My new Vlog’s address

My vlog is at http://www.mindofmatty.blogspot.com.  RSS is set up, vidos are processing.

Matt’s VLOG (done the right way, thanks to Steve).

http://mindofmatty.blogspot.com/2009/12/great-train-movie.html

This is a link to my first PROPER vlog entry.

Video Blog

Here are the links to my blogger videos:

http://tooblogtofail.blogspot.com/2009/12/final-movie-1.html

http://tooblogtofail.blogspot.com/2009/12/final-video-2.html

http://tooblogtofail.blogspot.com/2009/12/final-movie-3.html

Screencaptures

Final Plan

My proposal for the final video blog:

I will be doing a “Songwriting” bit: from the lyrics to the music to the performance- how it’s done.

Midterm Newsletter

We the Media 2

The “talk-back” trend of personal media has certainly been changing.  Stressing the need for media creators to listen more, Gillmore illustrates the fact that blogs are taking the place of press releases, and that blogs, because they typically offer avenues of commentary, open a two-way street for people to communicate back about products and services.  Video game companies, such as Microsoft’s Bungie Studios, have been maintaining blogs for years, with great success. This can be called “New-World PR and Marketing.”

Next, Gillore discusses politics on the Web, and how information gatering and fundraising use it as a huge resource, but how the instant nature of the internet can provide negative coverage that is hard to control. The McCain-Feingold bill affected fundraising profoundly. Big government websites are increasingly seeking public feedback.

Gillmore then moves into even more important territory, stating, “readers (or viewers or listeners) collectively know more than media professionals do.” This sums up the trend of new journalists to seek to harness that collective knowledge, and cable news networks are increasingly do just that, with “citizen reporters” getting their cell phone clips posted to a large audience. The big networks are also citing bloggers, such as the very influential Matt Drudge, of Drudge Report fame. Some, like Salon.com, offer blogs to subscribers.

Did You Know 2.0

Wow.  Things are moving faster than we can process, no pun intended, in digital informational technology.  If we didn’t have to work off of the infrastructure ALREADY LAID, who knows what we could create.

The film was thought-provoking and insightful.  As the U.S. languishes a bit, emerging economies in formerly Third World countries, like India and China, are picking up the slack.  As the U.S. population declines or stays static, theirs grows exponentially. So now what?

It’s both exciting and concerning.  Exciting, because the powers of imagination can be utilized.  Concerning, evening frightening, perhaps, for the same reasons.  It is more than just media, however.  It is the power to destroy.

Each year, films are released- some hokey and contrived; others on-point and illuminating, about the dangers of modern science.  I think there is a certain level of fear mixed in with the excitement.  After all, didn’t our great-grandparents work with their hands and live off of the land?  Is the road to technology one leading away from our heritage?  Will we end up like the fat slobs in Wall-E?

It has to do with the concept of Pandora’s box…

Better (even more) late than never

Gillmore’s book reads true.  I have taken other classes about the history of media and how convergence was going to be the trend, and yes, here we are.

Gillmore lays out the whole thing (American-centric), from Paine and Yellow Journalism through the Internet age.  It’s an interesting story, with an interconnection between events and technology.  Without technology, you wouldn’t be able to cover events and shape them, and without events, there would have been no technology created and nothing to write about.  It all boils down to the political past of this country.

Next, he breaks down the main segments of the fractured media, from blogs and wikis to P2P and RSS.  The last 15-20 years have seen the technology move from broadcast to personal access.

Finally, what’s actually GOING ON with it all: blogs, gossip, monetization and consumer trends.

Makes me wonder what will be happening in another 20 years.  My guess is a major personality disorder and a love/hate relationship with our media-saturated world.

Maybe an IPhone on a deserted beach?