Here are a few more thoughts on new words gleaned from life online — gathered at a Berkman Center conference on The Future of the Internet!

Josh Marshall (credit: NY Times)

Joshua Micah Marshall, who founded the influential site Talking Points Memo discusses the term “blogger”, a now old neologism that may have outgrown its usefulness, at least to him!
Click here: (2:30 minutes) to listen. And let us know if you agree!

Ethan Zuckerman (credit: Esther Dyson)

Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices waxes lyrical on the term homophily, which isn’t actually a web word, but it’s a phenomenon playing itself out on the Internet. Click here for clarification!
(2:20 minutes)

Judith Donath

Have you “friended” someone recently? Have you ever? Sooner or later, we’ll all start to friend, or be friended, if we are to inhabit the jolly online world of social networking. MIT Media Lab’s Judith Donath explains….
Click here: (4:17 minutes)

And there’s more!!!

For more neologisms from the world of the web, check out this post! It features brief interviews with Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales and Tim Wu…

Berkman Center

Neologisms are defined as new words or phrases (or new uses of a word or phrase). And what better place to find them than at a gathering of netizens (itself a neologism) steeped in the new world of the “net”. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and ThoughtCast was there, fishing for novelty…

The Catch:

Esther Dyson

Internet guru Esther Dyson came up with an expression I’d never heard before… Have you? Here’s a clue: what does Google have to do with your refrigerator??!!
Click here: (1 minute) to find out!

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales, the founder of the free online encylopedia Wikipedia, shares his thoughts on the power of one incredibly successful neologism - that amazing name! Wikipedia is a name he’s “stuck with” — in a good way, of course!
Click here: to listen. (2:13 minutes) And hear what else “Jimbo” had to say that day, to the Chronicle of Higher Education!

Tim Wu

The term network neutrality was the brainchild of Tim Wu of Columbia Law School. So what does this term mean, and what power does it have?
Click here: (2:23 minutes)

And there’s more…

For more neologisms from the world of the web, check out this post! It features brief interviews with MIT Media Lab’s Judith Donath, Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices, and Joshua Micah Marshall, of Talking Points Memo!

 

 Niall Ferguson [15:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Niall Ferguson

In some ways, the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson is the Russell Crowe of the academic world: charismatic, unconventional, and definitely controversial. He’s also a big fan of the British Empire — and wants the United States to follow in its footsteps. That means it’s our job to form colonies in hot climates, for years on end.
Are we up for this? While Niall would like that to be the case, he doesn’t really think so, because, he says, we’re an empire “in denial” …


Click here: to listen to a 4 minute excerpt.
Click here: to listen to the entire interview (15:30 minutes).

And to listen to an interview with Niall Ferguson on the WGBH Forum Network, click here!