I just finished my talk at Mashed Library 2009 – an event for librarians wanting to mash and mix their data. My talk was almost definitely a bit overwhelming, judging by the backchannel, so I thought I’d bang out a quick blog post to try and help those I managed to confuse. My talk was … Read more
Watching Google’s amazing “what is a browser” video (below) it is easy (and I can almost hear the geeks laughing) to assume that these are just stupid people on a bad day. I mean, what the hell is wrong with them? “My browser is Google”? WTF? The thing is, these aren’t stupid people. They’re just … Read more
It’s been interesting watching the response to whatever 2.0 is as the whatever it was has matured into whatever it is now. …I should probably rephrase that… The social web has changed as it crawled its way through those painful teen years of greasy skin, piercings, “you just don’t understand me” and shouting at its … Read more
* An open letter to whoever it may concern at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport * Dear Sir/Madam My attention was drawn recently to a Freedom of Information request which was made to you regarding museum web statistics. The request was made by an ex-colleage and friend of mine, Frankie Roberto, who used … Read more
The concept and importance of museum-based API’s are notions that I’ve written about consistently (boringly, probably) both on this blog and elsewhere on the web. Programmatic and open access to data is – IMO – absolutely key to ensuring the long-term success of online collections. Many conversations have been going on about how to make … Read more
I’m just back from Torquay where I’d been asked to speak at the 32nd annual UKSG conference. I first came across UKSG more than a year ago when they asked me to speak at a London workshop they were hosting. Back then, I did a general overview of API’s from a non-technical perspective. This time … Read more
There’s been a fair bit of buzz around the launch of the NMOLP (National Museums Online Learning Project) – now apparently renamed as “Creative Spaces” for launch. I’ve known about this project for a long while – when I was at the Science Museum, very initial discussions were taking place at the V&A about how … Read more
I was at the Hague during the latter part of last week, doing a keynote at CATCH // Museum 2.0. The organisers had seen me talking at “Kom je ook?” and asked me to go over again. This talk – “Why the Social Web is here to stay (and what to do about it)” is … Read more
This is just going to be a quickie, mainly so I get it out before I go away on holiday never to remember it again. At some point I might expand on it. Over the last few weeks in particular, we’ve seen the public finally sitting up and noticing Twitter. It’s been on the BBC, … Read more
Following the barcamp (BathCamp) that we ran last year, I was looking for a way of maintaining some momentum around the local tech scene, and decided to put together a monthly evening meetup. The first of these was on Wednesday 4th Feb. Talking at the event were two pretty well known people from the web … Read more