Drumbeat/Festival2011

Mozilla Drumbeat Festival 2011 — Media, Freedom and the Web
A gathering of smart people using the web to bend, hack and reinvent media. Come to London in late October and get your by-line on the future of media and the web.

Vision

The bendable, hackable, remixable nature of the web has dramatically changed the media landscape. Television. Radio. News. Comics. Music. Books. Film. All have been engulfed by the technology and culture of the internet. Or, as grand media meister McLuhan put it: TV, radio, books, etc. have become the content of the web.

What do we want this webified media landscape to look like when it grows up? The Star Wars Kid or LucasFilm? ProPublica or roadkill on the information superhighway? Punk rock or big labels?

If you make media, build the web or both, you've got a say in this. The web is lego. You can build whatever nifty, fun, creative, innovative version of the media future you like.

That's the point of this year's Mozilla Drumbeat Festival: to gather smart people using the web to reinvent the media. We'll spend three days throwing down design jams, hackfests, writing workshops, tech teach ins, science fairs and parties that pull the best of modern web technology and technique into the world of media making.

Whether you're a web geek who makes media or a media nerd who love the web, this is an event you shouldn't miss.

Goals

Get more media people thinking like the web. Promote the idea of the web as raw material; it's lego you can use to invent the future of media.
Run a three day accelerator. Focus and accelerate web media projects. Use design jams, hackfests, and more to recruit new people and move ahead fast.
Connect geeks from media organizations with the latest web tech. Get people working in the digital departments of large media organizations excited and innovating using HTML5, web apps, etc.
Lend a hand. Promote open tech. Offer up Mozilla and others doing open tech as a helping hand for geeks working in TV, radio, news and other media. Build a community.

What will happen at Media, Freedom and the Web?

	Hackasaurus Takes on Web Media
	We're designing around the way kids learn technology, based on Mizuko Ito's concepts of hanging out, messing around and geeking out. Tools include HTML Pad and X-Ray Goggles that let kids bend, blend, and remix websites easily.

	HTML5 Wizardry Duels
	Show down coding wizards with your latest web-building skills. Learn from the masters and impress the public.

	Kill your iPhone App
	Develop a web app in real time. Web apps are applications that run on any device and can be distributed through any store or directly by the developer.

	Journalism Design Jams
	Design solutions to pressing problems in journalism. How can we use web tools to protect sources? Go beyond commenting? Create easy data visualization?

	Augmenting "Little Brother" in Blender and Butter
	The book "Little Brother" by author Cory Doctorow features seventeen years old Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” who figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. The young adult novel reads as a handbook for protecting your privacy online, foil surveillance cameras, and stand up for your rights—online and off. We'll be souping up the Creative Commons-licensed story with open media tools.

	Overnight MoJo Hackfest
	News should be universally accessible across phones, tablets, and computers. It should be multilingual. It should be rich with audio, video, and elegant data visualization. It should enlighten, inform, and entertain people, and it should make them part of the story. Hack overnight with major news outlets and talented developers to create the next generation of news applications. Think HTML5, Web Apps, Mobile, and Data Journalism.

	Prototype School of Webcraft courses for the media industry
	Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an open education project dedicated to "learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything." Mozilla and P2PU have teamed up to create the School of Webcraft, a powerful new way to teach and learn web developer skills. School of Webcraft courses are 100% free, globally accessible, and powered entirely by learners and mentors like you. Come build peer-driven courses for the media industry.

	Sing along with WebMadeMovies Karaoke
	Thanks to several excellent contributors and up-and-coming web technologies (most critically Rainbow and popcorn.js), it’s now possible to record yourself singing along to the world's repertoire. You are the band!

Other activity ideas:

Massive, multiplayer HTML5 video games.
Science Fair showcasing projects and tools
Story of the Web. Mash and create media to explain the web.

Have an idea? Add it here.

Who should come to Media, Freedom and the Web?

Our biggest priority is bringing out web geeks who work in the media industry. This group needs better access to cutting edge tech, the space to innovate, and to connect with each other.

Here's a sampling of our participants:

Web developers
Data junkies
Journalists
Filmmakers
News Networks and Broadcasters
Community Media
Peer production spaces
Commentators and researchers
Media and journalism students
Translators
Policy makers
Entrepreneurs
Educators
Gamers

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