I got email this morning from managing editor of Schmap Guides that one of my Flickr photos - Waag Newmarkt [from Amsterdam set] that I was asked to submit few weeks ago, has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth edition of  Schmap Amsterdam Guide. w00t! This is the photo of Waag square, that I took from Waag house last autumn, from the top of the apartment that Waag Institute usually hosts their guests.  It doesn’t pay the bill, but is nice to know that if you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to  the iPhone version of the guide, and looks like this.

Share and enjoy!

Few days ago I’ve announced statement about education cause (new laptop) as well as testing the power of Social Web.  And I’ve hit the number 10 the other day, and still growing. I’m really surprised that there are some results! And we keep going on. Let’s see what will happen. I want to thank to people from UK, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Swiss, Italy, even from Berkeley University.  I am not enthusiast that I’ll reach the goal till the end of December (my PhD research is stopped, as I’m dealing with literature right now), but I hope I will be able to buy a new laptop before Science Conference in US mid-January.

Keep spreading the word, I am open for consultations or any of your questions regarding Social Web (services), Web 2.0 applications, social network issues, blogs, wikis’ issues, strategic Web planning for online communities, talks, any advice on above in exchange for services - you can email me!

If you’re not familiar with Twine - it is web 2.5 (towards web 3.0) tool that keeps track of your interests by collecting online content, brings it all together by the topic of your interest, so you can have it all in one place and share it with anyone you want. Even more, beside personalized or collaborative  way of collecting content, sharing interests in communities, learning about new things, getting personalized recommendations.

Before I invite you to join and share with you an interesting Twine I found out recently, I’d like you to know that Twine is powered by semantic Web [one of my fav. anticipated topics since 2002]. This means the system automatically learns about your interests, groups, then makes connections and recommendations tailored to you by using RDF standards (Resource Description Framework language), URI (universal resource identifier) and OWL (Web Ontology Language). For more information how these three main components work in Twine check this page.

You can join Twine anytime and find interesting content - depending from your interests. I use Twine since May 2008, when it was ‘invite-only’ - this is me on Twine , and recently I found out great new resources on Full text. And it is free! Full text is the name of this Twine and it’s enriched with free databases and scholarly search tools, open access journals, which is opposite of locked academic online full text databases, archives or libraries that you have to pay for (or your University/ institution at least). As a preacher of the open access - if you are researcher, student, involved in academia or maybe professional interested in specific area,  this is place with great resources. Please give me a feedback on Twine or meet me there.

Twine Official on Vimeo.

Can social web services be used for science and research causes?

This post is for those who are surprised to see on my web site the widget (on the right sidebar) with the cause: new laptop. I work on my PhD research (I’m in the phase of collecting data, literature review parallel with other activities: writing papers, conferences) and have no back-up, support from University or any other body (Ministries, e.g.) such as scholarship, paid PhD work, or finances for the travel, research costs, books, other material, and of course the computer. In Serbia seems that education and science has always been in shade.
So, everything was working fine (well, ‘little dragon’ - dead laptop and i have had hiccups in the past 4 years many services, interventions, etc.), until it died few days ago and I am using interwebs in Internet cafes, and temporarily friends’ laptop.  I was contemplating to buy laptop that will help me in my research, while moving, travelling - light, functional, reliable machine. And I decided to be the MacBook (13,3″), or Dell from recommendations).

Since ‘98, I’ve been pioneering many things, projects on Web (in academia and science Serbian community), and still working on projects that I am not paid but rather volunteering. I have never monetized my blog.

I will quote/modify here a part [in the context] of David Weinberger’s (one of my fav.bloggers and IT persona) Dislosure Statement: “No one pays me to write this blog or to say particular things in it.  That includes all forms of compensation, including offers to be the guest blogger, asking me for free advice or tell me that what I do is so wonderful. I don’t run ads,  no one pays me under the table, and I don’t sell t-shirts or coffee mugs”.

I am no advertising wizard and have no tricks, I believe that the knowledge is the power. I also believe that the digital divide or information poor/rich society is not the lack of technology but the problem of the system in the country.  I believe in open access, open knowledge and sharing.  And I believe in my cause. In this case: new laptop.  I want to see how this works here.

As PayPal doesn’t work in Serbia (still), a friend helped me to have my PayPal account abroad, and now I use ChipIn widget to check and monitor the power of social web.

The plan is if half of my followers and readers donate  $5, $10, $50 or $100 , that would be more than enough for a new laptop. But you can still just donate $1.00  if you like. The aim is $1200, the timeline is Dec 31, but would be nice to get laptop from Santa a bit earlier.

Everyone can see my current status on ChipIn widget, so let’s just see what happens!

Do you find yourself posting more than ten tweets per day? Do you spend more time on Twitter and other micro-blogging services and less blog reading? Your blog posts, because of the hectic life and time (!), became rare as snow in May? You find that your friends and colleagues rather read your Twitter timeline following every single tweet you send,  than your (ir)regular blog entries? If so, welcome to (sour) times where micro-blogging services are evolving and resembling the blogosphere. Do they?

People are spending more and more time on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk, also using FriendFeed facility not only to share interesting and useful links with their friends and allies but to chat, report, promote, discuss, rant on different topics. I have three group of people I follow on Twitter: endless ‘chat’ in real-time for hours on the latest gadgets (during morning hours/working European time), afternoon twitterers (East Coast of US) on elections and economy, and late night West coasters on education syllabuses, everyday situations, rants. Technology, politics and education.

Are micro-blogging forms new web 2.5, web 3.0 ‘form’ of  IRC rooms, forums, discussion groups of instant interaction, a great medium for distributing immediate attention that pushed blogs on aside?  But then, blogs are still for me the greatest social networking place with possibility of interaction through comments (more than 140 characters) but also I couldn’t help to notice symptomatic blogging situation where people are following more twitters than RSS.  Since more people micro-blog, blogs themselves are becoming aggregates of tweet digests with referred content. Probably some of you got into this page as I’ve sent short tweet with tinyurl message about it.  It is up to you (your blogging behaviour) if you’ll comment here or send me @replies on Twitter or send likes emoticons on FriendFeed.  Are micro-blogging services changing dynamics of your blogging activities? If so, how? Comments welcomed!

It’s official: my computer/hdd is dead! Laptop went through many check-ups in the last 3 weeks, and while i’m writing this post from friends’ computer, i got phone call from my  tech service support telling me that there’s nothing they can do - it is time for new laptop. No wonder, poor thing passed numerous airports, travelled many many miles, had five falls on the ground, exploitation in the past few years in its fullest - master research and thesis, presentations, movings, in between time pre-PhD period, 2 spilling of tea over the keyboard, etc. I had final warning signs few days ago when i announced that i am contemplating new laptop {and new mac books arrived <3}.

So, it is time for new laptop. I know what I don’t want as I’ve had not so nice experience in the past with: Toshiba’s, Fujitsu, HP, also I don’t want Acer, Asus (though I heard they are not that bad, but which model?). I need computer for everyday work, research (lot of data), good RAM, stable OS. Also, I’m known as great exploiter of FF (if i need 120 tabs open at once because I need them for my research, reading and analysis, I have to be sure it will tolerate my requests), good graphic support (i am here and there musing myself and others with photography / see Flickr, and use PhotoShop), and sometimes I watch a movie on DVD. All in all, a bit stronger than standard one, as I may need for some extra work. Important: I don’t play any kind of games/simply don’t have time, so I don’t need super ultra state-of-art graphics/speed/performance as well as I don’t use AUTO-CAD, as friend asked me recently if I am CAD person.

Beside above described, I need light one- did I mention it? My back and shoulders hurt when i have to move or travel and take all kind of gadgets with me. Smaller screen are welcomed too (13.3”). Hum, cannot remember anything else for now: ah yes, decent price would go, well proportion of quality, performance and warranty, I am not Rockefeller, and prices of hardware are dropping everyday {they say}.

All suggestions, experiences, comments are welcomed! And please if you suggest some manufacturer add a model that works for you, and have in mind that i live in South-East Europe. Thank you!

Today is the world’s the first- ever Open Access day, celebrating the growth of international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked archives, libraries, online databases, information flow in general,  that once hid and restricted knowledge.

One of the definitions of ‘open’ denotes ‘a piece of knowledge is open if you re free to use, reuse, and redistribute it.”  The concept of open access has already started to spread rapidly beyond its original roots in academia and software.  Other statements encourage the unstrict sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.
The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced. It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers.

Founders and promoters who jointly announced the first international Open Access Day, that is marked with lot of events, locally and internationally, are SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science. To see a list of participating countries, universities, campuses,  visit the Open Access Day Web site. Also, you can participate in synchroblogging competiton by posting on some of the questions.

I have been writing, talking, preaching about open access of e-resources, software, movement, issues  (oh, so many times) on conferences and in practice being as one of the editors of E-LIS/E-prints open access archives, and still believe that OA can make a difference in the publishing world, academia and the freedom of information.

How are you contributing to Open Access, today and every other day during the year?  What do you do to support Open Access?

Remember Science blogging conference this January? Well,  next year free three-day event ScienceOnline09, will be held from 16-18 January 2009, at Research Triangle Park, NC. This annual blogging science conference brings together scientists, educators, bloggers, students, journalists to collaborate, discuss, demonstrate online strategies and software for promoting public and better understanding of science.

See the conference wiki for further details, as well as conference program and check out interesting sessions and topics we will talk about.  If you are interested to participate, you can register here. If some of you are planning to go to NC, USA earlier next year, buzz me via contact email.

Recently, I’ve read in media  the results of the survey by “xy” marketing agency (don’t want to advertise them here) who did research of the usage of Facebook in Serbia. This is my response and strong argument against  superficial output without research corpus statements of the author, agency, and unverified data published. I loathe these strong unverified allegations that appear officially. What it was about?

All Serbian media published the ‘results’ of commercial marketing agency’s survey about the popularity of the “sites for youth” in Serbia and they came to conclusion that the most popular are Facebook and My Space.  Beyond this general data, there are other things here I want to share with you, those they have ‘found out’. According to them, their target group was youth, age 18-25:  30%  of the examined population use everyday Internet and 61% of them have Facebook profile, and 37% have profile on My Space.

“They [youth] see Facebook as serious web site which enables them to communicate with people who live far away, to find soul-mates, and to have fun there. They are also emphasizing that those who don’t have Facebook profile - are ‘out’ ” (translated from Serbian, they are not cool, my remark).

Furthermore, the author of this research says that young people are noticing lot of fake profiles and (re)presentations, and Facebook is the reason they communicate less face to face, and therefore conclusion: they have negative Facebook opinion, privacy issues,  and connotation including the Facebook addiction. These three sentences on Facebook was everything we got from ‘research of marketing agency. Yuck!

Now I have to say something and respond to this kind lump of smattering, no survey corpus, non reliable conclusions.

First, this kind of surveys are ‘ordered’ from marketers or agency for certain [non - academic] purposes not to mention that companies of this kind try to demand and fence their users in certain boxes and or pre-ordered groups. Why? There is huge list of e-market interests in Serbia for future (re)shaping their users and making fertile e-ground for new ‘projects’ and investments.

Second, on this survey’s ‘results’ published in all Serbian media:  this unverified data should be kept under huge question mark and reserve from several reasons. There is no corpus of the research - no numbers of people included in this survey: what Serbian networks? Is it University network? High School network (there are no high school networks created on Facebook in Serbia, in general, dear agency)? No-network search of the users? All Serbia network? Methodology? Data? Charts?

For your information, including today: there are 143,891 people in Serbia network, and further - there are 1,619 people in the University of Belgrade network. Does this mean that the author and the agency did survey on  10,000 people? Or maybe 1000? We will never find out that. Did they send their questionnaires to classmates from high school, university, colleagues, ex housemates, lost friends so they have qualitative kind of output? There is nothing in this survey  that would show or notify us about indications regarding research (where is summarized corpus with quantitative and qualitative data?).

As above mentioned privacy issues: they are talking about privacy issues but they didn’t mention the most important fact that those teens and youth are exposing their FB profiles to the public along with their photos from parties, open for public. I got feedback data (youngsters) in Serbia network, as i was noticing and reporting to some of them that their profiles can be seen to everyone (along with photos).  From my direct talk with them, they didn’t know that their profile is exposed (not literate enough to find and adjust privacy settings) and this is the most often case with the group of undergrads who simply was not familiar with privacy mechanisms.  They were in shock (”oh my god!” reactions, and “I thought it was ‘friend only”) “,  which indicated that this small sample of youth in Serbia are self-aware that Facebook is network !read Network! for gathering with friends with whom they know from real life and re-establish connections (already existing) with, primarily, high school mates, university colleagues, etc.  They don’t care about strangers  or unknown people pending on ‘friend requests’ list. Of course there will be ‘collectors’ of strangers and friends for such purposes (we have them in everyday life), but finding soul-mates? I’m afraid , dear agency, that Serbian youth are gathered around Facebook for different reasons but finding soul-mates. They are soul-mating on other places.

“Conclusion there is negative Facebook connotation including the Facebook addiction” is hideous and contradictory if we have in mind above numbers (61% have Facebook profile and is the most popular site). If Facebook is such a bad and negative social network site, then why would many thousands of Serbian population get connected, socializing  with their friends, colleagues, classmates and communicate with them on daily basis? They are on Facebook to hang out with their friends and classmates in pre-existed relationships from real life, or re-connecting with those they’ve lost contact with, or connecting with their allies they never met face to face. There is huge University of Belgrade community on Facebook who talk about upcoming exams on the boards, exchange information, how-where-to find that book for exam, info on conferences, projects, etc.

Few years back, when I was doing research for my Master thesis - the existing surveys of Telecom (national telecommunication company) or CePIT(center for the research in Information-communication technologies) , have got not only explained methodology and all important basic data from their research, but also they’ve created user-friendly charts as you’d read at any e-journal, magazine out there. Open accessed and published to all media.

Said that, I am strongly arguing against this kind of public superficial announcements in media with suspicious outputs as millions of people in Serbia are reading them and (probably) taking them for granted, without having in mind the facts (Serbia network on Facebook as well as the other networks -university, work, region), social-technological context, survey corpus, criteria, purpose.  Question everything, question me!

On socio-ethno-anthro context of “you are  noone if you are not on Facebook” in Serbia,  I will write in the upcoming texts.

This is the name of the presentation on Saturday, October 4, 2008, in O3one Gallery in Belgrade as the part of regular program of  B-LINK festival of New Communications. It was created two years ago as a rare example of an initiative to show and adequately promote creative and innovative tendencies within web environment, primarily in domains of experimental art, web design and now researching new technologies and the impact they have on society.

Social Me section brings ID/Entity where I’ll be presenting with my co-author, visual artist and lecturer Aleksandar Macasev, educational content on Identities (personal, social, national, virtual) using different forms:  video, micro-video forms, blog, live casting.  Co-authored blog - “Me Virtual You” - will be opened for the public after the talk and presentation. We will not be physically present: Aleksandar will tune in from New York (where he works and lives) and I will be at the other geo-spot on BlogOpen meeting giving a talk. This is great opportunity to test communication performances in virtual space with attendeees and partcipants in physical space (gallery) while we are on different geo-places. You are welcomed to come and see what’s in there.

In the past few days, since I removed my blog on this address, many of you have sent emails, messages asking about certain site sections, plug-in’s, etc. I know that some people are not that tech savvy,  but in my personal opinion blog is very clear, clean and  simple to navigate. Anyway, here’s short navigation tour through site: links under the header are pages that you can jump from-to anytime, home button is above in the left corner, brings you back to blog.

./seredipity page leads you to another (external) links, including my old Belgrade and Beyond blog, my tumblr, short story on virtual Id/Entity - wiki page that I need to sort out, contact etc.

.about page i’ll try to up-to date as often as I can, .networking brings you the list of social web services and sns/sites where you can connect and interact, but I’ m mostly seen at Twitter, Delicious,  Flickr and last.fm.

.projects/activities as well as .writings (material is scattered all over the web, sites and wiki pages, soon to make it neat) should give you the scope of what i’m doing, current /past projects, participatory activities, other presence and contributions, where i’m going, talking, lecturing, etc.

.photos is an interesting part as photography is one of my hobbies, and i’m taking part for over a 7 months in Flickr’s 365 days project (which denotes to post each day a photo, not any but of self - a part, portrait, piece, whatever). It ain’t no easy but it is good for practicing discipline, overcoming some photo insecurities and practicing. I’m inviting those of you with Flickr accounts to join me in this project and buzz me there.

Many folks asked me about .lifestream page and plug-in i’ve implemented in site. It’s great interactive live stream of activities on all web sites I’ve got feeds where you can follow/read my bits&bytes. Personal version of FriendFeed.  Useful micro -information. Credits you can find at the end of this page.

.links page is created for staying in touch with colleagues, friends, there are some affiliates, institutions. The list is random and is updating on daily basis, so if I miss someone, please remind me or send me an email. I don’t mind love links if you share same/similar interests with me.

And the most important central part is blog.You are more than welcome to comment, participate, suggest, write some reflections and thoughts on posts I’m writing. You can use direct comment form below each post (which is preferable), and for specific matters you can always contact me. Not to forget that if you didn’t grab my feed - it’s tiny rss box on the sidebar, as well as my fav. email form where you can receive updates via email.

Share and enjoy!

Two days ago I was giving a talk at the International Scientific Conference, University of Belgrade (25-27th Sept). I have uploaded slides of that talk, for anyone who are interested in OA, e-resources, the usage of social media and software in education. Also, I created temporary wiki page that I need to sort out, until writings section of this blog comes to its place. There is video to be published and some of the photos on Flickr.

In general Serbian scientific community is not ready to embrace social software and Web 2.0 yet, and I was surprised that some of the speakers - e.g., Ron Davies from European Digital Library project was talking about very out-dated issues like semantic web  in ‘new’ EDL projects [seen/heard that back in 2002], but then there are numbers, million of numbers that are promising that project Europeana.net will be finished in 2, 3 years. Locally, there is high level of idleness, inconsistency and net/notworking. No surprises.

The third BlogOpen: meeting of all the participants in blogosphere (from authors, readers, IT workers to mainstream media) will happen on October 4-5 in in Bor, Brestovacka banja. Main goals of this public meeting are:

1. Discussion about the topics and problems characteristic of this manner of public communication;

2. Realization of virtual communication in real, public space;

3. Calling wider public’s attention to this mode of authors’ presence and to the importance of an information society;

4. Promotion of an information society, electronic communication and the role of Internet as a source of information, educative tool, interpersonal networking and fostering of democracy;

5. Making notice of the most significant and most successful blogging authors and their impact as creators of public opinion and as sources of information.

More about BlogOpen in English and some valuable information - on this page, the list of speakers is here, and the program.  I’m inviting all of you who are interested in these topics to join us as this will be great opportunity to participate and discuss different range of current burning issues, as well as to brainstorm and contribute in some solutions not only in local/world wide blogosphere but in social media and alternative education processes.  You can register here. If you are not able to come, I’ll twitter from the conference some interesting points and thoughts.

Three weeks ago, when I was about to move my blog from old address to this - new one I’ve noticed that people in blogosphere have gone crazy about the post I’ve written two years ago about Michael Palin’s visit to Belgrade.  In the meantime I figured out that peeps across the pond got a bit excited not only by upcoming elections, but because of controversial and hideous appearance of Sarah Palin character. It hard to explain to decent European what’s going on there, especially if one is not into world news services.

Recently, I found out that one of my readers jokingly grabbed Palins photo and gave lol-cat treatment regarding the above political story. To be clear here, I deeply respect and love Michael Palin’s work since I was a kid and watched every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

Then, the title of this photo [The Vagina Vote], got me today into wonderful serendipity and to laugh-out-loud article “Drill, drill, drill” written by Eve Ensler {playwright, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues}, starting that she is having S.Palin’s nightmares… I wonder how world would be more peaceful and friendly place if Michael Palin was a candidate.

As we moved to new URL, with new layout and RSS feed, I want to announce upcoming events for the next 2 weeks very briefly, as a trailer, more info’s in the days to come. I will talk at the 7th International Science conference at University of Belgrade about open access, digital literacy and e-resources in Web 2.0 world. This year academics  will gather to discuss following topics: electronic libraries in all its aspects, digital repositories, e-services, online databases, the usage of web 2.0 technologies, open access, digital literacy, SNS,  and ipso facto their larger positive impact on the scientific and pedagogical work in Serbia.  I’ll write more about this next week, but some valuable information of the programe is here.

You know that every year (now would be for the third time) in October is festival of new communications called B-LINK. The topic of 2008 B-LINK will be “Virtual me”. You will find out soon what is going on there. I am working on presentation with my co-author Aleksandar on different aspects of [our work] ID/Entity. I expect official program soon.

BlogOpen (4-5th of October) is South East, a regional friendly and professional meeting of bloggers which has, since last fall, been on the calendar of regular annual meetings of all the participants in blogosphere: authors, readers, IT workers and mainstream media. I will write more about BlogOpen and programme very soon, as I am listed as one of the speakers.

Since Blink and BlogOpen are happening on the same day, I was wondering how to be present at two conferences same day, same time, different geo-spots, on both i’m having gigs?! Astral projections and cloning are not the option so I’ve decided since the ‘Virtual me’ event is dealing with digital identities in this space, I will use available social media techs and appear virtually, as for those who are coming to BlogOpen - I will be present in my physical entity.

Stay tuned…