Open Journalism & the Open Web

Notes from Lecture #1 with Mark Surman & Christopher Blizzard

Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation and Christopher Blizzard, Open Source Evangelist with Mozilla

These two big minds are going to help us answer the question, "What is the Open Web, and why is it important to the future of news?"

Mark Surman is in the business of connecting things: people, ideas, everything. A community technology activist for almost 20 years, Mark is currently the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, with a focus on inventing new ways to promote openness and opportunity on the Internet. On the side, Mark convenes conversations about ‘open everything‘ in his home town of Toronto and around the world.

Christopher Blizzard is an Open Source Evangelist working for the Mozilla Corporation and a long-time contributor to Open Source projects, notably with Mozilla, Red Hat, and One Laptop Per Child.

Mark's slides are here (though, slideshare is being funky at the moment, so here's a download link) and Christopher Blizzard's slide is here.

Why does Mozilla care about news?

View more presentations from Phillip Smith.

The conference recording is available here.

I'll post a chat transcript shortly, unless someone else beats me to it. :-)

Best,
Phillip.

Transcript of the chat (read from bottom to top):

Phillip Smith says:
Sep 15, 01:56 PM
@Michael - will do, yes. :-)

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:56 PM

+1 for the handwritten slide

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:56 PM

Could that handwritten slide be posted somewhere, too? Or is it already?

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:56 PM

Thanks to you all for your comments today. Awesome.

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

@Capi yes. :0)

Chris Nicholson says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

Thanks, everyone, looking forward to the next lecture! Will have a browse through some of the material linked.

Laurian Gridinoc says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

phillip I should log that channel

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

http://p2pu.org/node/5644/chat

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

is that a slash "/" on the channel name?

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

You can use the chat widget on P2PU to drop in

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

It's linked from the class resources page.

Grant Hamilton says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

isn't there some kind of irc add-on for firefox? ;)

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

It's #p2pu-general/open-journalism-open-web on #freenode

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

There already is an IRC channel

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

We have an IRC channel!

Mariano Blejman says:

Sep 15, 01:55 PM

propose an irc channel, and there we will be

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

@Steve -- Yes, I think the chat is archived on this page for posterity, and I'll post it over on P2PU also

david mason says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

Capi, I use irc, nostriluu in freenode

Josh Wilson says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

Wonderful! Thank you so much, everyone!

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

do you folks use irc? we could keep talking at IRC

Mariano Blejman says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

Thats all?

Pattie Reaves says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

Great first class! Looking forward to more. :)

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:54 PM

thanks folks

Grant Hamilton says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Thanks all

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Thanks! Love the discussion.

Geoff D'Auria says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Fantastic lecture. Thank you.

david mason says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Thanks everyone!

Matt Carroll says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

thanks, that was fun & interesting...

Jorge Rivas says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Thank You!

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

Is the chat interface avail when the call is over?

Grant Hamilton says:

Sep 15, 01:53 PM

will the chat be archived as well?

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:51 PM

@phillip yes i love the contact experiment. but the issue is not limited to contacts, it is closely related to personal data (and personal data aggregation and walling in webservices)

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:51 PM

Okay: wrapping up in 4 minutes!

Laurian Gridinoc says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

undead dead = zombie?

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

Oh! Right - this is the article that puts everything on an exponential scale. Video is gigantic in terms of bandwidth, so of course its share of bandwidth is large. But the bandwidth of the Web is still *growing*, not dying.

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

Someone tweeted that if journalists agree with Wired's piece they don't understand journalism and the web.

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

People who know more about this than I do -- including these guys -- tell me that, long-term, native apps like on iPhones will be a blip on the radar.

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

Personally I don't agree with Wired

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:50 PM

@Capi Did Mark just speak to that re: https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2010/03/contacts-in-the-browser/

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:49 PM

Oy. Wired is dead.

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:49 PM

The Web is Dead: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:49 PM

@phillip i'd like themto talk about the issues in the push for cloud computing (talking about html5 offline features and its acces to our filesystem, if theres any)

david mason says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

some modern js runtimes are just-in-time compiled. I think the main importance is native is for platforms (win, mac, iphone, etc) vs non-native is something anyone with a leading standards browser can access. do you expect people in the course to use processing/'low level' js, or use media frameworks ?

Josh Wilson says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

Wired needs to sell magazines, is what that was all about! Nothing like a provocative front cover.

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

There was also a piece in NYT.

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

Phillip, Can Mark and Chris speak to all the fuss about the "Web being dead?"

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

A guy named Jer Thorp has done some really interesting visualizations of NYT content using Processing. I'd describe this more as information art more than an information graphic (it's a bit hard to penetrate) but it is quite interesting. http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/new-york-times-visualizations

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:48 PM

If so, raise your hand and I'll unmute you, or type it here! :)

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:47 PM

Any questions for Mark or Chris? Hoping to wrap up in 5 mins.

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:47 PM

@mai good link!

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

It's incredible.

Chris Nicholson says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Chris Nicholson says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

I love the "Arcade Fire" video. Genuinely innovative.

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

http://stearns.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/what-the-arcade-fires-wilderness... <---shows lessons journalists can learn from the Arcade fire

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

Thanks, Steve!

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

Arcade Fire HTML5: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:46 PM

The Arcade Fire page he's talking about:

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:45 PM

Re: IBM ... think Mark was referring to http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:44 PM

Yes, processing.js is worth looking at: http://processingjs.org/

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:44 PM

*and

Mai Hoang says:

Sep 15, 01:44 PM

@Josh. Interesting point, especially considering that foundations are other nonprofits are helping to fund journalism projects.

Pattie Reaves says:

Sep 15, 01:44 PM

@Michael, that's what I'm saying -- its not native. I was replying to Laurian's comment: (kinda OT: regarding javascript being now comparable with native code, I guess Mozilla Prism will be the platform for "native" apps?)

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:43 PM

Pattie, Javascript is not compiled; the browser just reads it and runs the actions immediately. This makes things slower, but to be honest, usually we don't care; we just go buy a faster computer anyway.

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:43 PM

@walter barraponto(at)gmail.com

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:42 PM

one thing that worries me a lot is that the push for web applications is usually mixed with a push for cloud computing. I really like to have web applications to deal with my contacts, but i'd rather have my own contact list in a local file in my hard drive, instead of needing an internet connection everytime i want to check my contacts.

Pattie Reaves says:

Sep 15, 01:42 PM

I don't follow, how is Javascript comparable with native code? You can view source and see it.

Josh Wilson says:

Sep 15, 01:42 PM

Mai -- everyone -- super, super rich conversation. To Mai's comment about newsrooms being culturally averse to certain sorts of innovation in the open space as defined by Chris and Mark, I'd also add philanthropy and the mainstream nonprofit sector as far more conservative and risk-averse than is healthy for open journalism and the open web.

Laurian Gridinoc says:

Sep 15, 01:42 PM

(kinda OT: regarding javascript being now comparable with native code, I guess Mozilla Prism will be the platform for "native" apps?)

walter says:

Sep 15, 01:42 PM

capi What´s your email in google talks?

Chris Nicholson says:

Sep 15, 01:41 PM

You can think of a compiler as a Hungarian translator or linguist. Someone speaks English instructions "Do this, do that" to the Hungarian translator and the translator then converts to the instructions to Hungarian for a Hungarian person to then go and do. I choose Hungarian, because it's the most opaque and difficult-to-understand language I can think of (the analogy being that the Hungarian is the humble computer sitting in front of you).

Steve Myers says:

Sep 15, 01:41 PM

Dave Stanton of Poynter (my colleague) wrote this to help orgs decide between a native iPhone/iPad app and a Web app: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=179030

Greg Willson says:

Sep 15, 01:40 PM

Its interesting - the talk of newsrtoom priorities - the web does certain real time group based things that print can't do, so those things seem to be the natural adjunct to newsroom reporting, and I think we'll see more of that on the screen and in print.

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:39 PM

so we think of native code as code written to talk with the machine directly - once compiled it is run by the computer processors. the web code, however is interpreted by our browsers. it has alwasy been difficult to tell people exactly what compiling is (i teach it for a living).

Greg Willson says:

Sep 15, 01:38 PM

Lewis A. Friedland < I kind of like seeing the 'human touch' of icons moving all over, lets me know someone's behind the slide talking about it right now. perceptions..

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:38 PM

You could see the distinction as being, say, the same as calling a telephone number a *number* - instead of the configuration of switches that actually connects the call in the phone system.

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:37 PM

The essential characteristic of native code (beyond being fast) is that it's opaque - compilation throws away a lot of the semantics that make the code understandable for humans.

Mark Surman says:

Sep 15, 01:36 PM

+1 on mad scientists and prototyping

david mason says:

Sep 15, 01:36 PM

native code is code written for a particular platform (windows, mac, iphone, etc) .. whereas "non native" means it works in any html5 browser

Michael Roberts says:

Sep 15, 01:36 PM

Native code is compiled, usually written in C/C++, and talks directly to the operating system. It's fast.

Capi Etheriel says:

Sep 15, 01:35 PM

+1 for the native code question (i'd love to know how to answer it)

Mariano Blejman says:

Sep 15, 01:34 PM

It's a burning question? Don't you think that Google Chrome Browser/OS is the most ironic project related with open source? They are constructing a very closed platform with open-free software. What Mozilla think about that bussiness model?

Richard Conniff says:

Sep 15, 01:34 PM

What is native code?

Phillip Smith says:

Sep 15, 01:33 PM

Popcorn demo: http://webmademovies.etherworks.ca/popcorndemo/

Matt Carroll says:

Sep 15, 01:29 PM

Like Mai says, a mad sci attitude helps. I am finding there are more people who are willing to turn things upside down & run with them.

Grant Hamilton said:

Sep 15, 01:29 PM

@Mai -- you and me both :) I think there exists a desire for more open journalism, etc, in newsrooms, but it's a low priority compared to daily print production. Like a luxury.

Capi Etheriel said:

Sep 15, 01:28 PM

but if you can prototype - and hacker journalists should prototype - then doing things the old way is more expensive than trying out new ways. and there you go blowing up the meetings and doing new things ;)

Mai Hoang said:

Sep 15, 01:27 PM

Mark, it requires sort of a mad scientist attitude. I think the biggest hurdle is that newspapers still make more money from print (despite declining circulation), so they are still focus on "feeding the beast." So yes, I'm trying to kind of be the technology evangelist in the newsroom to show how innovation can make news coverage better.

Mark Surman said:

Sep 15, 01:25 PM

But as Mai says: this is hard in cultures not used to this. But, good news -> most news orgs *need* people who know this culture and tech. There is a space for change.

Mark Surman said:

Sep 15, 01:25 PM

Josh: Short answer -- bringing a 'hacker attitude' to how you make decisions everyday. Seeing things as bendable, shapable, fast, collaborative. Building like this. As Chris is about to say, the tech of the web (eg. view source) helps with this. Happy to talk about this latter if there is time.

Mai Hoang said:

Sep 15, 01:24 PM

@Josh I'm glad you brought up the topic. I agree that it's painful for a lot of newsrooms to change long-standing culture in order to innovate.

Josh Wilson said:

Sep 15, 01:23 PM

Mark, thanks. I guess it was a burning question after all -- I'm just learning how to ask it ... what is the cultural/social element to creating the open Web. But don't want to bog things down with such ponderables right now.

Chris Nicholson said:

Sep 15, 01:23 PM

@Capi Cheers!

Mai Hoang said:

Sep 15, 01:22 PM

I love brainstorm clouds. Very cool.

walter said:

Sep 15, 01:22 PM

I´m from Brazil. I didn´t connect to audio by skype

Capi Etheriel said:

Sep 15, 01:22 PM

@chris: drumbeat is huge! try googling for it.

Chris Nicholson said:

Sep 15, 01:22 PM

I'm calling from UK, through Skype. Part of my current work is with a comedy TV producer/writer, can I tell him about Drumbeat? He'd be blown away by that. Or is this all secret?

Josh Wilson said:

Sep 15, 01:20 PM

I have no burning question, just want to say that I think the cultural element is a HUGE part of this.

Chris Nicholson said:

Sep 15, 01:20 PM

I'm assuming these slides will be available to look at later. These are great!

Capi Etheriel said:

Sep 15, 01:20 PM

@walter: i'm calling from brazil, through skype, to calliflowerskype (it works)

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:20 PM

http://www.slideshare.net/phillipadsmith/mozilla-drumbeat-nn-challenge

Capi Etheriel said:

Sep 15, 01:19 PM

is there a link to the slide? i missed the first slides...

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:19 PM

@Lewis: Sorry!

Lewis A. Friedland said:

Sep 15, 01:18 PM

Can folks stop moving their hand icons all over the screen?

Lewis A. Friedland said:

Sep 15, 01:18 PM

Phillip,

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:16 PM

http://webmademovies.etherworks.ca/popcorndemo/

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:16 PM

Walter: can you Skype Out to +1 218 936 6581 ?

walter said:

Sep 15, 01:15 PM

I´m from Brazil. I don´t connect the audio by skype.

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:12 PM

Josh: if you can see the slides here, try: http://www.slideshare.net/phillipadsmith/mozilla-drumbeat-nn-challenge

Grant Hamilton said:

Sep 15, 01:12 PM

the slides may be hidden ... try clicking the "document sharing" triangle? ... on my screen it is right above this chat box

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:10 PM

Josh: no slides, eh? Hrm... I'll post them online and pop the link here

Josh Wilson said:

Sep 15, 01:10 PM

No slides appearing on this page.

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 01:08 PM

Yep, live chat! :)

Pattie Reaves said:

Sep 15, 01:08 PM

So is this a live chat?

Greg Willson said:

Sep 15, 01:04 PM

testing , sounds great

Phillip Smith said:

Sep 15, 10:14 AM

If you have questions during today's lecture, please use the "Raise Hand" button, or post your question here in the chat box. :-)

Open Journalism & the Open Web

Course Material

Opening Lecture with Mark Surman & Christopher Blizzard

Comments

thank you!