I had the pleasure of meeting Alex Halavais and his wife, Jamie, in person on Friday. We had a lovely discussion on the direction this research might take, and I hope that will lead to this blog being revived and a grant proposal taking shape.
We decided to focus in on one aspect of blogs/microcontent, and that was the creation of a resource center for blogging tools and information. We also decided that while the term "blog" works well for those of us using the tools now, it's not ideal for grant language and explaining to non-believers the power of the medium, so we're going with the more academic-sounding "microcontent publishing" for now.
The working concept is to create a "Microcontent Publishing Resource Center," or "Microcontent Publishing Center of Excellence." This would be home to a digital library of resources, from blogging tools to subject catalogs of existing blogs. It would also be a logical source for blogging workshops/conferences like the ones Dave Winer is trying to put together.
The NSF Information Technology Research grant program deadline for "medium" proposals is February 12th...we may try to shoot for that, but we'll also be exploring other possible funding sources.
Because Jill Walker isn't sure she'll be able to commit to the grant itself, we're open to the idea of someone from a third institution to participate along with us. Please let us know--via comments here, or e-mail to me or to Alex--if you're interested!
Posted by liz at January 5, 2003 08:45 PM | TrackBack