December 2011
17 posts
Can be summarized as the “is social media a new space for active democracies or a heightened technology of control?” Shirky sits on the “utopian” side, while Morozov (and people like Andrew Keen) sit on the “control” side. Things came to a head when Morozov asked for more info about Shirky’s work for the then-Gaddafi Libyan government. Shirky tried to clear the air with a somewhat weak response. A third-party blog post then summarized the back-and-forth.
The debate has returned with Morozov taking down Shirky “comrade” Jeff Jarvis in The New Republic. A colleague at the recently launched Kernel has decided that this is the real end of Jarvis & Shirky folk but that seems premature. After all, the Cyber-cynics (if I can call them that) keep to themselves just as much as the “utopians” they decry. When Morozov’s The Net Delusion was glowingly reviewed by the New York Times, it was through the mouth of Lee Siegel. Not coincidentally, Siegel’s Cult of Amateur lined up ideologically with Morozov, and would have to be as anecdotal and trivial as Jarvis’s own work. So the praise is ultimately just a cheer from a fan. Meaning no objective panel has vetted either side’s conclusions.
So is the debate reaching a conclusion? Or just an apex?
Perhaps neither. These gurus and pundits are defined better by the fight then any set of evidence they espouse.
On Friday, NYU announced its MFA for game design for its Game Center:
The Game Center MFA is a 2-year Masters of Fine Arts degree that explores the design and development of games as a creative practice. The curriculum is centered on the creation of games and includes game design,…
A few weeks ago, I was at an NYU Game Center lecture by Richard LeMarchand. It was terrific. At this event, they suggested that this news was coming.
I’ve been a huge fan of Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz for years (first met them in Atlanta at the Art History of Video Games conference). So I could not recommend an MFA at the Game Center more. If you are thinking of games and gaming, these are the guys to do it with.
For Social Business, 2011 was a year of exploration, experimentation and in some cases innovation. Both small and large organizations in a variety of verticals globally began to realize the power of bringing social behaviors, processes and platforms behind the firewall. According to a 2011 AIIM…
Key observation is #3 “Community Managers Rule.”
Part of graphics exercise and part physical computing, this project from Dutch artists uses grayscaled ping pong balls to replicate images. All automatically. Think of it as physical dot matrix printing.
