doctor Blog

You, you, you. All this consternation about TIME magazine’s pick of “You” as the person of the year! As my colleague John McQuaid pointed out, there are still plenty of non-believers out there having problems grasping the concepts and potential behind this new fangled Internet thing. Well, folks, you better get on board, and quickly. In the spirit of New Year’s predictions, I’m going to go far out on a limb and declare 2007 as the true year of “You.” Better yet, it’s when “You” graduates from toddler status. So, given that it’s the time of year for predictions, I provide you with my own informal Top 10 list of predictions `#8212; some serious, some not so much. 1. There will be at least two dozen Web sites devoted to the upcoming presidential election by the end of the year. It’s happening already, but the 2008 election cycle is shaping up to resemble the 2000 run-up, when dozens of Web sites cropped up to cover the campaign and election. The question this time around, will any of those sites have the legs to survive after Election Day? 2. One of those new Web sites `#8212; The Politico `#8212; will struggle and by year’s end, some of the talent in place now will have left. I’m hedging my bets here a bit because I’m willing to give John Harris and Jim VandeHei, former colleagues at The Washington Post, the benefit of the doubt. Still, I’m not convinced that they understand the concept behind multimedia presentation. It’s more than having your writers talk at the cameras and appear on televised news programs. How long will it take them to get that? 3. Speaking of The Post, after more than a decade of separation, the news operation there will follow the lead of the New York Times and USA Today and converge their print and Web operations by year’s end. The two operations are already headed in that direction. (Full disclosure: I worked at washingtonpost.com for 10 years.) 4. My parents will finally break down and get TiVo. 5. YouTube will continue to make news and drive news cycles. At least one (more) presidential candidate will be forced to drop out of the running because of a faux pas caught on video. Also expect more video from Iraq – with images from the ground adding fuel to the ongoing debate over the war in the U.S. 6. Journalism programs across the country will swamp the job market in search of professionals to teach this new-fangled convergence concept. Some programs are ahead of the curve, some catching up, but most now realize that the industry is changing and educators need to change their approach away from solely teaching the concepts behind the inverted pyramid. 7. My 8-year-old son will have his own blog by year’s end. 8. The left vs. right war within the blogosphere will again heat up (did it ever cool down?) as the presidential campaign cycle kicks into gear. Bloggers will find themselves in a crisis, however, as to whether to be shills for a particular candidate or continue to maintain their independence. 9. Bruce Springsteen will go back on tour. 10. And, finally, NewAssignment.Net will be a resounding success. Ok, I couldn’t pass this one up. But, based on the experiences of other groups and organizations, the philosophy behind meshing the best of professional journalists, the crowd and the blogosphere seems to be unveiling at just the right time. Well, we’ll see. In the meantime, have a Happy New Year – it’s going to be a wild one.

On the surface, Jose Rivera of East-Harlem.com and Marina Ortiz of East Harlem Preservation don’t have much in common. But they both possess a love for their hometown and desire to present a positive image of East Harlem in the face of perceived bias and neglect from the mainstream media. “I think people want to feel like the people they know matter,” said Ortiz, who grew up in East Harlem and returned to the neighborhood two years ago after spending several decades in the northwest Bronx. “That’s how I shape my Web site.” “I wanted a place where people in the community could come and see their news,” Said Rivera, a Navy veteran and lifelong New Yorker who started East Harlem.com 11 years ago. read more

While it’s surely no surprise to the tech-savvy, it bears repeating that video games are no longer just kids’ stuff. So what do more intelligent video games look like? Anyone who grew up on the trusty Apple IIc or IIGS may remember the campy but lovable Oregon Trail series of games. The goal was to shepherd an enterprising band of settlers across the mighty American West, and the result was a first-hand connection to history, as players had to cope with a range of real-world problems, from food shortages and diseases to hazardous river crossings and buffalo stampedes. Similar edutainment spin-offs included The Yukon Trail, Africa Trail and The Amazon Trail. In Activision’s venerable Civilization Call to Power (1999) and Call to Power II (2000), gamers were given the “god-like” task of creating an entire society, balancing such factors as infrastructure development and social well-being. Similarly, Maxis’ iconic “Sim” lineup presented virtual world builders with myriad challenges and possibilities, from SimCity (1989) to SimAnt (1991), SimLife (1992) and beyond. Maxis’ forthcoming Spore is widely anticipated, both for its ambitious content—in which players pilot a single species through multiple levels of evolution—and for its sophisticated backbone technology, including advanced procedural generation. Today these games are seen as educational for the player, but in a recent post, gaming expert and blogger David Edery asks if video games can be used to “effectively aggregate individual players’ actions into a form of collective intelligence.” Edery came up with the idea by realizing that 1) the wisdom of crowds often means that more heads are better than a few (and lots of brain power is directed towards video games) and 2) video games are good incentives for people to do stuff and think about problems. Given the phenomenal growth of massive multi-player online programs, from World of Warcraft to Second Life, which boast millions of users, Edery may be on to something. read more