Posts Tagged: media

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27
Jan 09

Times Open, Feb. 20

Awesome:

Announcing Times Open, a day-long event for developers interested in working with NYTimes.com as a news and information platform. When we started this Open blog, we also embarked on a mission to share more of what we do on the development side of The Times. So far, we’ve done that via conference presentations, open-source software, blog posts and (most recently and probably most importantly) our APIs. Times Open is the next logical step in our vision of NYTimes.com. We see our site as more than just a source of news and information: it’s a platform on which news and information become building blocks.

If only I had the time/money/bandwidth to get there – there are some awesome things to be built with the Gray Lady’s data.  Featuring my buddy Gabriel Dance.

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27
Jan 09

Nancy Baym on Social Practice in Online Media

Nancy Baym has released the slides and writeup of a smart talk she recently gave regarding social practice and online music fandom.  She highlights a number of the key activities of online fandom, drawing the themes out to show how producers can leverage fans and technologies to increase engagement.  While the talk is rooted in music fandom, Baym’s advice is applicable across multiple domains.  If you’re producing online content, read Baym’s talk.

I identify 5 key social practices in fandom, 5 reasons the internet has superpowered fans, and make 4 suggestions for how artists and those who represent them can make this work for everyone. I argue that the key to fostering fans’ strong connections to artists is fostering their connections to one another by understanding and nurturing the activities that bind them together in their fandom.

via Online Fandom » Relating to Fans Means Helping Them Relate to Each Other.

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3
Apr 08

Media Unit Strctures: Learning Outside the Box

I’ve recently started listening to podcasts of the PRI program To The Best Of Our Knowledge. Unfortunately our affiliate doesn’t get the program, so the podcast is one of my favorite discoveries in recent memory. The March 9 edition of the show, Learning Outside the Box, was particularly compelling. Featuring a discussion with Jonathan Mooney, the “learning disabled” author of The Short Bus, the show forces you to confront notions of “normalcy” in societal and educational contexts. Very thought provoking, and some of the best radio I’ve heard in a while. Listen to the stream here.

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30
Jan 08

The WSJ peers into the future…

A few days ago, the WSJ ran an interesting article entitled Thinking about Tomorrow, in which a reporters talked to a number of futurists, etc. about what technology is going to look like ten years from now. I’ve got a quote in there about social technology, which was a nice surprise! I’m not sure how long the piece will stay online for free, so if you’re interested in reading, check it out here.

In other news, the Oxford SDP will be accepting applications through February 20 – three more weeks. I can’t recommend this program enough to fellow doctoral students.

Noticed / Thoughts — 2 Comments
20
Dec 07

More from Pew, OII SDP 2008

Pew’s excellent researchers are keeping me very busy these days. Following on the release of the Digital Footprints report, Pew yesterday released a new report on Teens and Social Media. Certainly of interest to the future-watchers in the crowd. Nicole Ellison and I share our thoughts about the report with Ellen Lee of the SF Chronicle.

What struck me about the social media report is the evident trending towards increased production of online content by young people. That is, more and more young people are creating content online, to the point where production in one form or another is expected. Among the technical elite, this might not seem interesting or surprising. Of course, Pew’s strong suit is the development of ecologically valid surveys that get at the heart of the everyday experience – and the fact that 1 our of every 3 teens out there blogs or journals is very much noteworthy in my opinion. You can download the report here. (PDF)

Also to note is the opening of the application process for the 2008 Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program. This year, the program will be at Oxford (last year it was at the Berkman Center), running from July 13-25. If you’re a doctoral student interested in the areas the SDP covers (and particularly Web Science, as Sir Timbl will be a tutor), I heartily recommend applying. The SDP is a great experience, a chance to better your research, and a chance to build a lifelong cohort of some seriously brilliant awesome people.

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25
Oct 07

ClaimID in Library Journal

Just a quick note to let everyone know about the great writeup of ClaimID and OpenID over at Library Journal. Written by Michael Habib, this comprehensive piece takes a look at the challenges of online identity.

MySpace, Facebook, and other Web 2.0 tools led TIME to name you, yes, you, 2006 Person of the Year. With such notoriety, you might want to see what your online identity says about you. What do potential employers and friends find when they google you? When was the last time you googled yourself? What impression do your MySpace profile and YouTube videos leave? Your blog? What do other people say about you? How much control do you have over what is written about you on the web?

Check out the piece, bookmark it in del.icio.us.

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21
Oct 07

Economist on Facebook

In the October 20 edition, the Economist wades in to the social graph discussion, declaring “There’s less to Facebook and other social networks than meets the eye.” Ouch. But there’s something refreshing about the Economist’s measured point of view. From the article:

How much of this is hype? Facebook has made two genuine breakthroughs. The first was its decision to let outsiders write programs and keep all the advertising revenues these might earn. This has led to all kinds of widgets, from the useful (comparing Facebookers’ music and film tastes, say) to the inane (biting each other to become virtual zombies). The entire internet industry reckons this was clever and is planning to copy it. This week MySpace said it would open its site to outside programmers. Google, which owns Orkut, a social network extremely popular in Brazil and parts of Asia, is expected to do the same soon. Facebook’s second masterstroke is its “mini-feed”, an event stream on user pages that keeps users abreast of what their friends are doing—uploading photos, adding a widget and so on. For many users, this is addictive and is the main reason they log on so often. Jerry Michalski, a consultant, calls the mini-feed a “data exhaust” that gives Facebook users “better peripheral vision” into the lives of people they know only casually. This mini-feed is so far the clearest example of using the social graph in a concrete way.

Link to the article.

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