VoiceThread

I just came across VoiceThread, a new collaborative media site which aims to facilitate "Group conversations around images, docs and videos. It allows not only text comments, but audio and video comments, and even doodling (whiteboard style) on the presentation itself.

This has all sorts of amazing applications, but I've embedded this particular VoiceThread because I found it very moving, and it really captures the storytelling element of media and its collective emotional function.

In it, a woman from New Orleans shows her son around the house they lived in before Katrina, which he was too young to remember. This would be little more than a poignant family slideshow, were it not for Les (unrelated to the author) who has logged in to thank her for sharing her memories of his hometown before the flood.

German politician flames Wikipedia, then reverts

A little over a week ago, the SMH reprinted a Reuters report about criminal charges filed against the German version of Wikipedia by a left-wing German politician, Katina Schubert, over what she considered to be the excessive use of Nazi symbolism, especially on the site's page on the Hitler Youth.

Fortunately, by the time the Oz and Yahoo!7News picked up the story, Schubert's party - Die Linke- had made it clear that she did not have their support in bringing the charge, which she promptly dropped, although not before claiming a victory for beginning the "debate".

I'm starting to think we need some kind of award for naive attacks on Wikipedia. Any suggestions for a title?