I've have been having a Facebook account for a while now - actually only because my best friend kept bugging me about it. She was right thought, after having moved over here, Facebook seemed like a great medium to stay in touch. So I filled in the gaps and added some pictures.
After a while (I actually gathered some friends) I started receiving those mails from Facebook: "Someone wrote on your Fun Wall!", "Someone has sexy flirted with you!" and "You've been poked!". Hhmm... I wondered: What is a Fun Wall and where would I possibly have a thing like this? Flirting? If someone flirts with me, I usually realize this. And poke?? When did I get poked? So I ignored those mails for quite a while and deleted them. Just did not make too much sense to me.
But! Last week in class w got assigned to "go further" or "try new things" concerning social media. Instead of opening another account on myspace or any other of these platforms, I was going to actually read all the Facebook emails and see what's behind them.
Turns out: Some of them are games that can be played over time with friends on Facebook. Others are applications that - not sure, but I think - allow you to goof around with other friends having the same applications in their profile. So I spent about two whole hours replying all those requests, pokes, Fun Walls and anything else that piled up in my Inbox on Facebook.
Honestly, I got bored after a while. Especially since I seem to have two different kinds of friends in my Facebook: The ones I can send all kinds of crap to play with and the ones that might get annoyed by me forwarding all that stuff. So I had only a few possibilities to choose from when doing all those games and applications. Since the game often requests that you forward things to 8 - 15 friends, I got 8 - 15 friends now who have several requests from me in their mailbox.
Bottom line: Facebook (and I guess it's the same with other social media) is a great tool to keep in touch and see what's going on with some close and less close friends. But if you want to take part in ALL the games, applications and requests, you end up spending soo much time online, that you really only have the Internet and its social media platforms as a social connection to the outer world...
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Reflection on a start
The end of the semester is in sight - finally. But with the joy of this fact and the almost reachable summer break, a tide schedule, short nights and smoking brains come along. It's almost the end of the semester - it's test and paper and final project time.
So for my Mcom63 class we ought to do a final media project. Gladly I found someone in class that shares the same interest and was willing to form a team with me. Thanks Tricia!
Starting off with this final project was not too hard so far. We decided on a topic pretty fast and since Tricia is a very passionate hockey fan (as I consider myself rather as a casual one), the ideas about content and the usage of different media came into our minds quite easy.
I guess the both of us want to create a fun project that's fun to watch and/or to participate in. I must say it's maybe not the most creative or most unique project ever - but I am convinced that with our content ideas, we will spark this thing and make it interesting.
Actually, I'm pretty excited about doing this. It's not a final project like in the other classes - it's actually a fun one (sorry to all my other instructors - nothing personal). So I don't think doing this is a waste of time, not at all! Even if the project itself will not be the greatest ever, it still will give me some good basic knowledge, I can gather some experience, learn something and actually show what I learned so far in class. And that's been quite a bit - I started off with only a clue of what's possible.
Compared to the in lab projects and assignments, the final one seems like a big firework of all we did so far. It's like puzzling: Gathering all the single parts, bring them together and we will get one picture of something bigger. I like that.
With Tricia as partner this teamwork has turned out working great so far. We divide up different tasks as we go along the project, add or remove ideas and just take one step after the other after each fulfilled job. So we will be working quite equally, splitting jobs according to talents and know how, time and possibilities. Actually it doesn't matter how much we spend on the thing - we just want to reach what we picture: An interesting, watch worthy, diverse media project.
So for my Mcom63 class we ought to do a final media project. Gladly I found someone in class that shares the same interest and was willing to form a team with me. Thanks Tricia!
Starting off with this final project was not too hard so far. We decided on a topic pretty fast and since Tricia is a very passionate hockey fan (as I consider myself rather as a casual one), the ideas about content and the usage of different media came into our minds quite easy.
I guess the both of us want to create a fun project that's fun to watch and/or to participate in. I must say it's maybe not the most creative or most unique project ever - but I am convinced that with our content ideas, we will spark this thing and make it interesting.
Actually, I'm pretty excited about doing this. It's not a final project like in the other classes - it's actually a fun one (sorry to all my other instructors - nothing personal). So I don't think doing this is a waste of time, not at all! Even if the project itself will not be the greatest ever, it still will give me some good basic knowledge, I can gather some experience, learn something and actually show what I learned so far in class. And that's been quite a bit - I started off with only a clue of what's possible.
Compared to the in lab projects and assignments, the final one seems like a big firework of all we did so far. It's like puzzling: Gathering all the single parts, bring them together and we will get one picture of something bigger. I like that.
With Tricia as partner this teamwork has turned out working great so far. We divide up different tasks as we go along the project, add or remove ideas and just take one step after the other after each fulfilled job. So we will be working quite equally, splitting jobs according to talents and know how, time and possibilities. Actually it doesn't matter how much we spend on the thing - we just want to reach what we picture: An interesting, watch worthy, diverse media project.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Not enough!
Mass media is also a mass OF media. That there are media everywhere we look and don’t look is no news. Sometimes it gets really annoying to have a 24/7 full media coverage over a topic that does seem important to some of us, but not to most of us. Or to receive breaking news that are not that big of a deal (I remember canceling my CNN Breaking News E-Mail alert after having received the ultimate breaking news that George W. chocked on a pretzel…).
Anyway. Have you ever felt you just don’t get enough media coverage? Probably not. You might have experienced not getting a story about a topic you really cared fore.
And this is where I come in. That’s exactly my problem right now and might remain until end of June.
Here’s the deal: This summer, the worlds second largest Soccer event takes place, it’s called "EURO 08".
The Euro is the soccer championship among 16 European soccer teams competing in 4 groups. If your are just a little bit of a soccer fan, you know what I am talking about. This years tournament (it’s held every 4 years) will take place in Switzerland and Austria. And as you might have learned from my former blog posts: I am Swiss…
Very bitter to have a huge event taking place in your country – and you’re not there. But even worse is the fact that I haven’t found a TV channel yet that will broadcast the games!
So what I want to point out: Even if we have so much news coverage from around the world at every single minute of the day – there are still gaps, large gaps! At least in my book… Not sure if anyone shares this, but I would say you just can’t have enough media coverage.
P.S. If anyone has an idea where I could see a live stream of the games, please let me know…
Anyway. Have you ever felt you just don’t get enough media coverage? Probably not. You might have experienced not getting a story about a topic you really cared fore.
And this is where I come in. That’s exactly my problem right now and might remain until end of June.
Here’s the deal: This summer, the worlds second largest Soccer event takes place, it’s called "EURO 08".
The Euro is the soccer championship among 16 European soccer teams competing in 4 groups. If your are just a little bit of a soccer fan, you know what I am talking about. This years tournament (it’s held every 4 years) will take place in Switzerland and Austria. And as you might have learned from my former blog posts: I am Swiss…
Very bitter to have a huge event taking place in your country – and you’re not there. But even worse is the fact that I haven’t found a TV channel yet that will broadcast the games!
So what I want to point out: Even if we have so much news coverage from around the world at every single minute of the day – there are still gaps, large gaps! At least in my book… Not sure if anyone shares this, but I would say you just can’t have enough media coverage.
P.S. If anyone has an idea where I could see a live stream of the games, please let me know…
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Video Project
My school video project had several stages; stages of productions, stages of frustration and finally stages of satisfaction.
Making the footage was a bit difficult. Since I don't own a video camera I used my regular photo camera. Turns out: It's hard to stay stable while taping with such a small camera...
Editing the whole material I had on the other hand was fun. Got to play quite a bit with imovie (the 2008 version that I have not figured so far...), added some text and other features. The result was a happy-maker, even thought it's not the greatest home video in history. But hey, it's my first one at all : )
A bummer was the exporting-and-uploading-to-the-class-blog-thing... Just couldn't get the movie exportet in a propper, website friendly way. So as last solution I uploaded the thing on youtube...
See how the movie from the Sharks game turned out.
And who knows? I might get more familiar with imovie 08 and become a professional home video maker... : )
Making the footage was a bit difficult. Since I don't own a video camera I used my regular photo camera. Turns out: It's hard to stay stable while taping with such a small camera...
Editing the whole material I had on the other hand was fun. Got to play quite a bit with imovie (the 2008 version that I have not figured so far...), added some text and other features. The result was a happy-maker, even thought it's not the greatest home video in history. But hey, it's my first one at all : )
A bummer was the exporting-and-uploading-to-the-class-blog-thing... Just couldn't get the movie exportet in a propper, website friendly way. So as last solution I uploaded the thing on youtube...
See how the movie from the Sharks game turned out.
And who knows? I might get more familiar with imovie 08 and become a professional home video maker... : )
Not so bad at last
So I spent some time thinking about what a good topic for this weeks blog post could be... something with media.
Media. The word media is often mentioned in a negative sentence. "The media makes a hype out of this." "The media adulterates the story." "You can't trust the media."
I don't want to get too deep into this subject - it would overdraw a simple blog post. I rather pick a specific little niche that affected me today.
As mentioned before, I'm an international student from Switzerland. This makes a distance of some 4900 miles or so between me and my family, my friends and practically my former life.
Ten years ago, I was an exchange student up in Minnesota. The distance then to Switzerland was - of course - the same. But then, one minute of a phone call back home cost about $2.-. So I got to talk to my family about once a month and even then for only 20 minutes or less. This was just expensive! So we worte lots of letters and sent faxes which were pretty convenient then.
Today, the distance between Switzerland and me seems to have decreases. Not by distance - but by reachability. I talked to my parents today over Skype, like I do pretty much every other day. I got a few e-mails from my best friend, former co-worker, one from my brother and some from buddys back home. None of them was important in its content - but it was important to me to get them.
Skype is one of the greatest inventions of the last couple of years - at least in my opinion. Not to mention e-mail...!
To support the positive influences and aspects media can have, I want to add another example; this time it doesn't affect me that much.
You might have heard or read about the $100.- Computer or the project called "One Laptop per Child" . Briefly summarized it's the vision to make the Internet and the knowledge and source of information that comes with it accessable to everyone, especially in third world countries. The motivation: If poor, underdeveloped countries have access to the Internet, they can use the data autobahn to look up information about sickness, health, prevention, learn languages, get education, get in touch with the rest of the world... You name it!
Imagine this would work someday. Thanks to the Internet. And therefore thanks to the media.
Frankly: Media is not all bad, evil and negative influence. It depends on what you make of it, how, when and what you consume. So actually if you have a bad media experience, you might just have made a bad choice.
Media. The word media is often mentioned in a negative sentence. "The media makes a hype out of this." "The media adulterates the story." "You can't trust the media."
I don't want to get too deep into this subject - it would overdraw a simple blog post. I rather pick a specific little niche that affected me today.
As mentioned before, I'm an international student from Switzerland. This makes a distance of some 4900 miles or so between me and my family, my friends and practically my former life.
Ten years ago, I was an exchange student up in Minnesota. The distance then to Switzerland was - of course - the same. But then, one minute of a phone call back home cost about $2.-. So I got to talk to my family about once a month and even then for only 20 minutes or less. This was just expensive! So we worte lots of letters and sent faxes which were pretty convenient then.
Today, the distance between Switzerland and me seems to have decreases. Not by distance - but by reachability. I talked to my parents today over Skype, like I do pretty much every other day. I got a few e-mails from my best friend, former co-worker, one from my brother and some from buddys back home. None of them was important in its content - but it was important to me to get them.
Skype is one of the greatest inventions of the last couple of years - at least in my opinion. Not to mention e-mail...!
To support the positive influences and aspects media can have, I want to add another example; this time it doesn't affect me that much.
You might have heard or read about the $100.- Computer or the project called "One Laptop per Child" . Briefly summarized it's the vision to make the Internet and the knowledge and source of information that comes with it accessable to everyone, especially in third world countries. The motivation: If poor, underdeveloped countries have access to the Internet, they can use the data autobahn to look up information about sickness, health, prevention, learn languages, get education, get in touch with the rest of the world... You name it!
Imagine this would work someday. Thanks to the Internet. And therefore thanks to the media.
Frankly: Media is not all bad, evil and negative influence. It depends on what you make of it, how, when and what you consume. So actually if you have a bad media experience, you might just have made a bad choice.
Monday, April 7, 2008
BBC goes digital
The plans BBC has concerning the Internet and the expand that comes with its use upsets not only workers but also private media companies.
The BBC employees fear for their jobs after board members approved salary concessions and job cuts.
On the other side there are the private media provider such as NBS Universal as an example. Companies like this fear for the loss of viewers and advertising revenue. Since BBC is financed by tax payers, the media corporation does not depend on income made by advertising which gives BBC an advantage that could be lethal to its competitors who depend on advertising revenue which is hooked on the viewers.
If BBC does put its entire content online, the advertising industry will certainly not be untouched. As mentioned, BBC does not depend on advertising money - at least up until now. Time will show how the UK government thinks about this very fact if BBC makes a fortune with its expanding plans.
Therefore BBC could easily dump prices for TV spots on BBC America and endanger competitive corporations who ask for lots of money for theirs advertising space.
Further, BBC will be able to offer a very fine geographic – maybe even behavioristic – segmentation for advertisers. Depending on what show is seen where in the world, ads can vary and addressing a message to a target group that it might be simpler as 1 + 1 in the future.
But then on the other hand I don’t see any danger as of today. Not to workers – BBC created 700 new digital jobs – and not for competitive corporations. At the end it will be, just like always, the viewer who decides if BBC’s Internet- and expanding plans will be a success – or just another try in a hype.
The BBC employees fear for their jobs after board members approved salary concessions and job cuts.
On the other side there are the private media provider such as NBS Universal as an example. Companies like this fear for the loss of viewers and advertising revenue. Since BBC is financed by tax payers, the media corporation does not depend on income made by advertising which gives BBC an advantage that could be lethal to its competitors who depend on advertising revenue which is hooked on the viewers.
If BBC does put its entire content online, the advertising industry will certainly not be untouched. As mentioned, BBC does not depend on advertising money - at least up until now. Time will show how the UK government thinks about this very fact if BBC makes a fortune with its expanding plans.
Therefore BBC could easily dump prices for TV spots on BBC America and endanger competitive corporations who ask for lots of money for theirs advertising space.
Further, BBC will be able to offer a very fine geographic – maybe even behavioristic – segmentation for advertisers. Depending on what show is seen where in the world, ads can vary and addressing a message to a target group that it might be simpler as 1 + 1 in the future.
But then on the other hand I don’t see any danger as of today. Not to workers – BBC created 700 new digital jobs – and not for competitive corporations. At the end it will be, just like always, the viewer who decides if BBC’s Internet- and expanding plans will be a success – or just another try in a hype.
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