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

PROblogger: book review

PROblogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income INTRODUCION For some time now I’ve been interested in the eBook phenomenon for a couple of reasons: the business model that lies beneath it (how to make money by...

By Jasper Moes on 09/19/08 2

Review: Imaginary Futures – Richard Barbrook

How do ideas about the future shape the present, which is of course ‘the future in the making’? Starting with the New York World Fair of 1964, Barbrook gives an interesting history of possible futures. The Cold War’s race...

By Stefan Keerssemeeckers on 09/15/08 3

Book review: “Media Work” by Mark Deuze

As technologies develop, media diversifies its platforms and products, and becomes more and more present and involved in our lives, building barthesian myths around every object surrounding us, which consequently turns our every act: production, purchasing, consumption, etc., into...

By Liliana Bounegru on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Book review: Two bits, the Cultural Significance of Free Software

As the title of this book might suggest, it is mainly about the history of the Free Software phenomenon from a anthropological viewpoint, but as the author, Christopher Kelty, makes clear this history can also be seen as the...

By Stephan Barmentloo on 09/15/08 1

A Comparative Review of Two Books on Second Life

I, avatar, the culture and consequences of having a Second Life – Marc Stephen Meadows Published by: Voices that Matter € 23,09 Second Life: verhalen en reportages van een tweede leven – Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer Published by: De Arbeiderspers...

By Sarah van der Land on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Review: Beter Internet… Yeah Right!!

This is a critical review on the book "Beter Internet" which is the fourth in a series of books on the social changes that the internet brings about. This relatively small book contains four interviews on the theme Web...

By Kai Henriquez on 09/15/08 1

Review ‘Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good’

Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (Sarah Lacy) Sarah Lacey, columnist for BusinessWeek, thoroughly describes the stories of young entrepreneurs who created groundbreaking new websites like Facebook and...

By Guido van Diepen on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Book Review on ‘Here Comes Everybody’

Review of the book 'Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations' by Clay Shirky about new tools of communication and organizing of groups on the Internet. What are the social implications and what will change?

By Hannah Biemold on 09/15/08 3

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

Book Review: Republic.com 2.0

After the book Republic.com (2001), law professor Cass Sunstein now provides us with an updated version by the name of Republic.com 2.0. As we look at the table of contents, not much seems to be changed except for the inclusion...

By Annewil Neervens on 09/14/08 1

Book Review: Uses of Blogs, a Toolbox for New Media Practicians

A university professor, after publishing an article about weblogs that provokes a snowball of critical responses from bloggers themselves, is forced to use one of his students’ blog to save his reputation (he does not have one by his...

By Andrea Fiore on 09/14/08 Comments Off

Book Review: Crossover, Liesbeth Huybrechts (red.)

Crossover, crosses over the boundaries of art and technology within very safe limits. Even though I understand why the tenure of the catalogue is positive on the influence of new media art on society (because of the broad audience and...

By saskia korsten on 09/14/08 Comments Off

I Reviewed this: _New Cultural Networks

At the Stifo@Sandberg masterclass professionals from all kind of disciplines, from film and art to radio and internet, come together for exchanging thoughts and working on several (cross)media products. It’s a joint project of the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund (Stifo)...

By Arno de Natris on 09/14/08 Comments Off

13 Positions (Book review)

Also see the complete 13 Positions’ review here “Hi! This is the autonomous Opera Telephone of the City of Zurich. For your pleasure and entertainment, we have placed a bug in the Zurich Opera House. In a few seconds you...

By Alejandro Ortega Lozano on 09/14/08 Comments Off

Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond

Dr Axel Bruns is the author of Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and has also authored...

By Maggie Badermadjian on 09/14/08 Comments Off

Review of Google’s PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings

The book Google's PageRank and Beyond: The science of search engine rankings is about the technology behind the ranking of websites, especially Google's ranking. It will give a little insight in how the Google algorithm works. In the abstract...

By Bram Nijhof on 09/14/08 1

Book Review: Carr’s The Big Switch

After his first bestseller “Does IT Matter?” Nicholas Carr wrote another well written book called “The Big Switch”. For those who never heard of Nicholas Carr: he is a US Internet...

By Inge Ploum on 09/14/08 1

Updated Hyves Pulls Plug on Student Projects After Waag Society Event

((Looks like a possible false alarm, please see update below)) Online social network Hyves has blocked access to the profiles pages for unregistered users. Now one has to be registered and logged in to view a Hyver's full profile,...

By Michael Stevenson on 05/22/08 3

Getting the Most Out of My China Trip

It has been a while since I wrote my first post on international expansion of Chinese Internet companies and my experiences here in China. I wrote the post during a train ride from Guangzhou to Shanghai. A lot has...

By Pieter-Paul Walraven on 05/09/08 5

Chinese low-wage workers disloyal for a reason

I am currently reading a lot for my research and an interesting book I finished a few days ago is Fast Boat to China from Andrew Ross. In Fast Boat to China Andrew approaches the global outsourcing trend in a different way...

By Pieter-Paul Walraven on 03/02/08 2

Video Vortex: opening session Friday January 18

Introduction Yesterday the workshop, this morning the start of the two-day “Video Vortex – responses to YouTube”, an international conference organized by the Institute of Network Cultures at PostCS11, Amsterdam. A good crowd fills the hall at the 11th...

By Jasper Moes on 01/19/08 8

Rivers of Reputation

This post will be about Lifestreaming, or Data Streams. “Lifestreaming, in essence, is a site dedicated to collecting and publishing online activity – all in one place. In its most basic definition, lifestreams are information aggregators that funnel...

By Daphne Ben Shachar on 12/16/07 5

“Networkmensch”?

The concept of “the overman” (Ubermensch) is one of the most significant ideas in the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche. He plead for more individualism in stead of being “one of the crowd”. Nowadays society is a so called “individualistic...

By Daphne Ben Shachar on 11/20/07 Comments Off

Obey the HABBO way and you’re OK

In ‘the declaration of independence of cyberspace’ John Perry Barlow spread a utopian view on the internet in witch users will create their own rules and laws without restrictions or political interference. In this post I will compare this...

By Rikus Wegman on 11/08/07 14