Friends,
You’ll notice that a new feature is enabled on this blog — when you leave a comment, you now have the option to write text OR record audio or webcam video. Sure, the plugin comes with some annoying embedded advertising, but until I can hack that away, enjoy!
I am hoping that, for the love of God, this will encourage some of you — and you know who you are — to leave comments.
Where I live
I’m testing the chat function. Does it work? All my instant messages can be auto-published as…
Man, I just can’t get enough of this converging multimedia mobile web experience.
I’ve been spending some time with Manufacturing Consent. Need a little passion in your life? Read Chomsky. If there’s one thing the man has, it’s passion. But I can think of eight or nine hundred other things he also has (ideas, books, followers, CIA surveillance).
Speaking of intelligence agencies, sometimes when I walk around MIT, I am awed to realize how this institution has always been and continues to be such a forward-thinking, [anti-establishment] leader in technological innovation, and all the social implications that follow as a natural response to innovation. I pass dudes in hallways, or see men in elevators (mostly men, unfortunately; there are great MIT women professors, so I hear, but clearly not enough!) with funny grey mustaches and I think, has this person been an influential leader their field? Are they famous, those men with their messy shirts and exhausted eyes, and I don’t even know it? Are they constructing the next [bomb] [fuel-less vehicle] [wireless digital empire] in one of these windowless labs full of nitrogen tanks? Or are they just somebody’s dad? Or nobody’s dad?
Similar thoughts go through my mind when I share the elevator with Google execs every day, like the swarm of five identical Tall Business Dudes In Black Suits who quite literally almost ran me over as we came around opposite corners this afternoon — except they’re too clean-cut to be dads, and instead of bombs, I’m just concerned with their construction of digital empires.
Which is to say, come June 2010, I’m open for hire. That’s right, Influential Tech Company of the Future, as long as I can live in [Ireland] [Italy] [Peru] [Germany] [Iceland] [Ecuador] [Costa Rica] [etc.] and work from home most of the time and have vested retirement and Euro stock options and ample maternity leave, I would love to work for you! Or, I might build my own empire. (Ok, I’m in the midst of building the empire/company now with some longstanding compatriots; so far we have a legal advisor, a CFO, and a business development/strategist, none of whom are old rich white men, although I could probably use one of those for good measure…call me if you’re interested.)
While poking around the intraweb to find phone-post blogging applications, I came across TalkShoe, which is a new community podcasting site that basically lets you set up an online radio talkshow, except you could also use it to live audio blog with a bunch of other people, record a conference or class, or vent your frustrations about Governor Palin with a group of strangers (or friends) on the internet immediately after her latest TV interview (ahem).
To test it out, I have set up a weekly “talkshow” for Sunday nights at 9p called “MIT Media Nerds”. The first “episode” will be 30 minutes, and I’ve recruited some fellow CMS nerd compatriots to call in, so I won’t be talking to myself…although any TalkShoe users presently on the site can also choose to call in when the episode is live. How can I participate, you ask?
On Sunday at 9p, you can either call 724-444-7444 (call ID 26622) and start talking, or go to http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/26622 and start writing in the chatroom, or talking from your computer mic, either as a guest or registered user. Friends abroad, you can also call in via Skype (but in order to use Skype, you have to download TalkShoe’s voice app for free, so you might as well just go online). If you’re too busy to call in, fear not! Each episode will be archived as a podcast on this and other sites.
What will we be talking about? I dunno. Odysseus, video games, politics on YouTube, the latest George Clooney film, whatever. Call and find out!