MIT Media Lab opposes SOPA, PIPA
I’ve been working with friend (and boss) Joi Ito to help the Media Lab put up a statement about our collective opposition to SOPA and PIPA. Joi and I are both posting this piece on our personal blogs,...
View ArticleNews in the Age of Participatory Media
I’m teaching my first class at MIT this spring, a “special topics” class at the Media Lab. (This is evidently how new classes get launched at MIT -they’re “special” the first year before they become...
View ArticleWadah Khanfar, former director general of Al Jazeera, to speak at MIT Media Lab
A little more than a year ago, the world changed in a sudden and dramatic way. The long-time leader of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was ousted after a month of largely peaceful street protests...
View ArticleTim O’Reilly at MIT Media Lab
Legendary technology publisher Tim O’Reilly is the speaker at today’s Media Lab Conversations with Joi Ito. O’Reilly Media is one of the best respected technology publishers in the industry, producing...
View ArticleOpening notes from Media Lab spring meeting
Radio host John Hockenberry introduces the first day of the Media Lab’s spring sponsor meeting. He suggests that the lab is an “infectious idea”, a way of working and thinking that spreads well beyond...
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Kenya, power and questioning my assumptions
I’m discovering that one of my special joys in life is having my presumptions proved wrong. I’ve just returned from a ten day trip to Kenya, helping host the fifth Global Voices summit, attending board...
View ArticleHow do we make civic crowdfunding awesome?
Ten people each contribute $100 a month into a pool. They meet once a month and discuss possible projects to support. Each month, they give a grant of $1000 to a project that meets a simple criterion:...
View ArticleSteven Johnson’s Peer to Peer Politics at MIT Media Lab
(Nathan Matias, Matt Stempeck and others at Center for Civic Media have put together an excellent blog post on this event as well – I encourage you to read their post as well.) Election’s eve at the...
View ArticleJose Gomez-Marquez, bringing maker culture to medicine
Jose Gomez-Marquez teaches at MIT’s D-Lab, a remarkable lab focused on the problems of the developing world. He’s a recognized and awarded innovator in the field of health innovation and won Technology...
View ArticleWhat comes after election monitoring? Citizen monitoring of infrastructure.
I spent last week in Senegal at a board meeting for Open Society Foundation, meeting organizations the foundation supports around the continent. Two projects in particular stuck in my mind. One is Y’en...
View ArticleCivic Media at Sun Yat Sen University – Hal Abelson
I’m on this road this week, in Guangzhou, China, and in Tokyo, Japan, giving a set of talks at academic conferences and to journalistic organizations. My first stop is at Sun Yat Sen University in...
View ArticleCivic Media at Sun Yat Sen U: Mobiles, ads and games
Eric Klopfer is a professor at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and teaches in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department. His presentation at Sun Yat Sen University focuses on his key...
View ArticleCivic Media at Sun Yat Sen U: Chinese social media innovation
Dean Ran Yang of Sun Yat Sen University’s new school of Mobile Information Engineering starts her talk by showing pictures of Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Seve Chen, Sergey Brin – she argues that these...
View ArticleCivic Media at Sun Yat Sen U: Jing Wang and NGO 2.0
Professor Jing Wang is the organizer of our international symposium at Sun Yat Sen University. She’s the founder of a project called NGO2.0, which teaches participatory and social media tools to...
View ArticleSasha Costanza Chock at Sun Yat Sen University
Friend and colleague Sasha Costanza-Chock leads off the morning at Sun Yat Sen University’s conference on Civic Media with a talk titled, “Transmedia Organizing: Social Media Practices in Occupy Wall...
View ArticleOn MIT’s report on Aaron Swartz’s prosecution
Hal Abelson’s report on MIT’s actions around Aaron Swartz’s prosecution was released last week. I was on vacation and offline – I returned home Sunday and read the report and some of the responses to...
View ArticleCharlie DeTar dissertation defense: Intertwinkles and digital tools for...
Charlie DeTar defended his doctoral dissertation this afternoon at the MIT Media Lab. Charlie is a student in Chris Schmandt’s Mobility and Speech group, but has also been an active member of my group,...
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What We Watch: a new tool for watching how popular videos spread online
More than a billion people a month visit YouTube to watch videos. Sometimes, those billion people watch the same video. More often, they don’t. YouTube shares information about what videos are popular...
View ArticleSaving the News with Advocacy Journalism: ten minutes with the Nieman Foundation
It’s the 75th anniversary of the Nieman Foundation, and the Harvard-based program is bringing back generations of its fellows, mid-career journalists brought to Cambridge to study for a year, back to...
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Members, fans and complementary revenue models for the New York Times
The other day, I had coffee with a friend who works for the New York Times. Early in the conversation, I admitted to him that I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with the Times. I love much of the...
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