Turn Your Life Into A Truman Show

This article reminds of the movie the Truman Show.

If you haven't seen it, if i can remember, it's about a guy that is actually living his life in a movie. Everything he does from going to the bathroom to his most intimate relations are filmed and people watch it outside of his world. Everyone in his world is playing along in the movie as actors, yet he doesn't know this. He thinks it's his real life. He eventually starts to realize that some things are just not normal and figures out that his life has been a movie.

How would you like it if your whole entire life, or at least parts of your life, were recorded and filmed? This means that the rest of the world could eventually look you up and see your whole, recorded life.

Well all your dreams can come true with Gordon Bell's new and inventive SenseCam. Bell invented this device to hang around his neck so that he could recored and picture everything in his life, in photo form, that he wanted. He tried it himself and would save everything from restaurant receipts(take photos of them), to bill and medical records, and daily life adventures. In the article, a reporter talks to him and asks him questions about how he uses it and what kind of effects this could bring to our society if everyone used it in the future. The SenseCam's overall purpose it to record all of these things so that you can look them later to remind yourself or show other people your past and life. After recording everything you upload it to PDF form on your computer and it is saved for ever! So 30 years down the road, you could, or anyone could, look at it again.

I think this device is very interesting but could cause a lot of problems in the future. It may be very helpful for some people to have this on an everyday basis if they have problems remembering things, or are older. You could look at it like a movie later on and see the things you used to do or even things to remind you about, like a grocery list. With this device you do have the power to use it when you please or not. So it's not exactly recording every motion and thing you do unless you want it to.

What do you think? Do you think you would want a device like this to record your life?

Ad Shift Throws Blogs a Business Lifeline

In this article, Claire Cain Miller reports on a small blogging website that has now become a media empire and why this website and others like it are starting to attract ad dollars while magazines are losing them.

This article was interesting to me because as an advertising major I like to keep updated on the different ways to advertise a product, especially on the web. Blogging websites are becoming the new way for national and regional companies to advertise.

This article introduces you to Lisa and Brian Sugar who started Sugar Inc. four years ago. What started as a celebrity gossip blog has now grown into a media empire that publishes 12 blogs and has 11 million readers a month, which are attracting advertisers like Chanel and Sony. The company has reported that their ad revenue has increased 20% in the first half of the year and they are on track to doubling their revenue and turning a profit this year.

Gawker Media was one the earliest and now the biggest blog networks reports that their ad revenue was up 45% in the first half of this year. Gawker Media has eight blogs and 20 million monthly readers.

According to Publishers Information Bureau, magazine ad revenues have dropped 21% in the first half of this year and the number of ad pages sold has dropped 28%.

With their narrow-topics, competing content, and business models, blogging websites are driving their readers back many times a day, which in turn is attracting their advertisers. Shenan Reed, a founder of Morpheus Media, said, “When you’re dealing with a company where the editorial control is living under one roof, you feel like there’s a consistency in the message, which is what makes Sugar, Gawker and Curbed fantastically interesting to us.”

It will be interesting to see where advertising on the web will go next!

President's opinion of Kanye West sparks debate

Saw this article just now... President's opinion of Kanye West sparks debate
I thought it was topical. It brings up journalistic ethics and twitter. The question that is brought up toward the end is whether or not the president should be able to speak "off record," and I thought it was a good question as well as the implecations of how news media is getting left in the dust by technology.Personally, I think he was a jackass too!

College Student Change their way of communication

This article talks about how college students change their way of communication by using a social network called Facebook.
I agree what Raley Parker says because Facebook is an easier and faster way to communicate with people. Some people not only use this network to have friends they also use it as a way to post and blog about other stuff, as the example professor Raley Parker gives us; use facebook to post class notes and the syllabus.
It is easy convinient and free to talk to as many people as you want, the only issue here is that people should be aware of what kind of information and personal information they give to other people. I heard about a case that a Mexican girl gave so much information on her facebook account that she got kidnapped and then killed because her parents couldn't pay the amount of money. So be careful with what you use in your daily bases and don't take advantage of it.
Some people don't even know about this social cite because there are so many to chose from out there however if you are not that aware of this social cite here it is more information about Facebook.

What's next?

Will the email disappear?
What will be the next digital form of communication?

Alex Iskold in his blog presents the different form of communication we are using, the ones we might use and the one that we use less today.
He explains the difference between:

• Email vs. Mail
• Phone vs. Chat
• Newspapers vs. Blogs
• Electrodes vs. Twitter

It is interesting how he explains that the email is a lot faster to reach someone than a mail. And because it is faster and free we tend to send more emails. It is an easy and fast way to communicate so we tend to send more emails with less information whereas before we would send less mails but one mail would contain more information than 10 emails.

The phone stays a effective way to communicate, it is easier to talk that to type for some people and via the phone the messages is delivered in a better way. On the phone we can hear the tone of the person talking, it is easier to understand if the person is laughing or being sarcastic. The chat is toneless and we can be confused and misunderstand what the other person is talking about.

Blogs has definitely an advantage over the newspaper : FEEDBACK. The blogger can receive feedback and exchange ideas, support and argue the author. The newspaper readers can send letters to the newspaper and discuss an article, but he is not sure that his letter would be published, and the newspaper can not reply to him. Whereas the blogger in one click and few words can express his opinion.

Twitter is the newest way to communicate online, people are sending each other videos. What is a best way to communicate than images and sound? The author of the article wonders what will be the next digital way of communication and if in a short or long term emails would be less used.

Communication is so fast nowadays that it is hard to keep up the rhythm. I'm still writing emails and haven't used twitter yet. When I will first use twitter, most of people would probably be communicating through another new digital way.

Xobni and Digsby

Managing the numerous social networking sites, e-mail accounts, and instant messaging programs can be a hassle when trying to keep up with family and friends who are on different services. I have found and am using 2 programs that makes this clutter of communication outlets a little easier.

Xobni ("inbox" backwards) is a sidebar for outlook which can index your past and present e-mails and the contacts who send and receive them. it creates profiles where you can view their linked in and facebook information and even creates histograms for each contact so you can see who you email the most.

Digsby is an all-in-one messenger program which lets you access and control almost all of the popular instant messengers, social networking accounts, email accounts including IMAP and POP as well as hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc.

With an increasing world population using so many of these services, there are now more creative ways of managing your internet social life.

Google Wave

On September 30^th Google started sending out Wave invitations to 100, 000 people in the general public. If successful Google Wave hopes to change the way we interact and redefine the web, as we know it.

What is a Wave? In Google’s words it “is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

What does that mean for us? Basically Google is trying to combine email, instant messaging, social networking, entertainment, media sharing, project management, document creation and pretty much everything we do on a computer into sharable Waves. These waves will be fully customizable and extendable by the user and will be embedded into a website that will be accessible through any Internet capable device; computer, phone etc.

Google Wave will be rewindable allowing its user to go back in time to see the developments of conversations and content. It will also be live allowing real time conversations and interactions to take place.

Google Wave could very well be the next internet craze that is used be people all over the world, however I don't think this will be an overnight sensation that everyone is using a year from now, I think it will take a few years to catch on and be used and understood by the Internet community.

Influence of Social Networking in the Job Market

Today we all have some sort of networking site. Whether it be Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or other types of blogs and social communication sites. But do we ever really think about how this could effect us in the future?

An article, on emarketer.com, shows a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com showing us how having these interavtive social sites could either hurt or help you in the professional world. So many people post comments, pictures, videos, and other things on these sites to share with family and friends. The survey conducted showed the percentage of US Human Resources Professionals who use social networking sites to research job candidates. You will be happy to know the majority, 44 percent, of them currently do not research people in that way and have no plans on doing it in the future. (See graph below to get exact percentages.)

It would be interesting to know how many of these people that are doing the hiring actually have a social network of their own.

It would be horrible to have not gotten a job because the employer saw some pictures of you in your swimsuit or acting like an immature person on these sites. The article also shows specific reasons for why an employer did not hire a person because of these sites. After viewing the persons social network, the US Humans Resources Professionals disregarded job candidates for different reasons. The reason most people didn't get hired for the position was because the job candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information (at 53 percent). (Exact percentages below.)

Another part of the article did show the benefits of having a social network. The professionals may have saw the person in a more positive way and gave them a better idea of the persons personality. The network could have also showed a creative side to the person or great comments made

about that person from other people. I think this is interesting because when going to a job interview you may feel more tense and scared to be yourself. But your social network may help you look more fun and outgoing, and that could be something the employer didn't see in your interview.

Having a social network is not a bad thing. But I do think people need to be more careful of how they protray themselves on the internet. When you are seriously looking for a career job it might be a good idea to fix your privacy settings on your Facebook or Myspace.

Industry Leader Puts Restrictions on Independent Demonstrators’ Electronic Communications

Stampin’ Up! (SU), the largest home-party company in the rubber stamping and scrap book industry, made big waves when it announced changes to the company’s Independent Demonstrator Agreement (IDA) on September 1^st, 2009.

Since the initial announcement, SU has lightened some of the restrictions put on demonstrators affecting all forms of electronic communication, but if a demonstrator blogs, uses Face Book, My Space, Twitter, or links to other blogs or sites, they are still bound by a set of rules that have many SU demonstrators rethinking their relationship with the company.

In an article posted on the examiner.com site on September 2nd, 2009 reporter Shemaine Smith outlines many of the new policies that beg the question, does a company like SU have the right to dictate to their independent demonstrators who, what, and how they communicate in the current electronic age?

Here are a couple of examples of the type of issues the new IDA is generating included in the examiner.com article:

Q: On my personal blog, I have links to my friends' personal blogs and web sites. Some of them sell competing product. Do I need to remove these links?

A: Yes. In evaluating the links on your web site, you will need to remove any links to blogs, web sites, or the like that promote, market, or sell competitive products.

Q: Once I sign the new IDA, what am I allowed to have on my blog?

A: The changes restrict you from providing purchasing information, referrals to catalogs or publications, links to blogs or other web sites, or other similar material meant to promote, market, or sell competitive products. For instance, if you created a project that used a wooden block, you could show the project on your blog and mention that you used a wooden block. You could even mention that you purchased the wooden block at a craft store or big box retail store, but you should refrain from giving the name and location of the store, or any other purchasing information.

Typical of those who are in opposition to the new IDA, author and SU demonstrator Cynthia Ewer shares her opinion on the new IDA here.

The bottom-line; the stamping/scrapping/crafting industry is huge. By its very nature, such crafters and artists share ideas and creative inspiration with a large audience. The internet is the perfect forum for such an open exchange, and a company such as SU, that has thousands of demonstrators, looks to limit that exchange while ostensibly protecting its own interests. Have they gone too far? Will leaders in other industries follow suit?

Will newspaper survive in the future?

In march 2009, a Democratic Senator, Benjamin Cardin, introduced a bill, Newspaper Revitalized Act, to help faltering newspaper industry in the digital media age. According to a report of Reuters, the Act "would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies."

Senator Cardin said, "We are losing our newspaper industry....the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy."

The primary goal of the bill was to help local community newspapers, not big major newspapers, by allowing them to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

Here are more specifics:

• Newspapers would report on all of issues, but political endorsements would not be allowed.
• Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt.
• Contributions to support news coverage would be tax deductible.

There is no doubt that newspapers are experiencing significant challenges in particular posed by the Internet and digital communication technologies. More and more people are going online for news and information, and advertising revenue has shrunk dramatically in the past decade. I agreed with the notion that the business model of newspaper industry based on circulation and advertising revenue is no longer effective and that it is time to explore a new sustainable economic model of news journalism through a different relationship with audiences.

Recently in July 2009, South Korea-based citizen media, OhmyNews, presented one interesting concept regarding the new business model of online journalism. OhmyNews was founded in 2000 and has known as the pioneer of citizen journalism.

OhmyNews founder and CEO Oh Yeon Ho announced a statement that asks readers to make financial contributions to make OhmyNEws a truly independent news company. The goal was to attract a 100,000 supporters' club with each member paying about $8 per month. The significant difference of this effort is to directly turn to audiences to figure out a new economic model of online journalism business. As of September 14, 2009, 4, 791 participated in the club.

I think that it is an interesting and important experiment, so let's keep watching how to pan out. To read it in more detail, please read an article in businessWeek.

A new survey found that more people are watching TV on computer, according to an article of LA Times.

This quarterly Consumer Internet Barometer survey found that news shows are viewed by 43% of online watchers, followed by the 35% who watch sitcoms, comedies and dramas. Then it goes down to 19% who view reality shows and 18% favoring sports