Once again, this was a great experience. If you missed it, here's the full hour.
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General
On Monday August 10th, I hosted a launch party for my new TV show, Popular Science's Future Of on the Science Channel (part of Discovery). I wanted to throw a massive public affair but was limited in space and time. We held the party at the lovely apartment of a generous friend. Words were said. Drinks were had. Television was watched.
Also in attendance were two flip cameras operated by my friend Rina Vazirani and Internet pioneer and video maven Bill Cammack. We have Bill to thank for integrating the footage and editing together this piece. I didn't have time to do the titling, but below the video, I'll give props to all who attended (or at least most). It was a great party for a cool new show, and I am humbled to have had so many luminaries, twitterati, facebookerati and just plain old good people honor me with their presence
You too can throw a Future Of watch party in your city. Just do it!
Guests In Attendance:
- Andrew Scafetta, Communications man at Discovery
- Anil Dash, one of the first employees at Six Apart. Also just a bad ass mamma jamma
- Bill Cammack, Internet pioneer, video master
- Nick Bilton, NY Times geek, maker, rooftop drinker, author-in-progress
- Caroline McCarthy, CNET journalist
- Debbie Myers, GM of the Science Channel
- Christo Doyle, Executive Producer of the show. Works for Debbie
- Darbi Worley, actress, smarty pants
- Deanna Zandt, rockin activist, social media pioneer and soon-to-be-published author
- Delia Stanley, writer for Current and artist
- Elon James, the blackest man on twitter
- Jacob Ward, Popular Science Magazine
- Jim Colgan, WNYC producer
- Jenny 8 Lee, NY Times reporter and author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
- Gustavo Rivera, a very important man and Pioneer
- Jeffrey Weston, Head Developer at The Onion
- Katherine Chase, superfriend and columbia grad student in psychology
- Liz Gallagher & Meredith Saunders, my managers at DGS Talent
- Lizz Winstead, Daily Show creator and leader of Wake Up World
- Lynne d Johnson, Fast Company
- Maegan Carberry, blogger, politico, smart ass person
- Mark Jannot, editor of Popular Science
- Matt Kirsch, web producer at The Onion
- Melissa Lee, the NYC Mayor's Office, also a Pioneer
- Liza Sabater, superblogger Daily Gotham, Culture Kitchen and more
- Philip Ugelow, Humanity In Action and Pioneer
- Poonam Sharma, real estate wheeler and dealer, oh and author
- Quinn Heraty, my badass lawyer
- Rachel Fershleiser, HousingWorks Books
- Rina Vazirani, human rights lawyer and Pioneer
- Sara Benincasa, agorafabulous comedian and radio host
- Steve Lambert, as in THE Steve Lambert. super duper artist/activist and Pioneer
- Sean L. McCarthy, aka The Comic's Comic
- Simon Andreae, CEO of Incubator, the production company that actually made the show. Simon is the loud, inappropriate Brit.
In catching up on thousands of emails, I found one from a friend looking for my advice on her phone choices: iphone vs. android. at&t vs t-mobile. Here's most of what I wrote.As for T-Mobile. They're fine. Best network in the U.S. is probably Verizon, but their network is US-only, and so are most of their phones. AT&T for iPhone is notoriously horrible to the point that many high profile iphone fans have dropped the device because they can't use it to make phone calls reliably. Sprint is... well, Sprint. I've found T-Mobile's network to be ok. Nothing spectacular, but ok overall and great in most cities. The customer service has been good especially compared with my previous experience with Sprint.I'm still in the midst of my iPhone/Android dance but lean strongly toward staying with Android at least until the iPhone leaves AT&T. I used an unlocked/jailbroken iphone 2G from Feb 2008 - November 2008. From November until yesterday, I used a G1. From November 2008 - June 2009, I used an iPod touch for my media and gaming (ipod touch broke in mid july, and i haven't yet fixed/replaced). I just switched to the MyTouch 3G, and am very happy so far. here are iPhone advantages
- way better apps (especially twitter and facebook)
- way more apps
- one device to sync media via iTunes
- can play purchased content from iTunes like TV & movies
- very pretty
- everyone has one (making the apps even more useful cause there's a community)
- better design and smoother user interface in general
- 2.5mm headphone jackhere are Android advantages (in G1/MyTouch 3G)
- no authoritarian control over the app store with nonsensical reasons to block certain apps
- google voice works great
- t-mobile and not at&t (tmobile refused to spy on americans for the unlawful nsa wiretapping program. at&t did it with glee)
- superior over the air syncing of gmail, google contacts, and google calendar (probably the only android apps that beat iphone apps)
- easily replaceable batteryFor me it comes down to a handful of key issues 1) politics. i find it hard to give money to at&t after they sold out our civil liberties when I know t-mobile faced the same choice and chose to defend the constitution. i find it hard to support apple when it arbitrarily blocks applications that it deems too competitive with itself or at&t. i really think apple has no idea what its doing with its app store 2) my media syncing is important to me, especially having my podcasts. the G1/MyTouch doesn't have a 2.5mm headphone jack and force me to use a dongle. however, there's some software called Sailing Media Sync which lets me do a decent job of syncing media from iTunes to MyTouch (except for purchased video content and some ipod-specific formatted podcasts) 3) my communications apps are way more important to me in a phone than media. i have and can always use an ipod touch for apple media. as such android's superior handling of gmail, contacts, gcal and google voice outweigh iphone's superior handling of media and even its superior handline of facebook/twitter. I'm hoping for a truly robust twitter app for android a la TwitterFon, Tweetie or Tweetdeck (the current android top apps, Twidroid and TwitterRide just don't cut it). I also want Facebook to stop messing around and make a native Android FB app (on Android I have to deal with outsider apps called Bloo and Babbler). A native FourSquare app would be great as well. 4) competition. i love the iphone, but i love a competitive market that will lead to improved iphones and other smartphones more. right now, i choose to support the competition. my decision is subject to change at any moment. hope this helps=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
www.baratunde.com
www.twitter.com/baratunde
www.linkedin.com/in/baratunde conscious comic & vigilante pundit
Co-Founder, Jack & Jill Politics
Web Editor, The Onion
Host, Popular Science's Future Of (Aug 10, 9p, Science Channel) http://bit.ly/thefutureof
- way better apps (especially twitter and facebook)
- way more apps
- one device to sync media via iTunes
- can play purchased content from iTunes like TV & movies
- very pretty
- everyone has one (making the apps even more useful cause there's a community)
- better design and smoother user interface in general
- 2.5mm headphone jackhere are Android advantages (in G1/MyTouch 3G)
- no authoritarian control over the app store with nonsensical reasons to block certain apps
- google voice works great
- t-mobile and not at&t (tmobile refused to spy on americans for the unlawful nsa wiretapping program. at&t did it with glee)
- superior over the air syncing of gmail, google contacts, and google calendar (probably the only android apps that beat iphone apps)
- easily replaceable batteryFor me it comes down to a handful of key issues 1) politics. i find it hard to give money to at&t after they sold out our civil liberties when I know t-mobile faced the same choice and chose to defend the constitution. i find it hard to support apple when it arbitrarily blocks applications that it deems too competitive with itself or at&t. i really think apple has no idea what its doing with its app store 2) my media syncing is important to me, especially having my podcasts. the G1/MyTouch doesn't have a 2.5mm headphone jack and force me to use a dongle. however, there's some software called Sailing Media Sync which lets me do a decent job of syncing media from iTunes to MyTouch (except for purchased video content and some ipod-specific formatted podcasts) 3) my communications apps are way more important to me in a phone than media. i have and can always use an ipod touch for apple media. as such android's superior handling of gmail, contacts, gcal and google voice outweigh iphone's superior handling of media and even its superior handline of facebook/twitter. I'm hoping for a truly robust twitter app for android a la TwitterFon, Tweetie or Tweetdeck (the current android top apps, Twidroid and TwitterRide just don't cut it). I also want Facebook to stop messing around and make a native Android FB app (on Android I have to deal with outsider apps called Bloo and Babbler). A native FourSquare app would be great as well. 4) competition. i love the iphone, but i love a competitive market that will lead to improved iphones and other smartphones more. right now, i choose to support the competition. my decision is subject to change at any moment. hope this helps=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
www.baratunde.com
www.twitter.com/baratunde
www.linkedin.com/in/baratunde conscious comic & vigilante pundit
Co-Founder, Jack & Jill Politics
Web Editor, The Onion
Host, Popular Science's Future Of (Aug 10, 9p, Science Channel) http://bit.ly/thefutureof
Get In Bed with Cosmo Weekdays 8 pm - 11 pm ET Slip under the covers with Brian and Sara every night on Get in Bed 8-11 pm ET. They talk about everything — and we mean everything — when it comes to sex and relationships, plus they’re the ones to call when you have any kind of hookup drama. So tune in to hear what super sexy topic is on their naughty minds tonight.
via sirius.com
Ok, so tonight I get to combine two of my favorite things: comedian Sara Benincasa and my Future Of television show and radio (ok, THREE things!). Next Monday's episode is on the Future Of Sex. Sara's Sirius/XM show is all about sex. Ergo...
Tune in to Channel 111 tonight. The show is 8-11pm. I'm on at 9pm.
Links!
my show: http://bit.ly/thefutureof
sara benincasa: http://sarabenincasa.com/
cosmo radio: http://www.sirius.com/cosmoradio
Just over an hour long. Click on the flash player in the upper right of the c-spanarchives page.
Baratunde Thurston, comedian and web editor at The Onion interviewed White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett at Netroots Nation. Huffington Post was there to cover it. And Thurston objected to their tone. He called them out on Twitter:
via mediabistro.com
Ah mediabistro! I "took on" huffpo. Just me against the 10,000 article-per-month juggernaut :) Click through to see the tweet mining the folks at mb did. Does this mean I'm a celebrity now? If so, I want all the free shit that entails.
Yesterday, I held a conversation with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh (partial video here). The questions came from the web over a two week period. It was a pretty privileged position to hold, and I tried to balance the various pressures of such a job: tough questions, audience participation, respect for Jarrett, listening, etc. For one brief moment, some Yahoos decided to start hissing. I don't really take well to that sort of disruption, mostly because I think it's a weak, pansy-ass way to disrupt something. If you're going to be a disruption, own it. Wag your finger, yell, shove, invoke God's wrath, wave around your birth certificate. Do not, however, hide behind your teeth. Anyway, I put a stop to it as quickly and delicately as I could, and the conversation continued. Then I saw the headline above. The editors at Huffington Post must really have a mandate to drive traffic. I'd hardly say hissing was the defining moment. If's funny. New media is supposed to be about setting a different standard than the oft-criticized, sensational, conflict obsessed "mainstream media," but this headline proves that's not always the case. In addition, this major headline on Huffington Post (which has over 2,400 comments) manages to be wrong from the very first word. Her name is Valerie. Not Valarie.