Open Source Radio: Making Mobcasting a Reality http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/05/open_source_rad.html
Long-time Boston public broadcasting journalist Christopher Lydon is teaming up with his veteran producer Mary McGrath and PRX's Brendan Greeley to produce a new public radio program called Open Source. The program, produced locally at WGBH, will be distributed nationally by Public Radio International (PRI) later this summer.
Despite the implication that the show will be about open source software, in reality it'll be something much more interesting (well, more interesting to me personally). Open Source will attempt to open public radio to the listener, inviting audience members to share their experiences and ideas to help craft the show, submitting their own story ideas, guest ideas, even audio commentaries. According to the show's blog:
"Open source is an idea, a movement really, that’s associated with computer software; we wanted to develop a new radio show around the idea of sharing information and sources and generally opening up our production process so people can suggest guests and topics and post comments and audio that we’ll put on the air. There’s a way to use the Internet to tap into the vast knowledge and expertise of the people who used to be just listeners and readers, and we’d like to create a community around this idea. We know a little about radio, not so much about fusing it with the Internet and we know, in any case, that you can help."
The really cool thing about this show is that it will be one of the first serious, legit attempts to put my mobcasting idea into practice. As some of you may recall, in January I wrote about mobcasting as the idea of getting groups of people to post podcasts from their mobile phones to the same blog, in some kind of social, political or cultural context. The name "mobcasting" is intended as a triple entendre, a combination of mobile phones, smart mobs and podcasting. Brendan Greeley and I tested it out at the recent Berkman blogging conference, and later on my emphemeral artsy website, The Gates @ Central Park.
While I've been spending the last couple months ramping up to write a book on telecentres, Brendan's been burning the midnight oil with Chris and Mary, getting this radio show together. So when Brendan told me about the show, I was very happy to see that Open Source is utilizing mobcasting through a companion blog called Speak, America, Speak. Like my previous mobcasts, Brendan's using Blogger and Audioblogger to create the mobcast. Anyone can pick up a phone, call a number and enter a code to record a voicemail that's automatically posted to the website. For example, during the pilot episode of the show, Lisa Williams talked about Canadian geese in her neighborhood, and I've retorted with a mobcast about Brookline's under-reported turkey problem. There are already several other mobcasts recorded from people in Chicago, Las Vegas and Providence, as well as an inaugural mobcast from Brendan.
So congratulations to Chris, Mary, Brendan, and everyone who chimed in for the first show. It's been a hell of long time since I've been excited about a new public radio program -- something I'd never admit to my former colleagues at CPB -- so I'm really psyched about Open Source. And now my RSS reader tells me that Brendan's posted an MP3 of the first program, so I'm gonna go listen to it right now... -andy
-- ----------------------------------- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media & Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com -----------------------------------
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