Skype seems to be gently emphasising its messaging abilities at the moment as it squares up against the might of Google’s inter-operable XMPP/Jabber-based system. A recent addition to Skype’s portfolio is persistent public “chat rooms”. Apart from the same stuff that chat rooms have long been used for, the wide adoption of Skype in corporate settings may offer some more interesting uses.

Here’s an article about using Skype chat rooms for a kind of Virtual shared office space to improve communication in distributed teams.

Skype: The ultimate collaboration tool? | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News.com

I’m currently mulling around a bunch of thoughts and half-formed opinions on the distribution, ownership and attribution of ideas and information in an age of free-flowing digital media.

One of my current concerns is the tension between perceived needs one the one hand for attribution, academic traceability and ownership of ones own words; and on the other hand for privacy. This is seen in sharpest relief in solicitations for academic surveys. Routinely such instruments come with a disclaimer pointing out that all answers will be anonymous. Well-structured surveys and questionnaires, though, often also contain a section for general comments and feedback. In most cases I do not want this to be anonymous – indeed I would rather it formed part of a dialogue between the researcher and subjects, allowing both to benefit, learn and develop.

I am considering taking up a habit of always adding my contact details to academic survey submissions to deliberately challenge the assumption that I wish to be an anonymous donor of information, and to encourage researchers to participate in a community of interest.

Some things I have read recently on associated topics include:

Mathemagenic » Blogging research: attribution and ownership of ideas

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