Alright, I'd like to write all night, but that's not wise if I'm going to enjoy tomorrow at all. (Mostly movies tomorrow, btw.) But here's the lowdown:
--Danah Boyd gave a fabulous speech on privacy and social networking. I really wish I'd heard this talk before I taught privacy in February. I will hopefully post her speech when it goes online.
--Next was a discussion about going to the moon. The consensus of the panel seemed to be that private companies will get there before NASA. Amanda Stiles represented the Google XPrize on the panel; I feel she should have stolen the show, but she left that to Dave Masten, himself a former Xprize winner.
--Last panel of the day was a fun discussion title "Big Brother on the Big Screen: Fact or Fiction". Led by the EFF and ACLU), it was a fun way to end the day.
--This evening I got to watch Michel Gondry's beautiful documentary about his Aunt Suzette. It's inspiration to us all to film our families in an effort to record who we really are.
And, after that, I was exhausted from a day of sitting, so I came home. Tomorrow's likely schedule: cartography, zero waste, and movies on Afghanistan, opera and Mr. Nice.
14 March 2010
Can you copyright a tweet?
This panel was expertly guided by Fred Benenson and Wendy Selzer. Despite some reading in the past, I'm admittedly not too clear on what Creative Commons Licensing actually is or does, and since it came up a lot I didn't completely follow the conversation.
I had two takeaways, the first was some bits of copyright law, quoted to us. To be copyrighted, it has to occur in a "tangible medium of expression," and courts have ruled that computer RAM counts. Also, it has to be an "original work of authorship" (not facts) and not "expressions so minimal..." ergo many tweets are not eligible for copyright.
However, one mamma is most certainly eligible. Momku was one of the last audience commenters. Her tweets would definitely meet the above criteria. Nonetheless, she said that she does not think her tweets are protected, "however if I get a book deal i might go back on that." Along those lines, Ms. Selzer made a great point at the end, stating that the online community does a better (certainly faster) job of policing itself than any team of lawyers and judges has. "Something other than the law," Selzer said, "is working better than the law. We're doing pretty well with our norms."
I had two takeaways, the first was some bits of copyright law, quoted to us. To be copyrighted, it has to occur in a "tangible medium of expression," and courts have ruled that computer RAM counts. Also, it has to be an "original work of authorship" (not facts) and not "expressions so minimal..." ergo many tweets are not eligible for copyright.
However, one mamma is most certainly eligible. Momku was one of the last audience commenters. Her tweets would definitely meet the above criteria. Nonetheless, she said that she does not think her tweets are protected, "however if I get a book deal i might go back on that." Along those lines, Ms. Selzer made a great point at the end, stating that the online community does a better (certainly faster) job of policing itself than any team of lawyers and judges has. "Something other than the law," Selzer said, "is working better than the law. We're doing pretty well with our norms."
Citizen Journalists start the day off right
SXSW is underway and after four interactive panels, one fantastic speech and an introspective movie, my mind is on information overload.
I had a hunch pretty quickly into it, but the first one I attended was going to be one of the better hours of the week. TeamCJ ("Citizen Journalism") consisted of a panel of 6 thirty-ish Dallasites who basically just set the state for a great Salon discussion.
Starting out with the question “What is a citizen journalist?” the discussion first steered around the difference between blogging for pay and blogging for any other reason. Panelist claimed that TMZ can be considered citizen journalists—at least when they were getting started. Several in the audience disagreed, some strongly, arguing that if you make money, you lose the "citizen" part of the title.
The discussion veered, happily in my opinion, away from that and more toward differentiating citizen journalists from, say, the print newspapers. A great story was told about the recent plane crash in Austin, and how web surfers researched information about Joe Stack and Tweeted with #atxplanecrash. Twitter became a news source, faster than any news agency could have done it. Crowdsourcing, in essence, drove the mainstream media.
This can happen in other, slower, ways too. Say through comments on websites or blog responses or even corrections to articles. Or, as was stated in another panel, NASA feels it gets better driving questions—and ideas—from the general public via twitter or blog comments than it does from the mainstream media.
A couple of sites came up in the discussion that are worth mentioning. Demotix takes citizen photos and combines it with the news story. Annarbor.com is apparently a group of journalists who gather in a cafe and run an online newspaper.
This was a fabulous panel, which was a great start to my SXSW interactive conference.
I had a hunch pretty quickly into it, but the first one I attended was going to be one of the better hours of the week. TeamCJ ("Citizen Journalism") consisted of a panel of 6 thirty-ish Dallasites who basically just set the state for a great Salon discussion.
Starting out with the question “What is a citizen journalist?” the discussion first steered around the difference between blogging for pay and blogging for any other reason. Panelist claimed that TMZ can be considered citizen journalists—at least when they were getting started. Several in the audience disagreed, some strongly, arguing that if you make money, you lose the "citizen" part of the title.
The discussion veered, happily in my opinion, away from that and more toward differentiating citizen journalists from, say, the print newspapers. A great story was told about the recent plane crash in Austin, and how web surfers researched information about Joe Stack and Tweeted with #atxplanecrash. Twitter became a news source, faster than any news agency could have done it. Crowdsourcing, in essence, drove the mainstream media.
This can happen in other, slower, ways too. Say through comments on websites or blog responses or even corrections to articles. Or, as was stated in another panel, NASA feels it gets better driving questions—and ideas—from the general public via twitter or blog comments than it does from the mainstream media.
A couple of sites came up in the discussion that are worth mentioning. Demotix takes citizen photos and combines it with the news story. Annarbor.com is apparently a group of journalists who gather in a cafe and run an online newspaper.
This was a fabulous panel, which was a great start to my SXSW interactive conference.
13 March 2010
Austin's public transit
The more I learn about Austin buses (& soon to be 1 train line) the more I'm frustrated.
What's been in the news recently is the new trains. However, I find it hard to believe that it's really going to make any kind of impact on life in Austin. There's just not enough service to matter, and certainly not for the price tag the city has had to pick up.
What I would rather see is for there to be many more buses. The sporadic service is so inconvenient as to be non-existent. Today, for example, there are two bus lines that I can choose from, but neither stops more than every 30 minutes, and neither will allow me to stay downtown past midnight.
I'd like to see this cost comparison: for the money that was spent on this new train line, how many buses could have been added to the system? If bus service could be doubled--maybe 70% more daytime buses and run hourly all night--then I bet ridership would quadruple. And I suspect that kind of increase could have happened for the money that's been laid out for this sexy train line.
I'm not one of those who expects public transportation to ever make a profit, but I do expect it to make a difference in the lives of the majority of residents. Austin's Capital Metro fails to do that.
What's been in the news recently is the new trains. However, I find it hard to believe that it's really going to make any kind of impact on life in Austin. There's just not enough service to matter, and certainly not for the price tag the city has had to pick up.
What I would rather see is for there to be many more buses. The sporadic service is so inconvenient as to be non-existent. Today, for example, there are two bus lines that I can choose from, but neither stops more than every 30 minutes, and neither will allow me to stay downtown past midnight.
I'd like to see this cost comparison: for the money that was spent on this new train line, how many buses could have been added to the system? If bus service could be doubled--maybe 70% more daytime buses and run hourly all night--then I bet ridership would quadruple. And I suspect that kind of increase could have happened for the money that's been laid out for this sexy train line.
I'm not one of those who expects public transportation to ever make a profit, but I do expect it to make a difference in the lives of the majority of residents. Austin's Capital Metro fails to do that.
12 March 2010
I-nigma
One issue that we had to learn about while working the info booth was the bar codes on everyone's conference badges. Basically, with an app on your phone, you scan/photograph/view your new friends' badge and their profile is available for viewing--at least as much of it as they've made public. Seems creepy, but really it's just the info that's already in the Registrant Directory that everyone receives. I think the cool part of this is that you can view each others' schedules during the conference. Coworkers, say, who want to attend different panels can more easily coordinate. Or if you've lost track of a friend, pull up their schedule instead of having to text/call.
I'll be interested to see how it's usefulness eventually plays out.
I'll be interested to see how it's usefulness eventually plays out.
SXSW begins
I had a great time last night "working" the info booth during the registration day. The best part is just being with a bunch of cool, friendly people. Working is actually fun at SXSW, and I love being in the info booth--a great way to find out a bunch about what's going on and not going on, who's here and not here, what's working and what's not working. As an inherently curious person, it's cool to have a job where I have to find out stuff. (I have a similar perspective of teaching, too.)
08 March 2010
Technology and Elections
The other night a friend was asking some questions about cell phone, and how they have changed behaviors. I think the intention of the question was about how our individual actions have changed, but I was reminded of a story from Senegal which shows about how it affected free, fair elections in an entire nation.
When I was leaving the country in summer of 1997, landlines were available house-to-house only in the 10 or so biggest cities, and large villages (say, pop>2,000) perhaps had a central pay phone available. At the time, cell phones were just becoming available. Fast-forward to 2000, and technological leap-frog had happened. Already no one is building landlines, and cell phones are EVERYWHERE. And there's a presidential election. Incumbent President Abdou Diouf lost, the first such loss of an incumbent president in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason he could not stuff the boxes? An unanticipated presence surprised everyone: the press quietly arranged for a reporter at nearly every polling station, conducting exit polls and calling in real-time results/predictions ON THEIR CELL PHONES from places that had never seen phones before. Perhaps Mr. Diouf would have been completely honest anyways, but he never got the chance. A free press with cell phones prevented any potential box stuffing.
Democracy due to technology?
When I was leaving the country in summer of 1997, landlines were available house-to-house only in the 10 or so biggest cities, and large villages (say, pop>2,000) perhaps had a central pay phone available. At the time, cell phones were just becoming available. Fast-forward to 2000, and technological leap-frog had happened. Already no one is building landlines, and cell phones are EVERYWHERE. And there's a presidential election. Incumbent President Abdou Diouf lost, the first such loss of an incumbent president in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason he could not stuff the boxes? An unanticipated presence surprised everyone: the press quietly arranged for a reporter at nearly every polling station, conducting exit polls and calling in real-time results/predictions ON THEIR CELL PHONES from places that had never seen phones before. Perhaps Mr. Diouf would have been completely honest anyways, but he never got the chance. A free press with cell phones prevented any potential box stuffing.
Democracy due to technology?
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