Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Tags: BPP | community | conversation | journalism | liveblogging | London | news | NPR | The Guardian | Twitter

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April 19, 2008

Utterz Demo at PodcampDC

Tags: mobcasting | mobile phones | PodcampDC | Utterz

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March 11, 2008

Oh Lord, Won't Ya Buy Me an N95

Tags: n95 | nokia | phones | songs | video

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March 10, 2008

Live From Austin City Limits: Spinto Band

Tags: Austin | Austin City Limits | concerts | music | Spinto Band | SXSW

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March 9, 2008

How Dev Hynes Got His Star Wars Jacket

Tags: Austin City Limits | clothing | Dev Hynes | Lightspeed Champion | Star Wars

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April 23, 2007

Sitting for my Second Musical Portrait with Pete Townshend's Computer

While Susanne was putting Kayleigh to sleep tonight I decide to sit for another music portrait with Pete Townshend's online music generator, The Lifehouse Method. You may recall I sat for my first portrait last year after being invited to beta-test the tool. The system, created by Townshend electronic composer Lawrence Ball, asks you to input several unique pieces of content, which it uses to interpret your musical portrait. It asks for a sample of your voice, which you can record with the website's flash recorder. I recorded a short message in a soothing voice, saying "Isn't my voice oh so soothing?" Then, it asked for a photo, so I supplied it with this photo of me taking a picture of the coliseum of El Jem in Tunisia. When asked for an audio clip, I gave it the opening bars to the Dresden Dolls song, "Coin Operated Boy," which we use in the opening credits of our Dirty Diaper Diaries videos. Finally, I needed to give it a rhythm. So I tapped out the opening bars to the Rush song "YYZ," which spell out the letters YYZ in morse code, in a 10/8 time signature.

The result? Have a listen.

For one thing, you can't dance to it. In some ways, it's reminiscent of some of the more dissonant musical studies my late father-in-law David Cornwall used to compose. It's rather slow, with strings and keyboards plodding along at a modest tempo, while a bass and piano interject themselves at inopportune moments. There are very few chords - mostly individual notes from each instrument overlaid with each other. I can't decide if it sounds like Morton Feldman revved up or Conlon Nancarrow slowed down. The first minute or so doesn't do much for me, but then it gets a bit more coherent, as several instruments fade away and elements of bassoon and marimba pop up, but in a very minimalist way. There's also a haunting, high-pitched whistle that weaves through the piece, not unlike a theremin. Fascinating stuff, but probably not for everyone.

Thanks again to Pete and his colleagues for letting me experiment with it. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:54 PM

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March 13, 2007

Podcast of My Interview with Dan Rather

The video is still being edited, but I've got a quick and dirty podcast of my 25-minute interview with Dan Rather. The audio quality leaves much to be desired, as it was compressed multiple times while transferring formats. Once I get the raw footage from Chuck Olsen I hope to make a better quality recording, but for those of you eager to hear what we talked about, this version is better than nothing, I guess. (UPDATE: I've created a much higher quality recording of the interview and posted it, so when you click on the link now you'll get the better version.)

Before the interview, I put together around a dozen questions, including a mix of my own and some from suggestions posted to the blog. In the end, we got around to tackling only half of them, due to his long responses and our time being cut short by a few minutes. Nonetheless, I feel like we covered some interesting ground, including these questions:

You alluded earlier to the effects of media concentration and cross-ownership on journalism and civic discourse. Could you say a bit more about the effects of media concentration at both the local and national level?

If the relationship between media, corporations and politicians has gotten too cozy as you have suggested, how can the system change for the benefit of the public interest, given the fact that it's not in their interest to change the system?

In your talk today you lamented what you described "the ability to be anonymous and say scurrilous things" on blogs. How do you balance this with the role played by anonymous bloggers in places like China and Zimbabwe, who feel forced to blog anonymously to speak truth to power? Are there times when anonymity is the only solution?

Can you picture yourself ever publishing your own blog?

Video blogger Josh Wolf has been spent just over 200 days in jail for contempt of court for refusing to turn over footage he shot during a protest, with prosecutors arguing that his is not a "real" journalist. In France, they've just introduced a new law that would criminalize citizens from recording or broadcasting acts of violence if they're not accredited journalists. Do you see a growing clash between governments and citizen journalists, and if so, why now?

Do you worry that the public lacks the media literacy skills to recognize when bloggers have ulterior motives and when they don't? Has the rise of the blogosphere made media literacy even more important? (Built upon a question suggested by Shava Nerad)

You also talked today of one of the roles of a journalist is to hold politicians accountable. Do they have a similar role in holding their peers accountable, given the coziness you alluded to between beltway journalists and politicians?

Again, sorry about the crappy audio. What can I say; I'm a video guy. But I'll try to get a better version of the audio online later. Enjoy the new version of the podcast. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:54 AM

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February 20, 2007

NPR Social Media Forum, Part 2

Here's part two of the podcast from last week's social media forum at NPR. Part one can be found here. Participants in the podcast include David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Jay Rosen, Zadi Diaz, Euan Semple and Jeff Jarvis. NPR media reporter David Folkenflik moderates, and Michel Martin chimes in as well. -andy

Tags: David Folkenflik | David Weinberger | Doc Searls | Euan Semple | Jay Rosen | Jeff Jarvis | journalism | Michel Martin | news | NPR | nprsocialmedia | podcasts | social media | Web 2.0 | Zadi Diaz

Posted by acarvin at 5:33 PM

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NPR Social Media Forum, Part 1

Given the amazing response we've received from the social media advisory group I co-hosted at NPR last week, we've decided to release the full audio of the two-hour forum as a pair of podcasts. Each podcast is about an hour long. As far as I know it's the first time NPR has released the audio of one of its in-house "Digital Den" forums before, so I'm really excited to share it. The podcast includes a discussion featuring David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Jay Rosen, Zadi Diaz, Euan Semple and Jeff Jarvis, moderated by NPR media reporter David Folkenflik.

Here's part one of the podcast. -andy

Tags: David Folkenflik | David Weinberger | Doc Searls | Euan Semple | Jay Rosen | Jeff Jarvis | journalism | news | NPR | nprsocialmedia | podcasts | social media | Web 2.0 | Zadi Diaz

Posted by acarvin at 5:21 PM

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November 25, 2006

Sitting for a Musical Portrait by Pete Townshend

This afternoon I helped compose a song with Pete Townshend of The Who.

Okay, not exactly. It was actually with Pete's computer.

I can see you're skeptical, so I better provide some context. To do that, we're gonna have to go all the way back to 1971, the year I was born. Because that was when Townshend began work on a musical project known as Lifehouse.

The Who had just found great success with their rock opera, Tommy, and Townshend was now working on a new musical project called Lifehouse. A science fiction story in which the world has suffered an ecological disaster, Lifehouse included a major plot line based around the idea that the world's music was controlled by a small group of powerful media conglomerates, which in turn pumped its mediocre muzak into the minds of humanity. (In some ways it's similar to Rush's 2112 album, which came out in the late 70s, without the Ayn Rand influence.)

Pete explains:

"The essence of the story-line was a kind a futuristic scene.... It's a fantasy set at a time when rock 'n' roll didn't exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. They lived TV programs, in a way. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who'd kept rock 'n' roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle."

As part of their revolutionary struggle, the heroes of the story utilized a technological weapon called The Method, which would combat the soulless music they were literally being force-fed.

"What Lifehouse was about, at its root, was to reaffirm that what's important is that music reflects its audience as absolutely and completely as possible," Townshend explains on his website. In the early 70s, he was exploring Sufi mysticism, which no doubt put him in touch with qawwali music, like that of the famed Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whom I got to interview in 1992. Qawwali concerts, which often extend to four hours or more, intend to use the trance-like power of lengthy musical performances to bring the performers and audience into a state of spiritual ecstasy. This, of course, is often a complete contrast to rock concerts, where performers and the audience show up, do their thing and leave. Townshend says:

Standing on stage and waving your arms about is wearing a bit thin, I think. There's going to have to be a way of listening to music which doesn't mean that you're going to have to face in a particular direction, there's going to have to be a way of listening to music that doesn't mean that you have to go out to a concert hall between eight and ten in the evening. I've seen moments in Who concerts where the vibrations were becoming so pure that I thought the world was just going to stop, the whole thing was just becoming so unified. But you could never reach that state because in the back of their minds everybody knew that the group was going to have to stop soon, or they'd got to get home or catch the last bus or something - it's a ridiculous situation.

For various reasons, Lifehouse didn't come together as planned, even though Townshend composed many songs for the rock opera. Instead, these songs were published as part of the album Who's Next, arguably one of the greatest rock albums of all time. But Lifehouse - and the musical weapon known as The Method - never fully vanished from Townshend's creative consciousness.

This brings us to last February, when Townshend was wrapping up work on his novel, The Boy Who Heard Music. The novel was released chapter-by-chapter on a blog, and he invited the public to comment on the story and help improve it. When the novel was complete, Townshend announced that some of the bloggers who participated in the story's development would be invited to participate in his next project - the rebirth of The Method as online software that would interpret the images and sounds submitted by a person and convert it into music.

As I explained on my blog:

A partnership between Townshend, programmer Dave Snowdon and composer Lawrence Ball, The Method will perform musical works generated by a computer based on interactions with a real person, referred to by Townshend as a "sitter." Initially the website will feature works generated by The Method through interactions with Lawrence Ball and others, but Townshend plans to invite bloggers to "sit" with The Method and generate music of their own. At least that's the way I understand it from his description on his blog. From what I've heard of Lawrence Ball's work, his music is reminsicent of Erik Satie and Arvo Part. Adding Pete Townshend to the mix, along with a community of 500 bloggers, will hopefully lead to some exciting, unusual results.

Yesterday, I received an email informing me that I was being invited to serve as one of the first beta-testers of The Method. I'd have a chance to "sit" and have three musical portraits painted for me. So this afternoon, I logged into and gave it a shot. The website asked me to upload a series of original audio clips, as well as a photo. This data would then be interpreted by the website to create an original electronic composition. I wasn't sure if it would take the content I gave it and sample it, or just be inspired by it. First, I supplied it with a photo of me from my honeymoon. I then gave it three audio clips:

• A loop of me saying "The moving walkway is ending; please look down."
  
• A sample of me doing babytalk to Kayleigh, and her response.
  
• A loop of a Tunisian malouf trio I recorded in Tunisia last year.

Once this was done, The Method went to work, composing an original work based on my inputs. The result is this song. It's just over five minutes long, and is very reminiscent of the work of Terry Riley, Michael Nyman and Phillip Glass, each of whom often utilize electronic-like repetition in their compositions. Personally, I like the piece a lot, though I can see how people might dismiss it as being too repetitive. (It also has some crackle noises at the beginning, which must have occurred when The Method saved the mp3 file.) I'll be very curious to see if my future experiments with The Method produce similar results. I'll have to go out of my way to submit a photo and audio samples that are very different from the ones I just used.

So what's next? For one thing, The Method is still in beta, so it's not totally ready for prime time yet. Eventually, more people will be invited to sit for musical portraits, and even be invited back repeatedly to work with Townshend and his collaborators to expand them into major works. They'll also take their show on the road, doing live performances of some of the compositions, with sitters like me invited to attend and potentially participate.

Meanwhile, any musical works produced by The Method will be co-owned by Townshend and the sitter. For all practical purposes, that means that if you sit for a musical portrait, you can do whatever you choose with the results, as can Townshend. We just can't veto the other's uses of it. That way, we can both use it, refine it, sample it, license it and perform it. Not like I would ever say no to Pete if he wanted to incorporate it into a concert or anything like that. :-)

So that's the result of my first experienced with networked musical composition. I can't wait to do it again. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 5:44 PM

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November 14, 2006

Fugue in Four Parts, by David Cornwall

Here is a podcast of Fugue in Four Parts, recorded at Dave's funeral yesterday. It was the first time the piece had ever been performed publicly. Dave composed it in late 2004, beginning a period that would prove to be the peak of his creative output. Though Dave had been experimenting heavily with 20th century classical music inspired by Witold Lutoslawski, Igor Stravinsky, Gyorgy Ligeti and Morton Feldman, he never turned his back on his love for Bach. Given Dave's background as a software engineer, he loved the mathematical precision of Bach's fugues. In the liner notes of two CDs he made for Susanne and me, Dave described the piece as

a full Baroque fugue in four parts, written according to the rules of counterpoint espoused by Bach. This piece begins and ends in C Major, but modulates into many major and minor keys during its episodic development.... Each of four voices state the main theme in a different part of the scale, until all are intertwining in the harmonic glory of fugue.

The recording is far from perfect, captured on a digital camera and performed by an organist who had almost no time to practice. But Dave would have still loved it. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:59 PM

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October 31, 2006

Edgar Allen PoeCast

No Halloween is truly complete without some spooky guy reading aloud Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Courtesy of the LibraVox audiobook project, by way of the SEGA Tech blog. Enjoy.... -andy

Tags: audiobooks | halloween | podcasts | publicdomain

Posted by acarvin at 4:20 PM

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October 26, 2006

Political Attack Ad Mashup

Jaime Holguin of the Associated Press asap service has put together an amazing mashup of this year's most obnoxious political campaign ads. And yes, you can dance to it. Enjoy.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:14 PM

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October 1, 2006

The Wall That Separates Them

One of the most difficult aspects of coping with Dave's illness is the fact that he hasn't met Kayleigh yet. Since Kayleigh was born premature, we dreaded the thought of taking her on an airplane before she was at least six months old. And being wheelchair-band, Dave could not travel very easily, particularly on airplanes. Then came the move to DC, the job.... We always assumed we'd get to see him over the holidays.

Today's been a better day than yesterday for Dave.... His temperature and white count are down, while his lungs and kidneys seem to be working relatively better. He's awake for several hours a day, and can communicate by nodding or blinking his eyes. There is no doubt about his alertness; as long as his strength holds, he doesn't hesitate to respond to yes or no questions. Having said all that, the doctors have made it clear that it will take a miracle for his body to recover from the massive infection that's overtaken him.

I'm sitting here in the ICU waiting room with Kayleigh and Susanne's cousin Mike. The rest of the family is spending time with Dave while he sleeps. The waiting room, by coincidence, is adjacent to Dave's room. Sometimes when it's quiet in here I can hear Dave's music, particularly when his Parade of the Wedding Party - the orchestral version of the string quartet he composed for our wedding ceremony - reaches its crescendo. And sometimes when I'm visiting him, talking about his music, I can hear Kayleigh crying in the waiting room.

Because Kayleigh is so young, the doctors will not allow her in the ICU. And Dave is too weak to leave his room and visit her somewhere safe. Only a wall separates them, but I fear it may be a wall that wall never be breeched.

I would give anything for a sledgehammer. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 7:33 PM

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September 30, 2006

Prayers for David Cornwall

Friday I had to fly out to Denver after finding out that my father-in-law, Dave Cornwall, is gravely ill. Dave has abdominal surgery about a week ago but somehow he got an infection, and it's erupted into full-blown sepsis. His temperature spiked to 104 yesterday and he is on life support, but today his temp has come down to 97. He also woke up for several hours this morning, appearing alert and nodding his head to yes or no questions.

While he was awake, Susanne asked him if he wanted to listen to his music. As many of you know, Dave started composing classical music after his retirement and has written dozens of pieces, including the wedding march for when Susanne and I got married. We're playing a copy of it in his room in the ICU right now. Here's a podcast of it, performed by a string quartet from the Denver University Lamont School of Music.

All in all, the situation is very touch-and-go, and he has an uphill battle ahead of him. Any forms of prayer, good thoughts, karmic energy, etc, would be most appreciated by Susanne and her family during this difficult hour.

Posted by acarvin at 6:37 PM

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August 28, 2006

Audio of Babies Crying

Okay, some of you may wonder why I would post a podcast of babies crying, but there's a good reason for it. Before Kayleigh was born, our veterinarian had recommended that we get an audio recording of crying babies to help our cats adjust to the cacophany before we brought our baby home from the hospital. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find a recording anywhere that suited our purposes, so we brought Kayleigh home without prepping Winston and Dizzy. Thankfully they've been great with her, but it's pretty obvious that they don't like the crying.

Since we have several friends with pets who are expecting soon, we decided to record a podcast of Kayleigh crying. The audio is about a minute long, and actually features three separate crying tracks for maximum noise effect. So if you happen to be expecting a baby and are wondering how your pets may react to the sudden racket, play this podcast nice and loud for them. If you don't have stereo speakers for your computer, I encourage you to burn the podcast to a CD and play it on a stereo. It'll also help you get used to babies crying as well. :-) -andy

Posted by acarvin at 1:19 PM

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August 7, 2006

What's the Ideal Toolset for Citizen Journalism?

At Dan Gillmor's citizen media unconference here at Harvard, Hong Kong University professor Andrew Lih led a discussion about the ideal toolset for fostering, editing and distributing citizen journalism. I recorded a podcast of the session; it's just under an hour and 45 megabytes. Sorry about the static during the first 10 seconds - I promise it gets better.... -andy

Tags: Andrew Lih | citizen journalism | citizen media | Harvard | speeches. Berkman | unconference

Posted by acarvin at 1:42 PM

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Lisa Williams Discusses Placeblogging

Here's a podcast of Lisa Williams of H2Otown talking about "placeblogging" - blogs focused on hyperlocal community journalism. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:36 AM

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August 4, 2006

Podcast of Jimmy Wales Talk at Wikimania

Here's the podcast of Jimmy Wales' talk at the Wikimania conference. It's about 30 megs, so it may take a while to download depending on your connection. -andy

tag: wikimania2006

Posted by acarvin at 10:18 AM

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August 1, 2006

Birthday Greetings from Brenda

A birthday voicemail from my Aunt Brenda on Sunday.

Don't ask me why the voicemail timestamp says Saturday; I swear my birthday was Sunday. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 5:46 PM

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July 24, 2006

When the Saints Go Marching Into Dupont Circle

Yesterday I had the chance to spend a few hours walking through Washington DC, visiting some of my old haunts. Dupont Circle is as wonderful as ever, particularly since the local brass band was out in force. On weekends during the summer, these dozen or so jazz musicians perform an impromptu concert on the northern side of the circle. You never know who will stop and listen, but typically it's a combination of tourists, locals, embassy officials and the occasional homeless person. Yesterday was no different. I've probably seen these guys perform dozens of times over the years, but I think this was the first time I sat down to listen. They're not the best brass band in the world, but they sure are a lot of fun. Have a listen. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:46 AM

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July 20, 2006

Embracing Web 2.0 in an Education 1.0 Universe

Yesterday I had the honor of delivering the keynote at the ThinkBright Summer Digital Institute, hosted by WNED public television in Buffalo, New York. The speech, "Embracing Web 2.0 in an Education 1.0 Universe," was a variation of one I've done previously this year, but with a greater emphasis on education. For those of you who are interested, here's a podcast of the speech, along with the accompanying Powerpoint. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 7:25 PM

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July 11, 2006

Thoughts and Prayers for the People of Mumbai

It's been a terrifying day for the people of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), with a series of bombs ripping through more than half a dozen suburban train stations, killing well over 100 people. I've had a hard time getting much of anything done today, absorbed by the CNN coverage, emailing Indian friends and colleagues, trying to make sense of the situation. Peter Griffen, Dina Mehta and other friends from the Tsunamihelp blog have been working hard to assist people through the MumbaiHelp blog, while Wikipedian's have been doing yeoman's work updating the Wikipedia entry about the attacks.

Last year, I blogged about riding the Western line into Mumbai with blogger Rohit Gupta. We jumped onto an express train at Andheri Station and headed into Mumbai for coffee with Dina Mehta, playing with the iTalk recorder on my iPod, never giving a thought to our safety. I even recorded a demo with my iPod on the train, which I've never posted publicly. Here's a copy of it.

Looking back on that afternoon, I now realize that the train I rode that day passed through four of the seven stations bombed today. It could have just as easily been that day or any other day; it's the sheer randomness of terror that makes it so horrifying.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Mumbai tonight. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 4:25 PM

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July 10, 2006

Podcast: Angus King on the Maine Laptop Program

Last month while I was attending the AALF conference here in Boston I mentioned I'd recorded a podcast of Angus King, former governor of Maine, talking about the state's groundbreaking laptop initiative. I didn't want to post it without getting his permission, and earlier today I received an email from him giving me the thumbs up. So here's the podcast. It's about 50 minutes long and around 43 megabytes. As always, sorry about the audio quality but it gets a little crackly when I compress it. For those of you who would prefer a text version, here are my notes from his speech. -andy

Tags: Angus King | digital divide | education technology | laptops | Maine | policy | Seymour Papert | students

Posted by acarvin at 6:30 PM

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June 23, 2006

Tim Magner: Laptops and Edge Devices are the Tip of the Iceberg

One last podcast from the AALF conference. This one comes from Tim Magner, director of the US Department of Education's Office of Education Technology. Tim talks about the role of emerging technologies in transforming education and educational management. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:08 PM

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Mike Furdyk Takes IT Global

Check out this podcast of Mike Furdyk from TakingITGlobal (TIG) talking about what it was like growing up as a digital native and how he's applied this to his work with TIG, the world's largest online youth activism network. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:49 AM

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Ben Shneiderman on Making Education Ecstatic

Here's a podcast of Ben Schneiderman, computer scientist and author of Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies, speaking at the AALF conference. He talked about his work developing interactive visualization tools and learning experiences that result in positive real-world change.

He also offered a great quote from George Leonard on the purpose of education: "A large part of the answer may be what men (and women) of this civilization have longest feared and most desired: the achievement of moments of ecstasy."

Unfortunately, when was the last time most students had a learning experience that was truly ecstatic? -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:11 AM

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May 22, 2006

This Wednesday: Day of (out)Rage

On Wednesday I'm planning to take part in the Day of (out)Rage, a day of national protest against the COPE Act. For those of you who haven't been following the debate on Capitol Hill, the COPE Act would allow telecom companies to ignore the basic Internet principle of network neutrality, letting them charge users more for complete access to the Internet, while peddling their own content instead. It would also take away local control of public access TV channels. And for those of you who are worried about the digital divide, the bill would let telecom companies conduct redlining, which is refusing to build out broadband access in low-income neighborhoods simply because the residents are poor.

In protest against this legislation, there will be protests in NYC, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. I'll be at the Boston rally, which starts at 1:30pm in Boston at the State House grand staircase. To learn more, visit saveaccess.org or listen to this podcast. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 7:23 PM

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May 18, 2006

Public Media Podcast Part 3: Dan Coughlin

The third and final podcast from yesterday's public media community meeting in Boston. Dan Coughlin of Manhattan Neighborhood Network gave a fantastic presention about the COPE Act in Congress that's threatening public media and network neutrality. The audio also includes group discussion, with comments from myself, Fred Johnson, Nettrice Gaskins and others. A Windows Media version can be found here:

http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/publicmedia3.wma

Posted by acarvin at 11:59 AM

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Public Media Podcast Part 2: Alice Myatt

This is the podcast of the second part of yesterday's public media community meeting. It features commentary by longtime public media advocate Alice Myatt. Here's a link to text notes from the session as well. A Windows Media version can be found here:

http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/publicmedia2.wma

Posted by acarvin at 11:47 AM

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Public Media Podcast Part 1: Fred Johnson and Andy Carvin

Here's a podcast of the first part of yesterday's public media community meeting. It includes opening remarks by Fred Johnson and an international perspective on public media and the digital divide from me. Here's a link to text notes from the session as well. The podcast is in mp3 format; sorry about the static from the compression process. A Windows Media version can be found here:

http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/publicmedia1.wma

Posted by acarvin at 11:36 AM

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May 16, 2006

Low-Power Educational Radio in Scotland

I was going through the file folders of my handheld digital audio recorder throwing away some extraneous files when I found some audio I recorded for a podcast at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow last September. The audio included an interview with Brian Rowan of the broadcasting equipment manufacturer Clyde Broadcast Products. Clyde Broadcast has been working with a group of Scottish secondary schools to develop a network of low-power radio stations programmed by students. The interview, which is about six minutes long, was recorded in a very noisy expo hall with one of the student radio stations broadcasting in the background. Combine that with Brian's Scottish accent, the interview takes a bit of concentration to follow, so I'd recommend listening to it with headphones if possible.

Enjoy the podcast. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 2:23 PM

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May 1, 2006

Immigrant Rights Podcast, Part 2

My second mobile phone podcast today, recorded during the immigrant rights march from Cambridge to Boston. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 2:31 PM

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Immigrant Rights Podcast, Part 1

Here's a podcast I recorded over the phone just prior to the immigrant rights rally at Harvard. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:50 PM

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April 10, 2006

Podcast of My CISOA Presentation

Here's the podcast of my presentation at the CISOA conference this morning. It's about an hour long, and accompanies this Powerpoint presentation. It's somewhat similar to the speech I gave at the University of Missouri last month, but with a bit less focus on Wikipedia and more on telecentres and the digital divide. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 2:24 PM

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April 8, 2006

Monterey GrooveCast: Airport Hell, Aquarium Fun

Here's a five-minute podcast after a very long cross-country trip to Monterey, California. Highlights include a period of aural misery at the Salt Lake City Airport; exploring Cannary Row; and shooting tons of video at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Music by Drop Trio, courtesy of Magnatune Records, used in accordance with the Creative Commons license. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:03 PM

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March 31, 2006

Post-Game Summary of My Appearance on Radio Open Source

Chris Lydon live on Open Source last night

Last night I had the pleasure of being a guest on Christopher Lydon's public radio program, Open Source. The focus of the show was genetics and genealogy, which has been a hobby of mine for six years now.

I arrived at the studio just before 7pm, when the program airs live. I sat in the studio with Chris, who was busily jotting down notes for the show, peppering me with interesting questions about the subject. I'd met Chris once or twice at Harvard Berkman events, but this was the first time we'd ever really chatted. You can tell he's done thousands of interviews in his long career; he really makes you feel comfortable. I think it was particularly helpful that I was with him in person. Sometimes I've done radio interviews in which I'm over the phone or checking in via another studio, and the lack of eye contact can affect the rapport of the conversation. So it was great being able to sit at the same table with Chris, microphones bobbing six inches from our noses; it would make for a very comfortable, casual conversation.

I didn't come on for the first 40 minutes; Chris interviewed Spencer Wells of National Geographic and John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin first. This allowed me to observe his interview style and take notes. During music breaks, Chris would talk simultaneously with the control room as well as with me, taking advantage of every moment to prepare for the next segment.

Eventually, it was my turn to appear on air. Chris opened things up by asking me how I started my own family tree odyssey, and the brick wall I hit in terms of a lack of a genealogical paper trail beyond my great-grandparents. I talked about how I learned about genetic genealogy in early 2000 and tracked down the founder of Family Tree DNA, which was just getting off the ground as one of the first commercial providers of DNA tests for genealogical purposes.

From there, we talked about some of the findings I had, including the connections on both sides of my family with the Middle East and northeast Africa. I also talked a bit about my father-in-law, Dave Cornwall, who got tested last year and ended up connecting with other DNA customers who happened to be named Cornwell and shared a similar story of how their families came to America. Chris wrapped it up by asking me what I plan to tell our first child about our family's history and what we've learned from the DNA testing. I said I hoped that it would give them an appreciation of how we're connected to people from all over the world, and that we're all one large human family, all equally deserving of dignity and respect.

The hour was over quite fast - it's amazing how these things fly by when you're into it. Chris said he'd be getting tested soon; I can't wait to see the follow-up show and learn what he discovered.

In case you didn't catch the show, here's the podcast of the full hour. It's about 24 megabytes, so it may take a while to download. My segment is about 40 minutes into the show - not that you should skip ahead or anything. :-) -andy

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February 22, 2006

Podcast: The MIT Open Courseware Initiative

Anne Margulies, director of the MIT Open Courseware initiative, just finished her speech here in Missouri. Here's a podcast of her speech, recorded with her permission. It's 45 minutes long, around 11 megabytes. -andy

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Podcast: Open Content vs. Closed Doors (Or Closed Minds?)

Here's the podcast of my keynote speech at the University of Missouri Scholarly Communications Conference. It's 16 megs and runs just over an hour. And don't forget the powerpoint. :-) -andy

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November 17, 2005

Hoder on the Iranian Blogosphere

Podcast of pioneering Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan on the Iranian blogosphere. It's about 10 minutes long; I had to compress the hell out of it to upload it from here, so pardon the audio quality. -andy

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November 16, 2005

WSIS Podcast, 12 Hours Late

Here's that podcast I recorded this morning but couldn't post because of the horrid bandwidth limitations at WSIS. Probably not worth the wait. -andy

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November 15, 2005

Tuesday Morning at the Kram Palexpo

Podcasting from the Kram Palexpo in Tunis, site of the WSIS summit. Just a quick update on my plans for the day, including the Telecentre Leadership Forum. -andy

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November 14, 2005

A Quick Evening Podcast from Tunis

A quick podcast from Tunis. Nothing special; just a summary of what I've already written about in my previous blog entries today from the Kram Center. Mainly I'm just testing the bandwidth at the hotel. So far, so good. -andy

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October 26, 2005

Departing (and Pronouncing) Dhaka

My final podcast from Bangladesh. I talk about the close of the conference, shopping for souvenirs and learning the right way to pronounce Dhaka. -andy

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October 25, 2005

Shahiduddin Akbar Discusses the Bangladesh Digital Divide

Earlier this morning I sat down with Shahiduddin Akbar of Katalyst to record a three-minute podcast. I interviewed him about the digital divide in Bangladesh, the role civil society can play in bridging the divide, and his expectations for the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society. -andy

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Dhaka Police Station

This morning I went to the local police station here in Dhaka to file a police report regarding the theft of my Treo and my digital camera. In general I prefer to avoid having to deal with police, but there was no way getting around it. Fortunately, I had an official from the ICT ministry accompany me, which helped make the visit a three-minute stop rather than an all-day affair. They accepted my affidavit, signed a copy of it and stamped it as an official document submitted to the Dhaka police. And yes, I recorded a podcast to document the experience - and for my own protection, just in case. -andy

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Bangladeshi Beggars

One of the most difficult things for first-time visitors to South Asia to experience is the number of beggars who wander in city traffic, rapping on the window or reaching into the car demanding alms. It's a fact of life in cities like Dhaka, where traffic lights are slow; you often have to wait for five or 10 minutes at a traffic stop as one or more beggars, often children or the disabled, stand by your window until you're able to drive away. Your instinct is to give them alms, but this causes two problems. First, it's seen by other beggars, who then swarm your car and start banging for their share. Second, many beggars actually work for syndicates in which the money is kicked up to local criminals, who often use the money to bribe the police. So in general the only way to leave with a clear conscience is to make a donation to a legitimate charity, which I do every time I visit the region.

It's a troubling experience sitting in a car while a beggar does this. I made this 30-second recording documenting what it's like. -andy

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October 24, 2005

Shopping in Dhaka

Podcasting while strolling through the busy market streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh. -andy

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Robbed

A very bitter podcast from me after having my Treo and one of my digital cameras stolen at the conference today. Meanwhile, as I was recording the podcast, Alexander Felsenberg came by my room and told me his passport and credit card were stolen. Oh, and I talk about visiting a nuclear reactor and staring at the glowing blue uranium rods. Overall, a day I'd like to forget. -andy

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Josie Cacdac's Keynote on Gender and ICTs

Here's a podcast of Josie Cacdac's keynote on gender and technology. I had to compress the file so I could upload it from here, so please pardon the audio quality. -andy

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October 23, 2005

Bangladesh Podcast: Monday Morning

A six-minute podcast from my hotel room prior to heading back to the conference. I talk about yesterday's sessions, including my dead battery problems and a minor India-Bangladesh development statistics kerfuffle in the afternoon plenary. -andy

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Bangladesh Podcast: Sunday Morning

Sunday morning podcast from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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October 5, 2005

Politics and Activism Podcast

Podcast of today's panel session on We Media, politics and activism, including Rebecca MacKinnon, Nicholas Kristof, me unofficially, etc. -andy

tag: We Media

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We Inc. Executive Forum

Podcast of the executive forum at the We Media conference.

Moderator: Jason Calcanis, Weblogs, Inc.

Panelists:

Jennifer Feikin, Google Video
Andrew Heyward, CBS News
Scott Rafer, Wireless Ink
Craig Forman, Yahoo!

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Al Gore, the Low Bandwidth Edition

Low-bandwidth podcast of Gore's speech. -andy

tag: We Media

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Podcast of Al Gore's Speech

Al Gore shares some yuks with my brother Eric Carvin, news editor of AP's asap news service, at the We Media conference.

"Our democracy has been hollowed out," former Vice President Al Gore said today in a scathing speech about the state of civic engagement in American life. In his speech, lasting around 50 minutes, Gore worried that television journalism has been dumbed down to the point where stories about Iraq get shoved aside for stories about a guy with a chronic hiccup problem who can't get into a stable dating relationship. He talked about his new venture, current.tv, which invites viewers to submit their own content to the network, as a strategy for reinvigorating the public marketplace of ideas; current.tv, he explained gives citizens the opportunity to participate in debate in ways that traditional broadcast television would never allow.

Here's a podcast of Gore's speech. It's quite large - more than 40 megs - but when I compressed it too much the audio quality really suffered. I'll post a separate link to the lower bandwidth (11 meg) audio version in case you need a relatively smaller file and can put up with the crummy audio. -andy

tag: We Media

Tags: Al Gore | democracy | keynotes | media | We Media

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We News Podcast

Podcast of the first half of the We News session.

Al and Tipper Gore just sat down next to me. What a cool conference. -andy

tag: We Media

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Getting Yanked On Stage at We Media

Andrew Nachison of the Media Center and Chris Willis of Hypergene Media Solutions just finished the opening session at We Media; about half-way through, they pulled me on stage. First, though, some quotes from them:

Willis: "If it works for that community, it doesn't necessarily work for the community next door.... Community building takes a lot of hard work."

Nachison: "We've watched a gradual transition... where the Internet has played a larger role."

"What's really astonishing is not thinking about the significance of the Internet itself... but the incredibly rich diversity of perspectives we're exposed to now."

"It's the incredible diversity of options and voices which are gonna become the norm."

Then, they started talking about my Katrina Aftermath blog, so they invited me on stage to give a bit of history about the site. That prevented me from typing more notes, of course, but at least I recorded a podcast of the session. -andy

tag: We Media

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October 4, 2005

Ensuring "We Media" Includes All of Us

This evening I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of 120 graduate students at NYU's interactive telecommunications program. After being introduced by Red Burns, I spoke for about an hour about the the digital divide and its relationship with participatory media, or "We Media" as it's sometimes known. I made the argument that the participatory media phenomenon will remain skewed to well-off, well-educated populations as long as disenfranchised groups, such as low-income populations, people of color and people with disabilities, don't have equal access or the skills to participate. Unless we do more to bridge the digital divide, particularly in terms of 21st century skills and media literacy, marginalized groups will find it harder and harder to engage in civic participation effectively.

After giving some basics about the digital divide and its various manifestations, I talked about several initiatives that are beginning to push back by creating more equitable participatory media, from Global Voices Online to Atlantic City Rough Cuts. I then took questions for about 30 minutes; the students asked smart, probing questions and did a great job of reminding me of all the things I'd wish I'd said in my speech. :-)

I recorded a very long podcast of the speech, including the Q&A. Be forewarned it's over 30 megs, so download at your own peril. Meanwhile, here's the powerpoint presentation in case you missed my original link from earlier today. -andy

tag: wemedia

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Audio of Negroponte's $100 Laptop Presentation

File this under "better late than never." Now that I've got my laptop back from the repair shop, I can post the podcast of Nicholas Negroponte's speech at the MIT Technology Review conference last week. It's a big file - around 18 megs - so if you prefer a short text summary, don't forget the blog entry I wrote that day.

Special thanks to Jason Pontin of Technology Review for encouraging me to podcast the session. -andy

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Powerpoint for my NYU Presentation

I just arrived in NYC and I'm at my brother's office at the Associated Press; here's a brief podcast. Meanwhile, later today I'll be speaking at NYU about the digital divide and participatory media. The crux of the talk will be, "It ain't 'we media' if it doesn't include all of us." In other words, as long as there's a significant digital divide, the notion of participatory media will be limited to those of us lucky enough to have Internet access and the skills to use it creatively, while disenfranchised populations are left out of public discourse. Here's the powerpoint presentation; I'll try to post a podcast of the actual presentation tonight or early tomorrow. -andy

tag: wemedia

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September 28, 2005

Stuck at the Apple Store

While everyone else is back at the conference, I get to spend my lunch break at the Cambridgeside Apple Store, hoping they can fix my laptop's power port in time for the 1:45pm breakout sessions. Feel the drama in this podcast from the store. -andy

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Nolan Bushnell and Dean Kamen

Here's a podcast of presentations by Nolan Bushnell and Dean Kamen. It's in Windows Media Format rather than an MP3 because I'm running out of power and probably won't have enough to convert it before my computer shuts down. I'll post an MP3 version later.

Nolan Bushnell is near and dear to my heart because he created two of the most important icons of my childhood: Atari computers and Chuck E. Cheese pizzeria arcades. It certainly was great seeing him speak in person. He has an uncanny resemblance to Francis Ford Coppola - at least that's how it seemed from me 50 feet back in the auditorium. Dean Kamen, meanwhile, is best known to the general public for inventing the Segway, but he's also one of the most prolific inventors of medical technologies alive today. He spent his time talking about inventing affordable, simple water purification systems for the developing world.

Quote of the morning: "In this country, we produce more students with university degrees in sports management than we do in engineering." - Dean Kamen

Nolan and Dean weren't the only speakers in the panel, but I'm facing a race against time now that my AC power cord is busted and I've got less than an hour of power left. So I cut the podcast short so I could upload it before my power dies. I'm also gonna have to skip lunch and run over to the local Apple Store and beg, plead, bribe, blackmail, flirt and debate my way to some lightning service to get my laptop fixed prior to the 1:30pm breakout sessions featuring the creators of Flickr, del.icio.us and other uber-cool technologies... -ac

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Morning Conference Break

A brief mobile phone podcast from the MIT Technology Review conference, prior to someone killing my laptop's AC power supply. 54 minutes of power left and counting. -andy

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September 21, 2005

Mark Prensky's Keynote: Engage Me or Enrage Me

A 45-minute podcast of the majority of Mark Prensky's keynote at the Scottish Learning Festival. My recorder's battery ran low at the end, so I missed the last couple of minutes. Apologies also for the sound quality - it took a lot of compression to get it down to 12 megs. -andy

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Online Communities: From BBSes to Blogs and Beyond

I just finished my speaking engagement here in Glasgow; it was a standing-room-only group of Scottish educators involved in technology. I put together a 50-minute presentation to allow for 10 minutes of questions, but discovered that the session actually ran only 45 minutes, with 15 minutes for people to get to Mark Prensky's keynote. Because of that, I had to skip over some of my final slides. No harm, no foul, I suppose. The audience was very enthusiastic as I talked about the history of online communities and recent developments in participatory media, including blogging, podcasting, videoblogging and tagging. There were a few humorous snafus getting my Powerpoint to work. Fortunately, the problem this time wasn't that I was using a PC rather than my trustworthy Mac - it was because they were using a version of OpenOffice with a Gaelic operating system! Fortunately, a Gaelic speaker came to my rescue and helped me figure out which menu options to select.

Here's a podcast of my presentation (approx. 10 megs); meanwhile, this is the Powerpoint presentation.

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Gaelic Girls Choir

A choir of Scottish girls just performed a traditional Gaelic song during the afternoon keynote. The auditorium holds thousands of people, and there's barely a free seat in the house. Mark Prensky will be the afternoon speaker. In the meantime, here's a short podcast of the choir.

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Robin Blake's Media Literacy Presentation

Podcast of Robin Blake's presentation on media literacy at the Scottish Learning Festival. Please pardon the audio quality; it's a 45-minute presentation, so I had to compress the file to shrink it down to less than 10 megabytes. -andy

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Mobcast Demo from Glasgow

A quick demo of mobile phone podcasting for my presentation later today at the Scottish Learning Festival. I recorded it over my phone by calling a phone number in the US hosted by Audlink.com. The website saves my message as an mp3 and uploads it to my website. Nice and easy, isn't it? -andy

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Morning at the Scottish Learning Festival

Podcasting from the terrace balcony at the Scottish Learning Festival, where there are long lines to get tickets for seminars and wi-fi access costs a jaw-dropping 20 pounds (USD$36) a day. -andy

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August 20, 2005

Khmer Dancecast

For those of you who prefer to listen to the Khmer blessing ceremony at the Lowell Water Festival rather than view it, here's a podcast of the entire performance. -andy

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Checking Out the Lowell Water Festival

Podcasting from the Lowell Water Festival on my mobile phone this morning. -andy

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August 19, 2005

Podcasting with the Rolling Stones

Walking home from our parking space off Boston's Beacon Street tonight, we couldn't help but notice the guy down the street blasting "Miss You" by the Rolling Stones from his apartment. That is, until we realized a few moments later that we were hearing the Rolling Stones performing a dress rehearsal concert at Fenway Park.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, et al will be kicking off their world tour this Sunday night in Boston. They arrived in town a day or so ago, performing their first dress rehearsal last night. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to us then to open our apartment windows to enjoy a free concert. You see, even though we're a mile away from Fenway, the neighborhood acoustics make it possible for us to sit in our sun room with our windows open and hear any live performance taking place at Fenway. Usually that translates into baseball chatter, but tonight, it's an evening of Mick Jagger belting out Rolling Stones classics. (Right now, they're working their way through "Brown Sugar.") They're performing in front of an actual audience this Sunday and Tuesday, so we potentially have a total of three opportunities to take in a free Rolling Stones concert rather than shell out the $450 face-value price for an actual ticket, let alone the eBay scalper's markup.

(Sidebar moment: As I write, they're now playing "Sympathy for the Devil." Oooh oooh. Oooh Oohh. Hope you guess my name. Cool.)

In case you don't believe me, I'd like to present this podcast. I recorded this sitting in our sun room as our cat Dizzy and I enjoyed a free performance of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," with the relaxing sounds of crickets in the background. (Listen to the podcast with headphones to get the full stereophonic Mick Jagger vs. the Giant Crickets effect.) Technically, you might be able to argue that this is the very first bootleg of the Stones' 2005 World Tour, but they way I look at it, I see it like this: if I can sit in my apartment and have the Rolling Stones intrude on my personal space, I should be able to record a podcast of it. Anyway, that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. -andy

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August 16, 2005

Beth Kanter on the Cambodian Blogosphere

This evening Susanne and I attended a cocktail party at Rebecca MacKinnon's apartment in Cambridge in honor of the relaunch of the Global Voices website. It was a great chance to hang out with friends and colleagues, old and new, including Ethan Zuckerman, Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Brendan Greeley and Paul Frankenstein. Just as our parking meter fare was running out, I managed to record this brief podcast with Beth Kanter, during which we talked about the evolving role of blogging, podcasting and video blogging in Cambodia. -andy

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July 26, 2005

Discussing Podcasts and Video Blogs on Radio Ghana

A few days ago at the video blogging/podcasting workshop I conducted near the University of Ghana, I was interviewed by a journalist from Radio Ghana. I checked out various news casts several times, but never heard it, so I figured I must have missed it or that it never aired.

Well, last night I was driving back to my guesthouse in northeast Accra. We got lost while trying to take a short cut, so it took longer than usual. Just before we arrived at the guesthouse, though, I heard the evening news announcer reading the daily headlines, and he began talking about an American "Internet expert" helping Ghanaians create podcasts and video blogs. As I searched frantically for my digital audio recorder, I asked the driver to stop, saying they were about to air an interview me. Though skeptical, he shook his head and pulled over. Then, we heard my voice on the radio. The cabbie started laughing and gave me a congratulatory handshake.

Eventually, I managed to find my audio recorder. Here's what I was able to capture. -andy

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Accra Update #4 - So Much for My Final Podcast

Changed plans today, so I'm still in Accra rather than Cape Coast. So last night's podcast wasn't my final podcast after all. Unfortunately I'm unable to access my FTP server so far today, so I'm trying something new - uploading my podcast to a yahoogroup.com file folder. Seems to work just fine - for now, at least....

Music by Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, from his album Afieye Okropong, used with permission from Alula Records. -andy

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July 25, 2005

Final Podcast from Ghana - I Think

This may be my final podcast from Ghana. Tomorrow I plan to visit Cape Coast, then head to the airport later that evening, so I may not make it back to BusyInternet. And since I can't count on cyber cafes in Cape Coast having the bandwidth I need to post podcasts, there's a good chance this is my final post from Ghana. I still have lots of other content to post; the rest of it may just have to wait til I return to Boston....

Music by Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, from his album Afieye Okropong, used with permission from Alula Records. -andy

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How to Make a Three-Hour Drive a Seven-Hour Nightmare

Yesterday afternoon, a group of us began the drive back to Accra from Patriensa. As you'll see in a future blog entry, our car broke down and we spent hours hobbling back to Accra, towed by a feed truck whose tow rope kept breaking from the front of the car. In the meantime, you can hear two podcasts I posted from my mobile phone while we were stranded - yes, I managed to have mobile phone access in rural southern Ghana.

First podcast: around 7:15pm, somewhere north of Accra

Second podcast: about two hours later, a bit closer to Accra, but far from anywhere near our final destination

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Accra Update #2

My latest podcast from Ghana explaining why I've been offline since Friday afternoon. Music by Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, from his album Afieye Okropong, used with permission from Alula Records. -andy

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July 22, 2005

Accra Update

Here's an extended podcast updating my whereabouts in Ghana. Special thanks to Alula Records for allowing me to use music from Ghanaian musician Obo Addy. I'll be featuring Obo's work in future podcasts and videos as well. -andy

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July 21, 2005

Podcasting Demo from Accra

Just recording a podcast demo at a workshop in Accra. -andy

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July 19, 2005

The WSIS Youth Caucus in Ghana

I've just completed an interview with Leopold Armah and Regina Banini of Ghana's WSIS Youth Caucus, chatting about the role of African youth in the UN's World Summit on the Information Society. Have a listen to the podcast. -andy

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July 18, 2005

Eminem as Background Noise

Podcasting from BusyInternet's bar and restaurant this afternoon here in Accra, while enjoying a plate of beans, plantains and fried chicken for lunch.... -andy

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Inaugural Podcast from Accra

To my surprise, I've managed to upload that podcast I recorded a couple of hours ago from the wi-fi network available at BusyInternet's restaurant. So without further ado, here's my first podcast from West Africa. -andy

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July 17, 2005

Milanese Malaise

Bored off my gourd at Milan's Malpensa Airport waiting seven hours til my flight to Accra. -andy

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July 16, 2005

Starting My Commute to Ghana

Podcasting from Logan Airport in Boston as I begin my trip to Ghana, by way of Italy and Nigeria. -andy

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July 15, 2005

Packing for Ghana

A short podcast as I pack for Ghana; listen to me as I recite a homeric list of everything I might need to bring with me:

shirts pants shorts bathing suit five pairs of underwear four pairs of socks sandals toiletry kit with all the usuals (razor, toothpaste, toothbrush, etc.) antibiotics Malarone Cash/credit cards/cheques Ghana book IPod w/ headphones & charger Camera w/ batteries, charger and cable ear plugs eye shades medicines (Tylenol, Tylenol PM, Neospirin, Imodium AD, Pepto Bismol, etc.) Digital recorder extra batteries for camera and recorder passport insect repellent suntan lotion Airborne Treo with charger Laptop with charger converters

Forgetting anything? Probably. -andy

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July 1, 2005

Dueling Podcasts with David Warlick

Edupodcaster extraordinaire David Warlick has just posted a blog entry and podcast he and I recorded last Tuesday night at the NECC conference. In the podcast, you can here Dave observing me posting a podcast from my mobile phone and going through the process of uploading it to my blog.

It's interesting listening to Dave's podcast considering it contains my entire Podcast A Go-Go podcast, both the recording itself and the process of uploading it. So it's kinda like a podcast documentary of my mobile podcast. Nothing earth shattering, perhaps, but it's certainly a hoot to listen to a few days after the fact. Boy, I wish I could have stayed at NECC for another two days - so much fun to be had.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:10 PM

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June 30, 2005

Deneen Frazier-Bowen's Funky NECC Keynote

I had to leave at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to catch my train to New York, which meant I didn't get to see Deneen Frazier-Bowen's NECC keynote at its scheduled time. But since she's my long-time edtech homegirl, she was sweet enough to let me sit in on one of her rehearsals this Tuesday.

Deneen's keynote wasn't your usual Powerpoint-Slides-and-a-Longwinded-Speech kinda keynote. Far from it. Instead, she basically pulled an Anna Deveare Smith and performed a series of characters to help paint a portrait of what it's like for today's kids to be growing up as digital natives. The keynote began with a stiff, know-nothing school administrator fumbling her way through a Powerpoint, talking about educating kids the old fashioned way and knowing what's best for today's kids. Eventually, she gets so flummoxed with her Powerpoint that she runs off the stage to argue with tech support.

While Old Miss Frumpmeister is doing her thing back stage, Deneen comes back on stage dressed as a young hip-hop lovin' teen. Her name is Eddy, and she's a smart, tough kid who loves technology but isn't trusted by her teachers. She tells a story about how she brought a palm pilot to class but gets busted for supposedly using it to cheat on a test, which wasn't the case. The school principal makes a capital case out of it and refuses to listen to Eddy's side of the story. So what does Eddy do? She posts it on her blog, which, of course, eventually gets back around to the principal. The principal orders her to remove the criticism of him from the blog, even though it's spot-on accurate, and Eddy refuses. She's then suspended from school, as people all over the world comment on her blog and rally to her cause.

Once Eddy exits the stage, we get to meet Maria. Maria's in late elementary school, and she's a bit hyper, but she's got great ideas about math and science. She likes to find science websites and hopes to use them in class, but not all her teachers seem to care about her opinion. But thanks to one teacher who values her opinion, Maria gets to talk about her idea about participating in Net Day Speak Up Day during a meeting of the school's teachers. She's never spoken in public before, so she uses the voice recorder on her smart phone to practice before giving her big speech, then puts it on her audio blog. Eventually, the school gets involved in the project, and she talks about the results.

Some of Maria's new-found courage comes from her older friend Joanna, an above average 11th grade student who likes to spend her free time playing online multiplayer games. At first her mother worries about the time she spends gaming, but then starts to notice how she takes charge whenever she's interacting with others online. Her mother talks to her about how she's learning leadership skills, a concept pretty much alien to Joanna, but eventually she decides to learn about youth leadership activities to see if she can channel her interests in a positive way. Enter TakingITGlobal: Joanna discovers the network and starts chatting with a girl in Egypt. She gets the idea of setting up a computer recycling program for African kids, approaching the company her mom works for in order to get the computers. Before she knows it, she's an active TIG member, getting lots of media attention in her community as she mobilizes local businesses to help bridge the digital divide.

Eventually, the obnoxious administrator returns to the stage. While trying to sort out her Powerpoint, she apparently overheard the kids' monologues. She's forced to rethink her attitudes towards kids and learning, while recognizing the way technology can be used to inspire and invigorate young people.

Following the performance, Deneen returns to the stage, no longer in character. She describes how she's spent time over the last few years interview countless young people, trying to get a handle on what it's like to be a digital native. The characters she introduced during her performance are not verbatim re-enactments of actual people a la Anna Deveare Smith, but are composites and creations inspired by the students she's interviewed. It was a whole new way to tell the story of education and youth media; I'm really glad I had the chance to see Deneen's performance before leaving the conference.

For those of you who missed it, here are some podcasts of her characters. Not all the performances are complete, but they'll give you a feel for what she did on stage at NECC. Special thanks to Deneen for letting me record them. -andy

Eddy
Maria
Joanna
The Administrator

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June 29, 2005

NECC Takes a Soak in the Podcasting Jacuzzi

David Warlick gets down with another podcast at the Apple Podcast Marathon

Even though podcasting was barely on the lips of anyone - let alone educators - when the NECC conference program was planned early last autumn, somehow the conference organizers managed to jump on the bandwagon with surprising success. With assistance from Apple and a team of Apple Distinguished Educators, NECC organizers have posted a series of podcasts from the conference, including recordings of sessions, an interview with the mayor of Philadelphia, and a podcast tour of Philly. Apple also hosted a podcast marathon last night in conjunction with the release of their podcast-friendly iTunes 4.9. They reserved a room that was supposed to fit only 120 people. When I showed up last night about 45 minutes before the session, there was a line out the door and around the corner. So many people showed up that they had to schedule a repeat session the following hour. Both were standing-room-only. I don't remember the last time I saw so many educators psyched about a new tool that didn't even have a classroom track record yet.

The excitement was palpable; Dave Warlick and I recorded simultaneous podcasts as the crowd waited to go inside, talking with people and learning about their interests in podcasting. Inside the room, Barnaby Wasson led a team of Apple Distinguished Educators giving an overview of podcasting and a demo of the new iTunes. He also introduced participants to mobile podcasting, encouraging them to set up a Blogger account so they could use Audioblogger for recording podcasts from their phone. One thing he neglected to mention was the need for a Feedburner RSS feed, since Blogger's feed isn't podcast-friendly; I made a note of it during ther Q&A session and Barnaby promised to add the info to their presentation slides so participants wouldn't accidentally leave out this important, albeit technical, step in the podcasting process.

Meanwhile, there were probably at least half a dozen podcasting educators wandering the halls of the conference, posting recordings left and right. Now that I'm heading home I'll definitely check out the various feeds, including Dave's and Steve Dembo's, so I can live vicariously through their podcasts. They're both off to a great start, so I can't wait to see what else they'll be doing there.

Last but not least, here's an overly excited podcast I recorded a few moments after the Apple podcast marathon. -andy

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Celebrating a Decade of the Web in Education

Against my better judgment, I've decided not to go to bed like a good boy and I've spent the last half hour or so compressing the podcast of my panel session from the NECC conference today so I could get it online for you eager beavers to listen to in the wee hours of the morning. It's about an hour long, and features Web education luminaries Yvonne-Marie Andres, Bonnie Bracey, Dennis Harper, Patsy Wang-Iverson, Ed Gragert and David Warlick, with yours truly moderating. In the immortal words of Spalding Gray in The Killing Fields and Swimming to Cambodia, check it out, Sid. Now, where's that confounded bed? -ac

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June 28, 2005

Podcast a Go-Go

Podcasting from the Marriott Hotel.

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June 27, 2005

Waiting for Weinberger

Podcast from the NECC conference waiting for David Weinberger to begin his keynote. For some bizarre reason, the free wifi at the conference center works everywhere except here in the main ballroom. -andy

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Jamie Reinsch Learns About Podcasting

Here's a short, incoherent podcast from my mobile phone as I show Jamie Reinsch how to podcast. I'm still jetlagged, so cut me some slack, folks... -andy

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June 26, 2005

Mission Street Drummers

Podcast of a group of drummers performing at the corner of Mission and 16th in San Francisco. -andy

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June 24, 2005

Off to the Royal Palaces

Podcasting from Teheran Road in Seoul on my way to the royal palaces.

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Karen Banks' Conference Presentation

I've just uploaded a recording of Karen Banks' presentation at the ITU conference in Seoul, during the last session of the event. The recording is about 15 minutes long, and is available in mp3 and ogg formats. The recording is a little rough for the first minute but it smooths out after that. -andy

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A Failed Quest for Igloo Fusion Dog Mania

I just returned to my hotel in Seoul after a long, futile quest for Igloo Fusion Dog Mania. What is Igloo Fusion Dog Mania, you may ask? According to my guide book, it's a hip cafe in Seoul's Apgujeong neighborhood famous for its 30+ resident dogs. In a country infamous for serving dog as a meal, here you can have dogs with your meal. Entering the cafe, a pack of dogs greets patrons, hanging out with them as they eat - particularly patrons who bring their own dogs to hang out with them. And along with the food they serve for people, the cafe also serves cute little bistro food for your pup.

Needless to say, Igloo Fusion Dog Mania had "video blog" written all over it, so I spent around 90 minutes weaving up and down the hilly streets of Apgujeong, trying to find the place. I stopped at several other cafes to ask for directions, but people either didn't know English or didn't want to tell me (I suppose it was bad form of me to ask about one of their competitors).

Finally, I found a pair of places that I figured would know: a pet store and a dog snack bar. The pet store, a little boutique place featuring some of the cutest ewok-like puppies I've ever seen, was of no assistance - no one spoke English. They seemed to recognize the name Igloo Fusion Dog Mania, but couldn't communicate where it was. So I went next store to the dog snack bar, which looked like a mom n' pop bakery with rows of doggy snacks lined behind the glass counters. Fortunately, the woman there spoke a small amount of English. But her answer, "Igloo Fusion far gone," caused my heart to sink. She said the cafe had moved far out of the neighborhood, and she didn't know where it was now. I also sensed she was said about the move - it was probably bad for her business as well.

So after an hour and a half of huffing it around Apgujeong, I turned around and gave up. Listen to my disappointment in this podcast I recorded while leaving the neighborhood. -andy

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June 23, 2005

UNITeS: Tech Volunteers for Global Development

Here at the WSIS Thematic Meeting in Seoul, Rita Tsering of the UN Information Technology Service (UNITeS) gave a presentation about the program's volunteer work around the world. I recorded a podcast of her presentation. -andy

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Opening Remarks from the Seoul ITU Conference

Here's a podcast of Korean ICT Vice Minister Roh and Tim Kelly of the ITU giving their opening remarks at the conference. -andy

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Civil Society, Trust & Bridging the Digital Divide

Here's a podcast of my presentation at the Seoul ITU conference, entitled Civil Society, Trust & Bridging the Digital Divide. It's about 15 minutes long. For those who would prefer to see my presentation, here's the powerpoint presentation. -andy

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June 22, 2005

Podcasting at 40,000 Feet Over the Canadian Arctic

I recorded this podcast while flying 40,000 feet over the Canadian Arctic during my 14-hour, 7,000 mile flight from Atlanta to Seoul. -andy

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June 21, 2005

Off to Korea

A brief podcast from Atlanta International Airport waiting for my 14-hour flight to South Korea to take off. I'll be going to Seoul for an ITU digital divide conference. -andy

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June 19, 2005

Review: My New Olympus WS-200S Digital Voice Recorder

The WS-200S fits easily in your hand.

I just picked up a new digital voice recorder for conducting interviews and recording podcasts. It's the Olympus WS-200S digital voice recorder, and it's a pretty sweet little device. I got the idea of getting one after reading Brian Russell's experiences with another Olympus recorder, the DS-2. The WS-200S, which came out a few months ago, is smaller and holds twice the memory, with 128 megs of storage space.

Much better than the iTalk recorder I use on my iPod, which records at a meagre bit rate of 8000 bits, the WS-200S records at a solid 44,100 bits, perfectly suitable for high-quality voice recording. While it won't let you reproduce CD quality music, it's ideal for almost any other recording scenario using voice or on-the-street ambient sounds. As an example, I recorded this podcast a few minutes ago.

It's a very small device -- almost too small.

At its highest quality, you can record up to four hours and 20 minutes of audio; at its lowest, a whopping 55 hours. Later I'll record some audio samples at different levels so you can hear the difference. I may also try using an external mic for the recorder, which will improve the audio quality singificantly, though its internal condenser is nothing to sneeze at.

The device's simple button set-up allows me to play, record, pause, rewind and fast forward easily; you can also tap the play button extra times to slow down or speed up the playback without altering pitch, ideal for transcribing interviews. The only problem with the buttons is that the recorder is so small, it takes some practice hitting the right buttons.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the device is its self-contained USB key. Rather than having to carry around a cable to plug it into your computer, you simply put it apart, exposing the USB key on the inside. Then you just stick it in your computer and upload your recordings.

The WS-200S plugs right into my laptop with its self-contained USB key.

One drawback to the WS-200S is that it records audio only in Windows Media format. If you prefer WAV or MP3 format, you'll have use a converter like EasyWMA, but it's very easy: you just drag and drop the WMA file into the application and it automatically creates a new file in the format of your choice.

So my first impression of the WS-200S is that it's a really handy, easy-to-use recorder with decent audio quality -- well worth the $100 I paid for it.... -andy

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June 18, 2005

Seventh Inning Stretchcast

Podcasting from the Cleveland Indians game after the CTCNet conference.

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Podcast Demo from CTCNet

Right now I'm hanging out at the CTCNet conference demonstrating how to make a podcast with a mobile phone. Here's the result.

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Podcast: Youth Media in Washington DC

Last night I recorded a podcast with Steve Berry of the Capitol Hill Computer Corner in Washington DC, where he talked about some of the cool youth media initiatives and he and his colleagues have developed. Check it out. -andy

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June 9, 2005

ICA Podcast

A podcast from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. -andy

Technorati tag: ArtMobICA

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May 26, 2005

U2 Vertigo Tour Podcast

U2's Thursday night concert at Boston's Fleet Center ended a few minutes ago; I recorded two podcasts while there. The first is a report during the Kings of Leon opening set; the second is a snippet of the song Miracle Drug. I'll post a concert review tomorrow. -andy

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U2 Pre-Concert Podcast

A short podcast from Boston's Fleet Center as the Kings of Leon open up for U2 in the final show of their North American tour. -andy

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May 23, 2005

Podcasting from the Empty Quarter

Here's a brief podcast from the Rub al-Khali, or Empty Quarter -- the vast desert of endless sand dunes that forms the unmarked border between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. I'm spending the evening riding furiously up and down sand dunes in a vehicle that miraculously avoids flipping over, then having dinner at a Bedouin camp. Can't wait to post more later. -andy

ps - I wonder if this is the first podcast from the Rub al-Khali?

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Podcast of My Dubai E-Gov Conference Presentation

I've just posted a podcast of my E-Government for All presentation at the GCC E-Gov conference in Dubai. You can also take a look at my powerpoint slides. -andy

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May 20, 2005

Dubai Spice Bazaar Podcast

I finally managed to upload that podcast I recorded this morning in the Dubai Spice Bazaar. I'll also try to upload a video clip if I can. -andy

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Shishacasting from Dubai

I still haven't had any luck uploading audio files from my computer, but I was able to give Audioblogger.com a call and record this podcast -- or perhaps more accurately, shishacast, since I was sitting at a cafe smoking an apple tobacco shisha. The audio quality isn't bad; you can even here the water pipe gurgling.

Meanwhile, here's a really bad self-portrait I took with my phone while at the cafe.

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Podcast Frustrations

I'm having a heck of a time trying to get podcasts to work from Dubai. Early this morning I recorded a podcast interviewing a spice vendor in Dubai's spice market. The only problem is that the Internet access at my hotel will not allow any type of uploading. My ftp software doesn't work; nor can I post it on the Ourmedia website or on DDN. I'm not sure how to get around the problem; if I can't, I'm pretty much screwed until I get home, apart from any podcasts I post from my phone, which would get rather expensive. Hopefully the conference will have more liberal Internet access and I'll be able to upload audio and video from there...

ac

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May 15, 2005

Castle Hill Podcast

A brief mobile phone podcast from Budapest's Castle Hill as I enjoy my last day in Hungary. The podcast summarizes my visit today to the charming town of Szentendre (SEN-ten-dray) with Gáspár Mátyás and his wife Márika. -andy

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May 12, 2005

Thursday Morning Podcast

A short podcast from Budapest as I wait for Gaspar Matyas at a bus stop. -andy

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May 6, 2005

Open Source Radio: Making Mobcasting a Reality

Long-time Boston public broadcasting journalist Christopher Lydon is teaming up with his veteran producer Mary McGrath and PRX's Brendan Greeley to produce a new public radio program called Open Source. The program, produced locally at WGBH, will be distributed nationally by Public Radio International (PRI) later this summer.

Despite the implication that the show will be about open source software, in reality it'll be something much more interesting. Open Source will attempt to open public radio to the listener, inviting audience members to share their experiences and ideas to help craft the show, submitting their own story ideas, guest ideas, even audio commentaries. According to the show's blog:

Open source is an idea, a movement really, that's associated with computer software; we wanted to develop a new radio show around the idea of sharing information and sources and generally opening up our production process so people can suggest guests and topics and post comments and audio that we'll put on the air. There's a way to use the Internet to tap into the vast knowledge and expertise of the people who used to be just listeners and readers, and we'd like to create a community around this idea. We know a little about radio, not so much about fusing it with the Internet and we know, in any case, that you can help.

The really cool thing about this show is that it will be one of the first serious, legit attempts to put my mobcasting idea into practice. As some of you may recall, in January I wrote about mobcasting as the idea of getting groups of people to post podcasts from their mobile phones to the same blog, in some kind of social, political or cultural context. The name "mobcasting" is intended as a triple entendre, a combination of mobile phones, smart mobs and podcasting. Brendan Greeley and I tested it out at the recent Berkman blogging conference, and later on my emphemeral artsy website, The Gates @ Central Park.

While I've been spending the last couple months ramping up to write a book on telecentres, Brendan's been burning the midnight oil with Chris and Mary, getting this radio show together. So when Brendan told me about the show, I was very happy to see that Open Source is utilizing mobcasting through a companion blog called Speak, America, Speak. Like my previous mobcasts, Brendan's using Blogger and Audioblogger to create the mobcast. Anyone can pick up a phone, call a number and enter a code to record a voicemail that's automatically posted to the website. For example, during the pilot episode of the show, Lisa Williams talked about Canadian geese in her neighborhood, and I've retorted with a mobcast about Brookline's under-reported turkey problem. There are already several other mobcasts recorded from people in Chicago, Las Vegas and Providence, as well as an inaugural mobcast from Brendan.

So congratulations to Chris, Mary, Brendan, and everyone who chimed in for the first show. It's been a hell of long time since I've been excited about a new public radio program -- something I'd never admit to my former colleagues at CPB -- so I'm really psyched about Open Source. And now my RSS reader tells me that Brendan's posted an MP3 of the first program, so I'm gonna go listen to it right now... -andy

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April 18, 2005

Elite Runners Head to the Finish Line

The fastest runners in the Boston Marathon enter Boston and race to the finish, as I note in this podcast from Brookline. -andy

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A Day At The Races

Just stepped outside to watch the lead runners make their way to the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Here's a podcast from Beacon Street in Brookline. -andy

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April 11, 2005

Hospitals, Morphine and Infectious Boredom

A podcast update about being sidelined by an infection on my hand; podcasting is easier than typing at this point... -andy

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April 9, 2005

Discharged from the Hospital

For those of you wondering why i've been quiet this week, it's because i've been in the hospital. i went to canada for a couple days to visit IDRC, and during my stay, a cut on my left index finger got infected. by the time i got home my hand was swollen like a balloon, so i high tailed it to my doctor. he gave my hand one look and told me to go straight to the emergency room.

for the next 36 hours i got to experience half a dozen doctors, two surgeries, four IV antibiotics, 10 tabs of percoset, three hours' sleep and two shots of morphine. meanwhile, my hand was suspended in a stocking hanging from the ceiling; picture lambchop the sock puppet hanging in a dungeon while Torquemada yells confess! confess! and you'll get the idea. for the next few days, a nurse will come to our apartment to change the dressing on my hand, then i go back to the hospital for a consult with the hand surgeon. i just dread him saying something like, you'll never play guitar again - let alone type 60 words a minute. man, that's a depressing thought.

as you may have noticed, i'm not using much capitalization; that's because my left hand is wrapped like an egyptian mummy. typing is really difficult, so don't expect lots of prose this week. but at least i can still podcast with one hand, as demonstrated here, recorded yesterday afternoon.

so that's it for now. time to watch hellboy on cable and pop another percoset.... -andy

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March 25, 2005

Madison Square Podcast

I just finished having brunch with Paul Mondesire and Ellen Lenihan from WNET Channel 13, during which time I posted this podcast to demonstrate audio blogging from a mobile phone. Now I'm on the Amtrak back to Boston; should be home by 4pm.... -andy

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Podcast: Andy's WSIS Speech at the National Model UN Conference

I've just posted the audio of my keynote speech at the National Model United Nations Conference's WSIS simulation. Approximately 500 college students from several dozen countries participated. As I wrote in my previous post, they were an extraordinary group of young people. I really had a lot of fun talking with them.

Here's the MP3 of the speech:

http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/nmun.mp3

There's also an open-source OGG format version of the recording: simply change the end of the URL from .mp3 to .ogg if you prefer that format. (I can't hyperlink to it or podcast users will have both versions automatically downloaded onto their computers.)

Meanwhile, here's a copy of my Powerpoint from the presentation. -andy

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March 24, 2005

Podcasting from the National Model UN Conference

I've just posted a five-minute podcast from my mobile phone here at the National Model United Nations conference here in New York City. There are 3000 delegates from around the world holding a mock United Nations meeting here, including 500 of them involved in a mock World Summit on the Information Society. It's quite disturbing, in an amazing way, how it reminds me of the real thing. I got to address the delegation this afternoon, including a 40-minute speech and then 25 - count 'em - 25 questions from the audience. They were most well informed bunch I've met so far in all the meetings I've had about WSIS, and they asked tough, diverse questions ranging from the fight over free and open source vs. proprietary software, the connection between bridging the digital divide and reforming the World Bank and IMF, the effects of media cross-ownership on content diversity... I could go on and on but I'm too exhausted. :-)

I also ospent a lot of time talking about ways they can get involved in the WSIS youth caucus, other working groups, and using Meetups and blogging as tools to promote WSIS. (When I asked the group how many of them blogged, somewhere between 75 and 100 students raised their hands.) Even if only one percent of those in attendence get involved in WSIS because of this experience, I'll be absolutely thrilled. But from the conversations I had afterwards, I have a feeling a lot more than that will get involved.

I recorded my speech as well; I'll post that online a little later if I can get the bandwidth here to cooperate.... -andy

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March 10, 2005

Podcast: Grilled by the Professor

While in Bombay last week, Rohit Gupta and I met an eccentric old professor who overheard us talking about Bombay's history. He then proceeded to join us and chat for about 20 minutes about all matter of subjects, from Jackie Kennedy to Bill Gates to the Baramati conference. I took out my iPod to record an interview with him, but as you'll see in this podcast, instead he swapped roles and decided to interview us instead. He was definitely one of the most interesting people I've met on the street in India.... -andy

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March 9, 2005

Podcast: M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at the Baramati Conference

I've just posted a podcast of Professor M. S. Swaminathan's speech this past weekend at the Baramati conference in India.

Prof. Swaminathan is one of the world's leading thinkers on the role of ICTs in global development, particularly in terms of poverty alleviation in rural, agricultural communities. The speech he gave this weekend is one of the best arguments I've heard to date on the importance of bridging the digital divide in the developing world.

Additionally, here are some pictures from Prof. Swaminathan's presentation. -andy

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March 8, 2005

Podcast: Riding with Sammy Davis Jr.

Here's a podcast I recorded in Bombay last week riding in a taxi with a cabby who styled himself after Sammy Davis Junior. Bombay Sammy talks about swearing in Finnish, drug dealing, and a variety of other subjects that his namesake would probably not have approved of. (Hey folks, I just report this stuff...) -ac

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Milkshakecasting with Rohit and Dina in Bombay

Now that I'm back home, I've got the bandwidth to post some of the podcasts I made while in India this past week. The first one I'd like to post is a podcast recorded at the Mocha Cafe in Bombay with Rohit Gupta and Dina Mehta of WorldChanging.org. I got to know the two of them as a volunteer with the TsunamiHelp blog, so we decided to get together while I was in Bombay. And in the spirit of Greg Narain's beercasting, we recorded a milkshakecast, given it was 90 degrees outside and milkshakes sounded really good at the time, particularly in conjunction with a cherry-flavored water pipe. :-)

There's no specific formula to the conversation; we just chat about a variety of things for about 15 minutes, from the differences between Delhi and Bombay to technology. Enjoy... -andy

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March 2, 2005

Podcast: The Story of the Taj Mahal Hotel

Rohit Gupta tells the story of the building of the Taj Mahal Hotel at the turn of the last century in Mumbai. The podcast was recorded as we were walking towards the hotel and the Gateway to India monument yesterday afternoon. Rohit offers a somewhat uncensored version of the story, so let the listener beware.... -andy

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February 25, 2005

Podcasts from this Morning's Plenary

About 45 minutes ago, civil society presented its final statements to the Prepcom intergovernmental plenary. I've made podcasts of the statements from the disability caucus, the indigenous caucus and the Africa Caucus. As I reported last night, we experienced a bit of a bait-and-switch when we found out the WSIS Secretariate wouldn't let us address the working modalities of the summit in our statement because of time constraints, and instead would have to address financing mechanisms to bridge the digital divide, which we had done on other occasions. Fortunately the caucuses were able to adapt their statements quickly and present comments on these new parameters. -andy

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February 24, 2005

Podcast: Getting to Know the WSIS Youth Caucus

Earlier today I had the opportunity to spend about 45 minutes hanging out with some of the leading members of the WSIS Youth Caucus, including Titilayo Akinsanmi, 'Gbenga Sesan and Terri Willard. We talked about the purpose of the group, the concerns youth have about the digital divide, freedom of expression and Internet governance, and their goals for the summit. I recorded a 36-minute podcast of our conversation, as well as a couple of videos you can access if you click either of the "see the video" links below the photos of Titi and 'Gbenga.

Titilayo Akinsanmi - see the video

'Gbenga Sesan - see the video

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February 23, 2005

Podcast: Prepcom Plenary Prep

It's 10am in Geneva and I'm getting ready to speak in the intergovernmental plenary. I recorded this podcast as I waited for the plenary to begin. Wish me luck! -ac

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February 22, 2005

Podcast: Grassroots Indian Women Speak Out

I've just recorded a new podcast called Grassroots Indian Women Speak Out. It's a 10-minute interview with four women from rural India who were invited to participate in the WSIS process by OneWorld South Asia. They discuss the importance of women and linguistic minorities in the WSIS process, and advocate a grass-roots campaign in which rural women from across the South would be invited to participate in WSIS. Special thanks to Geeta Sharma of OneWorld for providing translation.... -ac

ps- I will try to write a transcript of the podcast later; right now I need to help draft language for the education caucus....

Posted by acarvin at 7:13 AM

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February 21, 2005

Podcast: First Afternoon in Geneva

Here's a three-minute podcast of my first afternoon in Geneva.

Posted by acarvin at 12:00 PM

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February 20, 2005

Pre-Boarding Podcast

A brief podcast from Boston's Logan Airport, celebrating a free upgrade to business class. Vive la Air France! -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:03 PM

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February 18, 2005

Podcast of our First DDN Meetup

Yesterday evening I co-hosted the first meetup for the Digital Divide Network. Various DDN members were in town for the LinuxWorld conference so we used it as an excuse to have an informal get-together at Boston's Lenox Hotel (which was pronounced often as the Linux Hotel - just a coincidence, I assure you).

During our meetup I recorded a 15-minute podcast of the conversation. Unlike Greg Narain's brilliant beercasts, ours was more of a chaotic martini-samadams-housemerlot-tonicwatercast, if you will. Don't expect to follow a particular plot with a discernable beginning, middle and end; the podcast is just a 15-minute slice of the conversation. Enjoy... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 1:13 PM

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February 8, 2005

Audio and Video from Last Week's Beercast

Greg Narain records at "beercast" at Cambridge Common; I'm in the top right corner leaning in a chair with the red jacket. Photo courtesy of Steve Garfield.

Beercasting update: Video blog pioneer Steve Garfield has just posted a video of our recent beercast in Cambridge. His timing is perfect, because beercaster Greg Narain has also just published the beercast in which I took part. Basically, it's a 15 minute conversation of a small group of us sitting in a pub, drinking samplers of microbrews while swapping travel stories from around the world.

I've never listened to a recording of me made at a bar -- perhaps a good thing -- but it's been fun listening to the conversation again outside the original setting and context. It's also interesting following the arc of the conversation. We started with the topic "cool sounds we've recorded in our travels"; eventually the conversation morphed into a series of adventures we'd all experienced in Turkey, which for some reason all of us at the table had visited at various points over the last 40 years.

I'd definitely do it again if I get a chance; beercasting is quite a cool way to kill time at a bar. :-) -andy

Posted by acarvin at 4:45 PM

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Podcasting the Patriots Parade

It's a good thing I worked from home today, because it meant I was able to spend my lunch hour hanging out along Boylston Street in Boston watching the New England Patriots ride triumphantly into town. The parade itself was brief, probably no more than 10 minutes, but it was well worth it. I had a great view of Tom Brady, Corey Dillon, Tedy Bruschi and a bunch of other Patriots as they waved to the crowd from atop Boston's famous duck boats.

Tonight after work I'll try to upload a video from the parade. In the meantime, here's a quick podcast I recorded on my phone while waiting for the parade to begin. -ac

Posted by acarvin at 1:59 PM

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February 6, 2005

My Remarks from the Berkman Blogging Conference

File this under "Better Late Than Never".... Here's a podcast of my remarks at the Berkman blogging conference. Since I was doing the talking I didn't get around to taping it myself, so I had to wait for the official audio archive from the conference so I could extract my remarks. Former CNN Beijing bureau chief Rebecca MacKinnon introduces me; then I talk briefly about mobcasting as well as Creative Commons. The entire recording runs about 10 minutes, give or take.... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 9:32 PM

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Podcasting, Mobcasting and Beercasting, Oh My!

Last Thursday, a group of around 20 of us gathered at the Berkman Center to have an informal chat about podcasting in its various incarnations, including mobcasting and "beercasting." Lisa Williams facilitated the discussion, including showing off a rockin' little video about podcasting for beginners. Prior to the meeting, Lisa organized a del.icio.us reading list on articles and websites about podcasting.

Greg Narain of Beercasting.com joined us and talked about his amazing website, in which he engages people in conversations at bars, taping their discussions and publishing them as podcasts. The cool thing about it is that his software adds tons of metadata to each beercast, so you can sort through the content to find your favorite topics and speakers. Oh, and the marketing opportunies with bars and beer companies are endless. I then talked for a little bit about mobcasting and my new community blog for the upcoming Christo installation in Central Park. I recorded the session on my iPod; you can find it if you click the MP3 link on the Berkman Bloggers website.

After the meeting, we ventured through the slushy streets of Cambridge until we arrived at Cambridge Common, where Greg recorded a couple of beercasts. I participated in one beercast in which we talked about our favorite sounds from around the world; the conversation eventually metamorphosed into nostalgic travel stories from Turkey. Hopefully the beercast will be online soon; I'll post a link as soon as it's available... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 9:27 PM

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January 17, 2005

How to Create Your Own Mobcast with Blogger

This weekend, I wrote an essay about the concept of mobcasting -- using mobile phones and blogging tools as a way for large groups of people to create audio podcasts on the same website. Ethan Zuckerman and I exchanged some ideas about it on the Global Voices blog, and I spent part of the afternoon tinkering with a variety of tools to see if I could come up with a relatively easy way to do this.

The result: a new experimental blog called mobcasting.blogspot.com. It's a free Blogger website that I've set up with an RSS feed that supports enclosure tags -- the key to publishing podcasts on the Internet. Now, I have the ability to give anyone posting privileges on the site, which in turn would allow them to use Blogger's free Audioblogger.com tool. Audioblogger lets Blogger users call a phone number and post an audio blog to their blog. But since I've set up the blog with a podcast-friendly RSS feed, I've turned Audioblogger into a simple telephone-based podcasting tool. Now I just need some volunteers to contribute to the site. If anyone would like to experiment with it, contact me and I'll give you access to the site so you can post your own telephone podcasts to it.

I could see this method being used by groups of people attending an event, whether it's a conference, a protest or any other public gathering. Any situation in which you'd want to give a number of people the ability to podcast on the same website would apply.

How would you do it? It's easy.

Step One: Go to Blogger.com and set up a free blog. Just follow the instructions; it basically involves creating a username and password for yourself, giving your blog a name and description, then choosing a template. The easiest method is to have Blogger host it for you; this would end up giving you a blog with a URL like XYZblog.blogspot.com, with the first part of the address depending on whatever your blog is called. For example, my mobcasting blog is located at http://mobcasting.blogspot.com.

Step Two: Post an intro message to your blog. Just say whatever you'd like to say; the point here is to get your blog's URL working, and it won't work if you haven't posted anything to the blog.

Step Three: Create a podcast-friendly RSS feed for your blog. Blogger will automatically generate an RSS feed for your new blog, located at an address that looks something like http://XYZblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml. Again, the first part of the URL will be determined by whatever you named your blog, Unfortunately, this feed won't work with podcast -subscription software, so you need to create a new feed for it. The good news is that it's easy to fix. Simply go to feedburner.com and type in the RSS feed generated by Blogger (that's the one that looks like http://XYZblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml). Once you've submitted it to Feedburner, you'll see a long list of options for your feed. The one that's important is the one called SmartCast, This will enable your RSS feed to support podcasts. Be sure to check it and submit it to the website. At this point, Feedburner will make you set up a free account before they'll activate your new feed.

Step Four: Add your new feed to your website. Log into your Blogger account and click the settings button for your blog, then click the template button. You can add a link to your new RSS feed in the sidebar section of the template, near the bottom.

Step Five: Set up an Audioblogger account. Go to Audioblogger.com and sign up for audio blogging access on your blog. Just log in with your Blogger user name and password, then tell it your primary phone number and a four-digit PIN code you'd want to use when making your podcasts.

Step Six: Post your first audio blog! Call 1-415-856-0205 and follow the instructions. You'll have to enter your primary phone number and PIN code.

Now you have your own phone-generated podcast: check your blog and you'll find the message you just posted with your phone. Every time you call the phone number, your blog will display your message on the homepage.

Now for the final step to turn your blog into a mobcast:

Step Seven: Invite friends and colleagues to participate in your mobcast. If they're interested in participating, you'll need their email address to give them posting privileges. Then, log into Blogger, click the Settings tab, then the Members tab. You'll then find a big orange button labeled "Add Team Members." This will bring you to a form that will let you invite three people at a time; just type in their email addresses in the appropriate fields. You can repeat this process if you want to invite more than three people. When they receive the invitation email, they'll find a link to the Blogger website that will let them create a username and password; if they're already a Blogger member they can simply log in. Either way, they will then be able to set up an Audioblogger account and post their first podcast, following the instructions as listed above in Steps Five and Six.

And that's it. If you just follow steps one through six, you'll be able to create your own podcast blog, posting podcasts through your phone. And if you want to get a group of people contributing to the same podcast -- a mobcast -- Step Seven will take care of that for you.

If you decide to create your own mobcast, please let me know. I'd love to hear stories about how you were able to use it... -andy

Techorati tags:
Mobcasting
Podcasting
Andy Carvin

Posted by acarvin at 9:39 PM

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January 16, 2005

When Mobile Podcasting Leads to Mobcasting

I've been thinking a lot about podcasting over the last few weeks, particularly in terms of the role podcasting can play as a tool for civic engagement and citizen journalism. To date, many of the podcasts you'll find online today tend to be oriented towards discussing technology, entertainment and the like. A few pioneers like Brian Russell of AudioActivism.org have started to challenge us to think about ways the medium can be used for positive social change, but otherwise, notions of civic engagement have just begun to enter podcasting discourse.

This weekend, I came up with a way to create podcasts with only a smartphone. It's fairly straightforward for those of us with a little bit of tech savviness, but I wonder if it's easy enough for the average Jane Q. Citizen with no previous blogging or podcasting experience. Hard to say - perhaps I'll have to encourage a few members of the Digital Divide Network to give it a whirl and see if it's an easy solution or not. Even if it's not the best strategy for creating MoPodcasts (mobile podcasts) on-the-fly, at least it's a start.

But it makes me wonder what the Internet will be like when literally anyone with a mobile phone can publish audio, video and text to the Internet. In the past I've written about projects like Witness.org and OneWorld TV, which empower activists and the public at large to capture socially-relevant content, from civil rights violations at protests to war coverage, with a video camera and a website to host it. But with the proliferation of video-enabled smartphones, it seems that it would be a natural progression to mobilize the millions of people who are buying these tools with an easy, no-nonsense way to capture socially-relevant footage and get it online in near-real time.

Think of the role played by people using mobile phones and SMS during the ousters of Slobodan Milosevic and Joseph Estrada respectively. Now empower them with video phones, 3G mobile telephony, and a Flickr-like tool for uploading audio and video to RSS-enabled websites.We're no longer talking about mobile blogging or podcasting now - we're talking about a social revolution. We're talking about mobcasting.

What do I mean by mobcasting? Well, it's really a portmanteau: a play on both mobile podcasting and Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold's notion of viral-like social coordination enabled by information and communications technologies. Smart mobs got a lot of hype last year in the mainstream media, usually in the form of surrealistic group performance art initiated over the Internet. But smart mobs are much more powerful than just a group of college kids showing up in an art gallery at 12:15pm, standing on one foot and yelling "Tevye, get off the roof!" before dispersing without further comment. Like the case of SMS use during the anti-Estrada demonstrations in the Philippines, smart mobs can be any form of group social action enabled by ICTs.

A quick example: imagine a large protest at a political convention. During the protest, police overstep their authority and begin abusing protesters, sometimes brutally. A few journalists are covering the event, but not live. For the protestors and civil rights activists caught in the melee, the police abuses clearly need to be documented and publicized as quickly as possible. Rather than waiting for the handful of journalists to file a story on it, activists at the protest capture the event on their video phones -- dozens of phones from dozens of angles. Thanks to the local 3G (or community wi-fi) network, the activists immediately podcast the footage on their blogs. The footage gets aggregated on a civil rights website thanks to the RSS feeds produced by the podcasters' blogs. (Or perhaps they all podcast their footage directly to a centralized website, a la OneWorld TV but with an RSS twist.) This leads to coverage by bloggers throughout the blogosphere, which leads to coverage by the mainstream media, which leads to demands of accountability by the general public. That's mobcasting.

Smartphones are getting cheaper every day, and 3G networks are now commonplace in Europe and the Pacific Rim (sorry America, we're running behind yet again, but at least community wi-fi is still a possibility). As blogging software becomes more mobile-friendly, more people should soon have the ability to create mobile podcasts without too much effort. And thanks to mobile-to-Internet services like Flickr, I hope we'll soon see push-button-easy methods for videophone owners to capture footage and post it to podcast-enabled websites. Perhaps all the pieces are already out there and we just need to connect the dots. Either way, it won't be a huge technological leap to reach that point. The bigger challenge will be encouraging activists and socially-conscious members of the public to embrace the idea: that they too can do their part to contribute to civic journalism.

Mobcasting. Power to the people, baby. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:42 PM

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January 14, 2005

Tutorial: How to Create Podcasts with a Smartphone

A recent conversation on the Podcasters email list got me thinking about how to create podcasts using nothing but a smartphone -- a mobile phone with Internet access. I'd used my smartphone (a Handspring Treo 600) to posts blogs and audio recordings, but it was before I'd set up my blog to create enclosure tags for my RSS feed - the key ingredient for turning an audio blog into a podcast. The enclosure tags allows MP3 player owners to use software like iPodderX to automatically download new podcasts from your blog into the MP3 player. Hence the name podcasting: iPod + webcasting.

Given that I'd had some experience as an audio blogger, it seemed like a fairly simple proposition to take the next step and create a mobile phone podcast, hopefully without requiring that much technical savvy. I picked up my phone and went into my home office; five minutes later I posted my first smartphone podcast.

Here's how I did it.

Ingredients:

• a smartphone with email and Web access

• a free account on Audlink.com

• a blog that supports enclosure tags and RSS feeds (such as Radio Userland or Movable Type used in conjunction with the MT-Enclosures plug-in)

  Optional: Blogging software for your smartphone, like mo:blog
  

Getting Started: Create an Audlink Account

The very first thing you need to do is set up a free account on the website Audlink.com. Audlink is a tool that allows you to call a telephone number and leave a voicemail message that's automatically converted into an MP3 file and placed on the Audlink website. It also has the ability to post your MP3 in a directory on your blog; this will work for bloggers using Movable Type, Blogger/Blogspot, LiveJournal, JournalSpace and Nucleus. When you set up your account, you'll have to come up with a numeric voicemail password; this will be used to when you call the Audlink phone number to record your voicemail. You'll also need an admin password, which you can use to access your Audlink account online and change your settings if needed.

Once your Audlink account is set up, create a new contact in your phone for the number 1 (214) 752-7621. You should also make a note of your Audlink account number and your passwords, since you'll need these on hand whenever you use your phone to create a podcast.

Making the Podcast

Essentially, creating the podcast follows three basic steps:

• Record it
  
• Find it
  
• Blog it
  

Step One: Record It

Once you have your Audlink account set up, you'll need to pick up your smartphone and call the Audlink voicemail number: 1 (214) 752-7621. Please remember this is not a toll-free number, so long distance charges will apply. After dialing the number, you'll be prompted to key in your account number and your numerical password. Then, you'll be able to record your voicemail. You can record a message up to five minutes in length. Since there isn't an easy way to edit your voicemail on your smartphone once you've recorded it (well, at least not yet), you may want to practice what you're going to say. If you screw it up, you can always call back and make another recording.

When you're done with your voicemail, hang up. Audlink will then take a minute or so to process the voicemail into an MP3, which means it's now time for

Step Two: Find It

Now that you've recorded your message, you'll need to find it. Unfortunately, Audlink generates a long file name for your recording based on a timestamp (for example, http://www.audlink.com/mailbox/1587/0501151149.mp3), so there's no convenient way you'll know ahead of time exactly what the URL will be. So you'll have to do one of two things to find it.

The easiest thing to do is to go to your in-box on the Audlink website. All Audlink in-boxes follow a similar pattern, like this:

http://www.audlink.com/mailbox/XYZ/

The XYZ would actually be whatever your account number is. For example, my Audlink account is #1587, so my in-box URL is this:

http://www.audlink.com/mailbox/1587/

If you've set your Audlink account to FTP your voicemails to a directory on your blog's website, then you'll want to go to that directory instead.

Whether you go to your Audlink in-box or you use a directory on your blog, you'll have to go to that URL to find the voicemail. If this is your first voicemail, it'll be easy to find it; just look for a file name like this:

0501151149.mp3

If you have more than one voicemail in your in-box, you'll have to figure out which one is your new recording. Since the name of each file is basically a time-stamp, you just need to figure out which one looks like the right date and time. For example, if you break down the file name 0501151149.mp3 you'll see it means this time-stamp:

Year: 05 (2005)
Month: 01 (January)
Date: 15
Hour: 11
Minute: 49

Hence, 0501151149.mp3.

Once you've figured out what the proper file name is, make a note of it. It's not a bad idea to write it down, but otherwise you can use your phone's copy-and-paste feature to copy the file name and then go to

Step Three: Blog It

There are various ways to blog from your smart phone. For example, some blog tools have the ability to send an email to a particular address and automatically post the text of your email as a blog entry. Or, you can use your Web browser to go to the URL you use for posting new blog entries. Additionally, there's mobile phone software you can download into your phone for posting blog entries. For example, I sometimes use Mo:Blog, a shareware application available for the Palm operating system. It's like a simple notepad that will post the note to your blog.

Whichever way you choose to do it, the key thing is that you'll want to use the phone for posting a blog entry to link to your podcast. When you fill out the blog entry, create a link to your voicemail MP3 file. If you're using Audlink, you'll want to link to the file inside your voicemail in-box, which will look something like this:

http://www.audlink.com/mailbox/1587/0501151149.mp3

If you've set up Audlink to post to your blog, the URL would look something like this:

http://www.andycarvin.com/audio/0501151149.mp3

Whichever way you do it, the key thing is to create a hyperlink that points to the voicemail URL. Then, when you post your blog entry, the blog will link to the voicemail on your blog homepage and in its accompanying RSS feed.

And that's it. Instant mobile podcasting in three (relatively) easy steps. Happy MoPodcasting! -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:46 PM

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Podcasting with a Smartphone

Today on the Podcasters Yahoo group, I posted a message about some of the tools I've used to record voicemails and post them to the Web. Amy Gahran commented on how great it would be to create podcasts using only a mobile phone. So I decided to give it a try. The result is this podcast, which was done entirely with my Handspring Treo smartphone. I'll explain how I did it in my next blog entry.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 8:48 PM

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Podcast: Anatomy of a CNN Interview

Late last night I finished editing a podcast called Anatomy of a CNN Interview. It's about my adventure on Wednesday going into Boston to do an interview with CNN.

A CNN producer had called me earlier in the day wanting to talk to me about the digital divide implications of the new Mac Mini computer, Apple's first low-cost computer. I didn't expect to do an actual interview with them because they were hoping to do it in New York, so I went into a meeting for a couple of hours.

Coming out of the meeting I found a message from the producer asking me if I could be at a TV studio at 1:15pm; it was now almost 2pm. Frantically I called her up and asked if we could still do it; she said they'd rescheduled the studio time to 2:45pm. This gave me less than 45 minutes to get to Boston from suburban Newton -- on public transportation, no less.

Since I had my iPod with me, I decided to make an audio diary about the experience, from the painfully slow commuter train, to getting lost in downtown, to the interview itself. The podcast is a bit of a departure from my previous Internet radio programs in that it's a bit tongue-and-cheek, and it incorporates a lot of music remixes I made, courtesy of the Creative Commons/Wired Magazine music CD. All of the songs on the CD can be re-used for sampling purposes, so I took full advantage of it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the new podcast.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:51 PM

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January 11, 2005

Podcast: Overcoming Wikipedia's Growing Pains

I've just posted a new podcast called Overcoming Wikipedia's Growing Pains. The podcast was inspired by a Wired News article talking about the challenges faced by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as it tries to become more broadly accepted both by experts and the public.

As always, the music in the intro and closing is courtesy of the band SubAtomic Glue, used according to their Creative Commons license.

Here's the transcript:

---

Hi everyone, Andy Carvin here.... Wired News ran a story yesterday regarding Wikipedia's growing pains. The open-content encyclopedia is growing at a rate at seven percent each month, yet many wonder whether the encyclopedia will ever be seen as a "legitimate" reference resource by the general public.

Some academics like Danah Boyd from UCal/Berkeley worry about the site's accuracy. "Usually there's only one or two people involved in writing the entries," Boyd said, "and you don't know anything about who they are." She also added that while some entries, particularly technology-related ones, are in-depth and well-rounded, non-tech entries can be hit or miss. "Guess what?" she continued. "A lot of ancient-history specialists? They're not online, let alone involved in Wikipedia. But a lot of students are going to Wikipedia for information on ancient history."

While these are all fair points, I get frustrated by critics who complain that Wikipedia lacks quality entries in their specific field of expertise. Because Wikipedia is a community effort, the quality of a particular entry rests entirely on whether or not there is a critical mass of expertise to author that topic. Wikipedia needs to do a better job at attracting experts to contribute to the project, while experts who poo-poo Wikipedia need to recognize that it's incumbent upon them to volunteer or encourage their colleagues to contribute as well.

One thing that might be valuable is creating a more transparent way for Wikipedia users to judge the provenance of a particular entry by seeing who created it and their areas of expertise. As it stands right now, when you visit a Wikipedia entry, you can take a look at its edit history to see who's contributed to the page, but you can't always gain much insight from this information.

Take the edit history page for the term Digital Divide. Looking at this history you can see that there are at least a dozen people who've contributed to this page (including me, but only very minor contributions to date). In this list, there are contributors like Dusik, Stevetheman and 129.215.101.110. Of these three individuals, only one of them - Stevetheman - has a profile that leads me to information about him that allows me to make an informed judgment as to whether or not he might be qualified to contribute on this subject. (The third person, as you can see, is just an IP address -- just a bunch of numbers -- so there's no way to even know who on earth they are.)

I think that Wikipedia is wonderful because everyone who's online has the right to contribute to it. But it would be beneficial if there were more transparency in knowing who's contributing what and why. It's a fundamental prerequisite of information literacy: having access to enough information to make an informed decision as to whether a source is accurate and unbiased. The more information you have about the producer of a Wikipedia entry, the better you can decide for yourself whether you think the information they provide is the honest truth, a bunch of horse-hockey, or somewhere in between.

So if it were up to me - and it isn't - here's what I'd recommend.

• Allow anyone to contribute to Wikipedia -- but require them to create a free membership first. Too many Wikipedia entries are authored by anonymous people whose only identification is their computer's IP address, and that doesn't help you judge them as a reliable source or not. For example, I made a very minor edit to the Wikipedia page for the Sultan of Oman, but if you look at the edit history page, you'd never know it because I edited the page without logging in, so my contribution remains anonymous.

• Encourage Wikipedians to create a bio of themselves. It doesn't have to be anything fancy; just something that lets us know about your background, interests and expertise. For example, my user page shows that I'm the director of the Digital Divide Network, and other facts about my background. This information allows a user who visits the "digital divide" entry to make a judgment that a) I'm involved in this particular issue professionally, and b) that I may have a particular policy bias that should be considered when you read Wikipedia entries I've worked on.

• Make Wikipedia more welcoming to experts. Wikipedia is world-famous (okay, Internet-famous) as a place where anyone can post their own encyclopedia entry. This virtual bazaar of cyberpopulism has attracted thousands of participants, including some who think it's their God-given right to be the only editor on a particular subject, whether or not they're an expert. As noted in the Wired article, many experts who've tried to contribute to Wikipedia find themselves criticized by these people, and it turns them off. (On several occasions, I've felt that other Wikipedians have talked down to me and have been dismissive of my contributions because I'm not a "regular.") How this gets fixed is a tough question, but it's incumbent upon those of us who contribute to Wikipedia to keep an open mind and not be selfish or overly protective of our entries. If someone comes in and it's clear they've got an expertise on a subject, hear them out and don't be defensive about the entry you already created. Wikipedia should be about knowledge, not egos.
  

Of course, no matter what improvements Wikipedia makes, many people simply won't trust it because it's not entirely written by experts and can be changed by anyone else. I have a feeling it may be nigh impossible to mollify critics of this particular persuasion. Nonetheless, Wikipedia is a valuable tool for finding information when multiple references are required.

So if you're doing a book report for school, kids, don't necessarily skip Wikipedia just because your teacher told you that you can't trust it. Just don't use it as your only source. Even better: become a Wikipedian and contribute what you've learned to the conversation. To paraphrase Jello Biafra: Don't hate Wikipedia -- become Wikipedia... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 9:54 PM

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January 7, 2005

Creating a How-To Guide to Podcasting for Citizen Journalists

A few weeks ago, Phil Shapiro set up a new community on the DDN website called Citizen Journalist. The community is about the role that the general public can play as citizen journalists, posting blogs, podcasts and other content on the Internet to add to civic discourse. Parallel to this, Brian Russell of AudioActivism.org and I have been corresponding with each other, thinking about writing a series of DDN articles that could serve as tutorials for newbie citizen journalists on blogging and podcasting. (Dave Warlick also blogged about this yesterday in the context of student podcasting.)

I think the blogging one would be fairly straightforward, since there are lots of blogging tutorials out there, not to mention a lot of good content on what it means to be a citizen journalist. The podcasting one, however, is a bit trickier, as podcasting is still very new and there's no one single recommended process for creating a podcast. (I imagine if you picked two podcasters at random and asked them to explain how they produce a podcast, you'd get two totally different stories, with different software and gadgets being used.)

Brian and I have just started talking about this issue in a DDN discussion thread, which I encourage you to visit. (You'll have to be logged into the DDN website to access it.

In my response to Brian, I said it might be worth talking with a broader group of podcasters to compare each other's podcasting methods (their podcraft, to coin a phrase). That way we could create a tutorial that would guide people based on the tools available to them - PC or make, open source or otherwise, etc.

So here's my question: are there any other podcasters out there who'd be interested in contributing their ideas to this? If so, please go to the Citizen Journalist community, join the group by clicking the join this community link at the center of the page, and let us know what you think. And of course, anyone else interested in this issue should feel free to chime in. Don't forget to register as a DDN member and log in if you're not a member, since membership is required to participate in DDN communities.... -ac

Posted by acarvin at 9:55 PM

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January 6, 2005

Pay No Attention to the Podcaster Behind the Screen

David Warlick has just posted a blog called The Other End of Podcasting, in which he talks about podcasting from both a podcaster's point of view and a listener's POV. Interestingly, he uses my most recent podcast as a reference point (not to mention inspiration to the schematic he created, seen on the right). Dave writes this:

Last night, Andy Carvin published a very interesting podcast (a must listen), as part of his Waste of Bandwidth blog. I believe that he used an iPod with an iTalk attachment to do the actual recording, but most podcasters use more traditional microphones. He imported the audio into his computer, mixed in some music, and saved it all as an MP3 file, and added the reference into his RSS syndication file.

At the end of his essay, he makes two very important points:

The broadcast industry has been completely passed over. This is true multicasting (as opposed to broadcasting), where anyone with the skills (basic literacy skills, I maintain), and access to basic consumer technology, can share their thoughts and ideas in a compelling way to a global audience.

If virtually anyone can populate the airways (webways) with compelling content, then it becomes all the more important that we teach our children to critically evaluate the information that they encounter. We must teach children to always ask questions about the answers that they find.

In an age of rampant media concentration in which quality programming can be counted on a single hand of a cartoon character, there's nothing more compelling than a person taking a microphone, a computer, and a few good ideas and turning it into a powerful, entertaining narrative. Hopefully we'll start seeing more young people producing podcasts in the same way that they've practically cornered the blogging market.

But like Dave says, we also need to make sure we teach kids the critical thinking skills to evaluate all of this content. Podcasting will face the same criticism often thrown at blogging - that much of the stuff being produced is personal naval-gazing on unsubstantiated rumor-mongering. How do you tell when one blogger or podcaster is more credible than another? Is it simply the slickness of their product? Or is there something more tangible than that? Can we teach kids to be smart consumers -- and producers -- of blogs and podcasts? And do we want to remain in a situation in which probably nine out of 10 educators don't even know what a "podcast" or a "blog" even means? (According to Lee Rainie a the Pew Internet and American Life Project, two-thirds of Internet users surveyed don't know what a blog is. Imagine if the same survey happened amongst educators in any given school district. I shiver at the thought.

With podcasting, we have the luxury of foresight. Blogging has been around for over five years now. (Or more than 10 years, if you count those of us who slogged away coding manual HTML to create personal homepages with news updates.) What can we glean from blogging as a phenomenon - and as an educational opportunity -- and apply to podcasting? What can we do to encourage a generation of smart, thoughtful podcasters?

Sorry, folks, no answers today. Just a bunch o' questions to chew on for a while... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:58 PM

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January 4, 2005

Podcast: The Tsunami as a Wake-Up Call to Bridging the Digital Divide

I've just posted a new podcast: The Tsunami as a Wake-Up Call to Bridging the Digital Divide. It's based on an article of the same name that I published today on the Digital Divide Network. Give it a listen (or a read) when you have a chance.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:01 PM

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December 23, 2004

Making Podcasting Accessible to All

Drumroll, please: I've just posted my first podcast. The topic of this five-minute audio is the growth of podcasting and the subsequent accessibility challenges faced by the hearing impaired. I'm hoping it's the first in a series of podcasts from me on a variety of issues related to the Internet, the media and the digital divide, among other topics.

If you have a good Internet connection you can download the podcast; it's just over five megabytes in size. Otherwise, a transcript of the podcast can be found below.

For those of you who want to subscribe to my future podcasts using software like iPodderX, please use my blog's RSS feed.

-ac

---

Hi everyone, Andy Carvin here.... Welcome to the first official podcast for my blog, Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth. I'll be posting occasional podcasts on a variety of issues. I don't plan on having a single theme to this podcast; it won't strictly be about the digital divide or Internet culture or travel or the media. There really aren't rules for this; I'm just going to play it by ear and see where the muses lead me.

Today, though, I'd like to talk about podcasting. No, I don't mean for this to be yet another podcast about podcasts. Instead, I want to talk specifically about podcasting and accessibility.

This past week on the Digital Divide Network email list there was a great discussion about the advent of podcasting and its potential as a tool for giving a voice to disenfranchised communities.

A few days into the conversation, Grant Laird of the Texas Deaf Network posted a brief response to the thread. He said,"Don't forget that podcasting probably doesn't support transcripts for the deaf community."

My first reaction was, "That's a fair point.... I'm more than happy to post transcripts of my podcasts." For me, at least, that makes a lot of sense. But will other podcasters feel the same way? Unfortunately, I think the answer is generally no, I think many would argue that the whole notion of posting podcast transcripts actually runs counter to the ethos of podcasting.

A case in point: last month, Web accessibility activist Matt May posted a rather provocative essay in which he lamented that many pioneering podcasters are actually going out their way not to transcribe their podcasts. As evidence to this, he cited a statement by Steve Gillmor at the recent BloggerCon conference saying that he'd never post transcripts -- and actually got applause out of it.

Posting transcripts, it seems, would defeat the whole purpose of podcasting: pushing the envelop of personal multimedia publishing. I mean, why bother spend all of this time trying to be a bleeding-edge Internet radio pioneer when you'd have to type up everything you've just said, just so that people who don't even know what an iPod is can read what you had to say in the first place?

But Matt May, who works for the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative, finds this position unacceptable. He writes:

What if a deaf user sees a topic that interests him or her, and wants to know what these subject-matter experts have to say about it? Should he or she go without simply because the moderator thinks it would disrupt the natural feel found in the panel's voices?

Interestingly, not long after Matt posted his blog, Steve Gillmor posted a response:

I have to admit I was not thinking about accessibility in relation to the subject of transcripts. Of course it makes sense in that context, and I appreciate your perception that the Gillmor Gang material is worthy of that additional effort.... As the network grows and technologies for auto-transcriptions become affordable without the cost of training that holds back current technology, the accessibility problem will be overcome.

These comments by Matt and Grant and Steve are probably the first round of what may be a rather contentious battle between podcasters and accessibility activists. Just as we've seen fights over the accessibility of websites and streaming media, it's no surprise that podcasting has opened a new theatre of operations in this battle. But fortunately podcasters like Steve Gillmor are now thinking about accessibility, and are open to addressing these concerns. Will others take notice? I imagine many won't, but I'm sure the accessibility community won't sit on their hands either.

So Matt's absolutely right when he says that the deaf community shouldn't be forced to "go without" simply because podcast producers have better things to do than cater to the disabled. I mean, so what if podcasting wasn't invented to target the disabled community? Isn't it absolutely reasonable to assume that many podcasts will contain insightful and entertaining commentary that would be just as interesting to a deaf person as it would be to anyone else?

Granted, transcripts in themselves will never convey all the nuances of the human voice and spoken interaction, but that's hardly the point. Podcasting has enormous potential as a tool for independent media, civic journalism, education and other purposes, and it's just a matter of time before we see millions of podcasts being produced, from the biggest media conglomerates all the way down to some kid in her bedroom with a story she wants to tell the world.

Of course, life will be a lot easier when voice recognition tools like Dragon Naturally Speaking get better at transcribing everyday banter rather than dictation. Someday we'll get there, I'm sure, but don't expect it overnight.

So is it too much to ask podcasters to offer a transcript of their audio? Even a detailed summary is better than nothing. Otherwise, podcasting will be yet another media juggernaut that will zoom by the lives of millions of people without giving any of them a chance to benefit from it as well.

And who knows; maybe someone who uses speech-recognition software to communicate to the outside world needs to start their own podcast as well. Wouldn't that send a powerful message?

Maybe we should all just email Stephen Hawking and see if he wants to be the first.

Anyway, that's all for now. Until next time, thanks for listening to my Waste of Bandwidth....

(Note: open/closing music courtesy of Subatomic Glue, used under the rules of their Creative Commons license.)

Posted by acarvin at 10:17 PM

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December 20, 2004

Boston Globe Podcasting Story

Today's Boston Globe has a nice story on podcasting and some of the locals who are pioneering the medium. The article notes Dave Winer and Adam Curry's iPodder and interviews local video blogger Steve Garfield. It also covers WGBH's Morning Stories, one of the first podcasts to come out of the public broadcasting community. For those of you who aren't familiar with podcasting, read the article.

Expect to hear lots more about podcasting through the mainstream media in 2005, not to mention some of my own podcasts from my blog as well... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 6:23 PM

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December 17, 2004

A Quick Experiment

I'm just testing my site's RSS feed and its ability to include multimedia.

Here's a link to an audio file.

Posted by acarvin at 8:37 AM

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July 29, 2004

Audio Blog and Video Clips from the Anarchist March

During today's anarchist march from Copley Square, I recorded an audio blog and shot several video clips. Click on the previous link to listen to the audio blog; otherwise, you can choose from the following clips:

Protest drummers
More drummers
March clip #1
March clip #2
March clip #3
March clip #4

March clip #5

Marchers' feet

Enjoy.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 3:50 PM

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July 28, 2004

Audio Blog: Lunchtime at the Abu Ghraib Protest

Hi everyone... It's just after 12pm in Boston's Copley Square, and a large human rights protest has gotten under way, demonstrating against the use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay. Rep. Dennis Kucinich will be speaking at some point in the next 30 minutes. Meanwhile, I've just post an audio blog from my mobile phone if you'd like to hear it... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:27 PM

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June 12, 2004

Audio Blog from CTCNet Seattle

I've just posted an audio blog summarizing some of the activities from the first day of the CTCNet conference in Seattle. Please give it a listen when you get a chance.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:06 PM

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May 8, 2004

Hong Kong Breakfast Audio Blog

It's just after 9:30am in Hong Kong and I've just posted an audio blog.... -Andy

Posted by acarvin at 9:22 PM

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April 16, 2004

Alamo Audio Blog

I've just posted a new audio blog from the Alamo . Please have a listen when you get a chance...-ac

Posted by acarvin at 11:49 AM

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April 15, 2004

Audio Blog from San Antonio

I've just posted an audio blog summarizing the Richard Florida keynote this morning. It's just an experiment, so please let me know what you think...-ac

Posted by acarvin at 12:52 PM | Comments (3)

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