Is it possible to embed slides from slideshare, videos from vimeo or in general other html objects here in network.nature.com?

Thanks to David Orban I discovered Omnisio and so I took a chance to merge my slides with the video Gianandrea recorded during my sci(bzaar)net presentation.
Using Omnisio is very easy, you just provide the URL of a video online and the URL of slides on slideshare.net and then you can optionally synchronize slides with video by drag and drop.
You can see my video/slides on omnisio if you are interested to check the final output. Slides are in English but I spoke in Italian.

The Elsevier Grand Challenge

Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences is a contest created to improve the way scientific information is communicated and used. The contest invites members of the scientific community to describe and prototype a tool to improve the interpretation and identification of meaning in (online) journals and text databases relating to the life sciences. Specifically we are looking for new ways to:

1. improve the process/methods/results of creating, reviewing and editing scientific content 2. interpret, visualize or connect the knowledge more effectively, and/or 3. provide tools/ideas for measuring the impact of these improvements.

While the traditional functions of peer-review, quality control, dissemination and archiving remain at the heart of scientific publishing, it is clear that new technologies are creating opportunities to facilitate interpretation of data. In initiating the Elsevier Grand Challenge, we hope to interact with the scientific community to discuss changing modes of publishing and knowledge sharing with innovative groups who are interested in changing the way science is published. The objective is to generate useful new ideas that could have a widespread impact on scientific publishing in general.

Abstracts are now invited. Submissions will close on July 15th, 2008.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Milan at the Politechnic School of Design for sci.bzaar.net
With some friends of bzaar.net and few people I still don’t know, we will brainstorm and discuss about how Web2.0 dynamics can be adapted and imported into science. A sort of hybrid between a BarCamp, a traditional event and a Pecha Kucha, about science and research. Sweet!
The title of my talk will be “How much is a researcher happy discovering the existence of Yet Another Social Network for Science?”.
I’ll post the slides here in the next days.

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 persons
(myself on the shoulder of giant Andy Warhol: In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” )

or

The trust is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed
(myself on the shoulder of William Gibson: The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed )

or some quotes from “Trust in Peers Trumps the “A-List, Study Finds by Steve Rubel:

Mediapost reports that a new study from Pollara found that people who engage in social networks and communities put far more trust in friends and family who are online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace “friends.”

Some 58% of opinion elites 35-64 in 18 countries said they trust “a person like me.”

The question of targeting super nodes vs. smaller groups is all coming down to trust. While the marketplace – both marketers and publishers – continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.

The baseline argument is the following.

In the previous era of mass-media, each one of us was “forced” to trust the few of us who had a voice. And this created the Britney Spearses and the Paris Hiltons.

In the current era of easy self web publishing, each of us can choose whom to trust among the many of us who have a voice. And be sure my friend the 15 persons peers I choose to trust are already (and will be even more) different from the 15 persons peers you choose to trust. No more Britnear Spearses in the future, but just your own one.
Simply put, trust is now distributed.

And yes, in case you are wondering, I do believe in the future each of us will stay on the shoulders of dwarves, thousands of dwarves instead of few giants.

Cross-posted from my blog at gnuband.org

Time ago I received the request to republish one of my paper in the book “Internet Search Engines – An Introduction”. So I took the chance to extend my paper “Page-reRank: using trusted links to re-rank authority” from 4 to 10 pages and cordially give permission to include it in the book.