the delightful adventures of Mog and Tilly, as created by Jenny Bartle? fabulous stuff.
Just how did I get there? Well, no blog is an island. So when Wordpress and Technorati tell me that someone’s linked to me, I go and check. And wander around aimlessly. And read. It’s [...]

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…. Is now on facebook. Way to go, Hugh. And thanks Michael. Details at www.gapingvoid.com

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