Category Archives: net-locality

Where is the Where?

I just got back from the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference in Burlingame, CA this morning. As someone who attends mostly academic conferences, it was both refreshing and disturbing to spend two days with this group. Refreshing because the group was … Continue reading

Posted in cities, geography, mediated urbanism, mobility, net-locality, placeofmedia, web 2.0 | Leave a comment

The Evolving Concept of Network Locality

Over the last few days, I’ve refined my thoughts on the concept of network locality. Up until this time, I’ve been thinking about how geographical space functions within the connectivity enabled by digital networks. But as I pursued this idea, … Continue reading

Posted in geography, mediated urbanism, mobility, net-locality, place, placeofmedia | Leave a comment

Mobile Places

I’ve had this question running through my head for some time now: what’s the connection between mobile computing (i.e. cell phones, PDAs, GPS, etc.) and local computing (neighborhood networking, digital civic forums, etc.)? On first blush, these are entirely separate … Continue reading

Posted in cities, city, citygovernment, Community_Informatics, mediated urbanism, mobility, net-locality, place, placeofmedia | 1 Comment

Hub2 Launch Big Success

The key is presented to Mayor Menino The virtual mayor takes the key to the virtual city The Hub2 kick-off event was a big success. We had a packed room, both in first and second life, and there was an … Continue reading

Posted in boston, city, citygovernment, civic_engagement, hub2, net-locality, placeofmedia | Leave a comment

CCTV MediaMap

CCTV is a community media center in Cambridge, MA that is doing some fascinating work in the integration of web media to the mission of community television. My grad student, Colin Rhinesmith, is doing his master’s thesis on this topic … Continue reading

Posted in cities, civic_engagement, Community_Informatics, net-locality, placeofmedia | 1 Comment

Community Networks

In class last week, we spent about 90 minutes arguing over the merits of community networks. The real question was: why would we want network technologies overlaying physical space? Don’t we have enough “connection?” Shouldn’t urban planners and architects help … Continue reading

Posted in boston, city, citygovernment, civic_engagement, Community_Informatics, hub2, net-locality, placeofmedia, SecondLife | Leave a comment

Report on Localism

Knowledge Politics just released a pamphlet on the topic of “Localism and the Information Society.” This collection of brief essays is motivated by the desire to see better integration of ICTs into neighborhoods and cities. As stated in the introduction: … Continue reading

Posted in city, citygovernment, civic_engagement, Community_Informatics, net-locality, placeofmedia | Leave a comment

New Tools, Same Rules

Myspace and Facebook have gone mobile. And new companies are cropping up each day to get in on the new mobile socializing. An article in the Boston Globe this morning featured two companies seemingly making a dent in this field … Continue reading

Posted in net-locality, phones, placeofmedia | 1 Comment

More Thoughts on Net-Locality

Allen Smith, who works for WHERE, contacted me about my last post with an interesting corrective: “I always thought about recent phone technology as allowing the internet to come out into the world and overlay it with information, I never … Continue reading

Posted in city, net-locality, phones, placeofmedia, play | 2 Comments

Location widgets

Location is the next frontier in computing. The company uLocate has announced a competition for developers to make location-based widgets. uLocate’s new location-widget feature, called simply Where, is essentially a collection of little programs that mash-up data from the Internet … Continue reading

Posted in city, net-locality, phones, placeofmedia, play | Leave a comment