Search the web for global development topics

March 29, 2008

If you want to find decent information about development aid, Focuss.info is a good source to start from. Basically, it works with a customized Google search, which allows you to search only certain websites — in this case, within many websites relevant to development aid. Focuss.info, an initiative by the Overseas Development Institute ISS institute and in particular Richard Lalleman, goes one step further indexing websites from a community of social bookmarkers. So, through my del.icio.us account, I can contribute to the search easily with my bookmarks. Through a RSS feed, all of these bookmarks are added to the search engine.

The other day I got an email from Richard, telling me I was the social bookmarker of the month. Many thanks! To me, social bookmarking is one of the key tools of the participative web, which gives me valuable information. So, if you also share bookmarks and are interested in topics related to development, you should join this community. Send an email to: info(dot)focuss(at)gmail(dot)com.

And to conclude, for more information about the web2fordev conference, Arne Wunder and Paul Matthews gave a presentation about the evolutionary history of focuss.info.

Contribute to the combined ICT4D news feed

March 5, 2008

RSSOne great way for information hunting feeds, is to grasp whatever is out there on the web concerning one topic. This way, you can get news, discussions and great links right on your desktop. But what about filtering them in order to get the best out of the mass? Especially, in the Information and communication technology field (ICT4D), I find there is lack of combined effort to share information. I know of many people working in the ICT4D, who directly or indirectly share links and news, so I thought, why don’t we combine the efforts into one feed. There are many exceptions such as Ismael Peña-López, whose resources and blog posts are greatly helpful.

Therefore, I would like to initiate, together with you, a common effort to get an ultimate ICT4D feed, which combines all interesting ICT4D resources. There are amazing tools (e.g. yahoo pipes, dapper, aiderss) out there to make the search for information so much easier, as well as great people writing free tutorials about it. The open and jointly collection of feeds could be the first step to build a ICT4D news ticker. The second step could be to filter the feed, so it brings the most interesting stories (e.g. most discussed) or links out.

I make a start here offering my OPML file, which is a list of 40 feeds, which can be imported in any feedreader. Marshall Kirkpatrick has a nice post on how (and why) to create an OPML file.

ICT4Dfeed

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You can also subscribe directly to the main feed that contains a lot of resources (40 feeds), and which is a combination of my ICT4D feeds. It already erases duplications.

pipes.pngPlease let me know if you have any suggestions to filter the feed or want to work on it with me in yahoo pipes. I will further develop the feed in the next weeks and report about the progress. Please contribute to the feed by either sending links or commenting on interesting websites or feeds. You can also tag your links in Delicious or Technorati ICT4D and it will be automatically included. I will always update the opml file (all available feeds).

Thank you very much in advance!

First learning experiences:

  1. To filter better ICT4D related content it would be helpful to have a list of key words for ICT4D such as “digital divide”. Do you know of any other words? If so, please comment or send them to me.
  2. For example apc.org has no RSS, but with dapper.net, I could build a feed.

UPDATE (03/11/2008)

  • There are currently ten subscribers to the feed. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Ella Roman I got some more interesting feeds.
  • It seems that the feed is growing by size and entries, so I try to filter not relevant stuff out. For example the key word “digital divide” also shows entries from European cases.  But is this interesting in the ICT4Dfeed?
  • One way to filter is to subscribe only to a category of a blog.  For example next billion for example has the category “Telecommunications and IT or Ethan Zuckerman has one on ICT4D.
  • I added the respective source where the link is from e.g. Delicious, blog search, blog posts, ICT4D organization, media and ICT4D community.

ICT4Dfeed


When is the collaborative mobile web coming?

February 12, 2008

In Phnom Penh, as everywhere else, the mobile phone is a must have accessory for the youth, and when they get together, they enjoy bluetoothing; or so Thomas Wanhoff told me during my stay in Cambodia. This basically means that they share ringtones, images, videos and games through their mobile phones. The other day I read that last year a quarter of Internet traffic was over the mobile phone. I myself use my mobile to access the web more and more, but I am still not completely satisfied since I do not get to interact easily enough through the social web. However, the iphone has really changed something in that regard.

And so, I wonder how the mobile web and, particularly the collaborative web, will develop? And will it work? By this I mean that I can interact with all sorts of tools via my mobile phone — edit a wiki, build a mashup, writing a blog post, and finally network more effectively. It is clear that the mobile will sooner or later bypass the personal computer by Internet usage. In developing countries the mobile phone is even more important because it will be the decisive tool to access the web as Joel Selanikio points out:

If I had told you ten years ago that by the end of 2007 there would be an international network of wirelessly-connected computers throughout the developing world, you might well have said it wasn’t possible. I am talking, of course, about the mobile phone network.

But, where are the applications and easy ways to do that on the mobile phone? One example are RSS feeds, which can be quickly delivered to mobile phones as Ndesanjo Macha described in a podcast how he accesses via his mobile phone blogs. Lighweight rss feeds are perfect for the slow GPRS connection. 

Most famous is of course Howard Rheingold’s book smartmobs.com. Already some years ago Rheingold described how deep the impact of the mobile web is for youngsters, who play role games in real time, and the game board is the streets of the city. One phenomena were the flashmobs, where a critical mass of people suddenly showed up somewhere to protest or party. Mobile citizen reporter is another interesting outcome but often it is limited to an uploaded photo.

In the field of mobile learning a lot has been discussed. As Teemu Arina points out nicely in a video interview about the future of learning.

Some years ago, Finland was very strong in the mobile side and people where laughing at the idea of mobile learning. But I think it’s coming. I think it’s integrating with the informal learning space, because being mobile means that the context is around you.  

There are still many limitation to the phone: the screen, keyboard, connection. However this is just a matter of time, and recent devices already make a difference. I wonder why  so little has been developed in order to interact and collaborate via the mobile phone in the social web.

Mobile social networks such as MXit in South Africa show the potential. I imagine some people will find it frightening to be always online, but it can also have a lot of advantages to have available Internet access everywhere. However, for developing countries it will make a huge difference to fully be able to participate in the social web because mobile phones are the future. I am sure I missed a lot of things happening. Please drop me a line if you know of interesting examples.

web2fordev conference impressions (2)

September 30, 2007

Complexity
Another key lesson was the big question of ‘how to best combine all these web2.0 tools to obtain better results.’ Everybody is still experimenting –this might be what web2.0 is all about. Nevertheless, I understood the importance of taking a holistic approach and use a combination of blogs according to the objective. So, flickr nynkekruiderinkexperimenting still needs a strategic approach; in that way users do not fear an information overload. Blogs, for example, can be used for knowledge sharing, but then they may need to be very different when used for a campaign. And how are wikis and blogs linked to preserve transparency? I did not hear about strategies for best combining all the tools using available data and rss feeds. How do I offer all these channels for collaboration and still filter what is important to me? This has to be overcome to prove the benefit and not just use the technology for the sake of it.

I had the feeling everybody shared an enthusiasm for the potential that development can have, but I also only saw a few clear structured projects. A complete contrast to that was Damir Simunic, who talked about Collaboration on the Edge of Network. He basically argued that web2.0 is still too far away from broad usage by presenting a tool relying solely on emails, which has enough capabilities. Even though I find email is often an information overload application, Damir gave an interesting example: at the WHO, a 20.000 people network manages over easy mailing lists and easy features, proving traditional ways can be successful, especially in developing countries.

Networks
Dan McQuillan wrote a powerful wake up post and summarized very good the strategic questions about ‘dealing now with the available possibilities through web2.0.’ To me, it seems the power of web2.0 has been shared by most participants, but what could be done with it now and how to engage it was still unclear. In my panel, I asked therefore, whether organizations are open to sharing, willing to network and engage in such a participative manner. The conference showed how web2.0 brings an unusual mixture of individuals (e.g. activists), organizations, media and companies together. It needs a change in culture towards more openness and trust, which is not always easy –after all, who wants to or can accept that his or her wiki text has suddenly changed?
Collaboration through web2.0 is happening between a diversified landscape of these actors, and I wonder what will be the outcome of that. I liked the way Dan quotes Charles Leadbeater on ‘low-cost, self-organising networks will innovate all kinds of needed solutions.’ I hope that this innovation will be open source driven.

Content
Interestingly, there were few discussions about content. What is the type of content that will be delivered, shared and remixed through web2.0? What kind of content is there and how can it be virtually exchanged in a rather oral culture? Moses Kisembo and Jon Corbett summarized it nicely in a discussion we had. What helps all these new forms of information and technology when one does not know how to use them, and then it does not have any benefit, e.g. for a farmer? The question of relevance of all this user generated content was rarely discussed. Ethan Zuckermann emphasized in his presentation how important filters in this regard are. How to filter the information or voices to a meaningful size to find all that that is important to me. Aggregators can help, and so do social bookmarking sites, which show evaluated ranked webistes. More important are however, people, who sort, comment and translate content and make sense and relevance in the growing sea of information.

However, I imagine too that feeds and tagging can help. And as fast as the web developed, more things are coming up such as rss manipulation. That means, you drag data from different sources and with the sum of it, you make something better. And that is also what Michael Saunby’s presentation showed. With a mix of rss and data, manipulation fascinating new geographical information can be generated. These mashups can be mixed with all kind of freely available information sources, and as with Michael Saunby’s case, allow individual climate change analysis.


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