The Colbert Report - Control-Self-Delete from Social Media

As a goodbye!
A Colbert Report about privacy in social media, and how to avoid our past in the web to follow us forever.

Pretty funny =)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Control-Self-Delete
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Entelligence: One device to rule them all -- or not

Timely post on Engadget. E-books are the wild card, in my opinion, since the e-ink experience is so different (and necessary) for reading vs. a color display system (ala the iPad).

Axiom Review - The Boston Globe

Here is a review of the show we saw in our field trip last week:

Artists degrade technology to find fresh content - The Boston Globe

Boston scavenger hunt

My wife and I played this when we first came to Boston.

http://www.scvngr.com/

Reactions to AXIOM show.

Post reactions to the exhibit (as comments to this post). A paragraph or two.

Workflow from Thursday's class

Idea
Articulate that idea -- conversation, written, etc.
Distill that into a 'spec' (written)
Brainstorming

[FINAL PROJECT STAGE]
Refine spec into a detailed project description including timetable -- intermediate deadlines -- and visuals.

Prototype/comp one 'leg', one avenue, one whatever of the project.
Plan on rolling out an alpha version (working version)
Test, test, test -- the technology, the concept, the usability.
Get to a Beta version (almost ready for primetime)
Test, test, test.
Launch coordinated with marketing/PR/social media strategy.
Respond to any queries.
Fix/tweak/refine.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter.com - A new way to fund & follow creativity

Use the link above as a resource for example specs/proposals/artists' statements.

In class links to look at

An alternate to blogger
http://learn.wordpress.com/

Working with blogger
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/topic.py?topic=12439
http://mashable.com/2009/01/26/blogger-widgets/
http://www.blogdoctor.me/2006/12/css-tips-and-tricks-for-blogger.html

Some stuff to read about:
http://artimes.rouli.net/2010/07/three-augmented-reality-demos-at.html

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/45923

Field trip is ON!

Got confirmation from the Axiom Art Gallery that we are on for our field trip this evening to see their current exhibit Refresh.

We will still meet at 6 in our usual classroom locale before embarking en masse to the gallery around 7:15.

The making of a meme

For much of yesterday, a meme of a girl quitting her job via dry erase board went viral through comedy-content site, The Chive. Over 30K tweets, 400K unique visits to the site, and a similarly ridiculous amount of Facebook shares later, the entire incident has been outed as a hoax.  The Chive folks have been responsible for other hoaxes, like the girl who accidentally texted her dad when she lost her virginity.  Now here's a tongue-in-cheek take on the photos that offers you advice on how to make a meme.

The Chive writers talked about how it wanted to have some fun and exploit people's lack of due diligence.  This very minor incident shows how quickly misinformation spreads.  Given the crazy speed that news is now shared, everyone wants to the first one to spread the word, without first taking their time to fact-check. 

Posterous for multiple posting

Hi guys,

I thought you may find this interesting. Posterous is a service that allows you to instantly create a blog. All you have to do is email them. You can then later set up the blog to cross post to many different services all at once. Here's a link...

posterous

Also, I'm having a birthday party on September 18th, and you are all welcome to come along.

Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered

The article below documents the organized efforts of conservative groups to manipulate one of the most influential social media sites, Digg.com, for political purposes.  Take a few deep breaths before you read.  It's pretty long and often infuriating.

From Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered:

One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg “Patriots”.

Assignment for 08/12/10

Email me by Wednesday noon, your concept for your final project. Email me at ravi [at] ravijain.org. Don't worry about it being complete or finalized -- that's what we'll talk about.

We'll take a break next week at 7:15 and reconvene at Axiom art at 7:45.

I'll confirm all of this before we go!

Email me by noon!

Demons Hands

Demons Hands
Originally uploaded by ravijain

Cross posted from flickr.

Demons Hands

Click to Play

Testing out some upload options in my Creating Convergence class at Northeastern University.

molee's video

This is a rough cut of my cousins from New Zealand armwrestling. I spent too much time trying to figure out Premiere and After Effects, but I was able to get most of what I wanted in fairly quickly in iMovie. The transition times and effects still need a lot of tweaking though.

demonshands output1

Some MuayThai Move

In Any Weather

A video I have made using my pictures. And my hat. Updated to have sound.



Chris

Some differences...

Here is my video, it's pretty silly (some silly differences between the US and Spain) and way too long, so don't need to watch it all! I took it before knowing the final duration, and I had such a hard time that I did not want to shoot it again...

V8 make it easy!!

my first VDO commercial, Hope you like it!! LoL

This evening's haiku

The skys have opened.
A fury of rain descends!
Wait for me tonight...

Flipboard and the role of Twitter

A follow-up about that Flipboard product we looked at in class a few weeks ago from the New York Times. Take note of how Twitter and social media play a role with the rollout of a product. This is equally true with regard to rolling out content which is something we'll talk about this week in class.

James Surowiecki: When social media became news

You might have already seen this talk (it's from 2005), but just in case... I think it complements the discussions we had the firsts days of class about communications and new media. The speaker focuses on blogs, bringing up a point that I think we missed, and it's a phenomenon that I find pretty interesting: how networks and collective thinking shape the individual thinking, which at the same time determines the collective thinking... a bit of a loop =) Well, it could be summarized in: collective intelligence, and let's say "collective dumbness".

(During approximately the first 5 minutes he basically talks about the tsunami of 2004 in Indonesia)

Assignment for 08/05/10

Yikes -- meant to post this earlier! Sorry for the delay.

Here's the link to the French film we watched a bit of: La Jetee

Assignment:

1. Edit your video into a final piece to bring into class.

2. Explore possible posting sites that we discussed in class:
-- youtube.com
-- vimeo.com
-- blip.tv
-- flickr.com
-- facebook.com
-- blogger.com

3. If possible, set up an account on one of those sites (or another suitable one) and post your video piece.

4. For safety's sake, export as a .mov or high resolution format and bring in on portable media.

5. If you can link to your video on the class blog as an original post, please do, else we'll work towards that goal in class.

6. We'll also look at the concept of cross-posting and embedding automatically as well as using social media sites in concert with posting of original content.

Howlin For You

Click to Play

This is a 30 second video I made for my creating for convergence class

Lifehacker's Five Best Video Sharing Sites

Lifehacker's Five Best Video Sharing Sites


The comments on this site are exceptionally helpful for figuring out which works best for your purposes, and there are alternate suggestions as well.  Viddler sounds promising because of the lack of time restriction.

Glass Firefox Add-on - Write on top of the web!

I just came across this on ReadWriteWeb. It's a Firefox extension, soon on Chrome, that is currently in private beta. You can ask them for an invite on Twitter or email iwantin@writeonglass.com (which I just did!). Basically, it's bringing transparent Post-It notes/stickies for annotations to the web, exactly where you want them.

"One of the most interesting things that struck us was how unwebby the idea is. You don't interact with the page, just with your friends. This app seems like an especially good fit for the visual, stripped-down interface and immediate feedback on a device like the iPad. It's also well-suited to collaborations where multiple users need to talk about a project unambiguously."

Linkage here:
RWW - Write On Top of the Internet With New Firefox Add-On
Home page

Twitter

UPDATE: I just got an invite and have 8 more to give out if any of you want one.  I expect it's probably the same one for everyone, "welikeyoutoo".  

Assignment for 07/29/10

1. Read/skim through this NYTimes piece about privacy with regard to social media:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?ref=magazine

2.Bring in video elements that you've shot with the intent of editing together into a short piece (30-90 seconds final duration). Should be more than one clip but no more than half a dozen. You'll actively work with that content in class on Thursday.

Notes from class

Here's our notes from last week's class (shout out to Ana and Meghan):

Producing for Multiple Media

Book -- heavy books, size=weight, tactile, interactive w/hands, smells, write them/annotate, collect them (take up space), pages, pictures, words, jacket (summarizing, marketing), protect, give/share, massmarket, academic, nonfiction, homemade | 2010: ebooks, DRM (digital rights management), braille

Music/Audio -- mp3, vinyl, tape, DRM, music videos

Video/TV -- tell a story, antenna (broadcast), cable boxes, satellite, VCRs, DVRs (increased volume, automatic), captioning, cc, descriptive captioning

The Web/sites -- computer/browser/connection, phones (can be frustrating), mobile version, bigger type, alt tags

"So in this day and age (2010), content 'wants' to be free of formatting constraints."

Social Media | Network: Friends, "friends", associates, post/share opinions, updated in general, hot issue, avenue for self-promotion, photos, video, blog, text, link

Different social media "platforms": linkedin vs twitter vs facebook vs myspace vs blackberry community vs. flickr vs. messageboards vs xbox live vs blogs

Account/membership

Privacy; Critical Mass

Cross-posting

Hashtag: #brookline

Basic workflow for content/video production:
• PLAN
• INPUT/CREATE
• PROCESS/EDIT
• OUTPUT
• SHARE/PROMOTE/TAG

SD/HD

16X9, 4X3 -- aspect ratio

720p 1080p 1080i

Here's some of the links we looked at:


http://www.flipboard.com/

http://scripting.com/stories/2010/07/22/aboutFlipboardAndReadingSu.html

http://www.acrylicapps.com/times/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc&feature=channel

Typing your handwriting!

Convergence! Roger Ebert just re-tweeted about this.

You can program the way you write into your computer really easily, edit your handwriting, and then type with it.

Thai commercial

I came across a funny commercial that I thought our Thai classmates might enjoy.

Diaspora

This group is creating an alternative to Facebook. You can see the full site here.

Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

Overhaul

We've all heard of people becoming famous off of youtube. A boy from my town, Bo Burnham, posted a few videos on youtube and voila, he is the youngest person to ever have a comedy special on Comedy Central. Youtube has offered millions of people a way to get their videos out to an audience never before possible. People have become famous for singing, telling jokes, looks...you name it, it has been done. Now, young girls are getting famous for hauling.

Its not as dirty as it may sound. A haul video is a homemade video posted on the web by people (usually teen girls) gushing and reviewing their new favorite products and purchases. Sounds innocent enough doesn't it? The Fowler sisters are two of the most famous haulers. Some of their posts have over one million hits. Each one of the sisters has almost half a million subscribers and total channel views are over twenty million! The Fowler Sisters tapped into something so much larger than they expected. So many brands fail to do this successfully and the Fowler sisters seemed to stumble into it by accident. Now, brands want in. They once recommended a Guess watch and it sold out online and in stores within days. They have become so well known they are being sponsored by Forever 21, one of their favorite stores. They have been contacted by 17 Magazine, Marie Clair and many other fashion magazines.

Where is the convergence? Well sometimes they take videos on their cell phones in the store showing what they have picked out, what they would accessorize it with and what shoes to wear with it. Sometimes they wait until they get home to take the video on a webcam and then post to youtube. Basically, technology is so available to everyone that it has become easy to make home videos to post anywhere on the web.

Here is one of their videos. They were also on Good Morning America and they are filming them making this haul. Don't watch too long, it might make you lose your lunch.

Assignment for 07/22/10

Update: Sorry, had this kicking around in drafts!

1. Read the following posts on Social Media
http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/16/what-is-social-media/
http://mashable.com/2008/11/18/social-media-defined/

2. Read the following examples dealing with building audiences:
Pages 5 - 12 of the PDF preview copy of Scott Kirsner’s book: “Fans, Friends & Followers”: http://www.scottkirsner.com/fff/FFF-preview-edition.pdf
http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/build-loyal-audience-youtube/

3. Bring in media making device – ideally video, but could be still image. Bring any cables for connecting to your local machine. We will create content in class next week -- bring any props or anything else that you need. I'll try to bring a backdrop.

Case Study: Old Spice

Okay -- if anyone is using this as an example of Convergence already, I will cede this to you. Else we will definitely talk about this in class tomorrow when we discuss building an audience and leveraging social media to that end.

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made

Convergence Strategy from Reality Show

Academy Fantasia is a reality show in Thailand. It is a singing contest, judged through popular votes. The purpose to finding the dreamers who want to be a superstars. Academy Fantasia is a franchise of La Academia, a popular reality show from Mexico. The contestant auditioned through nationwide and the judges will eliminate the contestants down to 12 finalist into Academy House. The contestants will study with trainer in voice, dance and acting class to practice the songs they will perform in each week.

The contestants live in the same house with hundreds of hidden cameras. Audiences can watch them 24 hours live on TV and online. The audiences can vote for their favorite contestants through cell phones and land phones. It costs three baht for each vote. The show usually airs 24 hours on True Vision 20 (digital) and 16 (analog) and the concerts will be broadcast live on True Music Channel (Digital:26 , Analog:30) and ModernNine TV (public channel 9) every Saturday night between 20:40-23:10 Thailand time.

Each week the contestants are assigned individual songs and sometimes group songs to perform on stage every Saturday until the last week of the show. After each performance the commentators will evaluate the performance. At the end of the concert, the contestant(s) who received the lowest percentage of audience votes will have to leave the show. The winners and the runner-ups will automatically receive record deals with True Fantasia record label.

Last season, Academy Fantasia 6, the audience got to experience with TrueAF 6 live 3D concert for the first time in Thailand and would be able to watch the live program on 3 TV channels.

The audience would be able to access content in various ways including watching, downloading, voting, chatting via platforms such as TV, mobile phones, and online access.


The online access, they have main website, Academy Fantasia, that fans can look up for the contestant's profile or updates activities in everyday. Also make Fan Site, such as AF Talk, AF Studio, Facebook for fans to communicate. Innovative services like online voting through Touch@Home and numerous application on iPhone 3G offer a complete experience and keep the excitement going because fans can stay updated and on top of everything.

Info : Wikipedia (Academy Fantasia), True Corporation

Sumsung innovative digital campaign

Samsung developed a unique partnership with the Schonbrunn Zoo in Vienna, to show consumers how easy and intuitive the new ST1000 camera is at uploading pictures to the internet via its innovative wireless capabilities, a feature shared across a number of Samsung’s digital cameras. Samsung equipped the zoo’s resident female Orangutan ‘Nonja’ with the ST1000 camera, and the images produced by Nonja were then uploaded through the camera’s wireless capabilities daily to a Facebook account and specially designed Microsite, receiving an overwhelming 200,000 hits from a worldwide audience of fans.

This unprecedented and ground breaking strategy proved that ST1000’s capabilities and easy-to-use features could even be operated by anyone, including an Orangutan, a message that was successfully communicated to an audience around the world. The campaign showcased the ST1000’s ability to capture and share photo memories wirelessly on the move, allowing users to truly connect with family and friends. Packed full of innovation and encased in a sleek compact frame, the camera’s wireless functionality enables users to send and post pictures in real time via applications like Facebook and provides an unrivalled experience in sharing content amongst loved ones. With the increasing need for camera users to share their images instantly with loved ones, a number of Samsung’s digital cameras provide wireless capabilities.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nonja/190010092116

The 6th sense: a wearable gestural interface.

These are no breaking news, but I think is a very nice example of the convergence of the digital and the physical world.
The Media Lab at MIT has developed a wearable computer interface, they call it the 6th sense, and according to what it does, this name makes a lot of sense...
As Patti Maes, the director of the Fluid Interfaces Group at the Media Lab, and Pranav Mistry, the student behind the project, say, in the real world we get information through our five senses. But the access to all the digital information available online is limited to the screen of our digital devices.
The 6th sense seems to be able to bridge the gap, becoming a link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world... "bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer" (wow! too pretentious? well, time will tell!)

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The projector enables us to use any surface or object as an interface by projecting the information on them. And the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures (by tracking the fingertips of the user) and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques.

In the video we can see Pranav Mistry taking pictures using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which would be saved to his mobile phone. He can then project the images onto a wall and begins to size them using similar gestures to those used in a touchable interface. And if he wants to access his email he just need to draw an @ and project his email onto any surface around him... All this is already pretty cool, since it brings the interface to the physical world and allows a more natural user interaction, but what I find really amazing is the way it would bring us information about physical objects that is available online. In the video, we can see how the device projects real time information of a flight onto the boarding pass; a video providing more information onto a newspaper... And their protoype costs only 350$

More about this (info and more videos)

Bringing pretty 3-D to TV

With the record-breaking popularity of Avatar 3-D this past winter season, the technology has made its comeback onto the television screens, this time without the retro red-blue glasses that we have so often associated with watching 3-D movies.  Sony, Samsung, and other media giants in content delivery have moved past high-definition technology and embraced the new trend of 3-D (whoo-hoo, new stuff to sell!), which utilizes more sophisticated technology than the old-school method of projecting red and blue/green stereoscopic images to produce fuzzy, mostly black-and-white 3-D images.  The newer technology we have become familiar with in theatres enables us to use polarized glasses to view rich, high-def color images, as each lens has a different polarization that allows only the specific set of images intended for each particular eye.  (I didn't really get it either until I saw the illustration below.  I still kind of don't.)

Image credit: Howstuffworks.com

However, most of the 3-D TVs on the market now use active shutter glasses (see image below), which receive radio or infrared signals from an emitter on the TV that tell the shutter in each lens to open or close in sync with the images projected on screen.  The images are fluid, because the shutters are occurring at a rate of 120 times per second.  Unfortunately, the glasses can be expensive, so good luck if you are planning on 3-D family movie night!  Some 3-D TVs don't require glasses at all, using the principle of a parallax barrier made of liquid crystal.  The barrier is made of tiny holes that allow only certain pixels to reach each respective eye.  The problem with this method is that the full 3-D effect cannot be achieved from all viewing angles around the TV.  A benefit is that you can turn off the feature and revert back to 2-D anytime on these TV sets.

Image credit: Physorg.com

Cable and satellite networks are embracing the technology, starting first with sports.  ESPN recently made a huge push with 3-D broadcasts of World Cup matches. Sony PS3 owners can just update their firmware for the ability to decode the 3-D signals on their Blu-ray discs.   Adobe are also currently updating its Flash player with 3-D capabilities and are preparing to reveal a version this fall.

A note for cheapies: if you can't yet afford a 3-D TV, Vuzix sells glasses that project 3-D images right inside them (convergence!) by plugging them into a media player capable of handling the 3-D signals.  At only $170-250 a pop!

The University of Nottingham's Visual Learning Lab has recently conducted a case study which incorperates the Thunder^TM system in a learning environment. This technology was originally developed for use in industry, and was devised in order to interact with many pieces of visual information simultaneously. It consists of multiple projection screens controlled through a central tablet pc. The touch screen interface of the tablet is also replicated on the large screens, resulting in a free flowing interaction with the visual information that is conducive to group projects. These group projects took the form of two phases. In the first phase, students were divided into small groups and were then asked to define abstract concepts such as "liberal democracy" through the use of typed notes or hand drawn images. In the second phase, these images were transfered to the larger screens, and the instructor facilitated a discussion of the common themes found throughout.

The outcome of this methodology was that students spent more time thinking about the concepts and responding to their peers and less time taking notes.

Image courtesy of University of Nottingham image bank

communication tools list

From class:
Communication tools

Forums
Talking/speaking
Pen and paper (written)
CB radios (citizens band)
Email
Phone
Letter in a bottle
Texting
Party Lines
Webcam
Facebook
Twitter
Handgestures (sign language)
Walkie Talkie
Videochat / skype
Google Docs (collaborative authorship)
Blog
Wikis
Commenting (YouTube)
IM
meetup.com
Second Life (virtual communities)
Chat roulette
Foursquare
Email/chat/messenger
Geotagging (???) Geocaching

Assignment for 07/15/10

Research and report on an example of media convergence that we didn't talk about in class. Post your example as an original post (not a comment) on the class blog. Use the label 'convergenceexample'

Please add an image if possible!

Be prepared to present your example in class. Wow me!

Readings for 07/15/10

Meaty, slightly dated piece by Henry Jenkins formerly of MIT
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/converge.html

Case study example of approach by Danish Newspaper
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100281

Convergence with regard to "breaking news"
http://condemnedtorocknroll.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/michael-jackson-media-convergence-and-the-decline-of-the-global-superstar/

Class Syllabus

In the interest of being "green", you can access the class syllabus (in Word format) here.