Make Up Your Mind: Are Blogs JOU or Not?

Nothing drives me crazier than the insistence by journalists that blogs and other social media forms aren’t journalism.
My argument isn’t that every blog is the highest form of journalism. And I may even be persuaded that some aren’t journalism at all (although I think those are simply micro-journalism aimed at niche audiences of, say, one). [...]

Social Media Aggregator

The great thing about Twitter: I find so many cool applications by stalking people.
NewsNozzl is an aggregator of news from the best social media sites. People then vote on the best stories and the headlines are displayed accordingly. This is such a great way to display information, particularly in a Silverlight/Air world. Sites don’t matter. [...]

Design Conundrum – And Other Big Words

My program, Media Informatics, is getting ready to add Web Design to the curriculum, which will compliment the design side – Dreamweaver, Flash and Maya (these are the programs, for now).
We’re having a problem, though. The Art department has what they refer to as Web design in their curriculum already. The issue: they design Web [...]

Desktop Apps Change Everything: Simplify Media

I’ve been writing about Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight because desktop applications that move files seamlessly between online and offline are revolutionary. This will change the way we do everything (as will devices like the Kindle).
SimplifyMedia may be the best example of this. You download the application on your computer — and you can listen [...]

People You Should Know: Larry Lessig

Larry Lessig has done more than I’m going to talk about in this particular post. If you follow the reading list, you’ll come across him a few times (Code, The Future of Ideas).
He’s here because he made the Creative Commons, the copy left system which allows anyone to make something creative, to protect it from [...]

Jan 2008: Top Online Properties

I’m looking at comScore’s Top 50 properties for Jan 2008. I’d link directly to them, but it’s impossible because it’s a Flash pop-up. However, I’ll give you the rundown:

Yahoo: 184 million uniques
Google: 134 million uniques
Microsoft: 119 million uniques
AOL: [...]

Live Journal in Crisis: danah boyd’s Retrospective

danah boyd has written a wonderful blog post about her history with Live Journal, one of the early — and popular — blogging tools.
It gives a keen insight,if you’re paying attention, to why it’s going to be very hard for any one media outlet to truly integrate itself into the social media sphere. Here’s a [...]

Forget the Experts, Meta Talk Goes Real Space

I’m on the Advisory Board for SXSW Interactive, which basically means I’ve been going to this event for 15 years (I think) and I’m too nerdy to conceive of a time when I wouldn’t be here.
I do some writing, help choose panels sessions after the glorious SXSW folks do the heavy lifting, evangelize the awesomeness [...]

People You Should Know: J.C.R. Licklider

Every time I teach a class that has anything to do with technology, I begin by making my kids read “Man-Computer Symbiosis” by J.C.R. Licklider.
He’s not known for building anything. He didn’t create computers, software or networks. He didn’t make the new, new thing. All he did was conceptualize how computer networks should work and [...]

Sprint Goes Unlimited

I can’t tell you how often I’ve waged this argument with bosses, and each time, I’ve walked away angrier than I thought I could be. The premise: how much of our content to we “give away for free.”
The answer is none of it. You have a sound advertising and business model, you aren’t giving anything [...]

Where am I?