On Tuesday, Google officially unveiled its plans for making Google+ a more focal part of its core search business. Essentially, through the main Google search function, you will not only receive the standard search results, but also personalized results based on your network on Google+. For example, if you search “Ancient Greece,” you will still get the Wikipedia background and various website dedicated to all those great myths, fables and gods, but you would also get photos that you or your friends took while visiting Athens that were shared on Google+. Check out Google’s video to see how their social search works.

I’m actually quite excited about the possibilities for making search more social. Like many, I rely quite a bit on my social media networks – mostly Twitter and Facebook – for interesting news items, quirky stories or useful tidbits. Unfortunately, once these items pass, they are often difficult to find again, especially if they were on a friend’s wall or just a tweet that you didn’t retweet. Of course, Google will be making content from only its Google+ product available to users of social search, so if you or your friends or people with public profiles – aren’t posting interesting content there, it’s pretty worthless. Could this be the nudge that people need to really start making Google+ one of their primary social networks? Maybe!

There are certainly people that will raise privacy complaints about this, but Google seems to have taken a fairly proactive approach to ensuring privacy on this one. It will definitely be interesting to see how other social networks respond, especially Facebook. I don’t imagine Google has plans to make Facebook posts show up in its search results!

Take a look at Google’s announcement for more details about their launch of a more social search, and let us know what you think. This really could be a huge change in the way we search!

Creative Commons Qatar and ictQATAR brought Liam to Doha this week to meet with numerous institutions in Qatar to explore how they could work to help grow a vibrant Wikipedia community in Qatar and the Arab world, openly share content and contribute to knowledge available in the public domain. Much of the valuable content created here has value well beyond our borders, and if shared through Wikipedia, can greatly add to the world’s collective knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to invest significant resources in the MENA region, so Qatar has a great opportunity to take a lead in increasing shared knowledge from the region. Here’s a quick recap of some of the meetings.

Qatar Museum Authority – Liam spoke to Qatar’s museum community, including people from the Museum of Islamic Art, the Qatar National Museum and Mathaf. In his presentation he said that Wikipedia is a way to bridge cultural divides and encouraged QMA to find ways to contribute to the Wikipedia community. He stressed that QMA, by sharing some of its valuable content, whether digital images, artist profiles, or expert knowledge on artifacts, the museums could establish themselves as leading voices in their areas of expertise and share they collections far beyond their museum walls.

Liam Wyatt talking GLAM (by CC Qatar)

Liam challenged the museums in Qatar to make more contently freely available, and to make “free” the default policy. He shared tangible examples of ways other museums had participated in the Wikipedia community and highlighted efforts he led during his time as a Wikipedian in Residence at the British Museum. Museums here seemed enthused about the ideas and discussions are under way to develop some concrete projects here.

Al Jazeera – An early adopter of Creative Commons, it’s no surprise that Al Jazeera was extremely receptive to being a more active part of the Wikipedia community. Al Jazeera’s rich multi-visual resources would be invaluable to Wikipedians if they are shared in a way that can be used freely. Already, still shots from Al Jazeera footage is used on Wikipedia, however images from their Flickr account couldn’t be used because of their licensing. Right after our meeting, Al Jazeera changed the license on their Flickr photos to CC’s Attribution-Share alike license, making them usable by Wikipedians and they are already populating Wikipedia.. Also, Al Jazeera is exploring ways to make it easier to use their content as sources for articles and also considering offering video footage in an open source format so it can also be used on Wikipedia. Great potential!

ictQATAR – Yes, I made sure Liam met with my organization too. Liam specifically met with our teams leading digitization programs and business incubation efforts. As a result of the meeting, ictQATAR will work to ensure that any work cultural works digitized through ictQATAR are shared in a way that can be used by Wikipedians so it reaches a broader audience, and also ictQATAR will look at more “open” business models for a variety of incubation services.

Let’s Tweet in Arabic (Taghreedat)– You can’t help but be impressed by the work of Taghreedat. What started as a small group that wanted to Tweet more in Arabic has grown into an active community of more than 15,000 people on Twitter that are discussing a wide range of topics regularly and even working to develop the Twitter Arabic interface. Liam met with numerous Taghreedat members and shared a variety of ways they could be engaged in the Wikipedia community, including enhancing the Wikipedia Arabic interface and becoming active Wikipedia contributors/editors. I am expecting some exciting Taghreedat/Wikipedia collaboration soon!

Members of the Taghreedat community discuss Wikipedia (by CC Qatar)

Education City – The librarians at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar and Northwestern University Qatar organized a public presentation on Wikimedia for the Education City community. Liam shared a range of ways educators, librarians and students could become more active contributors to the Wikimedia community, including as editors, translators and by sharing original works in the Wikicommons or Wikisource. He showed examples of schools that have incorporated Wikipedia editing into the curriculum and also highlighted some innovative libraries sharing more of their collections in ways that are usable by Wikipedians.

Clearly, there were a lot of positive meetings and discussions! I’m hopeful we’ll see some excellent Wikipedia/Wikimedia oriented initiatives coming from Qatar soon, in addition to the formal partnership of Qatar Foundation with the Wikimedia Foundation. I look forward to working with the various organizations as part of CC Qatar to share more knowledge from Qatar freely!

This post originally appeared on the Creative Commons Qatar website. 

A bit scary, right? This comes directly from the website of the Future of Privacy Forum, which is a Washington, DC-based think tank that seeks to advance responsible data practices in the digital age. Jules Polonetsky, the Director and Co-Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum will be in Doha on Monday, November 28 as part of ictQATAR’s Connected Speakers Series. (Register here) Jules, a former Chief Privacy Officer at AOL, is one of the leading experts on privacy in the world, and his current focus areas are online data use, smart grid, mobile data, apps and social media.

I spoke with Jules a few weeks ago as he was preparing for his talk and was truly astounded by the sheer amount of data that is out there about each and every one of us, and just how little regulation there is about how this data is used. The fact is, each of us willingly shares more and more data each day, whether it is through our favorite websites, a mobile application or via various social media networks. The Internet has certainly made sharing easier and more of the norm, so it’s likely we will continue to share more about ourselves online. The question then is, how can we be sure this data is used responsibly and that we are protected from serious risks? Clearly there are tons of innovative uses of this data, but what is the line between innovation and privacy? I’ll leave that to Jules to answer during his talk!

For anyone that is interested in learning more about the future of privacy, particularly online privacy, I highly recommend checking out the resources on Future of Privacy Forum website, and of course, don’t miss Jules’ talk on Monday, November 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Sharq. To register, visit the event’s Eventbrite page. Also, feel free to submit any questions via comments and I’ll share them with Jules before his talk. Hope to see you there!

The most famous example of OER is MIT’s Open Courseware, which makes almost all of MIT’s course content available freely online. At WISE, another innovative OER platform educators should know about, Connexions, will be recognized with a WISE Prize for Education. Connexions is a non-profit organization that takes open courseware to the next level. It enables a global community to contribute learning modules, which are then shared via Connexions’ open source software that allows anyone to freely discover, use, customize or remix the modules. As Connexions puts it, educators can easily contribute, rip, mix and burn this valuable content – all of which is shared under Creative Commons licenses.

There are nearly 20,000 learning modules available on the Connexions platform and they cover pretty much any topic you can think of, and are available in a multitude of languages. The learning modules are for all levels of education, from k-12 to higher education. Rhaptos, the open source software Connexions uses to share its material, makes customizing content “frictionless,” offering a range of filters or lenses, and also enables peer review of content to ensure quality. Selected resources can be distributed to students or colleagues digitally, downloaded electronically, customized for mobile, or for a small fee, printed as textbooks.

Finding quality Open Educational Resources is easy through Connexions

To my knowledge, no educational institutions in Qatar are actively engaged with Connexions, although I am certain there are creative educators in the country taking advantage of its rapidly growing resources. As Qatar continues to undergone education reform at all levels of education, tapping into Connexions broad range of customizable learning modules seems very logical. I am admittedly not an educator, but as an advocate for digital openness, education is clearly one of the realms where the open sharing of knowledge and global collaboration can have a profound impact.

Beyond the use of the resources available on Connexions, I would love to see educational organizations start to contribute content that could be shared and possibly join the Connexions Consortium. Qatar Foundation is clearly taking a leading role in supporting education, and I hope they have plans to openly share much of the valuable content created within its various programs, including within Education City. Qatar University also seems like an extremely logical partner as well. There is unquestionably a need for more quality educational resources in Arabic, and I am sure many of the learning materials created by Qatar University would benefit the global Arabic-speaking population.

Open certainly seems to be a major component when thinking about the future of education, and hopefully it will be embraced broadly across Qatar. As part of Creative Commons Qatar, I’ll certainly be exploring ways to promote OER here. The recognition by WISE of an innovative open education organization like Connexion shows that the vision and support exists here, now hopefully the adoption will follow.

To address this major gap, my friends at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) established a partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation with an ambitious first year goal of adding 50,000 new articles in Arabic to Wikipedia. QCRI held a forum with the Wikipedia Foundation this past weekend (which sadly I missed) that brought together a smart mix including a number of students, educators, computing experts and business leaders, all with the shared goal of growing the amount of Arabic content in Wikipedia.

In an article in the Gulf Times, QCRI Executive Director Dr. Ahmed Elmagaramid said “We need to make it easier for Arab contributors to contribute to Arabic Wikipedia and improve the experience for users of the content. We see an opportunity to be a leader in Arabic language technologies, but not just in researching technologies and developing computing solutions, but making what we do relevant to the average person.” The article also states that a number of initiatives are being developed to grow the Arabic content in Wikipedia, including the development of incentives and authoring tools, incorporating Wikipedia into curriculum and the creation of new Arabic translation tools.

All this sounds great and I’m excited to see how the QCRI and Wikimedia Foundation partnership works, and will certainly be in touch to see if there is anyway ictQATAR or Creative Commons Qatar could be involved. Still, in my opinion, I believe the most important part of this partnership should be in grooming true Arab Wikipedians – people that are passionate about sharing and contributing their insight to the broader community. Wikipedia is amazing because of the diversity of people around the world that passionately edit, revise and manage it each day. The quality is phenomenal because people care and want to share the knowledge. The majority of these people are simply volunteers and often contribute to Wikipedia in their spare time – it’s not a paid job and they don’t generally have any extrinsic benefits. For some reason, the Arabic speaking world has clearly not embraced the intrinsic value of contributing to the world’s encyclopedia.

The initiative to incorporate Wikipedia into classrooms in Qatar and around the Arab world hold the most promise. Having classes learn how to contribute and seeing their work published can go a long way to building that passion for sharing. Hopefully the program plans to work with students in both primary and secondary schools, as well as the many excellent universities here. It will be important to teach the culture of sharing and collaboration, not just forcing contribution in classes. I am hopeful QCRI and Wikimedia will work to tap into existing communities that are passionate about Arabic content and the Arabic language, such as the team that developed the successful “Lets tweet in Arabic” Twitter campaign, which has now grown into a partnership with Twitter.

Language is such a valuable part of one’s identity, and the Internet is increasingly the place where the world connects with other cultures. There is no doubt Wikipedia is one of the most important resources on the Internet today, so the Arab world should do everything it can to make sure it is represented more completely on this platform or it risks having its voice not fully heard. Bravo to QCRI for this partnership and I hope it is a resounding success!

ICANN, the Internet body in charge of naming and numbering (essentially the systems that make the Internet interoperable and seem so seamless), was in Doha this week to discuss a new initiative that will open-up the generic top-level domain (gTLD) naming system (the part that comes after the dot). It will no longer be just .com, .gov, or .net, but it could be .Brian, .mercedes, or even .Doha. Touting it as one of the biggest changes in Internet history, ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom shared details of how his organization would start accepting applications for new gTLDs and encouraged organizations in Qatar to consider applying. As he said, ICANN is “opening up the right of the dot.”

The potential marketing and branding benefits of having your own gTLD seems enormous. With the ever increasing scarcity of .com’s left, we have all had to settle for a less than ideal URL. Having your own gTLD opens up an immense pool of ways you can creatively use the domains. Have a campaign? Create a URL using your gTLD like www.summer.pepsi. Are you city with a great festival coming. Well how about www.tribeca.doha. As Beckstrom said in his talk, the new gTLD initiative is developed to allow for creativity and innovation on the Internet and no doubt there are many ways these could be used that we aren’t even imaging right now.

ICANN President Rod Beckstrom and ictQATAR Assistant Secretary General, Regulatory Authority, Christa Maria Cramer

So what should companies in Qatar know if they want to apply? First, it’s expensive! Applying for a gTLD, requires a $185,000 non-refundable application fee. Steep, but ICANN doesn’t want anyone and everyone to have control of these domains. Beckstrom said protecting the security and integrity of the Internet is their first priority, so any company or organization applying for a gTLD must have the resources to manage that domain. They will need to operate like a registrar, finding ways to manage the distribution of the domains, and likely developing a business model around this. Clearly this is much more involved than securing a second level domain, like Brian.com (which btw I don’t own) – this is far more serious business!

Second, companies and organizations should know that the window for application is short. The application process only goes from January 12, 2012 – April 12, 2012. The application itself is intensive – Beckstrom said a successful submission would likely require at least 100 pages of information. He also said that ICANN has no plans to make the timeframe longer, so interested parties should act fast. He cautioned that ICANN was unlikely to have an open application process for gTLDs for many years.

Other things to consider if you want to apply for a gTLD is whether you have clear rights to a name. For example, the rights to something like .Mercedes is pretty clear, but what about .Music or .Art? All gTLDs that are applied for will be shared publicly so objections can be filed and if a valid objection is filed, ICANN may decide to reject the application – bye-bye $185,000! Also, there may be cases where multiple parties apply for a gTLD. In this case, ICANN will give preference to a community group over a private organization if there are no clear trademark rights. This means, if a community group in Doha wanted .Doha, and so did a private tourism enterprise, the community group would be granted the rights if all were equal. Yes, disputes over gTLDs could get a bit complicated, and here is a decent chance your application might get rejected.

The new generic Top-Level Domain Names certainly are an interesting change to the Internet and I will certainly be watching to see how this change might impact the web. Already cities have expressed interest in gTLDs, such as New York (.NYC) and Berlin (.berlin), and undoubtedly many major companies will apply as well. The earliest we will see these go live on the Internet though would be early 2013. I’m not sure this is “one of the biggest changes in Internet history,” but it is certainly one that has the chance to encourage some great marketing and branding creativity over the Internet.

Howcast, which was launched in 2008 (how am I just discovering it?), features generally short, instructional videos that cover more than 25 broad categories, such as business, finance, health, media, first aid, nutrition, parenting, technology and travel. You can discover how to do just about anything on this site. Many of the videos are done in a light, comical manner, however there are plenty of serious videos that are incredibly informative. Many of the videos also include useful written instructions to support the video as well. Scrolling through these how to videos is actually a bit addictive – you’ve been warned.

The Howcast Homepage

Beyond being beneficial for the user, the “how to” video also has great marketing potential for businesses. Do you own a craft store? Well then why not do a video on how to make felt snowmen? Are you a social media consultant? Why not do a series on how to attract fans or followers on social media to show your expertise and drive new business leads? There is likely a video angle for just about any business you are in.

Howcast makes it very easy to virally share the videos and also has a solid mobile platform, meaning you can learn how to do something wherever you are. This could prove particularly helpful if you need to change a tire when stranded in the middle of nowhere or if you need to figure out quickly how to survive a bear attack (yes there is a video for that!). To get you started in your learning, check out the following video on how to juggle three balls.

Of the many issues covered over the three-day summit, perhaps the most interesting was the plans for version 4.0 of the Creative Commons License suite. Like any tool in the digital age, there is always a need to update and innovate to address the emerging digital trends and issues. Version 4.0 would in many ways simplify the Creative Commons licenses to make them more user-friendly, while tackling copyrights issues in a more global way.

Perhaps the biggest change being explored is the development of a global CC license, which would replace the “unported” licenses and also, in theory, end the need for license porting to specific jurisdictions. In Qatar, we are working on porting the CC licenses to Qatari law, but are currently using the unported version, which has proven to be quite effective. In my opinion, a solid global license would give even more confidence to our local creatives. I can also see the benefits of not having 50+ ported versions of the license, especially when we think of the Internet as a global resource that doesn’t respect boundaries. At the same time, not porting (or aligning) licenses to local laws may leave some people nervous about whether the licenses would stand up in a court of law if their rights were infringed (although let’s be honest, how many cases end up in court?). Nothing has been decided on Version 4.0 yet, but expect to hear about some interesting developments over the coming year.

CC Arab World affiliates meeting at the CC Global Summit (by Bilal Randeree)

As the CC Qatar public lead, was happy to represent CC Qatar on two panels at the summit. The first focused on how galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) can use CC, and I showcased the ways the Qatar Museum Authority, including the Museum of Islamic Art, Mathaf and the Qatar National Museum, are exploring using CC licenses to share their collections and resources. The others panelists shared some really creative efforts, including a showcase from Japan where visitors were encouraged to take photos of the art in the museum and share the photos under a CC license, and a Wiki Loves Art project that took place in the Netherlands. I am planning to share these ideas and more with the museums here.

The second panel I took part in focused on how to build an affiliate team. CC Qatar is hosted by ictQATAR, but has an active group of volunteers and activists, including a strong legal lead, that are truly propelling its progress over a short period. I highlighted the benefits of having a government organization as the affiliate sponsor, including funding, credibility and access, but also discussed some challenges, such as politics and sustainability. I’ll be posting both presentations on SlideShare soon.

You can see many of the presentations given at the CC Global Summit on SildeShare, and for a great  photos from the Summit, check out the CC Flickr Group. Hopefully there will be some more presentations, photos and videos to come. I’d be thrilled if the keynote from CC founder Larry Lessig is posted – trust me, you will want to watch it!

A special thanks to our wonderful hosts in Warsaw – you made everyone feel welcome and were key to making the Summit a huge success.

This tragic scenario could have been avoided if Patricia and her friend knew about Join.Me, a website that allows users to share their desktop over the Internet with up to 250 people. In this case, sharing it with one would have been enough. Many of us have probably seen or used paid versions of desktop sharing or a webinar software, but the beauty of Join.Me is that it is free and beyond simple to use.

To have a Join.Me session, you just go to Join.Me and one person chooses to “share” their desktop. This can be done on either a PC or Mac, and the user will have to launch a quick application – it took only 3 seconds even on Qatar’s slowish Internet. Once this application is launched, a code is provided in the application which you then share with people you want to view your desktop. Once people receive that code, they simply go to Join.Me, enter it in the “join” box and within a few seconds they can see you desktop through their web browser. That’s it – conference started!

The very easy to use Join.Me toolbar

Join.Me has a built in chat feature and also allows the person sharing their desktop to turn over control to a remotely connected user. Yes, Patricia’s friend could have done all that “easy” work himself.  You can start and stop the live broadcast simply by clicking one button as well. Join.Me also allows you to transfer files to meeting participants and has a free conference call service, however that only works in the U.S. If you want an international line through Join.Me, you will need to upgrade to premium. The premium version also includes the ability to have multiple presenters and a scheduling function.

Join.Me is definitely the simplest desktop sharing application I have used and the free version really has just about everything I have ever needed – and it requires no registration. If you are looking to do a remote presentation, need to conduct a training, want to show off something cool or need to help a friend with a tech issue, Join.Me is a great option. It’s also works on most smartphones and the iPad. Join.Me doesn’t allow recording of sessions yet, but minus that, I loved everything about it. Check it out and let me know what you think!

The Join.Me Homepage

Guest blogger Amy Hollinsworth is a rising senior at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada majoring in Communication Studies. Amy is currently a summer intern at ictQATAR.

“Google it”, sound familiar? It is safe to say that I use this phrase on a regular basis. Whenever someone asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to, I usually respond with “Google it.” Even when I think I know the answer, I still want to make sure it is correct so I will go and search Google.

“BackRub” was created by two Stanford computer science grads in 1997. Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to change the name to “Google” which is a spinoff of the mathematical term “googol.” Personally I am happy they changed the name! Google is by far the most utilized search engine on the World Wide Web and is offered in about 40 different languages. On average 78.53% of search engine users use Google, followed by 9.32% using Bing and 9.10% using Yahoo. I was actually surprised with these 2011 statistics, I figured Bing and Yahoo would have a bit more of the market share. It looks like Google is destroying their competition!

Google has saved me hours and hours when researching for essays and assignments. I really can’t imagine what it would be like to write a paper without my favorite search engine. Last year I took a class called “Alternative Media” and my professor tried to explain to us how much longer it took him to write an essay without the Internet. He actually had to take out BOOKs from the LIBRARY (wow what a concept). If I want to find a source or a quote I instantly go to “Google Books” or “Google Scholar” and I always seem to find what I am looking for. Is this bad? 

Nicholas Carr raises an interesting question, Is Google Making Us Stupid? Carr says, “the Net is becoming a universal medium.” He also says it seems that people use search engines to avoid reading and researching in the traditional sense. The concept of reading printed text is gradually fading. Now I don’t completely agree that Google is making us dumb, but maybe I am a bit biased because I have grown up always using Google. I believe it opens up so many opportunities for knowledge. I have found very useful information on Google that I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise. I can search and find an answer for almost anything; whether it is for school or to find out how to remove a stain from my shirt. For example, today I typed into Google “weather in Qatar” and “is Google making us stupid” (how ironic). Even though I am a huge Google fan, I still believe it is important to read an actual printed article or book every now and then. It is also good to keep in mind that information I find through Google or any search engine might not be true, you need to be cautious of this when researching. With the proper and factual information you find through Google, you can save yourself a lot of time and energy!

So THANK YOU to Larry Page and Sergey Brin for creating Google and for helping people all over the world share and collect virtual material!