Updates and tidbits from Web 2.0 land

The New York Times reports on a Web site from Saatchi Gallery that allows art students to interact and share their art; a MySpace for artists. When I wrote my museum 2.0 entry, I had not heard of the Saatchi site yet, so it’s amazing how similar the ideas are. Even though the Saatchi site would only be a small part of the whole museum concept.

In other new media news, Time Magazine announced “you” as Person of the Year. This is illustrated in the issue by some examples of how people control the Information Age, including S.R. Sidarth of “Macaca” fame; Lane Hudson who turned the spotlight on Mark Foley’s pedophilic escapades; and Tila Tequila who built herself up from scratch on MySpace.

In the same issue, Joel Stein journeys into Second Life and writes: “I thought I’d want to have lots of sex. Meaningless, multipartnered, degrading sex.” Although that was not my reason for checking out Second Life; it was mostly what I found, as I described before. Kami Huyse, author of one of my favorite blogs, Communication Overtones, keenly observes:

“My prediction for 2007 and beyond is that 3D spaces and virtual reality, that have been developed in Second Life and in other places, will start to break free from these silos and show up right in your browser.”

Scott Spiegelberg of the blog Musical Perceptions lists 51 of the most important classical music blogs according to Technorati statistics. This leads A.C. Douglas to wonder out loud “how Technorati ever got to be recognized as some sort of authoritative source is well beyond my meager powers of comprehension.” Despite his valid objection, and perhaps due to a lack of better sources, the list is a good start nonetheless.

19 December 2006 | Classical Music, Cultural Affairs, Media and Journalism Issues, New Media and Blogosphere | Comments