This photo from Google University at AdTech. I plan to compare this with the Online Information event later this year. In the UK normally you need the Privy Council to agree to the use of the name "University". Somehow the US approach is gaining strength that companies can set up a university as well.

More on the content later. A lot of it was round the idea of a 'quality score', mostly based on how relevant your advert would be to a particular search query. I am thinking about how this fits with other quality theory.

Meanwhile Google Video seems to have given up the struggle with YouTube and opted for the high ground and more academic content. UC Berkeley have deposited a mass of course records. I liked one about search quality but it took them a while to get the slides working. The video just rolls on, this approach is not very mysterious.

The Online Information event is around the theme of "Information 2.0". Not sure what this implies but I am trying to mix it around "Web 2.0" just to check out what the official information scene has to offer. Open Access Journals for example do not yet carry the same weight as the expensive ones but some form of knowledge exists just through search and the web in general.

I have put a comment on the official blog, following on from David Weinberger last year. The IWR blog seems to be questioning the "Web 2.0" term as suffering a loss of meaning over time. The conference in San Francisco will surely come up with something though.

Off to Adtech tomorrow, including the Google University. Almost entirely about advertising and stats analysis, I think. The use of 'university' as a word is a US approach, when applied to companies. Personally I think a Google University should exist all year round not just on special occasions. There is an online version so this is a case of 'blended learning'.

Meanwhile Cambridge University has come up with a new approach to A Levels. See 'Fast Forward to the Past' in the Guardian. There is a very short list of suitable subjects for a new 'pre-U' qualification for the really bright people for the top unis. 'Media Studies' is not on the list, or design technology or IT. Economics ok but not sociology. Too close to media studies probably.