Wiki_Universe

Robin Good: The David Ramsey Map Collection is an historical collection of thousands of beautiful maps and atlases organized and made freely accessible to the public online in unique and unprecedented ways.

This is a stunning example of a visual curated collection, offering thousands of beautiful images at very high quality, and multiple ways and tools to navigate this ocean of maps.

This online collection offers in fact no less than 12 different ways to navigate its contents by providing dedicated browsers and visual imaging tools ranging from 2D-GIS to SecondLife and virtual QTR panoramas. For example, with the Google Earth visualization, any map in the collection can be seen perfectly mapped on the globe, or by using the Luna Browser one can create collections, save and download images, annotate maps or even create embeddable presentations.

All of the images in the collection have been published online at full resolution and are available to download at different quality levels under a Creative Commons License for non-commercial uses.

This is truly a spectacular collection with marvellous maps and atlases enriched by complementary data, visualization tools and a formidable array of navigation devices.

Possibly the best online curated collection I have seen so far.

Must-see. 10/10

About page: http://www.davidrumsey.com/about

Collection and Tools to navigate it: http://www.davidrumsey.com/view

Home page: http://www.davidrumsey.com/

Une magnifique collection de cartes. A découvrir absolument.
 

Robin Good: Clipix is a Pinterest-like clipping and collection app which allows you to capture images and content from any web page and to organize it in custom visual boards.

One key feature that differentiates Clipix from Pinterest (though it is likely that Pinterest will add this feature soon as well) is the ability to organize together multiple sets into a "multiboard".

Other key features include a "Price Drop Alert" which emails you when the price of one of the commercial products you have clipped drops and 

"...For example you might have a multiboard that you call “Recipe Ideas” and inside you’d have 3 clipboards: Baking Recipes, Soup Recipes, and Health Recipes.

The easiest way to create a multiboard is by dragging one clipboard from the icon in the lower right-hand corner into another clipboard."

Video promo: http://youtu.be/4heBUKnDb-w

FAQ: http://www.clipix.com/FAQs.aspx

Try it out now: http://www.clipix.com/

Robin Good: Among the five digital trends presently shaping the consumer experience economy, according to Macala Wright who first wrote about this on Mashable, there is one that has as its key objective the reduction of "information noise", distractions and approaches to digital communication that make it harder to grasp and understand a message or to complete a key task one is after.

It reads like there is more to information curation than people scanning feeds and selecting relevant items to write about.

From the original article I have extracted a few passages: "Calm technology refers to applications that cut down on the digital noise of high-volume data to show the user only enough information that he or she needs to complete a task.

...It refers to technologies that do not disrupt our workflow.

The whole idea is to reduce distractions to our work flow without losing functionality.

Calm technology fights against many of the principles of digital marketing: instead of screaming for attention with flashing banner ads, technologies and applications politely take a backseat to the user’s primary focus...

...

Examples of calm technology can be found in the growing popularity of social curation and discovery.

Social product discovery sites such as Lyst, Mulu.Me, Buyosphere, Svpply and Discoveredd are essentially social filters that enable their communities to curate the products that are most relevant to them.

Moreover, the rise of interest networks and the idea of following someone who has similar likes and shared interest topics are examples of the principles of calm technology driving user behavior.

Google Circles, Pinterest and Chime.In, even location apps such as Sonar, Glancee and Highlight, can all be classified under the “term interest network.”

Excellent reading. 8/10

Full article: http://fashionablymarketing.me/2012/06/digital-trends-consumer-experience-economy/ ;

This is an interesting workshop presentation given at #converge11 by Joyce Seitzinger. It has a focus on curation in EduTech but is generic as well in a lot of aspects.

In particular, I love the distinction she makes from slide 22 onward between all types of "curators": a fun way of showing what curation best practices should be all about.

      According to Deborah Lupton, who did research work on Pinterest, this social media platform has the potential to be of great value to sociologists and scientists.  Some school teachers are already using Pinterest as a pedagogical resource, but this does not apply to academics.

      Pinterest is relevant for the purposes of curating, displaying and (we could add) sharing images related to the topic being researched or taught about. The purposes mentioned by Deborah Lupton for the use of Pinterest by sociologists are suitable to a mere student or professor. 

      Broadly, you can use Pinterest boards as:

 - Disclosure and promotion of your academic work (your published material on books, blog posts and the websites) and material on the themes you are studying (like infographics, tables, mind maps). You can also use boards to promote research and teaching initiatives at an institutional level.

 - Repository of images on a specific learning topic;      

 - Aggregation of images from other users which are relevant for your working topic.

      To use Pinterest as a pedagogical tool:

-  Create a board on a subject you are teaching, use somebody else’s board or reuse pins from other boards;

-  Ask students to create their own boards (or preferably a collaborative one) so that this might trigger comment, analyses, discussion and writing of texts (essays, etc.);

-  Collaborate with other academics to share ideas and resources for teaching. 

Image credit to 

http://favoritehometovisit.blogspot.pt/2012/04/atolye.html

Robin Good: NotesCloud is a new curation service which allows you to collect, organize, and share any type of content you have into beautiful magazine-like layouts.

“Imagine a tool that is always at hand when you stumble upon or dream up something interesting,”

NotesCloud uses the metaphor of a multi-section notebook to organize snippets and notes. People can create their own hierarchies of notebooks, sections, and pages as they curate their topics.

Unlike Pinterest or Evernote, NotesCloud’s structured storage metaphor encourages some organization, so it’s not just a “shoebox” full of random clippings."

(Source: Venturebeat)

Notescloud is equipped with a set of browser-based clipping tools for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, that make it possible to easily grab and save any content you’re looking at online with just two clicks.

The content curated and organized with NotesCloud can be accessed from tablets and smartphones as well as desktop browsers.

Free to use. 

Check this video: http://www.notescloud.com/LaunchVideo ;

More info: http://www.notescloud.com/ ;