"Blogs In Plain English"

This makes me happy and explains why I love the democratic effects of the Internet on society. Kudos to commoncraft.com!

What if magazines eventually turned into video-zines?

I subscribe to a bunch of different RSS feeds, and as dorky as I am, I read some fashion blogs. I usually stop on the posts that have some kind of commercial or short film for different fashion trends and started thinking, What if all magazines just became videos? This crossed my mind after watching The Love Thing by Love Magazine.

In my mind, that's what video magazines would look like. It wouldn't be necessary to make it look like a recorded runway show. In this way it would be more stylized and less formal as most runway shows seem to be.

Like all media industries, print is definitely feeling the pressure of the Internet. So, would it be terrible if fashion magazines (or all magazines for that matter) turned into video-zines? Like TV, they could easily be able to include intermittent commercials instead of only having banners around their article pages online.

I don't necessarily think print is going to go completely out of business, it will just become a leisure product rather than the predominant medium.

I'm starting to get some of my newsletters as audio files or videos, why not a whole magazine?

Considering the rise of the interactive reader (think iPad than Nook/Kindle), the interface of magazines and newspapers will soon change. Instead of reading a simple digital copy of a physical NYTimes on nytimes.com, the iPad has it's own NYT interface that actually defines the term digital newspaper. As per the different iPad videos, it feels like a newspaper but it also has the interactivity that goes hand in hand with the digital realm of the Internet.

This seems like the a perfect template for magazines to follow, especially those that include large pictures such as fashion and lifestyle magazines. But who knows what'll happen this decade in media development.

What ever happened to "safe harbor"?

There is something very wrong in Italy's recent conviction of three Google ex-employees for taking down footage of a boy getting beaten up back in 2006. They were charged with "criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code." Google wrote this blog post assuring that they plan to appeal this decision.

I'm not versed in Italian privacy laws but, just like Google's statement includes, it's common sense within today's technological savvy that these men did not own or distribute the footage - it was the girl who uploaded the video. How do these men get charged?

I believe that they were involved in taking down said video and helping the police identify the bullies, I'm assuming, through their Google accounts and IP addresses.

If using technology for a positive purpose (with information that is readily available - Google's access to the girl's information) is an invasion of privacy, isn't it fair to say that these people opted and ACCEPTED the fact that computers and browsers record IP addresses? Let alone incorporate a lot of personal information on social networks or their Google accounts?

However one might position themselves in respect to this issue, consider that we live in a very public technological society where privacy is an option that is not usually chosen.

Source: Official Google Blog: Serious threat to the web in Italy

Thank You Internet! or Cyriak, My New Favorite on YouTube

Cyriak makes insane, WTF, animated shorts that just blow my mind. [Note to self: learn motion graphics.] In this interview a couple years ago, he makes a comment on how even though he is a loner, he would probably be in his apartment watching his shorts if there was no Internet. Thanks to the unlimited system of tubes, he gets thousands of hits on his growing list of videos.  Check out his channel here. Below is one of his newest videos called "Meow."

Final Paper Topic

So finals are busting my butt, hence the lack of posts but I'm sure the holidays will bring many more fun internet stuff. In the mean time, I'm currently working on my Digital Media final paper due tomorrow around noon. Here's my topic, which will end up being a lot narrower once I write the paper:

Internet Phenomena and Remix Culture

    My final paper will consist of 3 main topics: Internet Phenomena (viral videos and memes), how and why they become viral in the first place; the Internet, how it serves as a platform for many forms of media – especially audio and video; finally, Remix Culture, how current society is obsessed with the reuse of original content, legalities over copyright infringement, and how the Internet and Internet phenomena correlate to the “procreation” of Remix Culture.
     Internet phenomena are very much present when any user surfs the web. But what is it about these videos or memes that attract Internet users? What causes a video or media in general to become viral? How has this affected communication, in the news and in advertising for example?
     The Internet has become a very large part of technology, especially in the advent of Web 3.0 and the still-present Web 2.0. What is Web 3.0? Why has it shifted from professional content to user content? What makes the Internet different from other media and communication platforms?
     Remix Culture has pretty much taken over all media industries, and continues to be massively produced throughout different mediums. What is the cultural significance of amateur media production? What are the implications of digital media for copyright? Can this movement exist without the Internet?

My final paper will be posted tomorrow (hopefully)!

[UPDATE: Thought it was a bit compromising if I posted an essay here but I did get a B on it!]

Got My Google Wave Invite!

FINALLY! About a month ago, I applied to receive a Google Wave preview account after watching Google's nearly 90 minute spiel of its new, open sourced, online software in development. As per Google,

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Even though I only have a preview account, the software still allows me to fiddle around with most of the basic  perks of using waves instead of emails. The first time I saw Google Wave I thought it was Email 2.0. Wrong. If anything, a wave is absolutely not an email, at least, not necessarily. Like Gmail, it records conversations, one after another. Unlike Gmail, these messages can be edited at any time as well as add text, pictures or video to any part of the message. For example, say you're "waving" about a group project and you're brainstorming how to attack your topics; "wavers" (Google Wave users) can add onto other's messages similar to Facebook's Comment feature instantly. So instead of replying and forwarding an email back and forth to different people, creating different versions of it, Google Wave is one, live host of messages where you can add people to access it. Since it's currently in preview, you only get to forward 8 invites and the functionality is still rocky but it's awesome - updates to come once I play around with it more.

Below is the Google I/O Demo Presentation of Google Wave: