MediaBerkman

“Walled gardens” is a common term for systems that limit the entrance and exit of certain kinds of data. It is a deceptively simple metaphor that relies on the existence of a shared set of assumptions about what gardens are, what walls are, and what it means to build and maintain them. In this talk, Goodman extends the walled garden metaphor for digital spaces by comparing it to everyday experiences of more literal ones: urban community gardens.

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“Walled gardens” is a common term for systems that limit the entrance and exit of certain kinds of data. It is a deceptively simple metaphor that relies on the existence of a shared set of assumptions about what gardens are, what walls are, and what it means to build and maintain them. In this talk, Goodman extends the walled garden metaphor for digital spaces by comparing it to everyday experiences of more literal ones: urban community gardens.

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A book talk with professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger who examines the technology that’s facilitating the end of forgetting in his book, “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. Mayer-Schönberger argues that in our quest for perfect digital memories where we can store everything from recipes and family photographs to work emails and personal information, we’ve put ourselves in danger of losing a very human quality—the ability and privilege of forgetting.

Click Above for Video…or download the OGG video format!

A book talk with professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger who examines the technology that’s facilitating the end of forgetting in his book, “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. Mayer-Schönberger argues that in our quest for perfect digital memories where we can store everything from recipes and family photographs to work emails and personal information, we’ve put ourselves in danger of losing a very human quality—the ability and privilege of forgetting.

Download the MP3

…or download the OGG audio format!

It’s been a busy week at the Berkman Center, so we had to forgo a new podcast this week. But have no fear, we did not forget you! We dusted off a recent classic from our archive by popular demand: “Episode 124, What the Heck is a Commons?”

David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own, explains where the notion of the Commons came from, and how it is evolving in the digital age.

Enjoy, and we’ll see you next week!

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or download

See more info after the jump.

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Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through a dynamic visualization of stories, data, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States. Two of the project’s founders, Jesse Shapins and James Burns, explain the origins of the project and invite feedback.

Download the MP3

…or download the OGG audio format!

Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through a dynamic visualization of stories, data, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States.

Click Above for Video

Few dispute that the web will be the dominant medium of the 21st Century – swallowing whole newspapers, books, radio, television, and the cinema. And even as the web grows virtually – over a trillion unique urls and growing – it shrinks physically – from laptop, to netbook, from cell phone, to even tinier and ubiquitous communication devices.

The growth of the web seems radically different from that of television, radio, and newspapers. It seems like it was so grassroots, so rapid. But Professor W. Russell Neuman of the University of Michigan argues that to predict the growth of the web in the future we need to take a good hard look at just how those 20th Century technologies and infrastructures came to be so dominant.

So, what does history have to say about how this tiny little medium will grow?

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or download
…also in Ogg!

CC-licensed music this week:
Neurowaxx: Pop Circus
General Fuzz: Warm Steel

The Reference Section:
Russell Neuman’s bio
Russell Neuman’s research
Russell Neuman’s recent talk Theories of Media Evolution at the Berkman Center

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See a partial transcript after the jump.

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Author and Professor of Public Policy Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital memory is a little too perfect. Every word you post on the web, every picture, every video, tweet, and email is set in stone, archived, permanently findable. Like the proverbial elephant, the digital world doesn’t forget.

There are incredible benefits to this. And there might be consequences as well, ranging from invasion of privacy, to the impairment of human memory.

David Weinberger spoke with Viktor about some of these consequences, and how we might help our machines learn to forget.

Listen:
or download
…also in Ogg!

The Reference Section:
Viktor on the web
Viktor’s book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
A Full interview with Viktor on CBC’s Spark

CC-licensed music this week:
Neurowaxx: Carioca
Jaspertine: Pling

Subscribe to Radio Berkman

See a partial transcript after the jump.

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John Clippinger and Oliver Goodenough of the Berkman Center’s Law Lab discuss the progress made this year by the Law Lab – especially three specific projects that develop new digital institutions and research tools to foster innovation and deepen our understanding of trust, transparency and human cooperation.

Liveblogging from the talk by David Weinberger

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…or download the OGG video format!