Public art in Jo’burg and Pownce
It’s been a busy few weeks since I came back from Thailand. I’ve resumed my residency at The Bag Factory, while I have to work on a series of other projects as well. For my residency, this time, I’m not creating art, I’m documenting it, through Beeldenstad.net. Currently, already over 30 public artworks are listed on the Johannesburg page on Beeldenstad.net and, because I’m getting support from the Jo’burg municipality, many of those with extensive information.
An interesting extra is that I’ve added KML and GeoRSS feeds, with which you can, say, have artworks plotted inside Google Earth.
Pownce
The guy behind everyone’s favorite social news site, Digg, recently started a Twitter-like service, Pownce. Pownce has more functionality and is getting rave reviews. I received an invite today and have six left to give away. So, if you know me, you can grab one.
However, I don’t understand the popularity of Twitter. It lets you tell the world what you’re up to, like IM (Instant Messaging) to the masses. It’s very popular in the States which, I suppose, isn’t too surprising as Americans are the hallmark of exhibitionism. But telling the world what you’re doing is one thing, actually taking the time to see what others are doing is something else. Why would I be interested if I’m not an insecure 12 year old looking for attention?
Anyway, Pownce is a bit more useful: It not only lets you tell the world what you’re doing, it also lets you send files to friends, share links and share events. Like a simple shared productivity tool. So I suppose that you don’t have to be an insecure 12 year old to use Pownce, but possibly an overconfident late teen, looking to impress your friends.
But, still, if it’s productivity and usefulness you’re looking for, there’s plenty of good tools out there (the Google suite being the most obvious, but by no means the only one).