i’m sorry, i just don’t know

So today it happened.  My engagement with Facebook apps turned from academic interest to obsessive futzing around (my term for what people do when they get caught up in the social presence features of an online community).  And the winner was…. Owned!  Buy and sell your friends.  As of right now, I own about 6 people, almost all of whom I actually know.  I am currently owned by some 49 year old man.  There was a bidding war between him and some guy from Sheffield, England which stopped abruptly when I filled out my profile and said I was married.  Funny how that happens, eh?  Before the fun stopped, the bidding went up to $15,316, so apparently that’s what I’m worth.

All the cool Facebook apps that Justin Ball wrote… it was this one that got me distracted from work and inviting friends to join up with me.  But hey, it looks like I can give Trey to Anne if I want.

Matthew Buckley’s most recent book, The SuperTrio is up online.  Listen to each chapter with your little ones while you clean the house or just when you are supposed to be listening in a workshop (like I should be doing now…headphones are easy to hide with long hair).  Rock and roll Elder Jensen.

Outback’s Ausssie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. Eat this and you’ll pack down 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Men’s Health ranked the 20 worst foods in America.

Writing this post is making me hungry.  Via BoingBoing

 Thanks Christin for pointing us to the Smithsonian’s response to the Colbert portrait phenomenon…

from www.youtube.com

What do the Smithsonian, Steven Colbert, and Flickr all have in common?

“National Treasure: Portrait of Stephen” depicted Stephen Colbert’s quest to have his portrait accepted by one of the Smithsonian’s museums. Colbert bargained with director Brent Glass, and played hackey sack with Marc Pachter, director at the National Portrait Gallery. Colbert’s portrait now hangs in the Portrait Gallery through April.” -Smithsonian NMAH newsletter

Steven’s portrait now hangs between the bathrooms and above the water fountain outside the Gallery of the Presidents. You can go see it and add your picture to the Flickr group sponsored by NMAH on Flickr. People are lining up to take pictures, pretty much ignoring the portrait of George Washington.

Colbert
Originally uploaded by flipperman75

nice work Matt!

Marion has brought me out of blog writing funk by showing me Whereigo…

Wherigo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world. Use GPS technology to guide you to physical locations and interact with virtual objects and characters -Whereigo site

This allows for legitimate crossover interactions between humans, locations, and literally anything a person can imagine virtually.  I can see this being big with virtual gamers, but also with people like my mom who takes tours to Europe every summer.  My mother can take a tour of people to the Louvre where they go on a treasure hunt for famous artwork.  There are very cool applications with history, as well… Imagine taking a 6th grade class to an Anasazi ruin in the Four Corners area.  As they walk through the ruins, they encounter a 12 year old Anasazi boy going through a coming of age ritual and become a part of his experience.

Location anchored virtual experiences.  Cool.  Marion put together a tour of Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  If you are traveling this way, download it and enjoy!

Mashable is going to give awards to online communities… cast your vote link

Bork blog provides screen shots detailing how to turn off Beacon, Facebook’s super duper collector of your private information.

And on WikiHow, there are a couple of other tutorials.  You can either use Facebook’s interface, or block it directly from your Firefox browser.  link

via Brian

In our business (which can be characterized by altruistic words such as free, open, access, and education for all) we often argue that people should just give it up (the content they authored) for online access. That works for us, and makes sense in the academic world, but maybe it doesn’t make sense every where else.

The writer’s guild in Hollywood is on strike. They are fighting to have Viacom (for example) ante up for content they write that gets distributed online. Viacom (for example) gets millions of dollars of ad revenue from that content. The writers get nothing. It may just be me, but I think the writers’ approach (see video) is far superior to the approach of brutal union bosses from the twenties and thirties.

video source