{"id":12,"date":"2009-09-23T13:31:12","date_gmt":"2009-09-23T17:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/?p=12"},"modified":"2011-07-29T23:02:39","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T03:02:39","slug":"first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/archives\/12","title":{"rendered":"First!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First post here. \u00a0Hopefully I will not end up a one post wonder (<a href=\"http:\/\/1post1der.blogspot.com\/\">1post1der<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Multicast <\/strong>is a good name for a blog about media and technology and society because it is (1) a technical term in computer networking and (2) a metaphor for the interesting things that are happening to media and communication these days <em>thanks to<\/em> computer networking.<\/p>\n<p>Discarded names for this blog:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bloggy <\/strong>(taken)<\/li>\n<li><strong>I have a blog<\/strong> (really taken)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Boomzilla <\/strong>(taken, unbelievably)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Punchdown Block<\/strong> (sounds like it is about fighting. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/images\/computer\/_66BLOCK.JPG\">it isn&#8217;t<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As I said, multicast is a good name. \u00a0In comparison, <strong>broadcasting <\/strong>is an old word from farming. The word &#8220;broadcast&#8221; used to refer to scattering or throwing (casting) seeds &#8212; if you broadcast something, everybody gets it. \u00a0Here&#8217;s a nice image of broadcasting from the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Template:Routing_scheme\">wikipedia template for pages about computer routing<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-broadcast.svg.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-broadcast.svg.png\" alt=\"cast--broadcast.svg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-broadcast.svg.png 800w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-broadcast.svg-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unlike broadcasting (above), when people write about the Internet they usually conceptualize it as a point-to-point network as that is what it was mostly designed to do (in networking they might say <strong>unicast, <\/strong>below picture). \u00a0As in: I send an email to my friend. \u00a0I request a web page from the server. \u00a0That sounds more like this picture:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-unicast.svg.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-unicast.svg.png\" alt=\"cast--unicast.svg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-unicast.svg.png 800w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-unicast.svg-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But (metaphorically) what is happening in the media these days is confusingly\u00a0<strong>multicast. <\/strong> We just don&#8217;t understand the pattern yet. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linfo.org\/multicast.html\">The technical definition<\/a> of multicast emphasizes that a multicast is a message sent to an arbitrary set of recipients who elect to receive the information. \u00a0The arbitrary set could be large, it could be small. \u00a0Everybody doesn&#8217;t get everything &#8212; instead we communicate something to the people who want it. \u00a0(Or at least to an arbitrary set of people.) \u00a0That could be just like broadcasting if the set is large, it could be more like what media industries used to call\u00a0<strong>narrowcasting <\/strong>if the set is small, it could be unicast if the set is one. \u00a0Perhaps if no one gets the message we could call it a <strong>nullcast <\/strong>(my own coinage) &#8212; I don&#8217;t have a diagram for that one. \u00a0Imagine a dot.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a picture of a multicast, but technically all of the other pictures could be a multicast too. \u00a0The Internet doesn&#8217;t really use multicast routing very often &#8212; keep in mind I&#8217;m speaking metaphorically.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-multicast.svg.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-17\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-multicast.svg.png\" alt=\"cast--multicast.svg\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-multicast.svg.png 800w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/files\/2009\/09\/cast-multicast.svg-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The big question if you are interested in communication is what exactly that pattern turns out to look like after the Internet. \u00a0That is, which picture will describe which kinds of content, and the important question: <strong>Who gets to be the red dot?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can describe that last picture in all kinds of ways. \u00a0To some it looks like freedom and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Long_Tail\">the <\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Long_Tail\">long tail<\/a>, <\/strong>or we could label the same thing\u00a0pejoratively\u00a0and call it <strong>fragmentation <\/strong>or <strong>niche culture<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.asc.upenn.edu\/ascfaculty\/FacultyBio.aspx?id=128\">Joe Turow<\/a>); maybe the caption should be &#8220;the twilight of common dreams&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.columbia.edu\/cs\/ContentServer\/jrn\/1165270051276\/JRN_Profile_C\/1165270081547\/JRNFacultyDetail.htm\">Todd Gitlin<\/a>) or the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ann.sagepub.com\/cgi\/pdf_extract\/625\/1\/6?rss=1\">The End of Television<\/a> (why not add <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirky.com\/weblog\/2009\/03\/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable\/\">The Death of Newspapers<\/a>?).<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;d think all of this would be settled by now. \u00a0Here it is about 18 years after the birth of the Web browser. \u00a0It&#8217;s been 15 years since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiana.edu\/~tisj\/contact\/rltork.pdf\">Rob Kling<\/a> was throwing around the ungainly word <strong>disintermediation<\/strong> in the mid 1990s (he coined <strong>social informatics<\/strong> too). \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oah.org\/pubs\/magazine\/communication\/Beniger.html\">James Beniger<\/a> noticed that writing about this kind of media transformation claimed it was imminent way back in the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p>So who exactly gets to control what everyone pays attention to? \u00a0And how does that work exactly? \u00a0We know some people will be listeners, some will be listened to, and some will be left out. \u00a0But we&#8217;ve got no answer yet on the details. \u00a0We&#8217;re still working on it. \u00a0So here&#8217;s a new blog that will be working on it.<\/p>\n<p>As a closing note, I&#8217;m stunned to find that this is actually my 1,929th blog entry and somehow I&#8217;ve written 216 unpublished drafts. \u00a0I started blogging in 2003 but all of my past blogging has been pseudonymous. \u00a0(Or maybe I&#8217;m lying. \u00a0You&#8217;ll never know.)<\/p>\n<p>My motto: \u00a0&#8220;I&#8217;ve been Web 2.0 since Web 1.0.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Okay, everybody. \u00a0Let&#8217;s get started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First post here. \u00a0Hopefully I will not end up a one post wonder (1post1der). Multicast is a good name for a blog about media and technology and society because it is (1) a technical term in computer networking and (2) a metaphor for the interesting things that are happening to media and communication these days [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6386],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4M7Bm-first","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}