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Author Archives: Gabriel Mugar

Accessing the Mashup

Count how many times I say access….

http://www.vimeo.com/7926185
By Gabriel Mugar 18:49, Dec 1st, 09 4-travelogue 2 Comments

The Meta Mashup

http://www.vimeo.com/7766543

Credits:

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yC81QhR_xk
  • http://www.scribemedia.org/2007/03/19/yochai-benkler/
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGH5ygIKyT0&feature=related
  • http://vodpod.com/watch/2797-danger-mouse-1hr-public-interview-ucla
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykbPtRb0K4&feature=related
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwm1v1R-qM
  • http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2007/06/08/lol-theorists/
  • and more…

So in the last couple of weeks’, we’ve explored mashups through creating examples of how they play out, and to demonstrate throughtheir use. We’d like to wrap up what we’ve learned, and put it in a frame of reference.
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By Gabriel Mugar 11:59, Nov 23rd, 09 4-travelogue 4 Comments

Shift Boston Navigator

Boston Navigator is a search database for Boston based youth programs. The idea is great but the interface is a little cold. In my opinion it does not make looking for a program all that easy. visit the site and check out my comments.

By Gabriel Mugar 17:52, Nov 10th, 09 4-travelogue No Comments

Broken Promises of Privacy: The Limits of Anonymization and the Power of Reidentification

The Colloquium on Information Technology and Society presents Professor Paul Ohm, University of Colorado Law School.

Topic: Broken Promises of Privacy: The Limits of Anonymization and the Power of Reidentification
Location: Room 212, 245 Sullivan Street
Date/Time: Thursday, November 12, 4:30 – 6:30 PM

By Gabriel Mugar 23:41, Nov 5th, 09 fyi 1 Comment

We’re ready, are they?

In the realm of local politics , does social media create a stronger link between constituent and representative? In my analysis of Corey Booker use of social media, I can say that it brought Corey Booker closer to his constituents, but I am not entirely sure it brought them closer to him.

In my travelogue, I showed how well Corey Booker broadcast his activities to the citizens of newark. From youtube, to twitter, to facebook, there are so many ways to stay up to date and be inspired by all the hard work that Mayor Booker is putting in to revive the city. But how well can Corey Booker hear his fans? Is that the purpose of the fan page? I contacted the mayors office numerous times regarding these questions but got no reply.

While I did point out in my two previous posts that Booker did respond to certain comments, the response amounted to Booker asking to converse with the individual off of the page. Why is this? This lead me to think that the page is really just a place for people to sing the praises of booker’s work. Again, Im all for positivity as a means to get people excited and involved, but the dialogic potential of social media was missing. It would be wrong to label facebook as a public space in the traditional understanding of the public sphere. As Lauren pointed out in a comment on my last post, facebook is a great way to aggregate opinion, but the comments that the posts illicit are more often than not those that wouldn’t benefit anyone in policy making.

Overall I would say that the introduction of social media into the political realm is a good thing in that it provides another outlet for citizens to be aware of local issues, but for the time being, the potential of social media for garnering useful feedback is being squandered. Maybe the reps just aren’t ready to encourage their constituents to tell them how they feel…

By Gabriel Mugar 23:27, Nov 2nd, 09 2-travelogue 6 Comments

Corey Bookers Social Media Arsenal and how he uses it

Since his election in 2006, Booker has overseen a 36% drop in crime, doubled the amount invested in public housing development, attracted some 100 million dollars in donations to local charities, and recently turned down an appointment to Obama’s cabinet. After graduating from Yale Law, he lived in a public housing complex in Newark where he organized the residents to fight for better living conditions. Now, as mayor, he lives in a neighborhood traditionally known to be overrun by drugs and gangs.

Mayor Booker is the type of public servant who, despite coming from a wealthy family, being a rhodes scholar, and generally being a member of the professional elite, keeps his feet on the ground and lives with the people he is working for. So how does he use different social networking tools to further his quest to stay as connected as possible?

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By Gabriel Mugar 12:29, Oct 26th, 09 2-travelogue No Comments

Take the “M” off of “Masses” and you get “Asses”: Jaron Lanier’s beef with the little people.

Check out Jaron’s resume and you’ll see this guy is at the top of his game. Consultant and advisor to some of the biggest businesses south of san jose, regular speaker and visiting scholar at top universities, Jaron, a renaissance technologist of sorts, manages to apply his tech wisdom to fields ranging from medicine to artificial intelligence. But it doesn’t end there, Jaron has a musical career that has put him on stage with the likes of george clinton and vernon ried! Jealous yet? Get this, he is credited with developing the concept of Virtual Reality.

So by most accounts this is the guy you love to hate. Because he has done it all, one would think that he is a fairly confident character, however, when you read his article “Digital Moaism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”  he comes across as horribly insecure about his future as an expert. Jaron believes that when you let everyone into the sandbox (crowd source, open source, flat organizational structure, etc.), the chances of creating something of value declines because those who actually know what they’re doing will have their voices drowned out, which, in turn, dooms us to a future of crap decision making.

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By Gabriel Mugar 12:31, Oct 25th, 09 2-travelogue 17 Comments

Can Social Media Change the Relationship Between Representatives and Consituents in Local Politics?

large_Cory Booker tweets all day longThe website TechPresident.com noted on October 16th that Newark mayor Corey Booker has “833,779 Twitter followers, and 14,768 Facebook supporters.
According to the US Census Bureau the Population of Newark is 281,402 (2006 estimate) which means that Booker has more than 3 times the population of Newark following him on Twitter and the equivalent of 5% of the population of Newark as Facebook supporters.”
To answer the question I will embed myself as a fan of the mayor on facebook and I will follow him on twitter to get an idea of how he uses the two platforms. I would also like to connect with his staff regarding their strategy around using social media, and then connect with his constituents to see what they think of the mayors use of facebook and twitter.
What I am interested in seeing is whether or not local politics is using social media to bridge the gap between representative and constituent or if social media is just being coopted as another broadcast medium.

By Gabriel Mugar 17:08, Oct 21st, 09 2-travelogue 5 Comments

Refining the Social and Techincal Design of NfN

It comes down to design and culture. Fairly obvious conclusion to draw, but after my travels through the Neighbors for Neighbors network, the discussion in last weeks class on the relationship between the technical and social could not have been more relevant as I tried to determine how NfN could be more effective in reaching its goals.

Across the network, the key area needed for improvement is that of user participation. While NfN’s JP network does boast a user base of over 1500 and does feature constant blog and forum posts, the aspect of blog and forum responses is fairly low. Also, with the addition of sites for the other towns in Boston, NfN has an imperative to increase participation and boost membership for the new sites.

In my previous post I presented accounts and ideas around increasing participation in networks. One of the more theoretical ideas that was considered was that of social objects, where a social network is defined by an “object” of common interest. While I proposed that NfN’s social object was community organizing for Boston’s neighborhoods, Mushon prompted me to reify this further as he, and rightfully so, felt that community organizing was too abstract and would most likely not boost NfN’s gravitational pull.

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By Gabriel Mugar 13:37, Oct 12th, 09 2-travelogue 3 Comments