Good eggs

A little something for the Easter weekend on the Pimp my snack website. For this recipe you just need 48 creme eggs.

Can you hack it?

There are online journalists and then there are online journalists. Meet Walker Spaight who works for The Second Life Herald. He covers crime, sex scandals and corporate malfeasance in multiplayer online games. And, of course, he doesn't really exist - he is the online incarnation of Mark Wallace, co-author of Only a Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much.

You can write for Second Life by covering stories on any virtual world. Pay is L$1,000 per story which seems pretty good - as long as you live in a virtual world.

Newswatch 2006

The conference on new media and the consumer at BU in June is taking shape - more details next week. Have a great weekend - I'll be with the silver surfer, AKA my Dad, who celebrates his 80th on Sunday.

Too many cooks - a good thing?

I was struck by Julie Powell's comments this week after she received the Blooker prize for 'Julie and Julia', her cookery blog book which recounts 365 days cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.

She said she found blogging liberating but that it was the interactive element that "kept her honest". And this was just a cookery book! Journalists can try to police their web territory but in the long-run the real editor in chief may well be the reader, posting back comments, pointing out inaccuracies and seeking redress through their own blogs.

Spooky Monday

Campus is eerily quiet for the Easter break. It's a bit spooky but at least it gives me some time to plot with Dan Hogan on how we are going to inflict more student blogs on the blogosphere.

And I've been surfing BU's website to catch up on the work of documentary makers and flash masters. I loved Sophie Williams' interview with two friends about love and war - "I was a bride, a widow and a mother in the same year."

It was so moving I had to watch something to cheer myself up with Race Against Time. And this online guide to Amsterdam by Ben Templeton, shortlisted last year for a BIMA award.

Student emissions

Students are revolting - on the web. The New York Times reports students in the US are using forums to vent their frustration at the admissions process at sites such as collegeconfidential.com and studentdoctor.net.

Some of the sites provide other forums such as dissertation writing support groups. What do our friends at Cemp think?