Highlights
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Highlights
Encouraging dialogue and political discourse online where "multiple competing ideas and voices can flourish."
While the rest of us tended to yell at each other online throughout much of the late 90s, the New York Internet think tank Web Lab was evolving a better way...
Less chronicled is the experience of 800 people who could not make it to the Javits Center that day but instead convened over the Internet over a two-week period to discuss many of the same questions, at more length and perhaps with more nuance . . . the 10,000-odd messages produced by the online groups are also being scrutinized as a model for civic engagement on local and national issues...
Web Lab, a non-profit new media think tank, announced on
Groups like Web Lab are building new kinds of Web forums designed to foster a more useful debate...
.... This presentation of panhandler market values invites the rest of us to consider more fully our reactions to these people and the moral and philosophical prejudices that underlie them....
....If the idea of critiquing panhandling strategies seems crass, well it's supposed to. Needcom (one of several sites funded by PBS, all accessible at www.pbs.org/weblab) is Davies' ironic way of getting folks to look at poverty in a different light...
....In fact, the chaos of the bulletin board and the chat room can have a profoundly negative effect upon the overall quality of conversation, a new study concludes. But when the talk moves into a less freewheeling environment, the level of the debate seems to improve....
Amidst the sky-rocketing IPOs and e-commerce boom that have characterized the Internet over the past year, there are still a few people weighing in to offer meaningful content online. That's what Marc Weiss is attempting to do... ....But some folks offered a counterpoint to all the online ads and e- commerce schemes. A nonprofit organization called Web Lab continued to fashion itself as a sort of PBS of the Internet; this year, it launched online discussion groups about the PBS documentary An American Love Story, bringing together strangers to participate in intimate - and volatile - debates about race and class....
Still wondering what to get mom for Christmas? How about a Panhandler Gift Certificate -- it may not be as luxurious as a silk bathrobe or trip to the spa, but it might just open her mind.
...VaguePolitix delivers a satirical presentation of today's major political issues. Although the approach is often light --quirky quizzes and video games--the subject matter is not.
...Since the 10-hour documentary "An American Love Story" aired Sept. 12-16 on PBS, the "lovestories" Web site has hosted a series of sustained, intimate group dialogues. The hope: to continue and expand discussion about the series and the thornier issues of race, relationships and differences that the series raised.
...None of these people have ever met in person, but for the past week, they have been revealing emotional details about their personal lives in a unique online forum. Spurred by the engaging PBS documentary series, ''An American Love Story,'' these intimate strangers have volunteered to participate in an ongoing dialogue about race, relationships, prejudice, and other provocative topics. It's an experiment masterminded by a New York operation called Web Lab, which aims to show that the Internet, despite its crass commercialism, can foster intelligent communication among diverse groups. NEW YORK
(Reuters) - ``Love conquers all things,'' the poet Virgil wrote. That
may not always be so, but a collection of heartfelt firsthand accounts
on the ``American Love Stories'' Web site shows that love is a potent
force against potential obstacles like race, age, disability, distance
-- and
even death.
Thanks to the Internet, as some very wise person has noted, we have at least disproved the old saw about a thousand monkeys at a thousand keyboards eventually producing a Shakespeare play. Welcome to the World Wide Web of
the future, where AOLscape, YahooCities, and MicroBucks fight for your
eyeballs with wide-screen video portals and product placements in your
palmtop. Marc Weiss, the founder of the Silicon Alley-based Web Lab,
took up arms against that way-new wasteland last year. Building on his
track record as the man who brought the vision of independent filmmakers
to the home screen with the public-TV showcase POV, Weiss launched the
Web Development Fund as a Web Lab project to nurture sites emphasizing
community
building and complex social issues...
Excerpt: A few years back, whimsy and innovation were cornerstones of the evolving Web. Then people started losing money. Webshops closed. A new sort of pragmatism crept into the Alley. Ever since, people have focused on more down-to-earth pursuits: advertising technology, e-commerce, and business-to-business solutions. But if making money (and simply staying afloat) are the concerns of the day, how will we continue to break new ground? Which is just what Marc Weiss wanted to know... NPR's Margot Adler reports on what
people are saying about impeachment over the Internet. You can listen
to the piece in Real
Audio from the NPR
site.
Excerpt: New-media critics, myself included, tend to focus too much on the myriad traditional-media outlets and practitioners who misunderstand, misuse, or misinterpret the Net. I think it's fair to say we've established by those examples how not to approach the Net as a medium. But there is a fairly reputable school of thought that dictates people are more motivated by the carrot than the stick. So I thought I'd offer an example of an "old-media" organization that is revolutionizing the Web in more productive and impressive ways than the old standbys, such as Time-Warner (with its Pathfinder), or even the hipster digital originals, such as CNET. Surprise: pays not to be in it for the money... (full article available upon request) Does the Web need nonprofit funding
to keep its edge? In the summer of 1995 I was hired right out of graduate
school to produce content for the online division of PC World magazine.
This was the early days of the Web, and my boss told me I could devote
half of my time to developing something new and different. After thinking
deep thoughts for a few weeks, I proposed an online magazine called
the Annex: a space for thoughtful reviews and feature articles aimed
at a general audience interested in the human
side of technology ...
The Web Development Fund, a nonprofit
group dedicated to financing Web sites, will announce on Monday the
first group of projects it has decided to support. More than $150,000
in grants will be distributed to nine projects, which cover topics from
the complex issue of suicide to a "cultural museum" exploring the effect
of the cold war. "This is the first glimpse at what we hope the Web
Development Fund is going to become," said Marc Weiss, the creator
of the fund...
On the radio dial, hit-driven Top
40 and shock-jock talk shows have National Public Radio holding up a
higher standard. Few shows on the commercial TV networks, even cable's
niche channels, display the creative freedom of public television's
cultural and educational programming. But where is the Net equivalent
of, say, "Great Performances" or Ken Burns' "The Civil War"? A spinoff
of PBS Online, called WebLab, is about to fund
the answer...
Excerpt: As stories proliferate online about the death of Web content as we know it, a lonely voice has arisen saying that the Web needs more edgy material, not less. Is he nuts? We think not, and thankfully he's got some influential people behind him... |
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