In my three and a half years on Flickr I’ve had the opportunity to watch three different kids grow up. It’s crazy, looking back over the photographs their parents have put up over the past few years, I feel like I’ve been an actual part of their lives. When in fact - at least until [...]

My speakers, pulpits of prophets, of holy vibrations.
During the day, after the caffeine seeps into my bloodstream, I often have a constant soundtrack of hip-hop, bee-bop, indie rock, and electronica to give my workflow a steady rhythm. Music, as much as the caffeine, affects what and how much I am able to get done in [...]

Today, sitting on a park bench, digging into my first bite of chicken gyro, half a tomato still hanging from my mouth, I began to grin. And then laugh, first on the inside, and then noticeably so. Very noticeable. The laugh turned into a guffaw, turned into hooting, howling, knee-slapping, tee-heeing, can’t-hold-it-in cracking up. Right [...]

Raul Castro has made some social reforms since taking over as Cuba’s president. Most notably, over 7,400 mobile phone contracts were signed in just 10 days since restrictions were eased by the regime in April. (”The number of new mobile phone contracts is impressive given that it costs about £60 just to set up a [...]

It’s not very hard to convince people - friends, family, strangers - that Global Voices is amazing and deserving of their support. In fact, not once have I described what I do for a living to anyone and heard the reaction, ‘well, that sounds kinda lame.’ No, it’s always met with boundless enthusiasm.
This is a [...]

You’re right, absolutely right, this is said about so many things, but if you really, and I mean really, think about it, then this, this must be humankind’s very first technology.
That’s what I was thinking. I cupped my hands underneath the bathroom faucet, the four fingers on each hand crossed perpendicularly, my thumbs sticking out [...]

Before I attempt my own thoughts and reflections about this year’s Global Voices Summit in Budapest, let me first start by translating a beautiful article by the dauntingly prolific Rosa Jiménez Cano, a great journalist, but even a better blogger.
Listen to the world to better it
Web 2.0 is recognized as a tool of cultural cohesion
The [...]

20 days. It had already been twenty days. Twenty days in Medellín. Twenty days surrounded by the fungus-covered lime green walls of my private room at the back of the Black Sheep hostel. Twenty days of backpackers shuffling in, shuffling out, flirting, searching, flailing. Twenty days of scorching hot afternoons and buckets-of-rain evenings.
And twenty days [...]

After I sleep for 50 hours in a row, I’m going to have lots and lots to say about all of the fascinating conversations that have taken place here at the Global Voices Summit in Budapest. For now, however, I leave you with a ten minute video that tries to encompass much of what the [...]

Originally published on the Global Voices Summit blog.
While the first session of the 2008 Global Voices Summit focused on how internet censorship works in Belarus, Japan, Egypt, and Pakistan, and how activists have responded to those limitations, the second session was specifically focused on how censorship affects bloggers and citizen media. It was liveblogged by [...]