Bungalow in Eaststoke

A bungalow in Eaststoke, Hayling Island

Views from the Crescent, Hayling Island

Views from my balcony on the Crescent on the seafront at Hayling Island. Also shots looking back at the Crescent and on the beach 200  yards away.  Sunday August 23rd 2009

Kitesurfing in Hayling Island

I am spending a few months in Hayling Island. I have a wonderful flat that overlooks the sea and I go swimming most days. It is a very interesting seascape with the Isle of Wight only a few  miles away and a variety of shipping coming in and out of Portsmouth and Southampton

Hayling is a centre for windsurfing and kitesurfing with a big
windsurfing festival taking place on Sep 5 & 6th 2009

Here is someone Kite land boarding the other day in front of the flats



Here is some shots of kitesurfers on a windy day, taken from my balcony

'Hyper-localism' and community reporting

Having been involved with People's Voice Media (previously MCIN) for a long time, and view the development of community reporters, the article in the online Guardian on hyperlocalism, is particularly interesting.

Interestingly, this is interpreted as the development of hard copy 'micro-papers', delivered to just a handful of streets and covering extremely local events. Though of course, the online version of ultra local news is a powerful optional model of the way news will go. Or maybe they are complementary, with daily news published on a blog-style daily basis, with a weekly printed version, as much local news is not time sensitive

BBC article on online communities

Internet serves as 'social glue'

The internet has played an important role in the life decisions of 60 million Americans, research shows.

Whether it be career advice, helping people through an illness or finding a new house, 45% of Americans turn to the web for help, a survey by US-based Pew Internet think-tank has found.
It set out to find out whether the web and e-mail strengthen social ties.
The answer seems to be yes, especially in times of crisis when people use it to mobilise their social networks.

New community

In the past, it has been suggested that the internet and e-mail could diminish real relationships.
But the report, entitled The Strength of Internet Ties, found that e-mail supplements rather than replaces offline communications.
"The larger, the more far-flung, and the more diverse a person's network, the more important e-mail is," said Jeffrey Boase, one of the report's authors.

TURNING TO THE NET

• 21 million Americans use it to get additional career training
• Helps 17 million when dealing with major illness
• 17 million use it for choosing a school for a child
• 16 million use it to buy a car
• 16 million use it for a major financial decision
• 10 million use it for finding new place to live
• 8 million use it when changing job
• 7 million use it to cope with family illness

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

"You can't make phone calls or personal visits to all your friends very often, but you can 'cc' them regularly with a couple of keystrokes. That turns out to be very important," he said.
The old cliché that times of crisis reveal who your real friends are seems to hold as true in cyberspace as it does in the offline world.

"When you need help these days, you don't need a bugle to call the cavalry, you need a big buddy list," said John Horrigan, associate director for research at the Pew Internet Project.
The internet is providing Americans with a path to resources, whether it be dealing with family crises or finding a new job.

The reliance and accessibility of the web is creating a new social phenomenon according to sociologist Barry Wellman.

Co-author of the report, he identifies what he terms as the rise of networked individualism - where users of modern technology are less tied to local groups and increasingly part of more geographically scattered networks.

"This creates a new basis for community. Rather than relying on a single community for social support, individuals often actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for different situations," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/4644666.stm

Published: 2006/01/26 08:02:03

Pew report on Bloggin (Jan 2005)

The State of Blogging

2nd Jan 2005 , Lee Rainie

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.

View PDF of Report

On VOIP and Skype

I've just begun to use Skype. It is the VOIP (Voice over the Internet Protocol) software company that was recently taken over by E-bay. See Wikipedia for a definition of VOIP. It is basically a system that allows you to have PGC to PC telephone calls with other Skype users across the Internet, for no cost

Skype seems to becoming the market leader in VOIP, largely because it has achieved a critical mass and now has the weight of E-bay behind it, but other companies are fighting for the market. Google have launched Google Talk. Microsoft seems slow to enter the market, but are planning to do so.

Anyway, I got round to trying out Skype when my son who is working in London wanted to save on his phone calls. Setting up the software was very easy and since then we have been using Skype regularly. More recently I have found that you can use a webcam with it too. You just need to download and install a plug in from Dialcom called Spontania at http://www.video4im.com/

Again very easy to install. I fond an old webcam I hadn't used for ages. What held me up was finding software on the web for that, as I had lost the original CD software. So now I have the whole thing working. If any of you doing sociology of cyberspace want to try contacting me, ny Skype address is BTLeach

I have only got it working at hme at the moment, but will try it at work soon. One of my colleagues informs me that American friends of hers sometimes have to be available for conference calls at their universities if they are working from home. Not so sure about that, but good if all someone is just coming in for is one meeting which instead they could happily engage with from home

Bernard