OK, so I have totally neglected this blog!  Well its tough to blog, work, go to grad school, oh and be a dad, but let me try to do a better job at blogging as I think I can keep a good balance.  Well finally, as I was catching up on the blogs I read, I came across this pretty ordinary post on Techcrunch about Guy Kawaski’s new site alltop.com.  It was a less than flattering review but I figured I would check it out and who knows, maybe I could “borrow” some ideas for a grad school project right?  I found this minimalist site that had a few categories and the obvious choice was Work->Social Media.  I was presented with a long list of “social” blogs.  I scrolled to the bottom and found a jackpot!  It had an eye catching icon and name Go2Web20.net, with a list of a few names and no discernible blog entries like the other entries, so my curiosity was piqued!  Oh the JOY!  Its tagline is the “complete” Web 2.0 directory and it sure seems to live up to this tagline.  Although, it will be interesting to see if they can keep up with all the startups.  Eye catching appeal for sure with the UI.  The list has the site icons and the icons pop out as you mouse over them.  Very cool stuff!

Interesting article about the rise of the Ad Networks predicting that within the next 6 months dozens more new ad networks will be announced.  The 2nd prediction is that 95% will fail.  This is fresh off the heels of the AOL announcement that it will acquire QUIGO. 
I have seen this proliferation on Facebook as well and exacerbates that if there is a profit, business models will be changed in order to cash in on the next big thing.  Google has been extremely successful with its AdSense model and seems like many are trying to catch up.
Not quite Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the WWW but I think we all have to sacrifice somewhat to get the rich content delivered to us.
I guess for me, as long as its not a pop-up or very intrusive, I can ignore that, and I am willing to put up with a Google model somewhat as long as the core functionality isn’t broken for the purpose of selling ads.  If the dark cold day comes that I search on Google for information and all I receive are ads, it will be a sad day indeed for all of us.  I mean, innovation comes sometimes with a price tag, but that certainly isn’t in the spirit of collaboration that TBL had.

In the NYT Article  “What I Meant to Say was Semantic Web“, Markoff discusses how “Web 3.0″ or the semantic web companies are cropping up in the Silicon Valley.  The semantic web can best be described by Markoff as “technology to make using the Internet better by understanding the meaning of what people are doing, not just the way pages link to each other.”

The article discusses a demonstration of TWINE at the Web 2.0 Conference this week. I signed up for the beta but have to wait until the 29th of October to discover if I’m accepted or not.  After reading the entire article I thought of Tim Berners-Lee vision for the web and this is actually technology using the W3 Consortiums RDF (Resource Description Format) to organize data.

The technology also reminded me of the MyLifeBits segment, in which we all upload photos, emails, spreadsheets, and so on, however, now we can collaborate with our colleagues and friends over this data.  So, does anyone see that this computing will be the accepted way of collaborating with our colleages, vendors, and customers?  If so, what is  your best guess at the adoption rate?  I submit that this is on the 5 year radar and that business will not necessarily shift their way of conducting business so rapidly.  I think businesses are still struglling with acceptable use of blogs, wikis, and tagging and how these methods fit into their corporate strategy.

This past Monday, our guest speaker was Bob Firth of Informing Design, discussing his views on improving the mass transit system here in Pittsburgh.  Firth was able to divide the city of Pittsburgh into 5 distinct zones and color code these zones.  This is no small task as the City of Pittsburgh is a huge engineering design nightmare, with the confluence of the 3 rivers posing many challenges.  The color code designs leading you to major landmarks and cities seems simple enough and can make life really easy.  Lord knows, I get lost enough with our current “belt” system.   I welcome the change and at the same time still feel a compelling desire to stick with my Mapquest, Google Earth, and of course a trusty GPS device, and I’m pretty lazy.   That is unfortunately the major barrier to widespread acceptance, however, I did find Mr. Firth’s lecture exciting and certainly a welcome change to the current system.  It does cause one much stress and pain when taking a bus or a trolley when one is unfamiliar with the procedures and the stops.  Does anyone feel that there will be a widespread acceptance to the wayfinding system?

Ok, so I’m a little behind in capturing my whole “grad school” experience, but eh, here we go anyway. So, Aug 26th, I’m standing in line at the book store and getting my ID card and I was hit with the realization that 20 years earlier, I was a freshman at IUP! YES, 20 years ago I was standing in line, with the same nervous, excited, anticipation as the other 18somethings preparing to purchase books and other school supplies. On October 6, it is my 20 year High School reunion and I can’t believe how fast time has just screamed by. So , 20 years ago, I started studying business and now I’m studying my passion, Information Science. It is going to be a challenge with a family, a full time job, and school, but I’m excited. Twenty years ago, my priorities were, lets just say revolving around social activities, and now it is all about studying! I look forward to this challenge and it will be fun to go back and read about my journey online. Hang on! Here I go!!

Hello all! This will blog will track my experience as a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. I’ll post more later. Enjoy!