This weekend the Internet has celebrated the twenty years of the World Wide Web that on 6 August 1991 became publicly available; and Sir Tim Berners-Lee published the first ever website. Back then, he posted a short summary of the project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. I was trying to remember my first html page back in 1996, probably stored on many floppy disks, maybe one day I will be able to extract the data and go back to the 90s.

Also, this weekend, I gave a short overview on the recent findings of a study of the Internet usage in the Balkan region. It is interesting to know that in the former Yugoslavia there are over 10.5 million Internet users, which makes up 51.7% of the region’s population. Facebook is the most popular destination: over 70% of Internet users have a Facebook account in Serbia, and 63% – in Croatia.

As I wrote for the Global Voices article, it would be also interesting to see the age distribution among users and other relevant demographics, as well as the analysis of online social interactions on other Internet services and social media sites. Statistical and educational institutions in each of the Balkan countries could generate and use the data on the relevant online activities to detect and focus on their critical users, to adjust their policies and action plans based on the data. More about this in English, Arabic, Serbian, French, and Italian.

The new school year in Serbia is about to start, and local newspapers are filled with techno anti-utopian articles on the bad effects of the Internet and social networks. A survey on the use of Facebook by the youth in Serbia has been published recently, too, however, and its results suggest that things aren’t really that bad.

More about the usage of Facebook among Serbian youth in my Global Voices article.  Those who’ve asked me about the photo I’ve contributed in the featured text:  it was taken in the downtown of Belgrade, in the Internet cafe, and I use it for my slides, for conference talks.

Feel free to comment.

Update: now this article is available in Serbian, Polish, Italian and Spanish language. Thanks to GlobalVoices colleagues for translation.

In my latest article for Global Voices I wrote about Digital School, a state-funded project that would allow to set up digital classrooms in Serbia’s primary schools. I’ve discussed some of the challenges that need to be addressed for the project to succeed. More about it in the Global Voices column. Feel free to leave the comment.

Yesterday I was updating my Dopplr profile and also being determined to buy some cheap air tickets for the summer and upcoming trips via JAT airways web site. This is not the first time of my epic fail, attempt to buy ticket online (last time was during Easter holidays but then I was thinking their server/site might be overloaded or something). So this time I wanted to buy a ticket Rome-Belgrade and as usual actions I was proceeding to a payment section, and after that I was waiting to proceed and get my code and e-ticket.

Alas, I got information from the screen that there is an issue in the processing of my reservation aka system error. Please try again and if the problem persists (which does), to contact them (JAT airways) for further information. So I went back to the front page of JAT airways site and dialed number of call center {+38111311 2123}  for reservations via my mobile phone. I emphasized I am calling from Rome, that I failed to buy ticket via their web site, also stressing out that their reservation system is not working and I showed my concern that the system (they call it Amadeus) has been eaten my monies from credit card. Then after 10 minutes of checking out the status – they confirmed that Miss Radovanovic tried to buy ticket (they even saw my seat number), but then they weren’t sure so they redirected me to new number {+381112010117} to colleagues in Internet payment section of JAT. Did I mention that the girl who was on the other side of the line asked me three times if I’m calling from Belgrade or Rome?
Anyways, a woman at Internet payment section told me with humble voice that she cannot give me the reason why their web site is not working as I was pissed by then and wanted explanation. She only guaranteed me that my monies from credit card are not withdrawn so I am safe, and if I want to pay my e-ticket reservation I need to call a call center  (again +38111311 2123), this time a guy named Aleksandar told me that this procedure will last a bit longer after I said I’m calling from abroad and from mobile. I thought what the heck, I just want my ticket and to finish with it. Then the procedure of everything I went through the web site started but via phone (name, address, time, date, passport no., etc), and when I was about to make a phone payment, this man asked me with suspicious tone in his voice if I have credit card (such nonsense question, I wouldn’t buy e-ticket if I don’t own it, right?), and after saying “yes” to all those hideous questions (If I am the owner of the card, where I am right now, what’s my mobile number, am I calling from where, etc.), I finally made it to get my confirmation of e-ticket to my inbox. My bank also confirmed the transaction via text message notification, but what really made me angry was the time and money (hey – all in all I’ve spent 20minutes calling JAT airways, Belgrade from my mobile in Rome) I’ve spent in action via phone instead on their malfunctioning web site. What’s behind – only people in JAT management know.

The worst thing is that this problem exists for years and they are not fixing it!!! Every time I go to their web site hoping that things have changed – I get confirmation on the spot that they didn’t change. And I am not the only one who did notice and protest about this issue. So today I was reading  BBC news that Serbia is set for visa-free  EU travel from 2010, which means that Serbian citizens want to travel without nuisance of waiting for visa’s which is good on one side and on the other- Serbian JAT airways web site is not working!  This is so hypocritical and paradoxical at the same time: giving them hope whilst many emerging and basic things in the country are not functioning regarding e-everything: e-banking, e-payments, e-government, e-administration, e- whatnot.
This is the notice and caution to ALL of you who are planning to visit JAT airways web site or in worst case to try to make reservation.

Disclaimer: I wrote this text as revolted and dissatisfied citizen of Republic of Serbia, who lives world wide and who is not being able to use the web services that are presented on JAT web site. I respect the efforts and the work of aviation crew of this company who is so far doing their work fairly good. This negative critique is addressed to JAT management and their customer service, the way of communication with customers, web site malfunctioning, false representing their services on web, and disrespect to their customers.  If you don’t change your policy and be brave and make a statement on the web site that your e-system for reservations, booking, contact is NOT working – you are misleading the people.

I was browsing these days academic online databases and realized that some of my old papers gone missing.  Actually I was looking for a specific one that I wrote in the beginning of 2002 after Semantic Web conference in Rome, being inspired and I gave a talk at the annual Scientific conference in Belgrade, in the autumn of 2002, and the paper was later published in Proceedings that are removed and don’t exist online. I was talking about Semantic Web fundamentals and I had a feeling I was talking science fiction in front of the audience, but every now and then someone ask me to read my writings on semantics, standards, metadata, ontologies.

Since this was my first text on semantic web and the electronic information online, I’ve digged around  to find it in open accesses repositories and found some traces – though in Serbian and though in Cyrillic.I know that many international people who do speak English would like to read it, especially my metadata colleagues and supervisor who adores ontologies. Well, my academic, research and practioner’s interests have moved on since 2002, and frankly speaking I’m not huge fan if i had to chose, but anyways, would be nice if someone translate this text from the official publication from the conference.

Don’t expect fireworks as this was first text on semantic web being published in Serbia or Yugoslavia then. Since I don’t have time at this moment to upload all of my talks, papers, presentations, {I need idea how to sort out all of my papers, talks, texts, publicaitons in general – here}, and the wiki I’ve created some time ago – I’ve abendoned, and other presentations are either on SlideShare or some wiki, here’s and abstract in English, and if there’s someone interested to translate the text from Serbian into English – please do write at danica [at] danicar [dot] org, or give just send me the feedback. It’s very interesting text with some primers for those who want to know about semantics.

SEMANTIC WEB AND ELECTRONIC INFORMATION RESOURCES
Danica Radovanović

Abstract

The usage of electronic resources depends on good possibilities of searching and concept of the Semantic Web can be convenient solution for information retrieval (IR). WWW (World Wide Web) enables, with help of the search engines and huge number of available (meta)information, data that can satisfy user information need, but only at some extent. At the same time, there are more and more research efforts to increase the efficiency for IR until one gets as much as relevant information on the Web. As one of the latest results of this W3C efforts, Semantic Web presents a group of organized technological standards, IT products, and information linked in such a way that can be easily indexed and semantically filtrated through process of classification on global level. Semantic Web and its principles make IR easier because it can be also observed as very useful and successful way of representing data on WWW or as a group of globally linked databases. The architecture of Semantic Web consists of three important IT standards: XML (eXtensible MarkUp Language), RDF (Resource Description Framework) and the ontologies. Semantic web is still under development and is not in common usage but it promises that it will radically improve the possibility of searching, sorting and classification of information.

Key words: Semantic Web, electronic information resources, information retrieval, information representation, Internet, standards

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.

Two weeks ago I’ve finished with giving lectures on Social networks at the School of Web Journalism. This was my gig for the second generation of students who urged to learn more about Web 2.0: understanding it, writing, using, evaluating, communicating, reporting, exchanging information, helping in Cause, practicing activism in real life situations.

I have to say I’m really suprised that this second generation is very advanced and pro-active, innovative and creative and I really enjoyed working with them. Those who don’t know my approach in teaching (in this case of lecturing) – I practice non-linear and non-traditional but again very disciplinary, engaging and participatory practices.

The course I have created this time was Social networks and beyond. We’ve been working on the Facebook  for web journalists’ needs in everyday, practical work: from feeds (news and live feeds), publishing on Facebook through different modules (posted items, posted notes, etc.) through promotion, marketing and PR, to micro communities and forums within Facebook (groups and pages). More about this is also available on Slideshare. The next action was introduction to Facebook advertising for web journalists throught different methods and practices for different purposes (brand, person, blog, cause, event, organization, businesses, etc.). Afterwards, I wanted to see how they would create and coordinate a real life situation in the form of the Cause that reached the media audience outside this social network. More about this on Slideshare, and an overview on the Rising/Global Voices.