Carve Your Own Pumpkin

Katie was kind enough to share this with me. Have fun carving your own pumpkin!

YouTube Video Influences Presidential Campaign

Last time around the television adds of the Swift Boat Veterans influenced the presidential campaign. Now, a YouTube video made about Hillary Clinton is been viewed more than 1.5 million times. The video is a preview of a longer film made by Peter Paul, a convicted fellon a nd a former fundraiser for Hillary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071030/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_video

Postman Reading

I kinda have a bone to pick with this week's reading, "The Judgment of Thamus" by Neil Postman. Towards the end he writes about a "psychic battle" that will take place within students, who must make sudden shifts from the "world of television" to the "world of the printed word". Maybe I have too lofty an idea of what education should be, but wouldn't a good teacher use all mediums to teach a lesson? Teachers are professionals in the business of education. Just like any other business, technologies change and old business practices must adapt. Reading from a textbook and copying notes isn't going to cut it with today's student population, which is bombarded with fast paced imagery. Teachers need to adapt, which is a viewpoint I think Postman would support. However, he concludes that discussion by stating that the printed word need not always be so highly valued. I completely disagree with that. Just because students are growing up in an world of constant entertainment, doesn't mean that education shouldn't stress print knowledge. Television should not replace reading, or primary sources for example. In my opinion, the printed word should be valued even more highly in the classroom as a means of achievement. If a 10 year old video game addict can sit for 30 minutes and read a grade-level biography of Abraham Lincoln, isn't that an accomplishment? Not only is he gaining knowledge, but learning how to create mental imagery, practicing deduction and arriving at his own conclusions about Abraham Lincoln's life. Television isn't going to teach a student how to do that.

The Joy of Footbridges

I found this slideshow on Slate that displays some of the most extravagant bridges in the world. Just thought I'd share.

p.s. How many of these have you walked on? Me: 3

Mindy

Dane Cook

Does anyone know Dane Cook, a stand- up comedian who does all kinds of stuff with multimedia. www.danecook.com. He's hilarious.

Here's a YouTube cartoon called Handshake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYY1-ZggEqw

funny parking videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnVHX_Pez6o Last Space in the Car Park
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ry5cc0COhc California State University at Northridge

print following the web

In the Oct. 21st Points of View page in the Arizona Republic, the layout is very web-like. In fact, the main article, on global warming, has an enormous photo, then the print, and under that is a box called "from the blogs"--and the box looks like a web box with tabs. There are 2 quotes from Undernews blog and Samizdata.net. The sides of the page also look more web-like than print-like because they have large numbered graphics and photos. The left is the top 5 books Professor Sharpes would recommend about Islam and the West. The layout sows the book covers, large type titles of the books and the large numbers as graphics and the left side of the page is stats on global warming with large number graphics and images.

Collection of parking videos

This is the Illinois State horror film we saw Monday. Following are some of the other examples I found on YouTube. Please add more if you have them (consider this part of our new-age lit review).
At Columbia University, looking for parking 2:18
Parking Services: The Movie The heartwarming story of Richard, a Parking Services employee, as he learns the value of spreading good instead of evil (parking tickets). University of Georgia
5:49
Parallel parking device Senior capstone project, University of Toledo
Parking problems at San Jose State University 2:24 (audio problems, but some interview ideas)
You suck at parking, Part 3
Parking Services, University of Toledo 42 seconds
Getting the boot at University of Kentucky(newspaper video; see who comes to the rescue)
CSUN parking problems (money machine won't take money) 44 seconds
DPS at Iowa State(problems getting it to run) 2:20 Poking fun.

Grad student's video ruffles Edwards campaign feathers

UNC masters student Carla Babb produced a video for a campus TV broadcast as well as for an MTV contest, for which she uploaded it to YouTube. In the video, she interviewed Edwards campaign workers and others about Edwards' choice of HQ location -- in a lovely, upscale, area of Chapel Hill. Did it conflict with his goal of representing the poor and disenfranchised? she asked. After the video was seen on YouTube, a campaign rep called her and asked her to take it down. Babb referred the spokeswoman to Charlie Tuggle, the UNC prof who oversees the newscast and who is her adviser. Tuggle refused. He reported that the campaign threatened to cut off student access to Edwards news. A campaign spokeswoman says this has gotten silly but had no comment on Tuggle's allegations. Since then, the story has bloomed in distribution and the video is approaching 100,000 views at this writing. The NYTimes, Washpost, AP, News&Observer and a host of other sites have done stories on it. What do you think?

Put your money where your mouth is...

Intrade is a website that allows you to invest - not only in the financial market, but also the political market. The chances are 50/50 for a recession, but those numbers would be a step up for Barak Obama... He closed at 12.3 today on Intrade.

"Intrade isn't just an entertaining Web site. It is the latest iteration of one of the most important economic developments of modern times."

David Leonhardt, Economics Reporter, The New York Times

Obama, Jan '05 - Present:

What are Santa Ana winds?

This is pretty much what I'd call a video version of a print infobox.

ASU Parking Statisitics

Here are some parking statisitics I was able to get from ASU...

1-3 are from a 2007 survey (I am working on getting the survey)
1. Total number of parking spaces on the Tempe campus: 21,316
2. Total number of metered spaces on Tempe campus: 389
3. Total number of visitor spaces on the Tempe campus: 1,130

4-6 are current as of today.
4. Approximate number of citations issued a semester: From Aug. 06 – May 07 we issued 110, 990 citations (including warning citations)
5. Approximate number of ‘give me a break’ vouchers issued: 3,000
6. Numbers of U-Pass (free buss pass) users: Employees: 2,722
Students: 11,586

Maybe we could get the same statistics for some universities that are somewhat comparible in size?

I am working on getting the 2007 survey. Supposedly they are doing another survey, but I am trying to find out if it will be out before our project is due.

Can anyone think of anything else I should get some facts on?

2329 years

That's how long Aristotle has been dead. I think it may be safe to remove any restrictions on his work. But maybe it's better to be safe than sorry. Let's push any copyrighting to 3,000 years.

YouTube Debate Posting

Finally here is my YouTube debate contribution.

Beat you to it (see JibJab, below)

Oakland Tribune leads ONA awards

From OJR: The Oakland Tribune was the only multiple winner in the 2007 Online Journalism Awards, presented this evening in Toronto by the Online News Association and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The Tribune collected the Knight Foundation Award for Public Service for its feature Not Just a Number on homicide in Oakland. The Tribune also won the award for Service Journalism (small traffic sites) for the same feature.
This year's general excellence winners were USA Today (large), The Denver Post (medium) and the Ventura County Star (small).

Other winners:
Outstanding Use of Digital Media, small: Wisconsin State Journal, Hip Hop 101
Outstanding Use of Digital Media, large: Discovery Channel, Everest Beyond the Limit
Beat reporting, small: Florida Today, Space Beat
Beat reporting, large: Wired.com
Breaking News, small: The Roanoke Times
Breaking News, large: Associated Press
Investigative journalism, large: ABC News, Brian Ross Investigates: "The Mark Foley Investigation"
Investigative Journalism, small: Center for Investigative Reporting, Danger On Your Plate
Service journalism, large: Toronto Star
Specialty Journalism, large: Livescience.com
Specialty Journalism, small: Council on Foreign Relations
Commentary, small: Wild Bill, NewWest.net
Commentary, medium: Walt Handelsman, Newsday
Commentary, large: William Saletan, Slate
Student Journalism: Border Beat (University of Arizona) and Our Tahoe (University of Nevada, Reno) [tie]

Comment and question about the New Producers

Anderson seems to be saying that the current technology is cheap enough (and good enough) for anyone to make hit movies. This is just false. Movies are shown on huge screens, so the starting format has to have enough information in it to be blown up that big. And decent audio gear (as well as audio sweetening hardware and software, are necessities. Rodriguez may have shot El Mariachi for $3,000, but it cost over $250, 000 to get it screen-ready. The Anniversary party, shot on digital video, cost $50,000 to shoot and 3 times that for post. Just having lights isn't enough, either. You have to understand how lighting works, how cameras work, and good actors usually want to get paid--plus you have to feed them. Most independent filmmakers use a different route--they interest an investor. Filmmakers call it "the triangle"--you can have it good, you have it fast, and you can have it cheap--but not all at the same time. Thoughts?

Have you been JibJabbed?

Now you can create your own JibJab cartoon starring yourself, your friends, or your favorite professor! Endless hours of interactive fun!

ASU Parking Podcast Part II

Here is the second podcast of the two-part series with Theresa Fletcher. It isn't as interesting, but does talk about this new flexcar deal they are offering. Maybe we could do a story following someone through the process of taking part of the flexcar deal and see how easy and inexpensive it really is. Enjoy!

ASU Parking Podcast

I found this when I was researching parking information for our upcoming project. It is the first part of a two-part series interviewing Theresa Fletcher, the director of parking and transit. I tried emailing Theresa to get some more facts, but she has not returned my emails yet. I will post the second part as well.

These are very recent. Just happened end of September. It mostly talks about solutions, but there is interesting information about ASU's long term plan and how parking will be incorporated, or not incorporated for that matter.

Relevant to this week's reading

This book and recently released DVD have a lot of do with the copyright and pro-am movement in this weeks Chris Anderson reading. Check it out.

'Hear you are'

[murmur]is a collection of audio stories about specific geographic locations. They are available on a Web site, but more interestingly, they are also available in designated places at the sites themselves. In situ, interested murmurers can call a posted mobile cell number and hear the recording. Online, there are maps of several Toronto areas (one of these is above). On the maps are circles indicating the story locations. They are, of course, clickable to bring up the audio. I'm thinking of lots of applications for something like this... FYI: I was reminded of this project by Danny Sanchez' Journalistopia blog, which has been covering the ONA conference this past week (sob -- I couldn't go this year because of other commitments so I'm living vicariously).

Web 2.0 Summit

Several New Media leaders are meeting in San Francisco for the 3-day Web 2.0 Summit. This is the 4th summit for Web 2.0 and its clear that Facebook is the talk of the summit so far. Facebook has made large strides this year in users, technology, and business. This summer, Facebook decided to let 3rd party developers build applications for the website, making Facebook more of a platform than a social networking site. In just a few short months, there have been nearly 10,000 applications built for Facebook, some by other companies and some by the users themselves. It is the newest trend in Web 2.0 development. Even Apple is going to allow third parties to develop applications for the I-Phone.

Here is a link to news from the summit: CNET News /Web 2.0 Summit

More about Facebook: www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9799850-2.html

washingtonpost.com and online video

And here's Part 2

National Geographic

National Geographic magazine is know the world over for its amazing and rare photographs. Having pictures published by National Geographic is consider a career accomplishment by most photographers. So when I visited NG's website for their show "Taboo", I expected a visually stimulating site with multiple mediums for which I could interact. I was shocked to discover that the site had only 7 pictures on a slideshow and short video segments from the show. I was left wanting and wondering how such an esteemed visual magazine would not have developed their website in the same form.

Pro Publica

Dr. Thornton mentioned this at the end of our last class, so here is a link to an NPR interview with Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the WSJ. He is starting up an investigative reporting non-profit group called Pro Publica.

A Kentucky mother's struggle through drug court

Al Tompkins, of Poynter, has a full writeup of a weeklong project by the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader that will, in his words, "consume 18 inside pages, 15 minutes of online multimedia and more than 130 photos." Tompkins explores how the project came together -- it took four years.

del.icio.us SNDies 2007

Okay, if you can figure out what that means, you're definitely in the right class. Joe Weiss, who created Soundslides and helped revolutionize journalism, was a judge in the most recent multimedia competition run by the Society for News Design (hence: the SNDies). He's linked and tagged nearly all of the entries on his del.icio.us account -- and has categorized them into gold, silver and bronze categories.
Let me call particular attention to:
OnBeing, washingtonpost.com
A People Torn: Liberians in Minnesota (this has been cited before in Cronkbyte)
Exploring Antarctica, washingtonpost.com
American Diversity Project: Mississippi Delta
Atacama Stories, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
On the Line: Stories of Economic Hardship in North Carolina, UNC Chapel Hill
The Metropolitan Museum's new galleries, The New York Times
The Fight for Iraq: A Regional Power Play, MSNBC

Train Jumping: A Desperate Journey, PalmBeachPost.com
Events Leading to an Accident, newyorktimes.com
Crisis in Darfur Expands, washingtonpost.com
Is it better to buy or rent?, newyorktimes.com

These were chosen more by my preference than by award, although there are golds, silvers and bronzes among the above. To view by winning category, try these: Gold, Silver, Bronze.
We'll be talking about these in class -- feel free to add more links-of-note from the almost-full list Joe provides.

Our YouTube Debate Vids -- So Far

I found these three so far by searching on "debate question." Did anyone file with different tags or title? Let me know so I can add you!

UPDATE: One more... Sam's quick fill-in.


ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's Mike's:

Growing, shrinking, fading... Oh my word.

Okay. I couldn't get enough of Final Cut Express tonight (also, that coffee really kicked in). Here's a tutorial I found on YouTube about working with text.

Students to LiveBlog from ONA conference

Twenty-one students from universities in the United States and Canada will be coming to the conference armed with laptops, digital cameras and video cameras. Students will be providing multi-dimensional coverage of the conference, including:

* Blogging about panels as they occur.
* Providing video clips and video features.
* Writing traditional news stories and features.

Starting on Thursday, please visit
http://www.journalists.org/2007conference/

Time's ticking; days left for $5 million challenge

Bringing Myanmar home

Myanmar, the former Burma, has been in the top news for months now -- but how many of us know why, much less the context? Part of that I'd chalk up to infoglut (too much information bombarding us all the time; too little prioritization of incoming facts). But a large part is due to a lack of what beginning reporters used to learn early in their careers: localization. Multimedia offers journalists new ways to connect with people. Video's forte is visual interest and emotional connections. In this video, Roanoke.com takes a local connection -- a family of Burmese refugees -- and lets the "experts" do the talking. The result: greater awareness of the world around us and our place in it. This is the kind of "hyperlocal" I'd be proud to produce.

How Youtube Has Changed Everything

We have seen over the last 2 years how much Youtube has changed the world. It has given us a peak into some things that were once local. Here is a Youtube clip of a high school teacher in Gilbert, AZ who was suspended after she performed this cheer in front of class. This story became a national story, all due to Youtube and the importance of cell phone video.

Former Senator George Allen must not be the only one who wishes there wasn't viral video.

4,091 hits and counting

This is one of the YouTube debate questions from Dr. Carpenter's class. Posted last week! UPDATE Oct. 12: 5,742 hits.

The Shock factor - Dramamentaries

After September 11th, I remember Ebaums World and college humor releasing chilling homemade soundslides/videos claiming that the attacks were carried out by the U.S. military. The videos were quickly removed due to extreme outrage over the disturbing images and content. When I think about these videos, it made me wonder what category something like that would fit into. I did some research and located links discussing drama documentaries, videos made with the specific purpose to shock and disturb. The first one made was created in 1965, during the Cold War. "The War Game" acts like a news broadcast, but covers a fictional nuclear war that begins between NATO and Soviet forces invading West Germany. The broadcast was so controversial that it was not actually shown on the BBC until 1985. Check it out the wikipedia entry, and complete video.

Video part of WP report on upcoming Iowa vote

Another example of the growing "norm" of multimedia reporting with multiple points of entry. The text story, "Iowa a key test for Democrats," is packaged with the video and reader comments and is well larded with hypertext links throughout. ADDED: And you can see the same story run on a CBS News Web page -- no video, though. Guess CBS welcomes the writing but keeps the video production to itself?

You're all one step closer to qualifying...

The Florida Times-Union
Multimedia Anchor/Reporter
Jacksonville
Application deadline: None specified
Posted: October 1, 2007

New Media posting

Are you entrepreneurial and creative? Are you Web savvy?
Are you confident in front of a camera?
Can you report the news?
Do watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Do you cruise YouTube?
Have you ever seen Joanne Colan of Rocketboom?
If you said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yea!, we may have a great job for you. We are looking for someone who can anchor and host a daily news/features segment on Jacksonville.com (the web site for The Florida Times-Union) and who can handle a variety of daily reporting assignments. We’re not talking about replicating TV on the Internet. We are looking for someone who can report the news with a little attitude and a lot of personality.

For additional information, including details on how to apply, see:
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/jobs/details.php?cat=newmed&ID=5999

File under cool blogs

Ever since Mindy asked in class if she could bring cupcakes to the last day, I haven't been able to get cupcakes out of my mind. Well, one link led to another and a few minutes ago I found myself looking at this on a cooking blog:

How cute is that? They're called "knit night cupcakes." Now. Think anyone can design one for online media? Obviously, chips should be involved...

Crowdsourcing for a Billionaire

When billionaire Steve Fossett went missing in September, friends and colleagues used online "crowdsourcing" as part of their coordinated search efforts. Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, the public was paid to look at high resolution areal photos in hopes of spotting Fossett's wreckage.

Amazon Mechanical Turk is described as tool used to "complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it." Although Fossett's wreckage has yet to be found, many other companies are using crowdsourcing to carry out different projects and reshape makes group projects go global with the click of a mouse.

Amazon Mechanical Turk: http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
WIRED: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

Free Photoshop.

For all of those tech savvy journalists out there, Adobe Systems has previewed its free, online version of Photoshop: http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9790734-12.html?tag=bubble

Flashing Tom Lehrer

Lehrer was perhaps most famous in the 1950s and '60s but he's been rediscovered. Here's one of his trademark recordings treated to a Flash/video presentation. I was going to save it for class but couldn't restrain myself from posting. Enjoy.

Links from class (video interviews)

From Mike: Hillary Clinton - Conversation interview
Time - Jerry Seinfeld
From Katie: Example from YouTube and Syria has right to retaliate from the BBC.
From Martha:
Why I live in Arizona
Interview with Steve Wozniak
Interview with Aaron Russo

And the "Internet People" video was posted to Cronkbyte on Monday.

Kotecki joins Politico: 'I haven't sold out; I bought in'

Check out the announcement and take note of Politico's political coverage. It's one of the hottest sites around and has great potential. Excerpt:

Kotecki has already begun producing a daily video version of Mike Allen’s "Playbook," and will soon be hitting the trail to offer Politico.com readers a different way to view the election.
The Economist hailed Kotecki as “probably the world's foremost expert on YouTube videos posted by presidential candidates."

Fun vid interview here if the embedded one doesn't work well.

FYI: Equipment sign-out crackdown

Greetings to all,

As you all know, we have a new electronic equipment program that tracks equipment check-out, return and inventory.

This is a quick note to let you know that we have reached the point in the semester where students should not be turning in their equipment late. We have given reminders and been patient with the implementation of our new equipment tracking program. Please reiterate to your students that equipment is due on the date and time they have on their reservations. If they neglect to turn their equipment in on time their privileges will be revoked for the remainder of the semester - per Dean Callahan’s directive and the contract the students signed at the beginning of this semester.

Below is just a small, recent example of two unnamed students who have turned their equipment in late.

Equipment: Electro-Voice 635A Handheld Mic
Due In: 9/27/07 9:00:00 PM
Returned: 10/1/07 12:08:48 PM

Equipment: Panasonic AG-DVX100BP DV Camera
Due In: 10/2/07 12:00:00 PM
Returned: 10/3/07 9:33:11 AM

Thanks for your assistance in this matter,

Jim

---
Jim Dove
Chief Engineer
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Stauffer Hall, Room 231

Cooper, Corwin, and Gupta save the planet through interactive storytelling

An impressive advertisement for a CNN special report that includes interactive elements, podcasting, opportunities for citizen journalism, and video clips.

Digi-reporters staff new bureaus

On Romenesko this morning:

ABC News opens mini-bureaus in India, Africa, other places
Hollywood Reporter
The small offices in Seoul; Rio de Janeiro; Dubai; New Delhi and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Nairobi, Kenya are staffed by a reporter-producer with the latest in hand-held digital technology. They cost a fraction of what it takes to run a full-time bureau.

In honor of Sputnik

Here's the sound of the beep that started the space race 50 years ago. For a story that talks about a history only recently revealed, check this.

OJR goes daily

The Online Journalism Review publishes M-F, a new move. According to its editor, Robert Niles, "with three additional days a week to fill, we are looking for your story ideas. So if you've got a new site, feature or hot issue you'd like to see us cover, please do not hesitate to let me know. We are especially interested in social media efforts, new publishing technology and online innovations at 'offline media' companies."

Internet People

A tribute to Net personalities -- characters? events? -- of the online world. Animated by Dan Meth with music by Meth and Micah Frank. How many references do you know? Thanks to Susan Keith for pointing me to Doug Fisher's CommonsenseJournalism blog for a look.