Last Christmas and Holidays I’ve spent in lovely analogue world receiving updates from Twitter via sms, interacting and communicating apart from (the failures of) GPRS, micro-blogging applications, my browser.  GRPS is not reliable especially for Holidays. I was so happy to have wifi on my PDA only for interwebs and mobile for texting and twittering.

Since Twitter doesn’t support anymore facility of receiving free sms’s on my mobile device, I am testing few services these days, and came to conclusion that the only micro-blogging service that treats you with free of charge sms, direct messages and other notifications is - BrightKite. I found many Twitter buddies there, both International and local (locals should sign up) who post micro-notes, comment under each one of them, post/upload their mobile pics - and it is cool! Service doesn’t charge you any received sms or direct message, if you live here in Europe. You can also send Brightkite notes on Twitter, but I still didn’t figure out how you can receive tweets on Brightkite for free. If someone knows - let us all know!

While I’m testing all micro blogging possibilities for the upcoming Holidays without GPRS or wifi dependence (just in case) - you can sign up and friend me at BrightKite.

Despite the fact that ‘Belgrade and Beyond’ blog exists in other form {digital serendipities}, I am still writing  about interesting events and electronic resources on Belgrade, Serbia. For those of you who are not familiar and you happen to reside in Belgrade for some reason, this information may be valuable to you.

Belgrade Foreign Vistors Club (FVC) presents the online community for foreigners in Belgrade, created by  Jonathan Davis. Beside Belgrade FVC there is Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club Wiki, an online information resource for foreign residents and visitors to the city of Belgrade, where you can find high quality community edited information resources and guided directories with useful links.  Also, check out Belgrade FVC forum where you can interact with other members, Twitter feed, and there is Facebook group informing users with current events, reviews, recommendations. I hope you’ll find this information and links useful especially if you are planning a trip to Belgrade or maybe to move here.

Today is World AIDS Day. Few days ago one photo made a confusion among us - from Twitter, FriendFeed interaction [me likes FriendFeed more and more], to Bora’s blog where discussion on the action of Serbian Ministry of Health has moved. Today, bumper, bumper was jumping and staring at me from all new-stands in the city.

Other than that: Pownce is closing and moving to Six Apart! Those of you who have used this micro-blogging service, you can export files, message until December 15th, as the main Pownce website is closing down two weeks from today.

Today is Cyber Monday, but not in Europe. I hope you found good discounts for gadgets and nice computers. And I still need laptop!

to be continued…

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!

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.

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…

Serbia’s Republican Agency for Telecommunications - RATEL, published the Instructions for Technical Requirements for Subsystems, Devices, Hardware and Installation of Internet Networks which have shaken up our local blogosphere and Internet community in Serbia. Reasons are many, one of them is abuse of user’s privacy. I wrote an article for Global Voices today on this topic. In case you’re interested follow the link.

Similar cyber laws and technical instructions already exist in other countries. Formally, at least, it’s good to have such regulation on one side where privacy is protected – formally, but, on the other hand, I am wondering if the Republican Agency for Telecommunications in Serbia, national security and ISP will (or will not) violate and abuse privacy of citizens in the internet community in practice.

Radiohead just released a new video for its song “House of Cards” from the album “In Rainbows”.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data.

For more information on data visualization (and how you can download it),  you can click on Google code page. It is interesting that this video is published under the mixture of copyrights/lefts: the code is open source licenced to Aaron Koblin, and the data (not the music)  used to produce the House of Cards music video is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

I hope that this wonderful Radiohead song and the video will inspire and gather other visual artists and IT people to use various technologies in making something innovative in the future.

Interesting video I really liked, presenting life ‘according to’ but also a world beyond Google.  It’s our collective memory, memory of the world placed in the virtual space that is not the information well anymore, but much more. You only need a computer and Internet connection to reach the Akkadian Babilu (Tower of Babylon).  Music used in this short film is Leonard Cohen’s - The Partisan.

This weeks’ event in Torino, Italy -  Frontiers of Interaction IV brought, beside interesting speakers, video talk with digital guru Howard Rheingold, interviewed by Robin Good on vision about the future of mobility and pervasive techs. Fantastic video link covers major topics on online collaboration, digital divide, net neutrality, interaction and future of mobile techs, e-learning and other major issues in the future of social media and web.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=1049057&dest=-1]

I got email this morning from my old friend and colleague commenting, among other things, on my Flickr photo blog and 365days project.  One of the photos drew his attention to write these words that astonished me, because…:

I was very amazed about a picture from eating Serbian women. I’m not a psychologist, but sometimes when I often see this behavior, it comes up in my mind, that they are not happy, lack of love, attention and so, and as compensation starting to eat. And soon growing up their bums. And particularly what they consume: “ugly Mac-food”.”

…because these women are no fat, the context of this stolen click - photo (as the title says) they love to eat, they are not starving, they are healthy, normal women with [if so] a bit wider hips [but hey, why many men love those hip-hop and soul singers with hips, ‘bums’, and drool over photos of Monica Bellucci? And if you see below this photo, several people from different geo-spots made a comment and none of them (both female and male) mentioned that these girls are overweight or fat. I thought that curves make women feminine, and still think so. But this is not the end. When new information hits you in the morning, the other comes along with it, from the daily news. And it is a story of Czech supermodel who was attacked by Brazilian ‘fashion police’ that on recent runaway show she appeared to be fat, with the critiques on “back fat, love handles and cellulite”. Hello! Is this fat?

Maybe, these are the reasons why society and media push up young girls and women-to-be into sick state of mind and health: skinny, starving and sick go together. Recent article shows also that in the past two years there were two cases of girls who died from anorexia (eating for weeks only lettuce and Coke). After this story I got a bit intimidated by the photos of the food I posted on Flickr here and there, which makes me ‘fat’ and i guess ‘rich’ person according to the media.

I couldn’t help but wonder shall we live the healthy lives the best we can according to our set of standards or shall we follow the world ‘trends’, starve, die and be remembered as ‘beautiful and thin’ sticks without cellulite?  I guess many of us should re-examine our own values and listen to ourselves, our body and biorhythm trying to make a balance in life.

I’m suggesting you to watch this inspiring TED video staring key speaker Mark Bittman, and contemplate our eating habits, for the start.  As for me, I’m going now to have an apple for a snack, fish and veggies for lunch, followed by rich ice-cream for desert.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danche24/2626913505/

Global Voices iSummit 2008 is taking place in Budapest, Hungary on June 27 and 28. Today, those who are not attending - could listen and watch via live stream intro by GV founders Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon and variety of speakers on program for day 1. Tomorrow’s schedule brings current and burning world issues, don’t forget to check the live stream!

Month of May, month of May -everything is lovely and gay. Culture in Serbia is meeting cold turkey (heard today one landed in Belgrade right from Ireland?!?) and more in preEuroTrash called Eurovision (contest for the best EuroSong). It’s not the fact that the official web site for Eurovision Belgrade 2008 is quite hideous but also the words of ignorance I came across yesterday of P. Schofield (British Broadcasting Corporation) at this Facebook group, where the creator is contemplating EuroSong contest “in Elbonia or wherever it is this year” (even more hideous for someone working in media, no?). Anyway, as I’ve missed this years Belgrade’s Design Week and lectures I wanted to attend ( Ascan Mergenthaler, CH, Herzog & de Meuron - Flowing into Landscape and Daniel Libeskind, US, The Architecture of Memories). But, what I won’t miss is the 5th Museum night (last year was organized through whole Serbia, and this year will be the same) and early drawings of Picasso, Air and Space Museum, History of computers exhibition, video installation, computer animation in Jewish Museum, Italian design in Superspace, Museum of Science&Technology and many other places through the city. Over 63 spots on May 17th from 6pm until the dawn, check the program and enjoy! I’m coming to take you to the Museum: )

TwitterFone is new private beta service that converts voice to text and then posts it to Twitter in text and audio format. If you want to use it and spare your time, while on go or being busy, you need to verify your phone number with Twitter account. Then, TwitterFone will give you a local phone number to call (in my case is UK) to leave audio message. You have to speak clearly after the beep, then hangup: the audio message you send will be transcribed and then posted to Twitter along with a link to the recording. As you’re limited to 140 characters on Twitter, TwitterFone gives you time limit of 15 seconds on the recording. The service supports English only and is free for now. Users comments here, and this is my test message/tweet.