A Boston WiFi summit meeting to discuss implementing city-wide WiFi in Boston was recently held. Deborah Elizabeth Finn writes about it in her blog. She wrote that Geeta Pradhan of the Boston Foundation gave a very unequivocal message that citywide WiFi is not only quite a feasible goal but also an absolutely necessary factor for keeping Boston alive in the global economy. This would certainly make active blogging of events more possible and Boston an attractive site for conferences.
One of the sponsors was Boston City Councilor, John Tobin, who posted a video blog of presentations on his web site. Deborah made an interesting observation about attendees:
“I took a surreptitious peek at a few of these screens, and found that many were working on other tasks or checking email.This is good news, because it may mean that WiFi made it possible for some people to attend who otherwise would have been obligated stay close to conventional internet access. However, I would have loved to see live chat about the event in progress, with the transcripts projected on a screen for all attendees to follow in real time.”
This simultaneous chat is something we do at the Berkman Thursday blog meetings with people remotely making contributions and a multi-thread dialog going on. Even people who attend the live discussion contribute to the written dialog that is projected on screen. This is especially useful for people who like to write more than speak or have trouble getting the floor. I wonder what news forms of conversation will emerge with ubiquitous wifi?
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