It seems that every day the word ‘platform’ becomes more ingrained in the way we think about online tools to do good and address public problems. The ubiquity of the term may be due to its fundamental ambiguity, which it shares with other terms like ‘sustainability’ and ‘participation.’ In an incisive article on the subject […]
Social Media in Urban Planning
On Monday I participated in a presentation on Social Media in Planning at the American Planning Association’s annual convention in New Orleans. At the session, my co-presenters and I discussed example projects spanning community-based planning, transportation, and professional development. Afterwards, the attendees broke into small groups to discuss their own experience and thoughts about using […]
On Small Step for Social Data?
When swivel.com launched in 2007 I was excited: at last, a company set themselves to creating a user-friendly platform for exploring data. However, something disappointing happened: the core software of the website hasn’t evolved much. The problems I identified in an early blog post, such as not highlighting user-created charts and the limited customization of […]
APA Minneapolis Conference
I am attending the American Planning Association’s National Conference in Minneapolis. Whether or not you’re actually here, there’s a number of ways to keep tabs on what’s going on. I’ll be posting Twitter updates at @rgoodspeed, along with several other users including this official account. Technology consultant @Ryan_Link is involved with a group that set […]
The Online Landscapes of Social Networking
Facebook and MySpace have emerged as America’s dominant social networking websites, boasting over 124 and 245 million members, respectively. While their technical, political, and social implications have been much discussed, these websites also represent virtual landscapes drawing from two distinct strains in American culture. Invented at Harvard University by a native of New York’s Westchester […]