Timed monography about the Internet

At last !

Thanks to the excellent EH.net portal (Economical History, it means), here is a review of a book about the history of the internet : Paul E. Ceruzzi, Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945 to 2005. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.

How is technology “rooted in place” ? How do “defense spending, land use policies, highway construction and suburbanization” intertwine ? Read further : “Ceruzzi does a remarkable job exploring the intersection between defense spending, land use policies, highway construction and suburbanization. He ends with a futuristic glance. Edge cities like Tysons Corner today are challenged by larger demographic trends, as transportation systems feel the strain. As people drive through Tysons Corner, they likely don’t see the enigmatic buildings around them, prompting questions about how technology is rooted in place — but only see the bumper in front of them. (…)“.

& :
- Innovation and the Growth of High Tech (another EH.net review) | Economic History resources (EH.net unfolded).
- Eco on WebOL.

MusicEverybody

Imaginons pouvoir écouter de la musique en ligne (en streaming), pouvoir la télécharger au format souhaité et avec la qualité requise (mieux donc que du MP3 courant) et avoir le droit de profiter d’un vrai choix.

Il est d’autres boutiques plus fournies, et plus agréables et faciles de consultation (plus ergonomique, dit-on) comme celle frappée de la Pomme mais MusicMe.com vaut la découverte ; citons :
- “Fichiers 100% compatibles” : PC, Mac, iPod, iPhone, baladeurs MP3, clés USB, téléphones, autoradios, etc.
- “Format et qualité” : MP3 (de plusieurs qualités), AAC, Lossless (sans compression), etc.
- “Gravez en toute liberté” : fichiers copiés sur CD sans contrainte et sans limite.

Le rêve, peut-être ? Passionnant à étudier de second degré que ce rêve : économie de la chose, diversité du support, qu’est-ce-que la qualité, nouvelles pratiques mélomaniaques, etc. Mais cette mélomanie y trouverait bien son compte gageons-le, un rêve qu’il semblerait : comment comparer des interprétations différentes…

(Merci à GO).

How much free is free

Chris Anderson is renowned for his best-seller The Long Tail (his own blog nicknamed alike too). Editor of Wired, his new opus deals with gratuity, free economy, abundance and scarcity : one article (February 2009), another one (June 2009). His book can be read for free but only when one browses it in the USA.

Any articulate idea deserves discussion. Malcolm Gladwell published a very good and critical paper in the New Yorker (July 2009). For french readers, here are Rue89’s comments, quoting Les Inrocks’s ones.

Digital Art Memory

Bilingual magazine in français+english, ArtPress published a special issue on Media Arts, Conservation and Restoration (Arts technologiques, Conservation et Restauration) few months ago.

As Catherine Millet wrote, “It will be seen (…) that some of the problems involved in conserving media art are not so different from the difficulties arising with installations and other works involving ready-made objects. It will also become clear that technology-based arts are in fact continuing the reflection on the definition of art begun by Conceptual Art. For to address practical questions of maintenance is also to reflect on the status of the artwork in the age of its dissociation from its material support.“

Worthy bundle of links from the magazine :

- Archiving the Avant-Garde (Univ. Berkeley, US).
- CASPAR (Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval, EU).
- DOCAM (Documentation and Conservation des Arts Médiatiques / Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage, CA).
- Inside Installations (EU) – Project from 2004 to 2007.
- Matters in Media Art – From Tate Modern (London), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (US), the MOMA (NYC, US), the New Trust.
- Variable Media Network – From the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (US) and the Daniel Langlois Foundation (CA).

& :

- V2_Capturing Unstable Media (NL) – Project in 2003.
- Ars Electronica Archive.
- EAI Online Resource Guide for Exhibing, Collecting & Preserving Media Art.
- New Media Encyclopedia.
- Daniel Langlois Foundation (CA).
- Media Art Net (DE).

&& @WebOL :

- IT Art.
- Art video.

“European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research”

European-Cooperation-in-the-Field-of-Scientific-and-Technical-Research, or COST,  is a truly trans-disciplinary forum. Last illustration to date, The Good, the Bad and the Challenging was the striking title of the meeting held in Copenhagen few weeks ago :

- The programme, which is mind-watering : “Users as innovators“, “Humans as eActors“, “The multiple cultures of the Information Society“,  “The future in young and old hands: towards an inclusive broadband society“, “Participation and Representation in the Design process: A Broad User Spectrum (COST Action 294 MAUSE)“,  “ICTs and Asian Countries“, “Sonic Interaction Design (COST Action IC0601)“, “Telecommunications Economics (COST Action IS0605)“, “ICTs and generations“, “Cyberbullying – coping with negative and enhancing positive uses of new technologies, in relationships in educational settings (COST Action IS0801)“.
- The other most important point is that the proceedings are online : sorted out by sessions, sorted out by authors.

Furthermore, the Program #298 of COST is the following :

“The COST 298 Action ‘Participation in the Broadband Society’ is the successor to COST Actions 269 and 248, and hence has a track record covering 15 years. The conference is a follow up to the conferences The Good, the Bad and the Irrelevant held in Helsinki in 2003 and The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected held in Moscow in 2007.

COST 298 is an Action in the domain ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ of COST, an intergovernmental framework for European Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research. In COST 298 European scientists from telecommunication research departments, universities and operators together with independent consultants collaborate in cross-disciplinary groups to analyse the social dimensions of people’s relationships to information and communication technologies. The Actions have produced a range of articles reports such as Communications on the Move: The Experience of mobile Telephony in the 1990s (1997) and the books Everyday Innovators, Researching the Role of Users in Shaping ICTs (2005) and The Social Dynamics of Information and Communication Technology (2008) based on previous conferences.“

Googlenomics

How to generate revenue ? What is the adequate revenue mechanism ? These are questions relevant to anyone working on Business Models, far beyond IT domain.

Wired has just published a long paper on Google, explaining how Google’s economical pattern has just turned to auction. The article is written in the typical wired style, fuzzy which verges on “tired” sometimes, but the reading is very much worth it.

Moreover, the theme of this month’s issue is The New New Economy. Another article is about the reinvention of the American car industry (worth reading quickly, just once), and the third one is called “Socialism Redefined“ (not very convincing). But the one about Google is the best, simply put.

& :
- Today (20090618)’s FT publishes a Digital economy separate section, available online as well.
- IT + Eco @workOL.

Digital business

Digital business is a buzz word, as the FT proposes a new series of podcasts. But is this business in digital age, or business of digital technologies ?

Let’s open our ears to know more of it. Of course, there is more to read on their website as well.

& :
- IT + Eco @workOL.

de Rosnay & l’Internet-d’aujourd’hui

En passant 18 minutes durant, le futurologue vulgarisateur Joël de Rosnay parle de l’Internet-du-Futur-déjà-plus-ou-moins-là-mais-vous-n’avez-encore-rien-vu. Son interlocuteur en seconde partie est Richard Collin (Grenoble Ecole de Management).

La vidéo a en effet deux volets :
- Le premier fait honneur à son talent de vulgarisateur. C’est une excellente présentation de l’abscons et polysémique Internet-du-Futur (pour lequel un site pan-européen est une porte d’entrée privilégié).
- Le second a toutes les limites du prospectiviste, à grands coups de serpe (“toutes choses égales par ailleurs” comme est souvent la Science Fiction) notamment pour l’éducation. Cela énoncé, il y a des idées à approfondir, surtout sur l’énergie, la mise en réseau et le rôle de courtier (broker).

Ajoutons une remarque, qui demandera développement. Il y a, chez de Rosnay, une hypothèse forte : le web sera structuré comme le cerveau, avec le non-dit de savoir comment est précisément agencé le cerveau, comment on modélise son fonctionnement, etc. En 1945, Von Neumann a défini le principe toujours en cours du fonctionnement de l’ordinateur (séparation unité central, mémoire vive, mémoire de masse) avec la même ambition de prendre le cerveau comme référence (ce qui explique d’ailleurs le choix du binaire). Bref, à suivre tant c’est passionnant au second degré, c’est-à-dire au niveau de l’étude.

& :
- @itOL de manière aléatoire et sur un mode polyglotte : The Internet of Things, Webbed Mobility, IT Business, IT Economics, SENSEI, Digital Ethnography, IT-Towns of nowadays, Mobility but with traceability, Réseaux expliqués, Designing the Internet of Things for Workplace Realities, Homo numericus.
- @workOL pour compléter : Donna Harraway, Innovation & Growth in High Tech, Netted privacy, etc.
- Merci à Fabrice Forest d’UmanLab pour l’annonce.

The future of journalism

L’écrire en français, bien sûr. Auf deutsch auch über dieses Thema schreiben. But let’s choose the common language.

Web and press, Google and news companies and newspapers, digital and real world: these are mingled, hot but as important issues. In fact, many different issues are colliding. To track relevant and, sometimes, seminal views is all the more important.

- Jeff Jarvis ’s BuzzMachine about journalism. He published What will Google Do? last year (2008). A post called Google as the new pressroom can be one very short wrap-up.
- Add-on/Ajout : 2 successives posts by Transnets’ Francis Pisani, review 1 + review 2 of the Jarvis’s book (blog de qualité en français, rare pour être signalé).
- Here are strong divergent views on Google if we compare The Observer’s Henry Porter and K. Teare’s response (2009-04-05).
- Aliocha’s reflexive “keyboard” on journalism (in french).
- In June 2008, a Future of Journalism series by The Guardian.
- @WebOL : Presse & Press, Supports de l’écrit.

Nota – This post is not journalism, just one more stack of links ; something like “knowledge silo and sandbox“. It responds foremost to WebOL’s own interest and, why not, any reader’s own whoever he or she might be.

Digital ethnography

Is this on the digital world, via the digital tools ?

Michael Wesch has released on YouTube An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, presented at the US Library of Congress (55 minutes, 23rd June 2008).

Previously, he also introduced his collective YouTube Ethnography Project on, yes, YouTube (2007). Many other video materials from him and his students are online : “My videos explore mediated culture, seeking to merge the ideas of Media Ecology and Cultural Anthropology. Currently we are analyzing anonymity and pseudonymity on YouTube, throughout the web, and in the “real world” throughout all times and all places“.

To know more about MW, browse his MediatedCultures site at Kansas State University (US).

& :
- IT @WorkOL.
- Thanks to Fabrice Forest from UmanLab for the tip.

Add-on : Doing Anthropology 8-minute-video-explained on MIT TechTV (courtesy of Céline Verchère from CEA/LID).