Just added my Twitter account to Flickr2Twitter

Flickr2Twitter

Originally uploaded by Ines Mergel.

 

Open Government: IT Spending Dashboard launched by the US federal government today

IT Dashboard

Originally uploaded by Ines Mergel.

Today, Vivek Kundra announced the launch of the IT Spending Dashboard to track federal spending on IT projects across departments.  It will be interesting to see if this will also trigger interventions in the way that the federal government spends money. Moreover, it might have the potential to change the way the federal government is organizing procurement.

Besides keeping track of contractors, government might also need to think about redesigning and redefining the internal specification process before the actual spending starts.

And here is a YouTube video with an introduction and overview of the functionalities:

 

New article: Co-Citation of Prominent Social Network Articles in Sociology Journals: The Evolving Can, by Lazer, Mergel, Friedman

Connections_LazerMergelFriedman_2009

Originally uploaded by Ines Mergel.

Our paper “Co-Citation of Prominent Social Network Articles: The Evolving Can” was published by Connections in their current issue. You can download a copy from my publications page at Maxwell.

Abstract:

Social network analysis has been a particularly hot area across the social (and some non-social) sciences. How has this growth, in turn, affected the field of social network analysis within sociology, the discipline which has served as the primary home of social network analysis over the last several decades? In order to answer this question, we examined the citation patterns of the social network papers in the two leading general sociology journals, the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology, from 1990-2005, focusing on the body of literature that was cited by at least two social network papers in a given year. We produced two network snapshots of the social network canon during this period. These analyses reveal a combination of great change and substantial continuity. There was a substantial increase in interest in social networks in sociology throughout this period, and, in particular, an enormous rise in interest in small world issues, coupled with the abrupt entry of mathematicians and physicists into the sociology social network canon. However, during this entire period Granovetter’s work remained squarely at the center of the canon, with Granovetter (1973) as the most cited piece at both the earlier and later snapshots.

 

Twitter Whitehouse account updates Obama’s message in Farsi

Twitter Whitehouse in Farsi

Originally uploaded by Ines Mergel.

President Obama talked about the protesters in Iran this week. The Whitehouse Twitter account was subsequently updated in Farsi.

Similarly his YouTube address was published with Farsi subtitles:

 

A new “Twitter Revolution”? Is social media helping or hurting the protesters in Iran?

FB_Mussavi_PRESIDENT2

Originally uploaded by Ines Mergel.

In the aftermath of the Iran elections, social media tools have played a signicant role in publishing citizens’ stories and pictures on tools such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Mashable has posted a great overview of the number of posts published on blogs and micro-blogging tools that made it through the Internet blockage imposed by the Iranian government.

While it is not clear yet if Twitter really played an absolutely integral role and the traditional media channels didn’t play a role at all(see the Washington Post’s article on “Reading Twitter in Tehran: Sorry, but real revolutions exceed 140 characters” or the BusinessWeek “Iran’s Twitter Revolution maybe not yet“), the following picture shows a Facebook page Musavi’s supporters have set up for him. They label him here as the current “President” of Iran and I am wondering if this might hurt him more than it might actually help his cause.

See the post of the Institute on Ethics and Emerging Technologies on the dark side of Twitter in Iran.

Without any attribution or a source, I heard on Twitter that citizens should take out the batteries from their cellphones after they publish their messages and videos to social networking sites, so that the government won’t be able to geotrack them.

 

Towards Living Intelligence – YouTube video

 

My Facebook Vanity URL

 

Government 2.0 in action: Redesigned Utah.gov portal

The Utah.gov state portal was redesigned this week and has now a lot of interesting Web 2.0 features, such as direct connections using social media tools (Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, different mobile applications and RSS feeds). Besides the traditional functions of a portal, Utah has extended their online presence by geolocation services.  The new administration’s open government and transparency paradigm seems to be accomplished as well: online government data is provided (data tab), tracking of taxpayers’ money (transparency tab), support of citizen participation (public meetings tab), support innovation (innovation), and a lot more:

Update: YouTube video with explanations of the functionalities:

 

Treasure hunt on Twitter: Rejected man hides engagement ring, posts clues on Twitter

Another surprising use of social media: A man in New Zealand hid the engagement ring his former girlfriend didn’t accept and posted 14 clues on Twitter for people to find it:

 

Government 2.0: Obama’s speech live on Facebook & Twitter (not on TV)

Obama’s Kairo speech today addressed very openly all topics the middle east (and for that matter the whole world) is dealing with. It was broadcasted live only on Facebook with a constant flow of comments by Facebook users right next to the video. I had Twitter open in Tweetie right next to it and watched the @whitehouse messages flowing in at the same time. The audio and video quality was excellent – no static, no delay:

Obama's speech live on Facebook and Twitter