natematias's blog

You Are All Beautiful People: SwiftKey Accepts Webby for Innovation in Mobile

Submitted by natematias on May 22, 2012 - 10:02am

Words are amazing. A phrase of unusual integrity or cacophony can launch our imagination, fill our senses, and send us tumbling through unexpected patterns of interpretation. Last night, I heard five wonderful words which arose from the collective creation of millions of people, a legendary computer, the content of the Internet, and years of effort by some of my greatest colleagues.

Is Education Obsolete? Sugata Mitra at the MIT Media Lab

Submitted by natematias on May 16, 2012 - 6:53pm

Today, we are hearing from Sugata Mitra, visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab and Professor of Educational Technology at the school of education at Newcastle University (blog here). Mitra is best known for the "Hole in the Wall" computer learning systems in India (TED Talk) and the related educational philosophy, "Minimally Invasive Education."  My Media Lab colleage Sayamindu Dasgupta helped me blog Mitra's talk.

Top 12 Media Lab Social Technologies

Submitted by natematias on May 12, 2012 - 11:05am

During my work on Social Mirror, tablet tech for social checkups, I have been inspired by other amazing Media Lab social technologies. Here are 12 of the projects which I have found most inspiring, including one or two from other universities.

Did I miss a project you love? Post your favourites in the comments. 

Social Empowerment through Networks

Can social checkups empower marginalized teenagers? In 2001, Leo Burd, now a researcher at the MIT Center for Civic Media, conducted several paper-based studies at Computer Clubhouse, with positive results. Leo is now an advisor on the Social Mirror software.

Social Mirror: Tablet Tech for Social Checkups

Submitted by natematias on May 12, 2012 - 10:55am
Social Mirror

Social Mirror is social checkup technology for people and organisations. Last month, the Media Lab's corporate sponsors used Social Mirror for a social checkup on their connections with our research groups. This summer, I'm testing the tablet software in UK communities in partnership with Gaia Marcus at the RSA, a prominent UK thinktank (you have probably seen their RSAnimate videos).

#ROFLCon Liveblog Roundup

Submitted by natematias on May 6, 2012 - 2:51pm

ROFLCon 3 was amazing (thanks Christina and Tim!). Liveblogging the event were Matt Stempeck, Stephen Suen, and Erhardt Graeff.

Thumbs up all around!

Here is a list of Civic Media blog posts from ROFLCon::

Too Big To Know: Reddit, YouTube, Imgr at #ROFLCon

Submitted by natematias on May 4, 2012 - 7:31pm

What do you do with the massive amounts of data that Internet sites are gathering?

Moderating is David Weinberger, from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The panelists include:

How big is big? May is YouTube's 7th birthday. They get 4 billion views per day. YouTube had 1 trillion views in 2011. Over one hour of video is uploaded on YouTube every second. YouTube is localized in 43 countries and in 60 languages.

On the 30th of April, Reddit had around 5.6 million votes on links, 5.6 million votes on comments, 11 million total votes, 69 thousand links submitted -- in one day!

Scams: Jason Scott on The Mysterious Case of Robert Hoquim #ROFLCON

Submitted by natematias on May 4, 2012 - 6:03pm

Jason Scott is one of the people on the Internet who I most admire. The man behind textfiles.com, he has done amazing work archiving the history of computing through a series of documentaries like Get Lamp and the BBS Documentary.

Jason tells us that this isn’t going to be one of his funny talks.

He tells about The Mysterious Mister Hoqim, a scam artist who he has been studying for many years. Jason tells us that nobody actually knows the last things that went through Bob’s mind when he passed away. After his death, the authorities linked him to a fugitive named John Paul Aleshe. They were given access to a shipping container which belonged to him. When that happened, a multimillion dollar life of fraud fell apart.

From Micro-Fame to Nano-Fame: Nyan Cat, Me Gusta, Huh?, and Double Rainbow at #ROFLCON

Submitted by natematias on May 4, 2012 - 5:03pm

ROFLCon has talked about microfame before, but the time to complete internet domination is even shorter than before. Memes now come and go at the rate of several per day, and they're also ever tinier and tinier splices of content: moving away from whole blogs to a few seconds of video here or a single image there.

What's it like to be known for a few seconds or pixels of content?

Mike Rugnetta of MemeFactory is moderating. The panelists include:

ROFLCon Keynote: Jonathan Zittrain on Memes and Society

Submitted by natematias on May 4, 2012 - 2:00pm

Today with Matt Stempeck and Stephen Suen, I'm liveblogging ROFLCon, a conference for things and people who are famous on the Internet. The livenote index is here.

Christina Xu, event organiser, starts off ROFLCon to cheers. It’s amazingly packed venue: “One out of eight people in this room have done something crazy on the internet."

Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain is a Internet phenomenon. Emerging from humble beginnings as a longtime Compuserve forum sysop, he is now Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he co-founded the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The Weapon We Have Is Love: Andrew Slack on Fan Activism

Submitted by natematias on May 3, 2012 - 1:10pm

Today at the Center for Civic Media, our guest is Andrew Slack of the Harry Potter Alliance, which he cofounded with Wizard Rock Band Harry and the Potters. Andrew is a transmedia activist (TEDx talk here) who helps fan communities organise for social change. Recently, Andrew helped launch the Hunger Is Not a Game campaign with Oxfam America, which recently attracted legal action by Lionsgate.

(today's blog post was written collaboratively with Becky Hurwitz and Matt Stempeck)

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