Canadian bloggers and the law

From the ARMA International Policy Briefs, there was recently a Supreme Court of Canada case concerning libel may extend some legal recognition and protection to bloggers, treating them somewhat like journalists. You can read about it further in this CBC article: Libel landscape alters for bloggers, PR advisers. This small step toward recognizing bloggers strikes me as interesting. I wonder how long it will be before blog postings are cited as sources in a way similar to journalists. The continuign changes in the media and publishing environment fascinate me both as a writer and a reader.  It is my impression that American bloggers are currently protected to a greater degree but it is not a topic I have researched very deeply.

If you want to read more about the case, I’ll refer to judgement, Grant v. Torstar Corp, as published by the Canadian Legal Information Institute. There is also a discussion of the issue in greater detail over at the Wise Law Blog, Supreme Court of Canada to Bloggers: Act Responsibly.

Note: I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. Ask a lawyer if you do want legal advice.

The Information Behaviour of Brides To Be

My friend Monica Rettig has written an interesting article examining how users of wedding websites such as Indiebride share information and build community. One of the questions raised in this research is how information sharing and seeking behaviour is closely related to emotional support. Indeed, I got the sense that the two activities are intertwined to some degree; information is sought for practical purposes sure but there is also a desire to make a connection. It is interesting to see the ways in which the community members define themselves and fragment; for example those planning destination weddings are considered to be a distinct society from regular Indiebrides. Monica points out that part of the community further subdivides by time; e.g. those with a wedding date in June tend to congregate and those with similar time horizons will come together. This begs the question; do brides continue to participate in this information community after the big day? Would they then be regarded as sages due to the experience?

One question kept nagging me as I read this article though; where are the men and grooms? Have they no views on weddings? Or perhaps there are websites for men interested in weddings but they are separate? I can accept that it is something of a cultural convention in North America that weddings are still largely regarded as a woman’s area of interest but I wonder if that has always been true or if it is true in other contexts. As Rebecca Mead has pointed out in her excellent 2007 book, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, much of contemporary wedding practice is either manufactured by those seeking to growing the multi billion dollar wedding industry and the tendenacy of some couples to mix and match from tradition to produce an event that pleases them. Given that, why not create a bigger space for groom participation in the wedding scene?

Reinventing the Book: Seth Godin & Cory Doctorow

I want to write about two authors who are both giving away their work in different ways. My impression is that their examples are still the exception but that may change with time. The whole concept of combining free and paid content is a tricky concept but these two seem to have an idea about it. These two authors write well and really understand the culture of the Internet.

Cory Doctorow has serialized his new novel, MAKERS, online for free in installments. The print (i.e. paid) version of the book came out in November 2009 before the free installments of the novel finished. I suppose the idea is that if you had been reading the free chapters and got hooked then you could buy the book and find out how it ends. I’ve read the novel and very much enjoyed it. As far as I’ve read, Doctorow thinks that giving away his books for free online has likely been a benefit to him, not to mention others. Doctorow also frequently writes columns and other articles about copyright, DRM and related issues in intellectual property.

As a longtime fan of science fiction, the novel itself was a great read and I would certainly recommend it. It is also the kind of science fiction that I would feel comfortable recommending to others that may not normally enjoy the genre. It is set on Earth with technologies like 3D printers (which already exist, actually) and really interesting if slightly scary biotechnology. It is also something of an argument for what might be called “maker” or hacker culture. You should simply be able to take technology you have in your hands and rework it to do other things. If you’re not sure if the book is for you, you can read it online for free directly from Doctorow’s website. And yes, it is available in FIFTEEN different formats including PDF and plain text. Any computer or device connected to the Internet should be able to read at least one version of the novel.

Seth Godin, the business author/blogger, meanwhile has adopted a very different approach for his new book Linchpin. The offers is now closed but if you donated $30 US to the Acumen fund, you could get a review copy of his latest book, Linchpin in January. I generally find his books and blog to be interesting and I am curious to see how this plays out. The idea in this case is to abandon the concept of there being certain reviewers or editors that have to be courted but rather opening it up to everybody. The philanthropic aspect of the project is also quite appealing. Donating to an organization and getting a book to review is not a combination I’ve seen before and so far, I like the idea! If I like the book, then I’ll do a review here in February.

Unlike other business authors, I appreciate the fact that Seth Godin makes an effort to see how his ideas could apply to other contexts such as charities and non-profits. He is also extremely good at giving presentations. He has given two talks at the TED conference (both under 20 minutes long) that are well worth a look; the tribes we lead and standing out. I found both interesting but the book Tribes and the related ideas likely have a wider audience. The standing out video is more about marketing and communicating ideas but that applies in many contexts as well. Godin does not provide step by step instructions or anything like that, but he does have plenty of ideas to get you thinking.

Canadians use the Internet a lot, eh

I’m fascinated by social science research, market research and how people work, think and everything else.  However, you can only browse the Statistics Canada website so many times before you want to find something else.  For those keeping score at home, Canadians use the Internet intensively. In 2007, Toronto had the most Facebook users of any city in the world; 10% of the city’s population used the website. A new study reported in the SLAW blog has found that not only do Canadians use Internet search engines far more intensively than Americans and, “YouTube, Google’s video streaming site, is more popular in Canada than in any other country.” Very interesting. This is a bit of a wonder actually considering that Canadian Internet access is nothing to brag about according to an OECD study on the issue. As reported by the CBC, Canada is lagging behind many other countries including South Korea and Denmark on many measures such as price, Internet access speeds and so forth.

Most of the best, cutting edge recent on Canadian Internet usage appears to come from companies such as comScore and Google. They are a good source of some basic information on usage but it does tend to be tilted toward the needs of advertisers. What I want to see is a Canadian equivalent or branch of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project which regularly publishes original and very interesting research.

Thinking about Chris Anderson’s book FREE

Over the past week, I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Chris Anderson’s recent book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Anderson is something of a guru on Internet issues as he works as Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine and has previously authored a book on the impact of the Internet on business models (The Long Tail). Most of the ideas in FREE concern business again, but there are some interesting ideas here. In short, Anderson argues that the Free (especially important in the digital environment) is ever more important since the cost of Internet infrastructure (processing, storage and broadband) declines rapidly. In keeping with the spirit of the book, I downloaded one of the many different free versions that have been provided (an unabridged audiobook available in the iTunes Music Store) which I would recommend. One quirk at play here is that the free text versions of the book are mostly limited to US-based users, but the iTunes Audio version (and the downloadable MP3 version) do not have such geographical restrictions.

These musings on free and the many interesting examples Anderson raises (the Chinese and Brazilian examples he discusses are new and very thought provoking) has some important applications to librarianship. One common though misinformed view of libraries and related services is that they are not necessary since “everything on the Internet is free.” Factually, that is still false; the free Web lacks many important materials, journals and other materials that you may need. However, for the sake of argument, let’s grant the claim. According to Anderson’s argument, this abundance creates a scarcity elsewhere. What does that mean? Well, what about the time needed to find what you want? What about determining how an article, dataset or the like applies? Free can look like a threat but one need only to think of Anderson’s observation – “Every abundance creates a new scarcity” – to think through the problem.

Google vs Bing – An Assessment

As an information professional, I view staying up to date on search methods and how people find information as critical. It is also important to remember that asking a librarian or visiting a library (either online or in person) typically ranks low in the list of place people go for information. From what I’ve found in the literature, asking friends, family or colleagues is number one ¹, with  Internet search engines come in as a strong second. The personal connection still matters a great deal, a finding that needs to be kept in mind. This post is not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to note some of the main qualities of each search engine. As usual, readers are welcome to agree, disagree or otherwise comment in the comments section .

Google Search

Originally launched at Stanford University in 1997, Google Search has become the most popular search engine on the Internet. By one estimate released in the summer of 2009, Google Search is estimated to have performed about 77% of all searches in the US. Beyond search, Google offers a variety of interesting services – Google Maps, Google Scholar and Google Book Search are among my favourites.

Basic Interface: Simple and Spartan, Google Search has few options. After entering some text, one can choose “Google Search” or “I’m Feeling Lucky.” As far as I know, nobody uses the “I’m Feeling Lucky” option, though this playfulness does set Google apart from its competitors. As a test, I searched for my name using “I’m Feeling Lucky” and ended up at the blog which is a good result as far as I’m concerned. In the search results page, there is a very clear seperation between organic and paid search results which I notice and appreciate – I wonder if the average user does though?

Advanced Search: There are a number of good options here, but it is not as powerful and precise at search as resources like Factiva (news, mainly business focused) or Historical Abstracts (academic history articles, US and world). Useful options here include limit by file type (e.g. search only for PDFs – this is a good option if you are looking for more ‘formal’ documents, government documents and the like), Region (this should actually have “Country” since ‘region’ makes me think of provinces or states)

Evaluation: Still the best for many kinds of search and the company’s other non-search services (e.g. Maps) are very good indeed. The advanced search has some good features but leaves something to be desired.

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