Folia

The other day I received an invite in my Flickr inbox to join Folia, a gardening organizer/social site. So I checked it out and turns out it’s pretty cool.

You can enter information about the plants in your garden, so you can track growth and set reminders.

Each plant then belongs to one of your gardens.

You can keep journals about specific plants or whole gardens, integrating photos from Flickr. Gardens and plants are public, so comments and tips can be shared among users.

So far I like it, but we’ll see how long I can be disciplined enough to update it every time I garden.

New Media Blog

We’re finally adding content to our class blog, so check it out!

Song Charts!

Funny trend I just noticed: song lyrics represented through charts and graphs. Sounds lame, but is actually pretty amusing. Each chart is like a little puzzle, which when solved, pops a song into your head. Check it out…

“Facebook Not Just for Students Anymore”

Week 8 Reading

This short article from the Chronicle of Higher Education surprised me with its date: it was only published a few months ago! Maybe it’s because I worked at an academic library for 2 years, but I was under the impression that professors/staff/employers/general “adults” being on Facebook hasn’t been news for over a year or so. As commenter, “Samantha” said,

“Librarians have been using Facebook since the start to reach patrons and have developed a number of applications and widgets to help students with research.”

This has certainly been true at Oregon State University. I’ve been playing Scrabulous with reference librarians since the app came into existence! But more importantly, for freshman orientation week this year, the library used a Facebook group to publicize events and services, drawing in an unusually high number of new patrons.

Even my mom is on Facebook. She only has 6 friends, but as an elementary school reading teacher, she’s ahead of the curve. Right now she only uses it for personal contacts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someday she uses a limited profile for students.

Damon and Carlton at NAB 2008!

O… M… G… “Lost” execs Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters conference this year!

 ”Lost” is one of my all-time favorite shows, and I listen to the official podcast religiously. I’ll be interning at the conference again this year, so I just hope I get a chance to at least hear them speak.

 Exciting!!!

“The Multimedia Journalist”

Week 7 Reading

As multiple guest speakers in our Writing for the Media Professional have said, print journalists are now having to supplement their traditional written stories with multimedia such as videos, slideshows and podcasts. The above article details how one particular journalist is doing this, and overall, it’s pretty similar to what I’ve heard in class.

You have to be a jack of all media, but come from a strong foundation of good writing and storytelling. Master the basics, but be adaptable to new technologies. Teach yourself on the job, then teach your colleagues. Etc., etc., etc.

It’s true that consumers of media are expecting/demanding multimedia content more and more, but if the examples I’ve seen are good indicators, print media isn’t keeping up as well as they may think.

Newspapers are good at in-depth stories, moment-capturing photos, and being, well, tangible. However newspaper reporters are not good at audio and video… yet.

Corvallis, Oregon paper, The Gazette-Times is integrating multimedia into their website. The latest video is a montage of poorly-shot clips about the Oregon Humane Society, simply titled “Dog Rescue“. The audio isn’t balanced, some of the video is shaky, and overall composition and picture quality are sub-par. Theresa Hogue’s latest podcasts feature better audio, but could use some editing.

The Oregonian is (expectedly) producing better multimedia content, such as the award-winning coverage of the Kim family tragedy. However, the continuity among topics is atrocious; there’s no consistent branding or format. Hopefully this will get straightened out as the website improves.

The New York Times has a great video selection, but almost appears to be tending toward either soft news or specialized features other than hard news reports. This is probably wise, considering the content is more easily re-purposed and evergreen. However it’s kind of missing the point of the immediacy of the Internet. Reporters could be streaming video from location, or at least decreasing their turnaround time on content to take advantage of the medium.

Newspapers think they need to provide multimedia content for their readers, but I believe the truth is that unless their content is top-notch and in line with their reputation and mission statement, they might as well stop trying. No medium has to be everything, and each should figure out what it can effectively provide instead of spreading too thin.

Oh, Public Broadcasting, How I Love Thee

I just read a NY Times article saying that while public television is suffering, public radio is thriving. What hit me hard about this was that as a heavy television viewer, I must admit that while I don’t watch much public TV, I sure am a sucker for public radio. When did this happen?!

Being raised on shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Reading Rainbow, I automatically defend public television when I hear people say there’s nothing good on it. Besides the children’s programming (although I must admit Sesame Street sure seems to have gone downhill since Elmo exploded on the scene), there are still shows like Nova, Scientific American Frontiers, Austin City Limits, and American Masters, not to mention many stellar miniseries and locally-produced programs. However, if I were to log how many hours per week I spend watching public television versus how many hours per week I spend listening to public radio, the latter would win by far.

I began listening to public radio when my boyfriend was hired at Oregon Public Broadcasting. I’d tune in around the top of the hour just to hear his voice on the radio. Well, a funny thing happened: I started listening even when he wasn’t working. I set my alarm clock to OPB, and programmed the first favorite on my car radio to OPB. I’d wake up to Ira Glass telling me a story and start my day in a good mood. Or I’d have a “driveway moment” listening to On the Media.

When I had to set my alarm earlier in the day, I started subscribing to the This American Life podcast. Now I listen on my iPod when I walk to school every morning. This ability to be both time-shifted and portable is what really makes public radio appealing. Audio podcasts are cheaper to produce and share than are video podcasts or streaming video. Also, isolating only one sense (sound) to pay attention to content allows the consumer’s other senses to be attentive to other activities. Radio lends to multitasking better than television does, especially if it’s mobile.

So while my heart will always belong to television, because of its superb content and ease of consumption, public radio will always have a soft spot, too, and I doubt I’m the only person who feels this way.

“What if There Were an eBay for News?”

Week 6 Reading

Reporterist.com co-founder Sindya Bhanoo has created something wonderful– if it’s all it says it is. In this interview, Bhanoo describes Reporterist as a “news exchange where freelancers and editors can connect”, meaning a device for reporters to sell their stories via the Internet. This sounds great to me, except for one thing: how do editors know that reporters are reliable? I understand that eventually freelancers have reputations, but if this service is opened up to the public (like Bhanoo said it would eventually), then how can sources be trusted? Who’s doing the fact-checking?

In the Society of Professional Journalists freelance directory, freelancers provide samples of work and state previous experience.  I assume Reporterist does something similar (I tried to register, but have yet to receive a confirmation e-mail). This is fine for people who have worked as journalists in professional settings, but what about the budding citizen journalist? How seriously will publications take these people?

Bhanoo hopes Reporterist will someday be a sort of wire service– the Reuters for freelancers, if you will. This seems like a brilliant idea, but for the service to be trusted and used, there must be strict criteria for writers, implemented in a user-friendly submission interface. Bhanoo has great ideas. Let’s just hope she’s able to practically implement them.

“The New Ettiquette for Our Time-Shifted Culture”

Week 5 Reading

In this MediaShift blog post, Mark Glaser describes how television time-shifting devices like TiVo are changing interpersonal relationships. He offers etiquette tips to friends of time-shifters (side note: how futuristic does that sound?), concluding that it’s most polite to ask if your friend’s seen the big game before talking about it with him.

This seems like a good rule of thumb for people who routinely converse with time-shifting sports fans, but I wouldn’t say that it applies to the general population. As far as I can tell, while DVRs are becoming increasingly mainstream, they aren’t yet the norm. So for the effort to be placed on the non-time-shifting friend seems a bit out of balance.

As a TV-obsessed college student, I pretty much assume that my peers a) don’t own a DVR, and b) probably don’t watch as much TV as I do. So when I mention something on television, I tend to first ask, “Do you watch [x]?”, then move forward with the conversation. They can stop me if they haven’t seen what I’m talking about yet.

While no college students I know use DVRs, more and more seem to be consuming video through the Internet. For example, during a night course last term I remember chatting with a friend about how I hope we get out in time for Heros. She reminded me that she watches it whenever she wants online. Many television programs are now available streaming on the Internet, so instead of investing in a DVR and cable subscription, it’s cheapest and often easiest to watch online. However, in my personal experience, only devoted fans or those looking to become devoted fans take advantage of this service.

In short, yes, be considerate of others if you know they time-shift, but for right now, it’s safe to assume most people don’t.

“Generation Me vs. You Revisited”

Week 4 Reading

This article discusses the rise of narcissistic behavior in today’s young adults, attributing some of it to new media websites such as Facebook and YouTube. While I do agree that young people today seem to have narcissistic traits, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them narcissists.

Having a narcissistic father has taught me much about the disorder– mainly that it is something that is clinically diagnosed and is an often misused term. True narcissists are self-deluded individuals who aren’t aware that there’s anything wrong with believing they’re more important than the rest of the world. This is not an accurate description of those of “Generation Me”.

The current generation of young people may seem narcissistic, but I believe they’re more ignorant. As the article describes, baby boomer parents tended to pump self-esteem into their children, now resulting in a generation of ignorance. If a person grows up hearing from their parents how great they are, why wouldn’t he believe it? If no one else of significance (a teacher or coach, perhaps) ever told him that he had to earn recognition and praise, of course he might seem narcissistic. However, I believe that as this “Generation Me” ages and matures, people will figure out that their relatively sheltered upbringing isn’t an accurate depiction of the “real world”.

There will always be selfish people, and there will always be narcissists. This generation may have a few more, but I have faith that the intelligent ones will rise above the stereotype.

As for sites like Facebook and YouTube contributing to the trend, I think it’s possible. MySpace is by far more egocentric than Facebook, though, and all three sites are propagated by their social networking and sharing attributes– not simply being platforms for self-indulgence.

If any new media concept should be blamed for an increase in narcissistic behavior, I would say it’s blogging. Journalism blogs may be relevant to a wide span of people, but what about the 14,971,514 LiveJournals in existence? When someone writes about what their cat did that day and expects people to read it, isn’t that more narcissistic than having a Facebook profile?