Though my direction may have changed recently I still have a personal interest in 3D, augmented reality and Location based Services. Also, it’s good business sense to keep up to date with these emerging technology trends.

Talks of Interest to me?

Mark Campbell from eMedia will be discussing 3D iPhone Apps.

From my old haunt IADT, Frederic Herrera from Create Ireland will give an overview of the applications of the VLab (a Cave – Computer-generated Automatic Virtual Environment) based at IADT – something I keep meaning to go and experience for myself.

Speaking of IADT, another 3D orientated talk will be given by my old HCI lecturer Ciaran McGuinness from Computer Clubhouse, the technology centre for young people in the heart of the Liberties.

Members from TOG will be showcasing  3D printing with a CupCake CNC machine – the seriously cool open source 3D printer featured in the video below.

Paul Lee from Viewsion will be discussing the business uses for Google Apps such as SketchUp, Earth, and Maps.

Steve Plunkett from Red Bee Media will be addressing the changes in television, including the effect of 3D and the internet. Should be a really interesting one considering the recent Google TV announcements.

Check out the full list of talks and register to attend this fantastic free technology event here.

I was ready to be a part of the next big technological breakthrough and I would be on hand to make sure it was as user friendly as possible and universal in its design and truly beneficial in its functionality. The prototypes I had project managed and been a part of during my undergrad course in Psychology Applied to I.T had all been focused on being helpful in their own little way – gadgets, websites or instructional programs that certainly weren’t playthings. With my knowledge of psychology I was prepared to take on the technology world and make it less frustrating and remove the exclusivity barrier around it. I was excited to finally be a part of an iterative design process that would actually reach the end – a product! a website! an application! anything! I wanted to be a part of something good and wholesome. I wanted to be able to stand up and say “I worked on that!” when someone was showing off their amazing new smartphone or trying out a new feature on a social networking site. I wanted to be a part of ubiquitous computing and augmented reality, to be a part of a user experience research team into the latest and greatest of what was yet to come.

I was young and naive.

In the last three years I’ve worked a steady full-time job in the civil service (that I’d give up in a heartbeat for a chance to work or intern in any usability related field) and been awarded a first in my masters in Cyberpsychology. Yet I still feel like I’m just getting older and going nowhere fast.

So for 2010 I’ve set myself a serious ultimatum.

If by August of this year I still have no work experience related to my desired career path I will uproot and move to London for a year to study at City University London. They have an incredible course there called the MSc in Human-Centred Systems which could turn me into a real usability specialist. It’s especially appealing to me because it has a 6 months work experience program, which is seemingly essential for securing an entry level position here in Ireland.

The idea of moving to London is scarier than ever with a recession in full swing. It may never pay off for me, but I’d rather try a little harder instead of failing by waiting around and hoping everything will eventually fall into place for me.

Between now and August I’ll be trying to secure myself that ever elusive Irish based internship or entry level job in usability and interaction design. If you know anyone looking for a helper monkey, please do let me know. I’m passionate and a quick learner, and will accept payment in bananas.

This research found that in comparison to 2006 there are far more female bloggers and that the majority of bloggers are no longer based within the IT industry. Non-Bloggers were found to be more concerned about the persistent nature of the Internet than Bloggers, but both had similar concern for issues of online privacy. Results found that Irish internet users have no preference for reading blogs based outside of Ireland and that the majority read a mixture of both Irish and international blogs, and did not rate either as more credible than the other. It was found that Irish internet users do not perceive it as highly important to know the identity of a blog author, but that over 60% of Irish bloggers publish online using their real name.

The primary motivation for Irish bloggers is the ability to articulate their ideas through writing and almost 52% consider their blogging as a form of journalism. The majority of Bloggers indicated that they have never lied on their blogs and that they actively attempt to verify information before posting an article. It was found that 35% of Irish bloggers do not feel connected to the Irish blogosphere, and that the most common blogosphere identified with was based around the author’s interests rather than geography. Most importantly, it was found that the impact of blogging on blogger’s lives was in no way negative and very positive in some respects.

This research is the first to investigate the psychological areas of interest surrounding blogging applied to an Irish audience, and though estimates have suggested only 1% of the Irish online population are blogging, this is steadily increasing. 35% of the Non-Bloggers surveyed indicated they had plans to blog in the future and blogging is definitely becoming increasingly more popular in Ireland, as demonstrated by the 40% increase in blogs registered at Irishblogs.ie between July 2008 and February 2009.

An increase in blogging in Ireland would be welcome due to its predominantly positive effects, such as increasing our shared intellectual capital, and, as this research indicates, blogging can in fact increase social capital too.

Furthermore, most previous research with regard to blogging has focused on personal journal style blogging, and it could be assumed that bloggers who are motivated by personal reasons were unrepresented in the sample that participated in this research. However, this could also suggest that Irish bloggers are actually less inclined to write what is considered a traditional form of blog – the diary style journal. This could indicate a cultural difference between Irish and non-Irish bloggers, or, a categorisation issue with regard to previous blog research.

Blogs are a highly personalised medium with the ability to involve the reading public in an integral manner, and unlike the traditional media they are not edited or gate kept and for this reason traditional journalists argue about how much trust to place in the content of blogs, however, it is argued that the comments system facilitates peer review.

It has been suggested that there aren’t many bloggers in Ireland and therefore there have been few arguments over the differences between journalists and bloggers in Ireland. Nevertheless, this research found that almost 52% of Irish bloggers consider their blogging as a form of journalism, with over 58% of this group using their real name to publish online.

However, over 10% of bloggers described incidents where content was illegitimately sourced from their blogs by the traditional Irish media. Over 58% of this content was written work and almost 30% was in the form of either photographs or photo-shopped images.

Due to the archiving feature of blogging this could suggest that bloggers are less likely to lie on their blogs in comparison to other online mediums, such as synchronous chat. However, with regard to blogging there are issues of identity concealment to consider, whilst deceptive, they are necessary to preserve the bloggers’ privacy.

Correspondingly, this research found that over 86% of bloggers indicated that they actively attempt to verify information before posting it on their blog, and 87% indicated that they had never published a lie on their blog. Of the small number of bloggers that had posted a lie, the majority done so to either to maintain their anonymity or for the purposes of fiction/satire or to embellish a story.

The majority of both bloggers and non-bloggers indicated that they had at least once attempted to double check information found on both Irish and non-Irish blogs, with only approx. 15% having never done this. However, this doesn’t necessarily indicate low levels of trust in the medium, but does perhaps point toward an awareness of the fact that blog publishing is unregulated.

Interestingly of the approx. 40% that blog using a pseudonym, 23% of this group also blogged using their real name. This suggests that some bloggers are taking advantage of both the benefits of blogging as themselves i.e benefits to reputation, and also anonymously somewhere else online. Anonymity online can help individuals to explore their identity, reduce shyness and encourage interactions with others online.

Though the Internet does help to support strong tie relationships, it is particularity effective for weak tie groups, allowing for the efficient flow of information and facilitating the development of ideas, blogospheres are a particularly good example of how the internet facilitates this.

The blogosphere is a classic social network but its characteristics differentiate it from most social networks, where communication is predominantly verbal and unrecorded. Networks of bloggers will often aggregate all of their individual blogs to a centralised location online, and these are referred to as planet aggregators an example of which is Irishblogs.ie.

However, some blogs are more connected to a blogosphere than others, with some bloggers not being connected to any blogosphere at all. Over 65% of bloggers indicated that they were listed on an Irish planet aggregator, and almost 64% consider themselves a member of the Irish blogosphere. The remaining bloggers indicated that they were not listed and did not consider themselves part of the Irish blogosphere. This highlights the 35% of bloggers unconnected from the Irish blogosphere, and this could suggest that there are far more Irish people blogging than is known.

It was assumed that non-bloggers would rate blogs based outside of Ireland as more credible than Irish blogs. However, out of a maximum score of 20 the non-bloggers rated Irish blogs with a mean score of 13.02 and non-Irish blogs with 12.64. The mean rating of the credibility of Irish blogs was actually slightly higher, though not significantly so.

Previous research has suggested that the more an individual relies on a source, the higher credibility they attribute to it, and the bloggers did rate the overall credibility of blogs higher than the non-bloggers. However, neither the bloggers nor the non-bloggers rated either Irish blogs or non-Irish blogs as significantly higher in credibility than the other. Incidentally, without a comparison to credibility scores of the traditional forms of Irish media this rating can only be used to compare the two categories investigated – Irish blogs and non-Irish blogs.

Additionally, approximately 50% of both groups said that they read a mixture of both Irish and non-Irish blogs, and approx. 35% said that they primarily read Irish blogs. Both the bloggers and non-bloggers indicated that they believed that blogging was more popular in other countries, and both groups thought that the medium was popular, but not “very popular” worldwide.

The Internet supports social networks, helps build social capital and having access to individuals outside one’s usual close circle can provide access to non-redundant information, resulting in benefits such as employment connections. During this research it was assumed that blog writing had a positive effect on the social lives of Irish bloggers, and it was queried what impact, if any, it had on their academic and professional lives too.

35.5% of bloggers believed blogging had a positive effect on their social lives, with 19.9% saying it had a “very positive” effect. Most importantly though, less than 1% indicated that it had any negative effect, and less than 44% indicated that it had no effect. Additional questions revealed that blogging has had an especially positive effect on the development of weak tie relationships with 81.3% of bloggers indicating that they have made friends that they communicate with online because of blogging. Weak ties are typical of relationships among casual acquaintances and are important for sharing information, making contacts and increasing awareness about new ideas.

Most people have only a few strong ties (closely-knit groups) and many weak ties. However, strong tie relationships can and do initiate online and can successfully move offline, as demonstrated by the 28.45% of Irish bloggers who have developed close friendships because of their blogging, additionally 62.07% of Irish bloggers have met people in real life as a result of their blogging. Although socalisation was found to not be a primary motivation for Irish bloggers, these results suggest socalisation is a by-product of writing a blog.

In an international online survey it was found that blogging is both personally satisfying and has a positive impact on its writer’s lives, with some bloggers claiming to have received speaking or publishing opportunities and career advancement because of their blogs. During this research it was found that less than 3% of Irish bloggers indicated that blogging had any negative effects upon their academic or professional lives,  and over 34% indicated it had a positive effect on their professional lives, and over 33% said it had a “very positive” effect.  Additionally, over 50% said it had no effect on  their academic lives however, over 30% said it had a positive effect and over 15% said it had a “very positive” effect

Blogging as a form of knowledge sharing contributes to the creation of a public good in the form of shared intellectual capital, and the positive social effects discussed above, combined with the academic and professional positive effects of blogging suggest that blogging can increase social capital, and Irish bloggers are clearly benefiting from this.

The Internet poses unique information privacy threats. Once information is recorded online it rarely disappears. It has permanence, and the individual the information belongs to can in many cases have no power to decide what happens to it.

During this research it was assumed that non-bloggers would indicate higher levels of concern with regard to issues of online privacy and the persistent nature of the Internet, in comparison to the bloggers. What was actually found was that both bloggers and non-bloggers have similar levels of concern about online privacy. 48.93% of the total participant sample indicated they were “concerned” and 16.87% indicated that they were “very concerned” about online privacy. However, there was a significant difference found between scores for concern about online permanence. 46.07% of non-bloggers indicated that they were “concerned” and 13.48% were “very concerned”, in comparison 36.48% of bloggers said they were “concerned” and 10.66% said they were “very concerned”.

Results indicate that Irish bloggers are not overly concerned about their published materials remaining online indefinitely, but Irish non-bloggers are, and this was one of the only differences found between the two groups. Concurrently bloggers were also asked how concerned they are with the possible misuse of information on their blogs, with over 38% indicating that they were concerned and 10% saying that they were “very concerned”.

The majority of the sample had 10 years or more experience online, but both bloggers and non-bloggers had very similar levels of experience – indicating that online experience is not a key indicator for participation in writing a blog, but is more likely to be an indicator of awareness of the medium. Correspondingly, computer skill levels were found to be similar in both bloggers and non-bloggers.

However, it was also found that bloggers are no longer primarily based in the Information Technology sector (as was the case in 2006) with less than 30% of bloggers coming from IT, almost 17% coming from the Media sector, 9% from the Education sector, and the remaining 56% coming from a variety of different areas e.g. Retail, Government, and Arts/Design etc. Additionally only 20% of the non-bloggers were based in IT. This suggests that exposure to the medium is not reliant on an individual being in involved with IT.