I'm at Beyond Broadcast at MIT, where 450+ people in a room, nearly all with laptops, are trying to get past wi-fi that normally works well but doesn't this morning. I'm using Verizon EvDO. Not my favorite company or service, but good to have in a pinch.

I highly advise looking and listening in on the live stream (links on the home page). The opening talk by Henry Jenkins is outstanding.

"We're poking the eyes out of our kids... it's a mass de-skilling..." Just one quote.

Now John Palfrey is talking, and unpacking What's Happening on the Net. Very comprehensive, in a very short time. He just mentioned VRM, as a way of doing economic democracy (other categories are semiotic and participatory democracy). Maybe we should work also toward GRM, for Governance Relationship Management.

Great line: It's a world wide web. Not something smaller than that.

There is a battle over the institutional ecology of the Net right now. Exacta-mundo.

Dave says the wifi is good in the overflow room. He notes, Papa Doc is blogging away over in the other room. So far nothing from him on the panel. Could his head be nodding too?? On this panel, yes. I liked Henry Jenkins and John Palfrey. And I like the guy from L.A. who's on the big screen, talking about how they do what they do. But what Yahoo and MTV are doing hardly seems "beyond broadcast" to me. And I gotta say my mind numbs every time I hear "user generated content" or "user generated media". Feh. On the other hand, Elizabeth Osder of Yahoo just said something about needing to know the intentions of participants, and that this would have to come from participants, or something like that. It was the first thing she's said that didn't glaze my ears or turn me off.

As for, With all the incredible minds in the "audience" -- what a waste... I agree. Yet I'm always amazed at how much people like to be in an audience, and face a stage, and receive whatever comes from the front of the room. There are rituals involved here. And we do need to screw with them, or we won't get "beyond" a single subject we use this format to cover.

3:15:45 PM