Wish I could be at the Economics of Social Media conference today in LA. Impressive list of speakers. Here’s coverage on Technorati.

At the IdeaLab blog, Dan Gillmor writes about the value of finding the right domain name and he points to a couple of free services I hadn’t heard of:

MakeWords
is a "name generator" — essentially, you plug in keywords and it gives
you suggestions. The flexibility is impressive. You can tell it how the
domain name should start or end, and you can get refinements from a
long list of keyword themes, as well as affixes by theme. For example,
I searched on "California" and refined it with a "travel" theme, and
got a list or allegedly available names that included
farescalifornia.com, flightcalifornia.com, getawayscalifornia.com and
tripscalifornia.com.

NameBoy
is another generator. In my experience it’s simpler to use, but much
less nuanced. You type in a primary and (optional) secondary word, and
it spits out results.

How are new mapping tools and geotagging
technologies being used to unite communities and
tell important stories from around the globe? Find out
how you can make your mark on the new media landscape at the 2008 Beyond Broadcast conference
on June 17, 2008 in Washington, DC.

Beyond Broadcast has become an annual
destination for makers, scholars and policy experts
exploring public media for a digital, participatory era. 
The theme of this year’s conference is Mapping
Public Media. How do mapping and visualization tools
reveal shifts in the public media landscape? Panels,
presentations and demos map the emerging
landscape. (Alas, I won’t be able to attend.)

Early bird rates for registration end on Wednesday.

San Jose Mercury News: Next generation is reshaping politics through social networking — a Q&A with the authors of the new book Millennial Makeover: My Space, YouTube & the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press).

NY Times: Public radio tries to reignite its public.

Flush from a $2 million Knight Foundation grant, this program, “The
Takeaway” is designed with it partner, Public Radio International, and
collaborators including The New York Times, the BBC World Service and
the Boston public station WGBH, to be a stark counterpoint to the taped
interviews on NPR’s venerable “Morning Edition.” …

Owen Gallagher, Creative Director of TotalRecut.com, passes along word of a remix contest that I’ll be a judge in:

TotalRecut.com is hosting a Video Remix Challenge over the next two
months and we want you to create a short video using the theme: ‘What
is Remix Culture?’ You can you use any footage you can find, including
Public Domain and Creative Commons work, but the finished video cannot
be longer than 3 minutes or shorter than 30 seconds long.

The prizes
include a laptop computer loaded with video editing and conversion
software, a digital camcorder, a digital media player, as well as
Special Edition Total Recut T-Shirts, books, DVDs and CDs. We have an
amazing lineup of judges for the contest including Lawrence Lessig,
Henry Jenkins, Kembrew McLeod, Pat Aufderheide, JD Lasica and Mark
Hosler. You can find out more information at: http://www.totalrecut.com/contest1.php.

Entries will be accepted from May 1 until June 2 when public voting will begin. The best 10 videos at the end of the 2-week voting period will be put forward into the final, where they will
be voted on by the judging panel. The winners will be announced around
the 1st of July. So get busy making those videos!

Here’s a link to the YouTube promotional video for the contest.