PDF: Visualizing the political blogosphere

If innovations in the citizen media community are shaping the political process, it’s worth looking closely at the structures and architecture of that new space. Two speakers at PDF specialize in visualizing and analyzing mass sets of data. Anthony Hamelle of linkfluence builds very pretty maps of the blogosphere, much like the famous Glance and [...]

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PDF: Rebooting the System

I’m in New York City today at the Personal Democracy Forum conference, the fifth iteration of a conference hosted by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry on technology, democracy and innovations in both fields. It’s the sort of event that attracts an amazing audience - I’m sitting between Jay Rosen and Craig Newmark, two people who’ve [...]

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Kenya: Citizen Media in a time of crisis

Another day, another book chapter. No, not the book I’m hoping to write over the next n months - a book on citizen media in crisis situations being put together by a pair of academics in Britain. Given that some of the folks mentioned in this piece periodically read this blog, and that lots of [...]

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Chartock Radio, and the challenge of public broadcasting

Can you name the director of your local public radio station? This isn’t one of those tests where you’re supposed to feel guilty if you can’t name your congressperson. I asked this question at a meeting of US media professionals and only one person in a room of twenty could come up with a name. Clearly, they [...]

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Chris Kelty: The Cultural Significance of Free Software

Anthropologist Christopher Kelty is visiting Harvard from Rice, discussing his book “Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software” at the Berkman Center today. The book is an ethnography and “analytic history” of free softare, focusing on the cultural importance of the free software movement. He’s interested, in particular, in the ways that free software [...]

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Chinese news translations from FBIS

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2008 NCMR: Establsihing links between Internet Governance and Media Reform

I recently attended the National Conference for Media Reform in order to build bridges between Internet governance and advocates of free speech and media reform.

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Simple examples of cool ideas - last post from MIT conference

Part of the fun of having an academic life based in Cambridge, MA, is that you’ve gotten to see a great deal of the most exciting research taking place in this insanely academic city. The last session of the MIT conference features some the superstars of the MIT Media Lab world, researchers whose work has [...]

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Cellphones, civic media and conversations with winged carnivores

It’s the third day of MIT’s Future of Civic Media Conference, and I’m still finding that I can’t get the phrase “civic media” to come out of my mouth. Must be all those years of trying to sell the “citizen media” meme. Fortunately, despite the fact that we’ve all seen several dozen demo talks at [...]

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Panel discussion on television flow at MIT

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Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX promises

Nate Anderson has a story here about details of the Sprint/Clearwire plan.  His piece refers to a petition for  “permission to merge the 2.5GHz spectrum assets of Sprint and Clearwire into ‘New Clearwire,’” and I’ve just spent some time looking for that petition.  If you have a copy, could you send it to me?

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Will a Global TAR make DNSSEC stick?

Two US Government contractors and the National Institute of Science and Technology have released a white paper, "Statement of Needed Internet Capability," detailing possible alternatives and considerations for a Trust Anchor Repository (TAR) to support DNSSEC deployment. Importantly, the document highlights policy choices, and raises interesting questions about a Global TAR as a solution for helping secure the DNS and the role of national security interests.

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New Media, New Voices

This morning’s session at the MIT conference on the Future of Civic Media focuses on new voices and new media. I’m giving the closing talk in the session, talking about the ten projects that currently comprise the Rising Voices effort of Global Voices. It’s a good fit, as our work on Rising Voices is precisely [...]

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if:book review 1: game culture

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Knowing less

The announcement this morning in the Times that New York State AG Andrew Cuomo had reached an agreement with three US network operators (Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner) about blocking child pornography was both less and more important than it appeared. It’s less important in that part of the agreement covers something ISPs already do, which [...]

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The architecture of serendipity

Law professors Cass Sunstein and Eugene Volokh brightened my drive to Harvard last week with a dialog about “the architecture of serendipity”. Sunstein is well-known for his concerns about echo chambers and “media cocoons” that allow citizens to insulate themselves, hearing only the opinions and perspectives of people who agree with them. (He develops this [...]

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On Technical (and Political) Risks

Public Interest Registry wants to implement DNSSEC in the .org zone. According to ICANN's regulations, this is a "new registry service" and it has to be reviewed by a committee of technical experts to assess its impact on the security and stability of the Internet before it can be approved. The expert panel released its report on PIR's proposal June 4. The report, like so many things associated with DNSSEC implementation, has fascinating implications which are buried in technical details that few people will understand. One conclusion that could be drawn from the report is that the US government's insistence on maintaining control of the root zone file is actually decreasing Internet security.

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The Front and Back End of a Two Year Wireless Subscription

In the United States just about everyone trades off typical consumer rights and handset freedoms in exchange for “ownership” of a subsidized handset. Of course the handset is neither free, nor fully owned. In exchange for the a subsidy cellphone service subscribers agree to an intricate installment sales contract that limits what they can do with the handset. But what happens after the two years

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Winners and Losers in Yet Another Mega-Billion Dollar Acquisition—Verizon/Alltel

I’m going out on a very short and sturdy limb here to predict that the FCC will approve Verizon’s acquisition of Alltel with few conditions and with glowing endorsement of how the public benefits from the transaction. If I am correct then we have yet another instance where the FCC will have allowed partisanship, shoddy economic analysis and blind adherence to doctrine to ignore the obvious: a

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Upcoming Event: GigaNet Workshop on Global Internet Governance

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