No. It’s a new way of communicating. Any time, any where. Sharing photos, videos, links, thoughts. I think it would be ignorant to say it’s just “hype”.
And 96% of Generation Y has joined a social network!
So do you think social media is just hype, or is it the biggest movement since the industrial revolution? Watch this video by Phil Guest below.
Whether you’re a student, designer, developer or user, this is a chance to influence Canada’s national digital media action plan. Be part of the discussion to ensure Canada can not only compete, but also lead the world, in today’s new digital economy.
OCAD President Sara Diamond will also be at the event. My Interview with her is now in OCAD’s student newspaper, Cadmium, for the April issue where you can learn more about digital futures in education.
Learn more about the event at www.canada30.ca. Register to volunteer, so you can come free of charge, via email to lpowers@opentext.com. Deadline for applications is 03.07.2010.
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
JESS3 designed and animated this for the JESS3 lecture at AIGA Baltimore in Feb 2010.
The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has finally launched a website – well, blog, I guess. It’s kind of its own unique thing.
When I was younger I would Google Bill Gates, to learn about his wealth, innovation and personal innitiatives. But the information was always so limited (other than news and a simple profile page on Microsoft.com). I thought it was so crazy that a guy who built up the computer industry and spent years developing for the Internet, didn’t even have his own domain name registered – I would go to BillGates.com and be so confused that nothing was there. Of all people, I thought, he should have a website. At that point I completely forgot about it and gave up.
Recently, Gates joined Twitter and re-joined Facebook. Within only 8 hours of him joining Twitter, he had 100,000 followers! Record-breaking.
Then, one day last week, I see this: Welcome to the Gates Notes:
Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.
Gates finally decided to put his thoughts out there, online, with a bit more time.
I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.
Based on the way some things are worded on the site, though, I’d say he had a dedicated team of staff putting everything together. Why wouldn’t you, when you have billions?
The website encompasses a varity of things, like his travels, conversations, questions, etc. Design-wise, there’s even colour and logo branded-sections:
And it’s quite nice, design-wise. There’s an interesting interface, in terms of the site’s navigation. It’s colour-coated and each section moves depending on what you mouse-over.
It will be interesting to see how well Mr. Gates keeps the site updated. Of course he’s a really busy guy. But it looks like they’ve put a ton of work into adding content for the launch, giving it the appearance having been active for years.
Here’s a quick video interview from CNET about his new online presence:
The Official Website of Bill Gates is found at www.thegatesnotes.com.
What were they thinking back then? Do you think they ever thought that in the future, people would tweet what they’re having for breakfast, and upload pictures of it to Facebook – and that, here it comes: other people would make comments?! Interesting graphic below, which I didn’t make (credit to whoever did, let me know!):
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
