Technology Lifting the Veil on Iranian Protests

Western leaders have voiced concerns over the authenticity of the election held in the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 12, 2009. Their concerns are not unfounded. Several cities have reported that there were more votes than voters. The city of Taft, for example, had an improbable 140% turnout.

Immediately after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner protesters took to the street. For six days now protesters have been voicing their anger and frustration. Yesterday, in Tehran, more than one million people assembled to voice their concern and distrust for their government. On Friday the protests are expected to be even larger.

From a technological standpoint, what's really interesting about the protests in Iran is the amount of cell phone video that has made it's way to YouTube. You will find a number of amateur videos documenting what is happening at the street level. The government can control the news agency but not the people itself. That's doubleplusgood.

Are We Informavores?

That's kind of a strange question. Let's head back to the 70s for a minute to see if we can find the answers. There was a theory by anthropologists and ecologist that animals chose their food based on what it would cost them. It's the whole risk vs. reward idea. They would either stay if their was a possibility of getting food or they would choose to move on if it was too difficult.

In the 90s Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card found similarities between the way that animals chose food targets and the way that people searched for information on the internet. They were able to find humans used similar strategies to find information as animals do for foraging food. They were categorized as informavores.

Interesting theory, huh? So how does it relate to blogging, you ask. Consider that your audience is composed of information snackers or foragers. They want useful and relevant information quickly. Now consider that your blog is like a bird feeder. The bird seed your blog posts. The more you stock your blog with seed the more your audience will return to snack on your information.

Keep it simple, keep it interesting and relevant and they'll be eating out of your hand someday.

First Vodcast Using Camtasia

Hello again, everyone. I recently published my first vodcast on my Podbean account at http://jjbloodhound.podbean.com/. In this video I attempt to use my knowledge of Camtasia and Audacity to a chess video. It wasn't easy and it took much longer than I would have guessed. Other than a small production set-back towards the end the project went pretty well. Have a look and let me know what you think.

First blogging, now podcasting...

Welcome back! I just created my first podcast and published it on PodBean.com. In the podcast I explore RSS, what it's used for and setting a web-based aggregator through Google Reader. You can listen to my podcast at http://jjbloodhound.podbean.com/. Check it out!