New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam | Chris Castiglione

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Chris Castiglione

Chris is an alumni of Universiteit van Amsterdam and the New Media M.A. Currently, he is the co-founder of One Month (www.onemonth.com), and the host of the On Books Podcast (www.book-podcast.com).

http://www.castig.org

Martijn de Waal, Improving Cultural Public Space

What is Urban Culture? How do we shape and express our own identify in the city? How do we relate to others? At the Institute of Network Culture's Urban Screens conference Martijn de Waal discussed these issues as well...

By Chris Castiglione on 12/10/09 2

Siva Vaidhyanathan on Googlization, “Only the elite and proficient get to opt out”

The term Googlization, according to Siva Vaidhyanathan, is the process of being processed, rendered, and represented by Google. His upcoming book The Googlization of Everything investigates the actions and intentions behind Google. At The Society of the Query Vaidhyanathan...

By Chris Castiglione on 11/30/09 3

Lev Manovich: Studying Culture With Search Algorithms

New media theorist Lev Manovich summarized his latest contribution to the field of software studies: cultural analytics. Whereas traditional cultural analysis relies on real-world resources (human interpretation and physical storage), cultural analytics relies on the computer and search algorithms...

By Chris Castiglione on 11/20/09 3

Matthew Fuller: Search Engine Alternatives

The search market is a multi-billion dollar industry, and given such potential to capitalize there is a large window of opportunity with a vast range of possibilities for the future of search. The mythology of the search engine is...

By Chris Castiglione on 11/15/09 1

Yann Moulier Boutang @ The Society of The Query asking, “Are we all just Google’s worker bees?”

Are we all just worker bees being exploited by Google for capitalistic means? What Google is selling is not an ordinary service, but a meta-service, one that depends on human contribution. Yann Moulier Boutang likens this human activity to...

By Chris Castiglione on 11/14/09 1

4 Minute Thesis Video on the TEDx Amsterdam Site

4 Minute Thesis Video on the TEDx Amsterdam Site

I posted a 4-minute video which summarizes some of the main points from my thesis on the music industr(ies), "Copy What Can't Be Sold; and Sell What Can't Be Copied".

By Chris Castiglione on 11/10/09 Comments Off

Google Maps and Google Earth In The Classroom

Longitude and latitude coordinates are like the words we use to tell a story and only gain substance when we use them in context. With a list of resources to help teachers, Google Maps and Google Earth are helping...

By Chris Castiglione on 10/25/09 1

Tim Berners-Lee in Amsterdam: On the World Wide Web and Social Development in Africa

The World Wide Web and Social Development symposium at the VU University Amsterdam welcomed a variety of prominent speakers to discuss answers to the question: How can the Web contribute to the social and economic development in the world?...

By Chris Castiglione on 10/20/09 4

#Picnic09: The Creative Commons Special in Amsterdam

#Picnic09: The Creative Commons Special in Amsterdam

The Creative Commons special, hosted by Paul Keller and Donatella Della Ratta, focused on three examples of organizations using Creative Commons (CC) in a positive (and hopefully a lucrative) way: Al Jazeera, Beeld en Geluid and VPRO.

By Chris Castiglione on 10/02/09 Comments Off

#Picnic09: STEIM, Music, and Training Our Intuition

“Say goodbye to control. Say hello to improvisation,” these were a few of the opening remarks made by STEIM director Dick Rijken. He stressed that in a world of less control we need to concentrate on training our intuition.

By Chris Castiglione on 10/01/09 Comments Off

Musicians and the Upside of Downloading

The recording industry has indeed suffered from declining sales over the past ten years and it may be tempting to point the blame at file sharing, yet a mistake that is commonly made is to claim that the recording...

By Chris Castiglione on 09/11/09 Comments Off

What are the ‘Music Industries’?

The term ‘music industry’ is a misnomer. In reality the ‘music industry’ is not one industry, it is several independent industries. This is an important distinction because if we say that there is a “crisis in the music industry”...

By Chris Castiglione on 08/06/09 4

What is a ‘blogger’?

The definition of a blogger is commonly given as “someone who maintains a blog”. Yet on many sites, including Wikipedia and Dictionary.com, ‘blogger’ does not have its own page, 'blogger' forwards to the page for ‘blog’. This week I...

By Chris Castiglione on 07/14/09 4

Creative Commons Case Studies

Creative Commons Case Studies

Almost a year ago Creative Commons launched the Case Studies Project with the aim of qualitatively measuring the impact of CC licenses on the world. As of this writing, the project showcases around 500 Case Studies of people using...

By Chris Castiglione on 04/09/09 3

Digital Music Becomes (more) Rhizomatic

Digital Music Becomes (more) Rhizomatic

music as a rhizome

As digital audio files continue to flow freely on the Internet, music itself mimics certain inherent characteristics of the web best understood through Gilles Deleuze...

By Chris Castiglione on 02/26/09 Comments Off

Why is the University of Amsterdam still using IE6?

Why is the University of Amsterdam still using IE6?

IE6 is my grandmother on her deathbed and she just won't die. Her skin is obviously wrinkled and dated, she doesn't have any recollection of the past, and she...

By Chris Castiglione on 12/01/08 9

Long Distance and Intimacy (Response Is the Medium)

Long Distance and Intimacy (Response Is the Medium)

Over the past decade, distant lovers have been offered an array of new ways to connect: email, SMS, live video chat and even through ambient intimacy (the idea of staying attuned to someone else's life through frequent status updating)....

By Chris Castiglione on 10/27/08 3

As Simple As Possible, No Simpler!

As Simple As Possible, No Simpler!

I've also noticed the uncomfortable "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" phenomena in which Nicholas Carr explains how the web's immediate access culture is causing many of us to loose our deep reading skills. I believe that simplicity can be...

By Chris Castiglione on 10/23/08 1

Stalking Myself (and How to Opt-out of the Facebook News Feed)

Stalking Myself (and How to Opt-out of the Facebook News Feed)

A few weeks ago I created a Facebook pseudonym in order to follow the News Feed of the real “Chris Castiglione”. Too often I hear stories from friends who hadn’t realized that by default Facebook broadcasts almost every update...

By Chris Castiglione on 10/07/08 8

PICNIC 08 – Nike’s Michael Tchao and “Connecting Shoes”

PICNIC 08 – Nike’s Michael Tchao and “Connecting Shoes”

Michael Tchao is the General Manager of Nike Techlab, a sports technology innovation group within Nike. Today at Picnic he presented Nike+ to show a few examples of how social and commercial networks interact. You may have heard of...

By Chris Castiglione on 09/28/08 3

Aim For Mozilla’s Ubiquity

Aim For Mozilla’s Ubiquity

The developers at Mozilla Labs believe that the problem of the web in 2008 is that it is "disconnected: information and services are far apart". Basically: data is restricted by the web pages on which it lives. ...

By Chris Castiglione on 09/22/08 2

Book Review : Blogging Heroes

Book Review : Blogging Heroes

Blogging Heroes is Michael Bank's compilation of biographies and interviews with 30 of "The World's Top Bloggers". Included in the list are bloggers from such well known sites such...

By Chris Castiglione on 09/15/08 Comments Off