Saturday, November 13, 2010

Anyone for TED?

The TED seminar series came to Beijing today, but..... it wasn't widely promoted.  The venue, apparently, could only accommodate 200 people, and the tickets got a very narrow distribution in media circles.  (A couple of people I know got some.  I am jealous.)

There was talk of there being a live broadcast at several venues around town, but.... this never materialized.

Belatedly, I discovered that one satellite viewing venue - near my home - had been organized, but.... it was also ticketed, and also rapidly sold out.

There was supposed to be a live podcast on the Net, but..... it was on Chinese site, Tudou.  I don't know if I'm missing a plug-in I need for this site, or victim of some other gremlin, but for me the page had only dead links!  I am tempted to say, That's what you get for partnering with a Chinese Web company.... but I suspect it's more a case of That's what you get when you try to run a public speaking event in China.  Much the same happened when Obama wanted to do his 'town hall meeting' with students when he visited last year; the authorities reluctantly acquiesced, but media coverage of it was squelched.  

Ideas - even in the fields of "technology, entertainment, design" - are always potentially political, always potentially dangerous in this country.  Live mass online broadcast??  I don't think so.

2 comments:

JES said...

For what it's worth, I checked the sites involved. The links aren't dead, but there's no sign of a podcast anywhere yet.

Maybe you could do the end-run-around maneuver... If you could locate any of these people, they might have some first-hand knowledge of recordings available.

Anonymous said...

Greetings [ ] [ ] aka Froog,

I am doing a TEDx in March on water - 18 minutes and it may be hot or it may not. Interesting gang.

Yours aye,

David Owen