Two years ago I was invited me to participate in a weird but cool experiment. The author Robert Wright had set up an online talk show of sorts called Bloggingheads. Two people with something interesting to say–economists, political scientists, human rights workers, seasoned journalists, and others–would pick a topic. They would talk on the phone while filming themselves and then upload the recordings. Others could then watch them hold forth.
I loved the inventiveness of the format. I loved how a conversation could be embedded in any other site. I loved the way people would just talk for an hour rather than squeeze their points down to meaningless sound bites. And so even though it was just a volunteer gig, I dove in. It was took a while for me to get used to the medium–staring into the glass eye of a camera and pretending it was a human head just doesn’t come naturally to me. And crackly cell phone connections didn’t help. But on the best of occasions it was fun. It let me expand what I used to do only on the printed page. I had interesting talks with all sorts of interesting people, such as Craig Venter, Neil Shubin, and my brother.
But now my experiment’s over. This post is an explanation of why, and how this turn of events has gotten me thinking about the future of science in new media.
Continue reading “Bloggingheads and the Old Challenges of New Tools”
