Berkman Buzz, week of November 24 - Early Thanksgiving Edition

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

What's going on... take your pick or browse below.

*Ethan Zuckerman highlights CanTV's dynamism.
*Dan Gillmor agrees that ISPs aren't responsible for any libelous speech they carry.
*David Weinberger defends folksonomies.
*Rebecca MacKinnon solicits your help in recognizing the value of Chinese blogs.
*Doc Searls loves Flickr's community.

The Full Buzz


"CanTV is a truly remarkable little tool - a Wifi cantenna that includes an inexpensive AV receiver which allows people in an extremely remote Malian village to get video programming over the internet. The local radio station has a net connection and can download programming - it rents CanTV units to local people who’ve already purchased TVs (which they power with 12 volt car batteries). The TVs are useless for anything other than videowatching in this corner of Mali as there’s no broadcasting - with this new system, a local radio station is able to become a TV station without adding hardware more complicated than these little antennas..."
Ethan Zuckerman, "I Want My CanTV"

"SF Chronicle: ISP not responsible for online libel, state’s top court rules. People who claim they were libeled on line can’t sue the Internet service providers that carried the messages, the California Supreme Court ruled today.

This is an absolutely crucial decision, and it will reverberate for years to come.

No one should be advocating libelous speech — and, in fact, the libelers should be dealt with according to traditional defamation law. Nor, however, should online sites that simply host conversations be liable for other people’s speech.  I was just asked by a local radio station about this case, and the tenor of the questions suggested, at one point, that perhaps it was unfair to hold newspapers and broadcasters to a different, sterner standard. Not at all, I said: The point of the law was to encourage broad conversation where editing everything would be prohibitively difficult..."
Dan Gillmor, "Major Court Decision Protects Online Speech"

"Elaine Peterson, associate professor and information resources specialist at Montana State University, has published an article called 'Beneath the Metadata: Some Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy' in D-Lib Magazine (doi:10.1045/november2006-peterson). Since she spends some time disagreeing with my 'Tagging and why it matters,' I figured I'd reply...

First, she says folksonomies are unlikely to be 'good for the average user...since folksonomies will not produce an efficient index.' It's not clear what Elaine means by 'efficient.' But if she means that users won't be able to find information efficiently relative to traditional taxonomies, then there's evidence that she's wrong, at least in some instances (e.g., Flickr).  Then she moves to her philosophical critique. In essence (so to speak), Elaine objects that folksonomies are non-Aristotelian. Ironically, that's a theme of Everything Is Miscellaneous. The difference is that for Elaine, the fact that folksonomies are non-Aristotelian means they're wrong, whereas for me it means they're probably important and definitely interesting..."
David Weinberger, "Beneath the Metadata - a reply"

"Over the past year or so, we've seen a number of instances in which China-focused blogs appear to have had a substantial impact on the international news media's coverage of China. A couple of examples are Roland Soong's ESWN on the Foxconn and Taishi Village stories, Jeremy Goldkorn's Danwei on 'Ayigate,' etc. There are many more. 

A lot of bloggers feel that the blogosphere isn't getting nearly enough credit for the work they're doing - and for the leg up that many journalists may be getting from that work.  So.  It's time to gather some comprehensive data about just how journalistically influential the Sino-blogosphere has become.  Want to help me out?..."
Rebecca MacKinnon, "Blogs and China News Coverage"

"Kill off the Flickr brand, and I'll betcha Stuart and Caterina will be gone faster than you can TiVo past the next Yahoo! ad on TV. (Which is why I also bet it will never happen, by the way. And no, I haven't seen or spoken to Stuart or Caterina in a long time, so I have absolutely no knowledge here. So please don't read anything into that bet.)  Cut off the head and the body dies. That's Lesson One for acquisitions, unless all you're acquiring is technology.  And I can assure you Flickr isn't just technology. Yes, it's a great UI with a killer back-end and open APIs. But it's communities. It's a sense of place. It's love.  Love and money. That's the best business mix ever made. Love is why most businesses start. Lack of it is why most businesses end..."
Doc Searls, "Before the Peanut Butter Hits the Fan"

If you'd like to receive this by email, just sign up here.