Online Communities – presentation to primary school community

I recently presented to my local school on online communities and the implications for our children.  This was prompted by my desire to share some of my own experiences with social networks with other parents who may be curious yet somewhat inexperienced in this area.  Particularly with our children having greater access and in many cases greater abilities than our own in navigating through and communicating with others on these networks.

I’ve embedded the presentation below: 

Did Facebook bring about legal and cultural change in Sydney this week?

In an earlier post I questioned the value of Facebook. Well it seems the social networking tool may have had a hand in changing the liquor laws in Sydney Apparently thousands of Facebook activists…bombarded politicians with “e-drinks” emails So there’s an application of Facebook right there – rasing awareness of an issue and causing a change to the law. It’s certainly a contentious issue as many are unhappy with the prospect of more venues serving alcohol as this response to an article from The Bulletin demonstrates. Oh, the original article is here.

The fuss about Facebook

Evening all, I’m still on the topic of social networking tonight. Now who can help me understand about the value of Facebook? I only joined a few months ago (I know, not exactly an early adopter, but I believe in work/family/life balance people!) and to be honest I haven’t really been back since. So I am researching it tonight and want to point you in the direction of an Economist article (here) – what grabbed my attention initially:

- the founder is only 23
- since May 2007 when outside programmers were invited to build “widgets” – they’ve created over 5000 of them
- estimated revenues in 2007 of $US100m (advertising-only, tiny profits)
- a Facebook conference panellist says the firm is the new Google and may be worth US$100billion (note this was met with derision by others)

Well, this is extremley interesting to say the least, and coupled with recent media reports that Australian business is losing productivity due to the addictive nature of Facebook, I will be taking a closer look at Facebook over the coming weeks.
Good night,
Tony.