New Myspace: better all-in-one for social music playing and discovery
"Facebook may have won the social networking war, but Myspace is moving to a different battlefield under its new owner Specific Media, which acquired the site from News Corporation in June 2011.
After a period spent rebuilding Myspace from the ground up, the company published a teaser video on Vimeo in September - unveiled via tweet by co-investor Justin Timberlake - showing off a radically different design and an emphasis on music. ...
'The promise of discovery and sharing new, good music was never really fulfilled by other services out there,' says Tim. 'It's an unfulfilled promise that nobody ever really executed on.'
The new Myspace continues to compete with Facebook in some respects: artists create profiles on the site and post updates and content for their fans to watch, listen and share. But actually, its real competition is streaming music services like Spotify and Deezer."
(Stuart Dredge, 16 November 2012, The Guardian)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
CAGD: in-house bespoke course management and e-portfolio tool
"The CAGD website was started in 2004, as a repository for research material from students on the BA Hons Contemporary Art Practices course (then BA Hons Contemporary Creative Practices), at Leeds Metropolitan University. It became apparently quite quickly though, that the tools that we'd developed would be useful for a lot more than simply collating material, and as more courses were included into the system it has grown to become a fully-functioning online e-portfolio, course management, social network, reflective journal and collaborative space, with (to date) more than 350,000 pieces of work and research and 1,000 active daily users."
(Graham Hibbert, 19 January 2012)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Joanna Shields leaves Facebook to join UK's Tech City
"Facebook's European boss Joanna Shields is to leave the social network to lead the UK government's investment group for technology start-ups.
The Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) supports firms based near the Silicon Roundabout area of east London.
Ms Shields will replace current head Eric Van Der Kleij in January 2013.
'Joanna's experience will be hugely valuable in supporting Tech City as it goes from strength to strength,' Prime Minister David Cameron said.
'The success of Tech City shows just what can happen when we back some of our most innovative and aspiring companies to grow, helping the UK compete and thrive in the global race.'
Ms Shields has been Facebook's vice-president and managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa since 2010.
Prior to that she worked at Google and teenage-focused social network Bebo."
(Dave Lee, 22 October 2012, BBC News)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
ELGG: Open Source Social Networking Engine
"Elgg is an award-winning open source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments, from a campus wide social network for your university, school or college or an internal collaborative platform for your organization through to a brand-building communications tool for your company and its clients."
(Elgg Foundation)
["Elgg" and the Elgg logo are registered trademarks of Curverider Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thematic Networks Limited.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Stephen Downes: the use of online media and services in education
"Stephen Downes is a senior researcher for Canada's National Research Council and a leading proponent of the use of online media and services in education. As the author of the widely-read OLDaily online newsletter, Downes has earned international recognition for his leading-edge work in the field of online learning. He developed some of Canada's first online courses at Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Manitoba. He also built a learning management system from scratch and authored the now-classic 'The Future of Online Learning'.
At the University of Alberta he built a learning and research portal for the municipal sector in that province, Munimall, and another for the Engineering and Geology sector, PEGGAsus. He also pioneered the development of learning objects and was one of the first adopters and developers of RSS content syndication in education. Downes introduced the concept of e-learning 2.0 and with George Siemens developed and defined the concept of Connectivism, using the social network approach to deliver open online courses to three thousand participants over two years."
(Stephen Downes)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
