Berkman Buzz, week of May 12, 2006

A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations. If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here.

*In addition to our look at the past week's online Berkman conversations, we're taking a close look at conversations from "Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture," a conference we're co-hosting on the future of public media. *

From Beyond Broadcast... Take your pick here or browse below.

* Beyond Broadcast photos shared through Flickr.
* Articles tagged by participants over at del.icio.us
* Ethan Zuckerman captures humorous keynote by James Boyle
* Jessica Duda at Beyond Broadcast overviews new tools for public broadcasters.
* Barbara Abrash at Beyond Broadcast reviews The War Tapes.
* Andy Carvin reviews stats on college students' internet use.
* Andy Carvin paraphrases Brendan Greeley of Open Source Radio.

And goings on at the Berkman Center.

* Derek Slater dismisses Philips' latest improvements.
* Bill McGeveran takes issue with C-SPAN's licensing strategy.
* Charles Nesson introduces cyberstrategy to the Cherokee Nation.
* Ethan Zuckerman looks closely at multilingualism online.
* Tim Armstrong reflects on role of blogging in the academy.
* Dan Gillmor discusses lost distinctions among media forms.
* Eric Priest analyzes significance of monetized mobile downloads in Asia.

The full buzz.

"So he starts with the principle that we’re going to talk about how networks are working today and how we can avoid screwing them up - on the level of law, policy and corporate behavior. This involves understanding two facts about human beings. One is that we’re very bad at predicting the future of technological innovation. When the FTC considered the mobile phone, they projected that it would be a niche market, with 400,000 users worldwide...."
Ethan Zuckerman, "Jamie Boyle at Beyond Broadcast"

"Minnesota public radio has been “obsessed with user-created content.” They have initiatives that span from a mini music encyclopedia Wiki (music and its history from classical to polka to jazz and rock) to gather.com (25K subscribers of user created content.)...."
Jessica Duda, "Summary - Panel 1: What the broadcasters are doing"

"First-time feature documentary film director Deborah Scranton arrived at Beyond Broadcasting, fresh from the Tribeca Film Festival where she won the Best Documentary Award for The War Tapes — “the first film directed through instant messaging.”  Two and a half years ago, Scranton was offered the opportunity to join a New Hampshire National Guard unit as an embedded journalist in Iraq.  She chose instead to be a “virtually embedded” journalist, ...."
Barbara Abrash, "High Order Bit - the War Tapes"

"She collected data from 270 young adults in a fall 2004 phone survey. She found that people with higher education had higher levels of online skills. But what really mattered was whether or not they had autonomy in their use - could they use it at home on their own terms. People in more privileged positions might be using the Internet in ways that really benefit them - this adds to the divide...."
Andy Carvin, "Eszter Hargittai on What College Students Actually Do Online"

"Blogs are the new talk radio; they're used for making decisions. Blogs have motion. Talk to many early bloggers and they'll say they were sick of yelling at some broadcaster on the TV and instead wanted to broadcast their own ideas. Blogs have motion - one post after another in rapid succession, also like broadcasting...."
Andy Carvin, "Radio Open Source: A blog with a radio show"

"According to DesignTechnica, Philips has patented a "technology ... [that] would prevent users from changing channels to avoid watching television commercials as well as prevent viewers from fast-forwarding through recorded advertisements."  Why would Philips invent such an absurd restriction when it will never be voluntarily licensed? After all, in a competitive market, technology companies who adopt Philips' patented system will be shunned by customers; no one wants a device that says, "Now improved -- blocks changing channels during commercials!"..."
Derek Slater, "Philips Patents DRM To Stop Commercial Skipping, Changing Channels"

"C-SPAN has the legal right to withhold permission for streaming — it is a private initiative of the cable industry, not a government entity. Presumably the network wants to maintain control of its online library of footage. But this seems like a horrifically short-sighted strategy for a network that says its “mission is to provide public access to the political process.” And I don’t see how licensing raw tape of events in Washington (as opposed to call-in shows or something else with editorial content) could compromise “C-SPAN’s reputation for unbiased coverage of the political process.”"
Bill McGeveran, "C-SPAN's Resistance to Internet Streaming"

"...a people with money out to reclaim their history. they could tell it every way. i would love to help. tim, would you consider joining in the submission of a plan to the Cherokee Nation to amplify the process of identity integration the leadership has begun. the plan would embody a cyberstrategy of training in the development of digital media skills and use of those skills to preserve and create a vibrant cherokee identity and history in cyberspace."
Charles Nesson, "Cherokee Nation"

"My regular readers know that I’m obsessed with the question of how the Internet will change as an additional billion users join the network. It’s a safe assumption that many of these billion users will not read English… and will not create content in English. Recent statistics from Technorati suggest that more blogposts current exist in Japanese than in English; my research suggests that there might be even more blogposts in Chinese than in Japanese. Wikipedia gives an interesting introduction to some of the potentials and challenges of a massively multilingual internet...."
Ethan Zuckerman, "Your language or mine?"

"If the missions of the academy are teaching, scholarship, and public service, then isn’t the question “are blogs scholarship?” two-thirds too narrow? The broader question, and one that engaged several of the presenters, is: is blogging a legitimate part of the university’s academic mission? Scholarship is part of this, but not the totality. ..."
Tim Armstrong, "Bloggership Conference Wrapup"

"Paul Steiger, the incoming chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, wants the prestigious awards to delve even more in to Web-based journalism, calling it “the biggest priority for us.” This is just common sense, but how they’ll do it will be interesting because the distinctions among media forms are disappearing as news organizations move toward the Web platform. The Pulitzer prizes at issue are designed to recognize newspaper journalism. But newspapers are using a variety of media online including video, audio, mashups and more...."
Dan Gillmor, "Bringing the Pulitzers into the Web Era"

"I'm currently in Hong Kong attending the Music Matters Asia music industry conference, where, unsurprisingly, digital media and internet file sharing is the hot topic. The slogan of Day 1: mobile is the future.  The primary growth area (and really the only meaningful growth area) for music through 2010 is monetized mobile downloads...."
Eric Priest, "Live from Music Matters Asia"

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