Metaboston Media

Boston Media Makers Meeting

Steve Garfield posts images from the recent Boston Media Makers' meeting.

Podcamp Montreal

 

I'll be presenting at Podcamp Montreal and attending a bunch of other sessions.  I'll be talking about the DIY aspect of podcasting and social media in general.

Using Twitter For Distributed Wine Tastings

Braintree-based Bin Ends wine store is building a customer following by organizing wine tastings where fellow tasters interact over the Twitter messaging service and with wine makers.

“The project aims to give wine enthusiasts around the globe a chance to join the world's top wine personalities online for tastings via the popular social networking tool Twitter. Users need only set up a free Twitter account and then follow binendswine on the service. In the U.S., they can also order the wines being tasted from Bin Ends three weeks prior to the event, with free shipping across the country (Bin Ends does not ship internationally). Then, equipped with the wines and their Twitter account, users can join the event as it takes place, commenting, asking questions and enjoying back-and-forth interaction with the winemakers in real time. Tastings generally take place the third Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. Eastern U.S. time, and are announced on Twitter, Facebook and Bin Ends' own website.

Great idea to attract customers who might not want to head out to a wine tasting and especially for those who aren't in the immediate area of the store.  Not only is it interactive but it overcomes the geography problem faced by a lot of smaller retailers.

Upcoming Podcamps

The next Podcamps coming up on the horizon are in Philadelphia and Montreal.

These relaxed social media conferences are a great opportunity to learn more about social media in a collaborative environment.

Andrew Jankowich will be speaking at Podcamp Philly.

Podcamp Boston 3: July 19-20

Andrew will be attending and speaking at Podcamp Boston 3 which runs from July 19-20. 

He'll be discussing ways to find the best formats to work with the goals you have for podcasting.

"How many times have you heard this old saw:

“The best part of a conference is the conversations in the hallway.”

"What if the conference WAS the hallway? That’s the power of PodCamp Boston, the power of community, the power of conversation. The power of putting smart people from every walk of life together for two days to learn, share, and grow their new media skills. 480 people gathering to share their ideas, lessons learned and earned, cutting edge developments, and stories. From blogging to podcasting to Twitter to virtual worlds and more, whether you’re a veteran of new media or just getting started, PodCamp Boston has something for YOU"

Could one good idea change your world? What about a weekend full of them?

PodCamp Boston promises to help you learn, share, and grow your new media skills. If you’ve been wondering how to get more involved in new media and social media, if you’ve thought about starting a blog, podcast, or Twitter presence, PodCamp Boston is for you. If you’re a veteran adventurer of new media, come to share and learn from your peers, and make partnerships & friendships! PodCamp Boston offers something for everyone, no matter where you are on your new media journey."

The conference is being held at the Joseph Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School.

Emerson/City/Harvard creates virtual Boston in Second Life

The Hub2 project created by the city of Boston, Emerson, and the Berkman Center at Harvard premiered Boston Island in the Second Life 3-d virtual world recently.  (Parcels of space on Second Life are set on islands with larger organizations owning their own island.)  Boston Island served as a showcase for a variety of projects created to explore the meaning of civic life and community in Boston as seen through the lens of Second Life.

"Founded earlier this year by [Emerson professor Eric] Gordon, Berkman Center Fellow Gene Koo and Nigel Jacob, an assistant to Mayor Thomas Menino, Hub2 encourages interaction between Boston residents and their public spaces in the real world and cyberspace, Jacob said. It creates a way for citizens to participate in their community, and city officials said they hope it will encourage more people to become involved in civic activities."

The goal of the projects was to discover if Second Life could be a useful tool for building real-world community in the city.

"Hub2 has been designing sections of Boston since September, but is currently not aiming to make a complete one-to-one mapping of the physical city and all of its functions in Second Life's virtual universe, Jacob said."

Avoiding a one-to-one mapping seems like a good idea especially given the photographic mapping projects of Google and Everyscape.  (Full disclosure:  Andrew Jankowich of Metaboston Media worked on one of the Hub2 projects).

MIT's Center for the Future of Civic Media

MIT is using $5 million in funding to develop new uses for technology to increase civic engagement.

"You don’t have to look far to find signs that participation in local communities is on the decline in the United States. In one obvious example, overall voter turnout in local elections is at a low ebb: according to a recent Pew Charitable Trusts survey only 26 percent of Americans aged 18 to 25 claim to vote regularly. Meanwhile, traditional sources of local information are dwindling. More Americans are getting their news from national sources than ever before, and just 16 percent of young Americans say they read any daily newspaper at all."

"Now a trio of well-known figures in media and technology at MIT is launching an ambitious center to use technology to build local community engagement. With $5 million in private foundation funding, the new Center for the Future of Civic Media (or C4FCM) is setting out to study the problem, design solutions using new media and technologies, and eventually field test and implement those ideas."