Not releated at all with Nomadcom (just in case some might have a doubt) ,

Skype has selected Rebecca, a 26 y/o Australian girl, to take up the "Skype Nomad Challenge" which is to travel non-stop around the Globe and demonstrates that Skype is now mobile.

Over 33 days, Rebecca "The Nomad" will be using as many different forms of transport possible for a girl - from jumbo jets to dog sleds, canoes to camels, sky diving to revolving restaurants.

Her non-stop journey started on May 5th from London (UK) to Singapore, China, Australia (current location) Alaska, USA an back to Europe.

To keep in touch, Rebecca uses SkypePhones as well as a Nokia N810 (the Internet Tablet) loaded with, indeed, Skype software. 

All related links which also gives a good overview of what Web 2.0 is offering:

• Twitter
• Skype: theskypenomad
• Flickr
• You Tube
• Blog
• My space
• Facebook
  

All this perpetual motion is also for a good cause - to create some noise about an awesome charity called Motivation. Basically, they help disabled people in poor countries get mobile.

I may propose to Skype the Challenge #2 as I have an extended list of countries and locations which cannot be so called "Internet/mobile phone" friendly… interested ?

I found very interesting post on Tom Barrett's "ICT in my Classroom" blog about how Twitter is used as an educational tool.

Tom's post also describes where Twitter is positioned among other communications tools. Twitter is not a synchronous or an asynchronous communication system. It is rather both at once depending how channel's followers use it.

He makes a nice metaphoric comparison between Twitter and a flowing torrent where people can just stand by it and observes the flow. Some prefers to jump into while others simply do not pay much attention to the  stream.

Personally I am amazed to see how many different ways Twitter is used today. There are, indeed, lots of individuals (you and me) but also some politicians (Clinton, Obama, UK Prime Minister), Public Services (LA fire department, AmCross), Airlines, News agencies, etc.. which are increasingly using it, but not necessarily to interact with others but to broadcast content or information.

Is any company using Twitter for internal use only ? 

Back online after few days on Chinese Mountains I discovered lots of interesting informations about Internet disruptions which occurred earlier this month and impacted more than 90 millions Internet users. Outages were due to up to cuts on up to 9 submarines cables located, for most of them, around the Arabian Peninsula.

"I Love Bonnie" published on the 12th the excellent "The Submarine Cables - A Complete Guide to the 2008 Internet Outage". The post contains tons of informations and links and provides a detailed review of the events. Media coverage can be found on Renesys site. Steven M. Bellovin professor at Columbia  University analyzed the possible causes of these outages.

Some also speaks, indeed, about conspiracy