Ethan Zuckerman

links for 2010-03-10

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 18:04

Internet Observatory Report
Another piece on Arbor's 2009 research on the emergence of "hypergiants" in terms of internet traffic
(tags: internet research architecture filtering freespeech arbor intermediary)

links for 2010-03-09

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 18:03

Why We're Giving Away Our Reporting Recipe – ProPublica
Pro Pubica decides we can't go it alone – offers the recipe for a particularly effective piece of journalism, asks other journalists to help them replicate the reporting elsewhere.

John Wilbanks on Science Commons, and generativity in science

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 13:58

John Wilbanks, the founder of Science Commons, is in the midst of a big move. His division of Creative Commons, focused on opening scientific research and innovation, is now five years old and is being “airlifted” to California to try to bring some of their ideas into the Creative Commons movement as a whole.

links for 2010-03-08

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Mon, 03/08/2010 - 18:04

Why We're Giving Away Our Reporting Recipe – ProPublica
Pro Pubica decides we can't go it alone – offers the recipe for a particularly effective piece of journalism, asks other journalists to help them replicate the reporting elsewhere.

links for 2010-03-04

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 18:05

Raph's Website " Are virtual worlds over?
Fascinating article from a 3d virtual worlds pioneer arguing that much lighter-weight games have stolen some of the momentum for virtual worlds by appearing to be standalone places with an ongoing existence… even when they're not. A very interesting analysis of the ways psuedonymity, tie formation and the notion of independently existing place differ between Facebook games and virtual worlds… ending with a conclusion that momentum has shifted towards these simpler spaces.

Jonathan Stray on original reporting: imaginary abundance

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 23:49

This evening, Google News tells me that I have my choice of 5,053 articles on conflicts between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over healthcare reform. (Oh goody.) How many of those stories contain original reporting? In a world with thousands of professional media outlets at our fingertips – as well as hundreds of thousands of amateurs – how much original material do we really have access to?

links for 2010-03-03

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 18:03

Foursquare in SF: The Quest for Mayorship | 7×7
nice riff on the competitive dynamics behind foursquare, and the ways in which the game mechanics – tacked on to a social search tool – ate the main product
(tags: foursquare GPS location geolocation mobile sanfrancisco

Karrie Karahalios – Text and Tie Strength

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 00:19

Professor Karrie Karahalios is a current Berkman fellow, joining us from UIUC where she teaches computer science. Her talk at Berkman today is titled “Text and Tie Strength”, and begins with a reminder that “What attracts people most is other people”, a quote from sociologist William Whyte. Whyte pointed out that people flock to spaces where they can hang out – places with seats. As we design online spaces, we need to consider building spaces with seats.

ChatRoulette survey (long bookmark)

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 14:46

ChatRoulette: An Initial Survey
The fine folks at the Web Ecology Project pride themselves on researching web trends that are just starting to catch the attention of the media and other researchers. As such, we can count on them not only to offer insights into online, randomized chat site ChatRoulette, but into derivative works like CatRoulette. (Yes, I have considered surfing the site with Drew in front of the camera. Rachel told me not to.)

Snowy journey, with journalism

Submitted by EthanZuckermanBlog on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 19:05

I got stuck on a train between New York and Albany last night as a storm pounded the Hudson Valley. Fortunately, Amtrak’s warnings about service on the Empire Line were sufficiently dire that I used my layover in Penn Station to cache supplies: pretzels, diet pepsi, and enough reading material to keep me entertained until we arrived (which didn’t happen until almost 3am.)