Today I’ve tested for the very first time Qik – mobile live streaming and sharing tool that connects mobile and social technologies. I had a thought after this demo video with my colleague at UN about implementation of mobile video streaming into not only broadcasting conferences, events, but also in edu technology. The latest news from Qik blog is participating in edu-tech conference where Qik videos will be mapped on Google Earth in its worldwide demonstration so educators from all over the world can test this tool in their classrooms.

Some concern I’m sharing is that streaming over the phone cannot be possible anytime, everywhere, depending on many factors: providers, mobile telecom companies, fees/charges, mobile devices and their ability to support (or not) wifi, availability of free wifi hot spots, social networked compatibility among users, the type/model of mobile phones (see the list of supported phones), etc.

In this test video you’ll notice that during the time I was showing to Gauri Qik, streaming online my first Qik video, and notifying my followers on Twitter,  there were also parallel broadcast of the conference happening somewhere in the world. Beside alerting your friends on Twitter and on the other social networks, there are options for live chat, comments, and geo-mapping. More thoughts about mobile social technologies to come.

Qik test

I got in the previous weeks the feedback by known or unknown Twitterers who are “Follow Friday”-ing me by displaying,  recommending to the others my Twitter ID for various reasons, mostly because they think people they recommend are cool or worthwhile following. Since this communication practice repeated last Friday,  I’ve asked Twitterers what is follow Friday and who actually came up with this idea and why?
In the last few days I’ve read two good blog posts: danah boyd’s view on the communication phenomena of retweeting and Jonathan Zittrain’s thoughts on technical 140 characters barriers on Twitter. Having in mind  that retweeting process is one of the conversation practices on Twitter,  the same can be denoted to the Follow Friday movement as one of the communication behavioristic conventions.

How Follow Friday works? Basically,  Follow Friday helps people recommend other Twitter folks. As a way of recommending people you follow to other users on Twitter, Follow Friday  is presented with hashtag #followfriday or #ff. The purpose is that those who are being recommended would (potentially) gain new followers. After suggesting the name of the twitterer,  the practice is to write why you are recommending them as suggested people to follow. Some twitterers follow this practice, but many people don’t as they just write Twitter user names without stating the reason(s) why one should follow those people. Otherwise, the conversation moves into typical micro memes. Here is an example of the correct usage of FF:
@danbri  because he is the semantic web expert and co-founder of FOAF #followfriday.

The twitterer who came up with the idea of  ‘”Follow Friday” movement said that #ff has lost a lot of its original charm because too many people are making wild recommendations without any justification, in order to collect and get more random followers. I was also asking why Friday? No one so far explained this, either because is TGIF expression that many users say on Twitter every Friday, as it is more relaxed day for casual gaining new followers or because the idea that the creator of this movement likes the music of The Cure (read: Friday, I’m in love! aka I am sharing love for these followers).
This week I had a chance to talk with, above mentioned Twitterer,  Dan Brinkey on work matters, and later I was contemplating the idea of Follow Friday concept as micro communication FOAF (Friend of a friend) convention, and came to conclusion that beside recommendation and connecting people aspect, Follow Friday has communication facet of “describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do” . Twitter user ID’s are describing people, person who recommends the friend is the link, and description line “why I recommend this person to be followed” presents things they create or do. This way FF allows people and groups of people to describe social network relations without the need for a centralization.

Beside suggesting other people to follow and explaining why those people are useful to follow, there is another phenomena that I’ve noticed last Friday: massive retweeting of Follow Fridays of other people tweets. I was in wonder why would people retweet them and came to the thoughts of meta –meme Twitter user’s tagging  and collecting potential followers. This would be an example when sharing (info, contacts) is not caring but rather micro trading (silent request for an expected requirement of following back). What follows next  is an interesting to investigate as  communicative (non) behaviour amongst Twitterers that is in permanent flux.

For those who are following my Flickr activities and my photostream, I’ve recently finished with 365 Flickr project. The idea was to through intimate bits and bytes and dialogues with myself and the world around me, every day in a year (2008/09) explore self-identity. It was long and not easy journey as life it is per se, but it was a great challenge – both on personal, art and professional level.  At this moment there are 13 625 active members of 365 days of Flickr, involved in this project – each with its unique story.

I am contemplating to publish a photo (log) book of my 365 mini stories somewhere. If you have ideas where it could be appropriate for this kind of content and format – let me know.

Speaking of Italy, there is an interesting conference about emerging social media technologies and their impacts this summer in Urbino, Italy, from 29th June to 5th July 2009.  The 9th International Conference of Sociocybernetics will take place at the Faculty of Sociology of University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”. More about the programme and keynote speakers in the upcoming days, and here is the list of accepted papers that cover areas of Cybernetics and Web Science, Social systems and economic models of the web, Culture, knowledge and social impact of the Semantic web, Cyberculture, knowledge and local communities, and many other topics that you can check out in the Call.

Let me know if you are attending this conference, surely I’ll be in Urbino on Modernity 2.0 and interact with many academics.

Five days ago I experienced really nice act of kindness by Twitterer on my followers/following list. Five minutes or so before leaving my working station I twittered about free hugs, to test the power of Facebook and Twitter in foreign city and country as well as the radius of my digital visibility here in Italy.

A minute later I got direct message from a Twitterer residing in Rome, Apple fan and one of rare Romans who is using Twitter in tech,  saying he’s coming in 15 min to meet me in front of my building. Very spontaneously this nice person arrived immediately via moped in front of my working place to give me a hug, and Moleskine notebook -City Rome. Those who are following me on Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and where not – can notice that I dig Moleskine notebooks.  Thanks to Twitter, I’ve instantly met a person with whom I was sending replies and exchanged thoughts on technology and life in Rome the same day. Moleskine notebook was really nice gesture and welcoming gift, and I am very grateful to all people who are interacting with me, and picking up things I say or write.

The power of social web implies also analogue communication performances influenced by the online presence and ID management of the persona. This act of kindness du jour and the whole week I am memorizing fondly as one of the  advantages of the usage of web 2.0 services. I’m very thankful that I can gradually, here and there, meet my invisible audience.

When Trebor Scholz asked on his Twitter stream if someone can recommend a good video on the history of B92, I realised not only that there’s no such representative video, but also that Youtube B92 account was suspended and the video was moved to Blip.tv. Anyway, I’ve exchanged some links and ideas with Trebor, browsing through the web history, the online pages and found some archive of B92 correspondences and BBS trays from the 90′s that could be useful for his class.

Then he asked me if I could be a guest speaker in the form of iChat lecture/conversation and record online video for the students, and I thought: well, why not? In general, I don’t like to go back to history events, especially back to the 90′s but then in the context of web activism I had professional urge to act and give the feedback. The outcome is the video I’ve recorded on the Seesmic for the students, where I was dwelling through the Internet history of b92 Opennet and BBS’s, forums, and how the citizens used online media to undermine the current regime, and all social, political, economic turbulences that have marked the 90′s. Initially planned 10 minutes of the video talk extended into 18 min of my scattered thoughts (was recording at 2 am European time, after the tweet-up, so I could deliver it before Wednesday’s class) and I realised there are lot of things to say not only about the online history of B92 but the birth of the citizen journalism in Serbia as the major point in social media in the 90′s.  In Trebor’s presentation – slides you can find out more about above said, the Social Media and War in Serbia, as a part of his Global Internet Activism series.