Category Archives: Media & Culture

The Onion: “Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet”

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“After clicking the ‘submit’ button, I will immediately refresh the page so that I can view my own comment. I will then notice that my comment has not appeared because the server has not yet processed my request, become angry and confused, and re-post the same comment with unintentional variations on the original wording and misspellings, creating two slightly different yet equally moronic comments,” he said. “It is my hope that this will illustrate both my childlike level of impatience and my inability to replicate a simple string of letters and symbols 30 seconds after having composed it.”

The Onion

A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken

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I am part of the first TV generation. Thousands of hours of my life were spent watching. Just watching. These days, like many others, I spend many of my hours online, creating, sharing and consuming media. Clay Shirky explains why this “social surplus” is a very big deal:

“Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here’s something four-year-olds know: Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won’t have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan’s Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.”

If you are in any way connected to the business of “media,” you need to read –and understand– what Mr. Shirky has to say.

This post is about technology and media, not politics.

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I "follow" Barack Obama’s Twitter feed. If you don’t know what that means, it’s okay (unless you happen to be a journalist). A few minutes ago the campaign "tweeted" that the senator was getting ready to speak in Springfield, Missouri and I could watch it live by clicking the included link.

Obamalivevideo

It took me to the "live" page on the Obama website where a USTREAM player was feeding live video. As I write this there are 830 viewers. Only a fraction of the number watching on the cable news channels that might be airing this speech.

I mention this only because no "traditional media" were necessary to make this happen. The Obama campaign has an email address for each of the millions (?) of people who have contributed to his campaign. We all got a ping that he was about to speak.

[901 viewers]

I think this is huge. Sure, a campaign still need MSM to get elected. Today. Will that be as true four years from now? Will it be true at all 8 years from now?

[1,045 viewers]

Of course it is not just the live stream. This speech –and all of the others– will be available from now until election day. And beyond?

[1,095 viewers]

Will everyone need a web page?

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WSJ’s Jason Fry wonders if we’re getting closer to the day when everyone will need a web page. He starts with the question of how we’re to find each other in a rapidly evolving future.

“…landlines are disappearing, yet there’s no “white pages” for cellphones. And we don’t want one — the rise of email, IM and other forms of messaging have transformed the phone call into an intrusive way to communicate, best reserved for certain situations between people who already have a relationship. Which is fine, but raises the issue of how we’re supposed to get in touch with people we don’t already know. The most likely solution to the problem is a single point of contact, with additional levels of contact information unlocked by us as we deem appropriate. A Web page — whether it’s on an outpost such as Facebook or LinkedIn or a site built out with communications tools — can serve that function pretty well.

A personal Web page is an opportunity to tell your story and balance out other narratives that you can’t control.”

I found this piece very interesting. When I google “steve mays” I want this blog to show up on the first page of results. Ego? Sure, for now. And it will probably never have financial or business implications for me but that might not be true for a twenty-something.

“Go-to device for local information”

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Lost Remotes Corey Bergman predicts the iPhone (and the apps that will be written for it) will have huge impact on local news and information:

“…the location-aware phone (and similar phones that follow) will become the go-to devices for local information. In fact, I believe local information ultimately will be consumed more on mobile than PCs.”

Where have we been getting our local information? Oh yeah, radio.