The regulars close out the first calendar year of Digital Campus with a countdown of the top stories of 2007. In a year when lines formed for the iPhone, social networking went mainstream, Vista battled with Leopard (and XP), and virtual worlds beckoned, find out which stories made Mills, Tom, and Dan’s top ten list. What flew, what fizzled, and what will 2008 hold for technology at universities, libraries, and museums? We reveal the answers on our year end special.

Running time: 53:32
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On this podcast we finally put to rest the Great Facebook Controversy of 2007. We tell listeners how to turn off Facebook’s intrusive Beacon advertising system, and note LinkedIn’s attempt to capitalize on Facebook’s stumble. We also assess the importance of privacy for search engines given Ask.com‘s move to make it easier to search anonymously, and revisit the rise of the podcasting of lectures now that commercial companies are entering the market. Our featured story examines the potential educational uses of cell phones on campus and in museums and libraries, looking ahead to Google’s Android cell phone operating system and other application platforms. Our links for the week include exhibition software for museums, a great new academic blog from Stan Katz, and a simple way for libraries and museums to turn cell phones into audio tour handsets.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Omeka
Podlinez
Brainstorm: Stan Katz

Running time: 52:00
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Amazon.com‘s release of its new e-book reader the Kindle has set off a frenzy of speculation about the future of books, reading, and publishing. The Digital Campus team debates the promise and problems of the Kindle and e-book readers in general. In the news roundup we express outrage at a possible new U.S. bill that would remove funds from universities that fail to stop online piracy and at Facebook‘s new feature that allows everyone to see what you’re buying. A cranky holiday-season podcast for listeners new and old!

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Marvel Comics Archive
Vixy
phillyhistory.org
OpenCast

Running time: 44:02
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Think Google is scary with all of the information it gathers about you through your web searches? Wait until Facebook starts its advertising platform based on all of the likes and dislikes you’ve given it, and combines that with the power of Microsoft, which just bought a stake in the biggest social network on campus. We tackle privacy, anonymity, and giving away personal information in this week’s podcast. In the news roundup we celebrate the release of Apple’s new operating system upgrade, Leopard, and whether it and Ubuntu can begin to steal market share from a faltering Windows Vista.

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
New York Public Library Labs
Anthony Grafton on “Future Reading”
Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy

Running time: 51:11
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The second most frequently asked question at museums after “Where are the restrooms?” is “Where is the art?” In this episode we ask whether those artifacts belong on a museum’s website, and if so, how, as we debate the proper relationship between a museum’s virtual and physical manifestations. Our news roundup covers the opening up of Harvard’s scholarship, Berkeley’s YouTube channel, iTunesU, and two software projects that aim to improve the library catalog and the museum exhibit. We also highlight Errol Morris’s blog posts on truth in photography, a great museum blog, and a tool for converting one type of digital file to another.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Omeka
Scriblio
Harvard Crimson editorial on open access
Berkeley’s YouTube channel
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Errol Morris on two Crimean War photographs (part 1; part 2)
Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0 blog
YouConvertIt

Running time:51:35
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Is the moderated environment of email discussion lists still the best way for scholars to communicate with others in their field? Or is the time ripe to move those conversations onto blogs and less mediated and more open formats? That’s this week’s debate in the feature segment. In the roundup we cover news about greater competition for Microsoft Office and the significance of the New York Times dumping its pay-for-certain-content model. Picks of the week include a great podcast from the BBC, a blog for bizarre and interesting maps, and a way to overlay historical (and other) maps onto current ones.

Links mentioned:
The End of H-Net
In Our Time
Strange Maps
MapMixer

Running time: 51:59
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We begin the news roundup this week with a bit of embarrassing news from Dan, then dig into several stories about big media companies entering the online learning market and Google Books becoming more useful for scholarship. In our feature segment, Tom and Mills explain how they try to stay productive in a world of constant digital distractions like email and blog feeds. Helpful links this week include a terrific site for teaching through famous trials, a way to customize Google, and a dead simple online to-do list. And we remember 9/11 through our own site, the September 11 Digital Archive.

Running time: 48:34
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We continue our discussion of blogging, this time with a closer look at the challenges and difficulties of starting and maintaining a blog, attracting and keeping an audience, and making sure it doesn’t get in the way of other academic pursuits. In the news roundup, we compare the iPhone and Facebook platforms, examine two software projects that mine Wikipedia for trustworthiness, and wonder once again if anyone is home in Second Life.

Case Western Finds Few Takers in Second Life
Hackers Make the iPhone Better
WikiScanner
Wikipedia Trust Tool
Firefox Campus Edition
Museum Blogs directory
The Hawaii Nisei Story

Running time: 49:04

[Apologies for the audio quality this week. We were affected by the problems Skype has been having.]

[Update: Further technical difficulties led to a gap in the audio. Apologies again. Please update your versions.]

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Dan, Mills, and Tom celebrate the tenth edition of Digital Campus with part one in a new series on blogs and blogging. In this episode, we take a look back at how we became bloggers, examine questions of subject matter, voice, and style, and debate the risks and rewards of blogging in a scholarly context. We also report on problems posed by the iPhone for wireless network administrators, the subversive role of SMS in China, and ups and downs for humanists in Second Life. Picks of the week include Flock, a “social” web browser, the David Rumsey collection of nearly 16,000 historic maps, and the launch of plain text Google Books.

Other links include:

Professors, Start Your Blogs
The Perils of Anonymity
Finding History
L.A. Times on the true number of Second Lifers
MacArthur funds work in Second Life, from NYT
PhDinHistory’s new blog

Running time: 52:20

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What are students, researchers, and librarians supposed to do with the tremendous volume of digitized scholarly materials now available to them? We discuss the problem of information overload in this week’s feature segment. The news roundup turns into an iPhone-fest–or is it an iPhone-bashing? Dan tries not to go near an iPhone for fear of an impulse buy, while Tom and Mills debate the true value of Apple’s new gadget. Helpful tips for the week include a site for getting to know “learning 2.0,” a great new blog on museums and technology, and a digital Time Magazine archive.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Learning 2.0
Electronic Museum
Time Magazine, 1923-2007
Enable dictionary and thesaurus on Google Docs

Running time: 51:07

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