Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog

Instead of a meeting, let’s gather at outside the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade (near Charles St. station) to watch the Pops rehearse their 4th of July concert. Bring your picnic blanket, your own meal, and if you like snacks to share.

The latest word is that the concert itself isn’t going to start til around 8:30, but that the earlier the better in terms of getting there.

Look for j when you arrive - Erica has had something come up and won’t be able to be there.

• July 19 & 20: PodCamp Boston at Harvard Medical School
• August 7: Berkman needs the conference room so let’s plan an excursion.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Tonight, let’s talk about surviving Twitter outages - from competitors like Pownce or FriendFeed or Plurk to Summize, tweetscan, clients and any other tricks we’ve got up our collective sleeves. What do you do when a service you rely on isn’t particularly reliable? (topic at Mike Walsh’s suggestion)

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• June 28: Grassroots Use of Technology Conference in Lowell
• June 28: Banditos Misteriosos scavenger hunt
• June 29: DevHouse Boston 4
• July 3: PICNIC: Instead of a meeting, let’s gather at 7pm outside the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade (near Charles St. station) to watch the Pops rehearse their 4th of July concert. Bring your picnic blanket, your own meal, and if you like snacks to share.
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp Boston at Harvard Medical School
• August 7: Berkman needs the conference room so let’s plan an excursion.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Berkman has an event this afternoon which is ending in a reception in the conference room, so we’re not holding blog group tonight. However, if folks want to show up at Berkman at 7, catch the end of the reception, and then head out to grab dinner & socialize, let’s do that! I’ll be here, and I’ve heard from a couple other folks that they may be as well. We’ll try to update this post to show where we go for food once we leave.

Tonight’s also longtime blog group member Jared Dunn’s last Thursday in town, and I believe he’s planning to join us for dinner, so come bid him farewell as he heads out of town to pursue his LocalProgress project in his hometown in Illinois.

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• June 19: Berkman event on employee non-compete agreements & innovation (no blog group)
• June 26: Blog Group: Surviving Twitter Outages: Competitors, clients & other tricks
• June 28: Grassroots Use of Technology Conference in Lowell
• June 28: Banditos Misteriosos scavenger hunt
• June 29: DevHouse Boston 4
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp Boston at Harvard Medical School
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

There’s a new iphone coming up, but does it meet your needs? What about blackberries, N95s, Flip cameras, and all the other nifty gadgets folks are using to participate in social media? What do you use, what do you want, and why? What advice do you have for others considering the same tools? Are we all just too darn gadget-obsessed anyway?

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• June 18: Blown to Bits book launch
• June 19: Berkman event on employee non-compete agreements & innovation (no blog group)
• June 26: Blog Group: Surviving Twitter Outages: Competitors, clients & other tricks
• June 28: Grassroots Use of Technology Conference in Lowell
• June 28: Banditos Misteriosos scavenger hunt
• June 29: DevHouse Boston 4
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp Boston at Harvard Medical School
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Joe Cascio leads us in a discussion of distributed microblogging:

Twitter is a very popular so-called microblogging service. It allows you post short (140 characters max) messages that answer the question “What are you doing?”. These messages are broadcast to the other Twitter members that are “following” you, ie. have subscribed to your updates. And likewise, you receive all the messages from all the people you have chosen to follow. One particularly popular feature of Twitter is its ability to send and receives updates from mobile phones, Instant Messenger as well as Twitter’s web site and purpose-built UI programs like Twhirl.

But Twitter is also a proprietary “walled garden”, albeit open to anyone who wants to sign up. And it’s notoriously unreliable. In this talk we’ll discuss attempts in the developer community to decentralize and distribute Twitter using an open protocol to address the issues inherent to centralize, walled implementations. I am hoping this will lead to a wider discussion of open distributed systems and ways to preserve the social community benefits of a centralized system.

Afterward, go to a prom-themed contradance so you have something unusual to blog.

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• June 7-8: OLPC grassroots unconference
• June 29: DevHouse Boston 4
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp at Harvard Medical School
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

In the next several weeks, there are a wealth of great events of interest to blog group members. We’re making room for them by not meeting as blog group for a few weeks.

On May 29, join us at Ignite Boston 3. You need to RSVP to IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com.

We will resume meeting at Berkman on the first Thursday in June: June 5.

Of particular note, of course, is the Berkman @10 conference later this week, which several of us are attending, and BarCamp Boston 3 this weekend, which many of us are actively involved in planning.

We’ll next meet officially as blog group on June 5, when we’re scheduled to discuss Distributed Microblogging.

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• May 13: WebNOB at Jillian’s in Manchester, NH
• May 15: No meeting due to the Berkman @10 conference. Hey, blog group has been around for half of Berkman’s life!
• May 17 & 18: BarCamp Boston 3 - RSVP to be sure you get a t-shirt and potential other swag! Think about proposing a session!
• May 22: No meeting. Recuperate from an awesome week & weekend! Upgrade your blog software! Livetweet a stroll in the park. You get the idea.
• May 29: No meeting - go to Ignite Boston 3 instead! RSVPing is a very very good idea as these often fill up.
• June 5: Return to meetings! We’ll be discussing Distributed Microblogging.
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp at Harvard Medical School
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Let’s welcome Dean Jansen from Participatory Culture Foundation on Miro Player!

We will not meet on May 15 because of the Berkman @10 conference, but we hope to see you there or at BarCamp Boston 3 on the 17 & 18.

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• May 13: WebNOB at Jillian’s in Manchester, NH
• May 15: No meeting due to the Berkman @10 conference (Register for the conference & gala now! Placing a badge on your blog gets you a $50 discount.)
• May 17 & 18: BarCamp Boston 3
• July 19 & 20: PodCamp at Harvard Medical School
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

We’re getting an update on Babbledog, the Web 2.0 social news/microblogging site + recommendations on which Shimon and j have been working. Check it out & register for a free account!

Some recent discussions:

• Shimon’s treadmill desk

• The Hans Reiser verdict
• Pennsylvania primary
• People selling OLPC XOs

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• May 1: The folks from Babbledog return with a major update
• Friday May 2: 11 am-1 pm Digital Natives forum @ Berkman. Contact Miriam Simun for info or to RSVP.
• May 8: Dean Jansen from Participatory Culture Foundation on Miro Player
• May 13: WebNOB at Jillian’s in Manchester, NH
• May 15: No meeting due to the Berkman @10 conference (Register for the conference & gala now! Placing a badge on your blog gets you a $50 discount.)
• May 17 & 18: BarCamp Boston 3
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

This week blog group will join Laughing Squid and Internet memes at the Pre-ROFLCon Drinkup. The event starts at 7pm at Asgard on Mass Ave in Central Square. RSVP required. Again, blog group will not meet at Berkman Center this week.

Also, follow ROFLCon on Twitter and join the ROFLCon 2008 group on Flickr.

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• May 1: The folks from Babbledog return with a major update
• Friday May 2: 11 am-1 pm Digital Natives forum @ Berkman. Contact Miriam Simun for info or to RSVP.
• May 8: Dean Jansen from Participatory Culture Foundation on Miro Player
• May 15: No meeting due to the Berkman @10 conference (Register for the conference & gala now! Placing a badge on your blog gets you a $50 discount.)
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Tonight’s blog group features our own longtime member Jared Dunn on his new project, LocalProgress.org. Jared’s seeking critical/constructive feedback, ideas, etc. from our community.

From the site:

We’ve used the web to help organize and expand small local community and political groups. We know that it can work. However, to achieve lasting results, it takes dedication, focus, and a willingness to both teach what the web can do, and how to do it. It also takes the time and patience to listen to the needs and concerns of communities, and to tailor the available tools and solutions to them.

<snip>

From our experiences so far, we suspect that there are many small activist, civic, and political groups and candidates who could make great use of the web to further their goals and build their organizations. However, many of them may not know where to start, and most lack the resources to hire professionals to guide them. The Local Progress website will aim to be an information and volunteering clearinghouse for groups and activists in this position. We will endeavor to unite web activists and professionals with the underserved local groups and communities who need their help the most.

Also, before the meeting at you may be interested in this event:

Collaboration in Space Exploration with the founders of NASA’s CoLab (NASA’s collaborative initiatives in Second Life)
TODAY - 5pm - Hauser 104, Harvard Law School

Upcoming meetings & events of interest:

• April 18: Jonathan Zittrain on the Future of the Internet
• April 24: ROFLCON and the Laughing Squid are having a ROFLCON kickoff party at the Asgard on Mass Ave in Central Square. Let’s join them for some networking with online comic artists. RSVP required.
• May 1: The folks from Babbledog return with a major update
• Friday May 2: 11 am-1 pm Digital Natives forum @ Berkman. Contact Miriam Simun for info or to RSVP.
• May 8: Dean Jansen from Participatory Culture Foundation on Miro Player
• May 15: No meeting due to the Berkman @10 conference (Register for the conference & gala now! Placing a badge on your blog gets you a $50 discount.)
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.