Sifry: The State of the Blogosphere

Just found an excellent resource information on the state of the blogosphere. Sifry's State of the Live Web has data from October 2004 through April 2007. Lots of visuals for are provided and are freely available for use under a Creative Commons license. Users are asked to keep Technorati logos and links when charts and data are shared. Sifry's most up-to-date portrayal on growth of weblogs is as follows:

• 70 million weblogs
• About 120,000 new weblogs each day, or...
• 1.4 new blogs every second
• 3000-7000 new splogs (fake, or spam blogs) created every day
• Peak of 11,000 splogs per day last December
• 1.5 million posts per day, or...
• 17 posts per second
• Growing from 35 to 75 million blogs took 320 days
• 22 blogs among the top 100 blogs among the top 100 sources linked to in Q4 2006 - up from 12 in the prior quarter
• Japanese the #1 blogging language at 37%
• English second at 33%
• Chinese third at 8%
• Italian fourth at 3%
• Farsi a newcomer in the top 10 at 1%
• English the most even in postings around-the-clock
• Tracking 230 million posts with tags or categories
• 35% of all February 2007 posts used tags
• 2.5 million blogs posted at least one tagged post in February

I started this blog because I wondered, Where were the women bloggers?", but now as I learn more about social networking and blogging I wonder, where was I when people started blogging? While my adult children were telling me about MySpace and Facebook I was dismissing what they told me because when I did look at these social networking sites I saw much of it as juvenile, bawdy, and in poor taste. The sites did not hold my interest. What I did not know until I began to research women bloggers and blogging sites in general was just how informative and learning focused well-done blogs could be. While there is the not-so-good and seamy content, there is a wealth of well-done, well written, and education friendly writing going on about the topics I am interested in.

Who knew? Well it appears that since 2004 through 2006, a whole lot of people blogging knew.

Webheadsinaction.org; Global Webcastathon

Just received an email invitation to this happening. It's free, easy to register, great venue, and looks like it will be fun as well as educational. I registered to attend and will take in as much as I can when I can at the WIAOC 2007 WORLDBRIDGES WEBCASTATHON - MAY 17-MAY 20. The information below is copy/paste from my invitation.

Posts that contain Webcastathon per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

"Begins at 2200 GMT and wraps up at EdTechTalk 75 hours later.In between, there are 47 planned sessions, including keynote presentations by Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Etienne Wenger, Robin Good, Barbara Ganley, Teemu Leinonen, & Leigh Blackall. This is also likely to be an unprecedented unconferency very global gathering of educators and technologists who like to play with collaborative social media tools ... shouldbe fun. So, stop by when you can to check out some sessions and/or hang out in the virtual hallways. You can tune in from any Worldbridges site, but the real action will be at [http://webheadsinaction.org/].
A presentation schedule is at:
[http://www.webheadsinaction.org/wiaoc2007/Presentations]We will also try to bridge to a teleconference when possible. 1-712-451-6100, Access Code: 999374#"

The conference hasn't started yet, but there are lots of places to poke around, things to read, links to resources, and tutorials. This looks like a winning combination of people, places, and things!

Using Notebook PCs to Breathe Life into Presentations

Just finished a quick, two-page read in a Campus Technology article titled Beyond PowerPoint: Building a New Classroom Presenter. Provides an overview of how presentation techniques impact faculty teaching, from blackboard and chalk to electronic presentation software like today's Powerpoint. The article goes on to discuss how use of slide presentations have "sucked the life" out of lectures and emphasizes the importance of adjusting presentation materials to audience reactions and allowing for on-the-fly additions to materials during the presentation.

Details on how use of a tablet PC allows lecturer to add personalized notes and use of product called Classroom Presenter that can be used in real time and in online courses is provided. Includes information on how Classroom Presenter can be used with One Note and how it supports student interactions and additions to notetaking process in the classroom. Just got an IBM tablet PC through work, albeit without a pen [still trying to figure that out!].Once I get a pen plant to integrate use of the table feature and One Note into my work.

Also found an online resource that encourages people to Just Say No to Microsoft with some good information on presentation software such as Keynote (for Macs) and Astound which I used in the mid 90s and loved, but forgot about once Microsoft Office Suite was adopted in my workplace. This site and the information it contains is worth a visit. Not suggesting we all mutiny and quit using Microsoft, but am suggesting that there may be other presentation products out there that are worth a look-see. Keynote creates very sophisticated and beautiful presentations.