OLDaily

Tumblr’s Unclear Future Shows That There’s No Money in Internet Culture
Brian Feldman, New York Magazine, 2017/07/31

I for one don't believe the proposition in the headline. But I do believe there's no real money in internet culture using traditional models: subscription fees and advertising. By 'internet culture' the author means 'creative expression', and what works for creatve expression does not work for traditional revenue. "What makes these sites so friendly to creative expression? To begin with, there’s a focus on frictionless, near-immediate sharing." Also, "iteration, and a meme’s growth, is much easier to track and understand when platforms use strict chronological timelines." Finally, "there is light content moderation... allowing users to feel safe posting whatever is what allows these communities to grow." 

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A $99 'subscription' will be the beginning of the end for Twitter
Pete Pachal, Mashable, 2017/07/31

It's the option no Twitter user anywhere asked for: pay $99 a month and Twitter will promote your tweets to readers who never asked for them. "Now imagine if the top of your feed was mostly tweets from so-called influencers, with a bunch of tweets from brands thrown in for good measure," writes Pete Pachal. "It's hard to imagine a change to Twitter better designed to make me leave the service for good." Of curse, there's always Mastodon.

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Course Rubrics: OEI
Geoff Cain, Brainstorm in Progress, 2017/07/31

Geoff Cain begins a seven-part series on rubrics with this look at the California Community College’s Online Education Initiative rubric (OEI) "to provide a checklist demonstrating that the online courses offered through the Online Education Initiative align with state standards; the accreditor, ACCJC’s Guide to Evaluating DE; and national standards (iNACOL)." The rubric has sections on content presentation, interaction, assessment, and two sections on accessibility.

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The web was supposed to be a thing we make
Anil Dash, Glitch, Medium, 2017/07/31

This post introduces us to Glitch, an online application thata helps people make their own custom-made Node.js application. It's all a bit overwhelming at first, but it's a giant leap beyond what you would normally have to do to set up such an application (think containers, Bower, webhooks, analytics, and the rest). The interface, meanwhile, is connected to a community that can share ideas and help. It's a bt like mixing Geocities with CodePen with Stack Overflow, all running on Github. Like I say, overwhelming. But let your eyes adjust to the pink and yelow and let it soak in for a bit, and practice... and see what you can do.

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Why Skillshare runs on Kubernetes
Matias Forbord, Skillshare Writings, 2017/07/31

A few days ago I ran a post filled with tech jargon about something called Kubernetes. This is the antedote to that post, a down-to-earth practical example of how this technology is running applications in the learning technology space. The site in question is Skillshare, a subscription-based online curse library. The numers are impressive: 2 million students, 17000 classes, $5 million paid to teachers. Kubernetes manages cloud hosting for the site, managing a swarm of Docker containers, where each container contains a part of the service: an interface, a database, an application logic. 

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