[…] any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable.Ethan Zuckerman’s Etech talk on Digital Activism

Nice rule of thumb ;)

Ken Burns, an American director who produces documentaries on wars, speaks about the power of images in a Telerama interview:

“Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, during the first gulf war. Late September, PBS [The remarkable American public channel] aired my movie on the American civil war - eleven and a half hours of black and white images, only Americans killing other Americans. Before the broadcast, 90% of viewers surveyed said they were supporting the war against Saddam. After, the appetite for war had diminished by a quarter.”

That is one good reason to root for TV. I am not sure he would get eleven hours to make his case on YouTube. I hear his new piece, The War, is a must-watch documentary on the second world war - the “good war” - with dozens of veterans telling their intimate stories and suffering.

In the next two weeks I will be speaking at three conferences, two in Lausanne (both in French) and one in Torino.

• Opportunités, risques et limites des réseaux sociaux en ligne dans le Web 2.0

Wednesday 5 March, 19-21h
Hotel Alpha-Palmiers, rue du petit chêne, Lausanne
Registration: free but mandatory on alumnis.mbahec@bluewin.ch

Panelists:
Sandrine Szabo (Swiss Web2.0), Marc Goehring (Electron libre), myself, and Michel Jaccard (BCCC), moderated by Jean-Olivier Pain.

• Le web, source d’information fiable ou outil de désinformation?

Wednesday 12 March, 18h
University of Lausanne, Amphimax, auditoire Erna Hamburger.

I will talk about the internet’s impact on democracy, censorship and free discussion with Olivier Glassey and Stephane Koch. Check the the lovely and not exaggerated at all illustration that comes with the event’s flyers :)

• Share Festival Pecha Kucha night

Friday 14 March, 16h
Salone d’Onore, Castello del Valentino, Viale Matteoli 39 in Torino

I will assist Share’s guest curator - a certain Bruce Sterling - during the Share Festival Pecha Kucha night. I don’t really know what to expect but it sure will be a lot of fun to attend and be around Bruce and Jasmina. Pecha-Kucha Night is a meeting where architects, artists, interior designers, art editors, video artists, fashion designers, photographers, free-lance journalists, students and anyone making part of the creative industry present a work, a project an idea in public. The peculiarity of Pecha Kucha is the way the participants will be presented: “20×20 format”. 12-14 participants will be presented every night and everyone will show 20 images, 20 seconds per each image, for about 7 minutes in total.

I spoke earlier this week with Jim O’Reilly, co-author of Digital Korea, to prepare my upcoming trip to South Korea to work on LIFT Asia (3-4-5 sept. 08). This book shows how different and advanced Korean society is, and the argument developed in the book are supported by stats like these, found on the Cnet Asia blog:

• 63 percent of South Koreans make payments using their cell phones.
• The second most desired car is not a Ferrari but a “Solid Pro”, a virtual car from the online game Kart Rider.
• In 2006, 57 percent of South Korea’s music sales were digital compared with 10 percent in the US (source: IFPI January 2007).
• 37 percent of South Koreans download cell phone games (source: NIDA 2005)
• Over 30 percent of South Korean students send 100 text messages a day (source: Korea Times, February 9, 2006).
• Average amount of daily consumption of DMB digital TV on cell phones in South Korea was 129 minutes per day (source: MIC January 2007)
• 97 percent of South Koreans buy ringtones (source: NIDA September 2005).

Link

These stats show very clearly the opportunities that mobile brings to the table. Mobile payment, gaming, music, instant messaging, this is very we companies should invest their money and time these days, much more exciting (and lucrative) than the crowded web 2.0 space. And did you notice the 129 minutes spent watching TV? Further proof television’s death has probably been widely exaggerated.