juried.media

group four business

2006-11-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

Big Sky, Montana

The Internet: Tool for the Socialist or the Capitalist?

Early in the NTIA conference, someone breached the discussion of rates (money) of Internet access. One participant slowed that discussion in order to pose the question of WHY it is important to have the access? Why is it important for individuals and, likewise, how do organizations benefit from having their own portal, or entry point? A parallel question about the importance of library access ensued.

The two main viewpoints (given the finite nature of so many good things) projected were the following:

1) USA democratic ideal involves equality, equal opportunities for everyone (social-democracy).

Versus

2) USA is a vast nation filled with opportunities, existing for those who work hard to achieve.

Examples of overcoming hurdles through Internet access:

autism activism
I spoke to an autism activist today. She has a child with autism, and is convinced (as others are becoming) that her son was afflicted by the series of inoculations containing mercury mandated by the CDC. The leading advocacy groups in the area, she contends, define autism as a life-long hardship with no available cure. The employee turnover rate at these advocacy groups is very low. Therefore, her son and others like him are not eligible for medical assistance or other funding. The activist is able to bypass the established advocates and bend the ear of journalists, conference members, and families. Adding websites would further lend credibility to the contrary narrative, especially when seeking funding for a new foundation or the like.

MoveOn.org
MoveOn.org (the name of organization and the website name held in the same regard) has networked extensively by collecting and disseminating information via the Internet. Specific case of David and Goliath: Promoting of watchdog journalism and local reporting at corporately-held newspapers.

RightOn.com
Others just tryin' to make a livin' and to change the status quo opinion of minorities.

Hmmm. What really happens when everyone is given the same opportunity? Are we all really destined to be superstars, with our very own YouTube rating? One take: A recent workplace survey of 16,237 workers by Leadership IQ, a leadership training and research firm in Washington, D.C., found that the work place is separated into two groups: the high performers and the low performers ("slackers"). According to the report (anf from personal experience), high performers hate slackers. The report furthers that "eighty-seven percent of (high performers) say working with a low performer or a slacker has actually made them want to change jobs. They're really sick of having to carry the load for everybody else."

alternatives to media

2006-11-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

Dan Gillmor & alternative media

The 1994 online conference of the NTIA placed 80 log-in locations in an effort to create a trial atmosphere for direct democracy. The conference members discuss through a commentary registered online.

Some of the futuristic models from the participants underestimated the ingenuity within the digital media industry. Some of the notes of idealism, however, are nurtured through the collective input of a weblog or a wiki.

A blog is perhaps written by the few, is supplemented by comments from readers. Wikis allow competing ideas into the arena, to battle for supremacy, edited by anyone who deems themselves capable. Both methods lend themselves to democratic ideals. Equal representation, equal time, equal weight. Frustration: Now you need less authoritative legitimacy, resting instead with informational legitimacy. Frustration: Now exists truly the armchair quarterback, the armchair politician. It doesn’t seem quite “equal.”

Access will always be an issue for entry into the arena of ideas. One must have access to technology and to the education to learn how to use it. Not only learning how to utilize the com tech tool, but access to even knowing that it exists. Then having the wherewithal to know what to do with it…and there’s not enough of that to go around, it seems.

((Seriously, pops. What is this, everyone loves the microphone these days? Are there no shy people left on this planet? Or, has the blog/wiki wave empowered society to take that microphone and shout it out, sistah! There are so many voices. Maybe because you can hide behind a certain amount of anonymity. Come out, you gamers!))

After speaking with Group Four this afternoon over coffee, I am convinced that the listserv is the most powerful Internet communication technology. The listserv can send information into the minds of many; it allows members to reconnect with similar, supporting information or conflicting discussion points. The voices can then unite and send their peer-reviewed conclusion to a legislator or representative. One united message to a targeted audience.

scattered, smothered, & covered, flattened and numerified

2006-10-30T11:06:00.000-08:00

Fall Sky Seattle
October 2006

FLATTENERS 7 & 8: WalMart & UPS

Basically, we have two companies with two different areas of expertise.

WALMART: Horizontal collaboration to create value, and "postponement." Balancing reliability and low-cost; refraining from adding value until the last moment.

UPS: "Insourcing." Consulting with other companies to achieve parity with competing firms. Achieving maximum efficiency in packaging, tracking and delivery.

WalMart is really a service company, does not make a single thing, yet is the biggest retail company in the world. With 4000 stores in the US, the media is currently discussing WalMart’s episodes abroad. WalMart recently retreated from the German and South Korean front, while a battle with French-megamart Carrefour has ignited for “hypermarche” sovereignty in China. Carrefour, French for “crossroads,” currently has 200-plus outlets (83 Carrefour and 230 other Dia discount stores) in China to Wal-Mart's 66 stores in the Chinese market. While 200+ stores may seem like a windfall for the French company, the Chinese market only represented 2.0% of Carrefour’s global revenue of nearly 2 billion (source: CNNMoney.com).

Friedman discusses WalMart as the principal innovator in balancing reliability and low cost. This balancing act attends to both product selection and product delivery. On the product selection end, WalMart has standardized the products in homes across America. Viva solidarity through limited consumer selection. We can all have the standard-issue toaster, the standard-issue romance novel and the non-scandalous rap CDs: From Arkansas to West Virginia. Hallelujah. (Please pardon the cynicism; the mid-term election rhetoric from the weekend is still ringing in my ears.) Thanks to the Pottery Barns and Banana Republics, even the upper-middle class can mimic interior designs on a more elevated schedule.

Still, there is an evident, growing demand for instant reflexes in business and an increase in customization (cars, computers, education). Take Nordstrom and their return policy. Girls, you know how much this really means: Nordstrom will take clothing returns without a receipt and without a tag, months after the purchase. All of the credit card purchases that a consumer makes can be accessed through the credit card account. By saving this information, Nordies is able to evaluate the customer’s spending habits, style preferences and level of purchasing order (i.e., sales-only customer; higher-end couture or designer client; mom buying for teenaged daughter). That analysis is why I received the holiday season dresses magazine – because I have no control in the Nordstrom shoe department. And Nordies knows that.

My concern, really, is the extent of their reach into my life. Call me anti-modern, or what you will, if I say that my privacy is sacred and I prefer homemade apple pie to a Mickey D’s apple crisp. I appreciate the ability for UPS to weekly deliver millions of packages from one end of the other without breaking an item. Nordstrom carries no fault as they trod toward finding me the perfect shoes to go with the perfect dress for this holiday season. I will have a problem, however, if all of those efficient and accurate systems were to be combined into one ID system, with a profile of my identity as a citizen and consumer . Too many state-wide, nation-wide, international databases, and the world is not the only thing in life that has been flattened.

living in a vacuum

2006-10-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

WHEN ARE WE?

Reading the Atlantic Monthly article (Bush), the question flickered: when was this written? The reflections of Bush, with a few names replaced, could have been written 50 years before or 50 years after the actual date of publication. The turn of the century was bustling with invention, as it passed from the hands of a few to the homes of the middle class. The same could be said of the “maze” of “cheap complex devices of great reliability” that the current population is currently surviving.

Bush nearly passes the Nostradamus test, with his estimations of “dry photography (digital media?)” and the match-book sized encyclopedia. At least in the US, the public library system has put one of those at most fingertips. The author was correct in predicting the emphasis on compression, and making things smaller, cleaner.

In 1945 physicists completed a mini-Kuhnian paradigm cycle. According to Kuhn, science is not a continual, collective acquisition of knowledge. Instead, he wrote, it is "a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions…where one conceptual world view is replaced by another" (Kuhn, 1962). While the medical scientists had found a partnership within country that served as a continuation of wartime research, the target had been literally exterminated for the physical scientists. As the revolution concluded, or the problem was solved, there began to exist a vacuum for physical scientists, at least in a socio-economic sense. Scientists floundered for ways to apply their genius in that vacuum, as their mind’s eye must have struggled to understand two events: the culmination of the previous model for innovators and the shapes and patterns of the next. In 1945 the physicist was left in search of a lightening rod for her gifts.

WHAT WOULD VANNEVAR BUSH FORECAST TODAY?

For innovations in communications, I see two fields of inquiry. First, we are a planet not at peace. There might be more groups capable of recruiting discoveries (i.e., national military, corporate, terrorist factions, wealthy entrepreneurs) than before. The world is more segmented geopolitically than before, and so the ties that bind are fastened a bit more loosely; loyalty is not what it used to be. So, if you are a brilliant scientist, how do you spend your genius credits? Do you reserve the technology for your national military? Would the invention be better utilized in an academic sense?

As we go through Wilson and his extensive list of innovations, it is evident that many scientists have had a feeling of hesitancy when letting go of a brilliant idea. They all run to the patent office! Is that idea of protection still prevalent today? The US West and the silicon nation imagine themselves to have freedom of ideas at the helm, with open source publication of digital programming. Was there a similar cycle of innovation, only at a slower and non-digital pace on the East coast during the radio bulge in the early decades of the 20th century?

Second, there is an iteration of Vannevar’s concern of specialization. This is the point that I was trying to make in class last week, in terms of new discovery and development. There are fewer new platform changes, and more fine-tuning adjustments to old products. At this point in time, most businesses are running with the same, standardized office products. Of course, this was the goal all along: to have cross-industry communications running seamlessly.

It may be that we are at that point where the top of the hill is no longer in sight because we are standing on top of it. This is not a doomsday position that I am taking, and I will warn you in advance of my tendency toward eternal optimism. From the top of this hill, we can see just make out the next peak. Only, the route to the summit is covered with fog, and the way to get there is unclear. If you adhere to the theories of Stephen Hawking, the next peak is not even on this planet. If that is true, the human race would benefit from identifying at which planet to take aim, so that the innovators of our time can begin applying their genius in the grandest “economy of effort.”

Wilson wows the mavens

2006-10-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

Oh the British! After feasting on the grammar reader, Eats Shoots & Leaves, one of the recommended readings for Com 529, I began to read texts with a new interest in dissecting grammar.

With that in mind, I then read Brian Wilson's Media Technology and Society. It became evident, more quickly because of Truss and comma wisdom, that Wilson was British. At learning a bit more about the writer's style, I read on. Until I hit this sentence, from page 60 of Media Technology and Society:

"That we allow broadcasting, a very much more inherently centralized undemocratic and controllable technology, to do this is the obverse of that mark."

Oh the British and their commas (or am I an obtuse reader for having trouble with that sentence). Wilson continues to take on the softer side:

"...now, the telegraph rendered news, like soft fruit, perishable - useless if delayed" (p.28).

Fabulous.

Finally, even though the words are not his own, Wilson shows great taste in pulling from the archives. In describing the dubious status of telephony in 1875, Watson recounts:

"...the two men who were financially and otherwise supporting Bell in his experiments, were urging him to perfect his telegraph, assuring him that then he would have money and time enough to play with his speech-by-telegraph vagary all he pleased."

Vaudevillian.

Wilson confirms prior teaching

2006-10-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Reading Wilson is a confirmation process for me. His approach to communications combines technology, history, individual contributions and linguistics. I think that far too often the study of communications veers too sharply toward public relations, marketing and modern advertising. Those fields, while important to the implementation of targeted goals in communicating with the public, are what interior design and decorating are to architecture and engineering. One is dependent upon a firm foundation of the other.

Wilson also confirmed a sort of Uses and Gratifications Theory without directly addressing it as such. The first three chapters of Media, Technology and Society outline demands for communication technology: News, security (civilian), health, commerce, entertainment and military transmissions. Could all invention be dwindled down to these parental guides? It seems as though invention has a sister named drama. Whilst reading Homer at age 14, my freshman English teacher droned on and on about the finite nature of storylines. No new stories existed past Homer’s creation (how dismal); is it that invention is similarly limited in origination?

Finally, Wilson confirms the importance of looking back at the uses of technology in communications. Recent consumer-level innovations are so easy to use, and require very little understanding of the technologies in place to make devices work. Just touch and go, push and play. Reading Wilson gives a better understanding of the heritage of those items and the long lengths (read: patent marginalia) to which the fathers of communications technology went to insure the survival of their progeny.

seccion uno

2006-10-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

I want to begin the quarter journal writing with a quote from Wilson’s Introduction (p.13):

“It is the ‘law’ of suppression that ensures any new communications technology takes decades to be diffused.”

Taking this phrase word-by-word is useful in discussing the acceptance and usage of technology by the community-at-large. Wilson brings in ‘law’ as a recurrence rather than a certainty. In this case, we welcome the uncertainty of recurrence with regard to man’s chronic motivation to gravitate toward the mean, to remain average, suburban, and lazy.

The act of suppression comes from different places in the heart, however, and motivation can be varied: to profit, to control, to remain average. I think that the suppression of technology, specifically communications technology is primarily driven by fear. The question is: whether or not the fear is generated individually, or if someone in power strategically instills fear of technology in order to control knowledge of the people. Could fear of new things possibly be innate? Isn’t it simply a prejudice, and aren’t prejudicial tendencies a learned behavior?

Technology can solve problems, add efficiency to their workflow and finances, or it relieves the daily stress (from itself) in the form of games or entertainment. It also works as a social separator: you get “it” or you don’t. The final point in Wilson’s declaration is the claim that technology takes “decades to be diffused.” I think that this claim separates society into two types of people: those who seek change and those who fight change and are defeated. You either RSS or you are spammed.

So, does it really take decades to defuse a technology? Or, is it the case that when a technology takes decades to diffuse to the ends of society, only then can we determine that it is a true innovation, and not a “partial prototype.” For instance, the clever websites that only the geeks know about will never make it to the housewives’ bridge meeting newsletter. A technology is, then, defined by its user. If the average man uses or, at least, knows about it, then it exists?

Codecs, Encoders

2006-07-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

bug. JPEG 284kb; created in PS @ 2"x2"

The First Thing
The discussions on codecs and encoders have helped me to understand more clearly the compression that I work with in photography programs. Increased efficiency.

Codec and encoder - the back and forth flow of digital bits. I see it as a flow chart, beginning with the source file. You can never get better than your source file, sorry.

Limited resources, no matter how temporary, calls the question of how to transmit the information to another platform, another operating system, more eyes and ears. Projection is my favorite at the moment. In class, the information is more defined, more precise. Packeting is fabulous.

The Second Thing.
Size, connectivity, audience and the art+science of it all. Like a translation service, talking about codecs, here.

Finally, from the notes:
It is good that the class begins with the mechanics of encoding first. It enriches the further discussions about business and DRM issues.

Blog for DRM

2006-07-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

I do not have any direct experience with DRM.

What comes to mind is a law/legal professor from Florida, a native Miamian.

One of her teaching methods was to bring in random articles from local papers about media law. Louisiana has a sunshine law, Texas not so much. That class was predominantly all women, and the one dude that always publishes baseball murder stories on YouTube - or however you spell that.

What is going to happen to the OED with all of the newer digital terms? It leads me to wonder if there are different periods of time where word orgination occurs at a higher frequency. And then, to ask if we are in one of those periods, and whether or not it has anything to do with Climate Change. Those terms are capitalized, in my dictionary.

DRM IN CLASS
The class has a definite moral struggle with DRM, usage, payment and reasons for deciding on that final point. Does other people, outside of media-centric graduate study classes struggle with these issues? Does suburbia care?

DRM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
What in the hell is going on in Mediterranea??!

Brightcove 1

2006-07-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

Brightcove describes itself as a "cambridge-based Internet TV Company that provides online services for the distribution of video and adverstising." Executives are veteran imports from high profile, but-slowly-creeping-into-yesteryear, networks. Peter Drucker advises to find a niche market with enough profit to stay interesting, and economically suited to keep potential competitors as clients.

Many barriers to entry provide Brightcove with keys to a successful position in the media world:

1. High cost of initial capital expenditure.

A small fortune is required to build the infrastructure to support multiple inputs and outputs within a pixel-laden media service, as advertised on the Brightcove website. Not many companies are able to generate the financial interest to "start-up" a company at the executive level, which makes it further unique.

2. Expertise in high level of technology.

If you are a media company providing services to the biggest and best content providers in the country, you better know what you are doing.

3. Access to high level media contacts and decision makers.

Imagine that your new hire has the cell phone numbers of a senior producers at HBO, the Discovery Channel and the Tribecca Film Festival, and they all have lunch on Fridays: Seriously priceless.

Brightcove 2

2006-07-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

As an interim service provider to major networks, Brightcove reminds me of ABSAT ONE, a company that I ran across at the Democratic National Convention in 2000.

Other broadcasting networks have similar parallel services like ABSAT ONE (or American Broadcasting Satellite 1). The companies formed to connect affiliates to each other by coordinating the satellite transmission and providing field producers at world news events. In the case of ABSAT ONE, a group of 93 member stations were connected through KU uplinks. For instance, KABC out of Los Angeles, CA or KOMO of Seattle, WA.

The member stations would uplink their nightly field casts of the town nearby that flooded or the big bank robbery down town. I don't recall if ABSAT archived any of the feeds, however they did provide the information live. Other stations, and particularly the New York or Washington DC bureaus, would request the video information. ABSAT would then coordinate the satellite transmissions to provide content to the requesting stations.

Like Brightcove, the ABSAT ONE business model succeeds, in part, due to the barriers to entry into the niche market. Access to satellite time is not cheap, and ABSAT offered permissions to nearly eight satellites. The breadth of ABSAT's service would overcome more than one of the troublesome specs (length of broadcast, time zones and lattitudinal coordinates) that would encumber any broadcast producer.

One conceivable difference in the client/provider interface that ABSAT provided versus Brightcove's environment is the standards in technology provided to the clients of the client. That is to say that ABSAT provided video feed, both digital and analog, primarily to and from member stations (the client). The member stations then provided a standard television signal to their client who would receive both the original content and advertising. The end product was a television program to a television monitor.

Brightcove, I feel, faces a distinct challenge to provide a maximum-quality media product to their client that will translate to the clients of the client. For instance, if the end user does not have the relatively intense technology that is required to view the flash videos, the sharp streaming media, then how sustainable is the service to Bluecove's clients. There has to be a middle-ground, steady client stream to sustain the high-profile accounts.

Enter the corporate conference clientele. Brightcove, seemingly, will take the 2006 Neuroscientists' conference and create a branded entertainment piece from the sessions. There must be a market for the industry junkies out there. One look at the revenue generated by conferences, and the promise awakens. If corporations shy not at $700 for a badge, parking and one breakfast keynote for their middle managers, why wouldn't they be interested in, say, a licensing fee for one month of streaming media for entire workgroups.

Class Project Summary

2006-07-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

DELIVERABLES:
Audio streaming media
Podcast: (Windows Media Player) Description of how to use the audio ballot.

Video streaming media
Podcast: (Quicktime)

Introduction
The two pieces of this project would act as support material for the upcoming county-wide implementation of the accessible voting unit (AVU). The machine was purchased to satisfy a federal mandate to implement at least one accessible voting unit in every jurisdiction in the States by 2006, most specifically to blind voters.

Blog translation:
Both of these pieces are job related. I work for King County Elections as a member of the HAVA implementation team. My official title is Training, Education and Outreach Coordinator for the DAVE Project. (Get ready to read some acronyms.)

THE AUDIO
The How to Cast an Audio ballot text already exists in two forms: Braille and HTML. Those two forms were created specifically to provide access to information to voters who are blind, and voters who utilize assistive technologies, such as the text reader JAWS. A sighted web user can also read the text on the screen.

This morning during a team meeting, three representatives from the Paralyzed Veterans of America showed up an hour early for their appointment. Our meeting broke suddenly and we all hustled to put the machine (the accessible voting unit) together before the gentlemen made it from the front desk to our conference room.

The meeting lasted an hour and 15 minutes we discussed how the machine could assist the members of their association; one of the gentlemen closed his eyes and tried to cast an audio ballot; we talked about the difference between typing in words on TTD/TTY, Blackberries, the Treo teletext and the AVU. Listening to three veterans talk about how they would like to see this or that friend vote to test the accessibility given his/her ability.

The creation of a podcast was of particular merit, in the opinion of the Government Relations Director. Evidently there are many veterans who just love that podcast medium.

THE VIDEO
The video component will be a five-chapter poll worker training video. Optimally, every AVU poll judge will watch a copy of the product to best prepare them for the 16-hour day at the polls. A web-based medium might be more accessible to college-age and tech-savvy poll workers, which is exactly the demographic that we are recruiting.

(Aside: There are some pretty nice product shots for a training video, I think. We shot all of the video on HD and had a full lighting crew for two days. (I can’t wait to take that crew to Kilamanjaro.)

There are five distinct chapters in the Poll Worker Training video:
1. Ron Sims Introduction
2. Setting up the Machine
3. Opening the Polls
4. Assisting Voters with Disabilities
5. Closing the Polls

The goal of the project is to have all five chapters available independently via streaming media. The final four chapters are a little over four minutes; the sum of the piece is 17.5 minutes.

Radio Shack memories

2006-07-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

On the road with ABC Sports, the engineers and production management would arrive a week ahead of the producers and talent to build the infrastructure for live programming.

Upon reaching a new city, my first tasks were to locate a 24-hour gymnasium for the technical director, deliver a fresh set of batteries for the production manager’s hearing aid, and to take a Radio Shack request list from the BO&E guys. On the latter task, inevitably there would be cables, connectors or intermediary technology (not batteries; we only used Duracell) that was lost in the move, or was needed to adapt to the new location.

Radio Shack had all of the widgets, but so did this or that store. What set the Shack apart was the geographical consistency, and a supply of generic widgets to complete the circuitry from camera to director to satellite and then on to the consumer. The “generic” part is important for two reasons. First, technology that you might not purchase as a permanent studio addition, but would last long enough for a weekend broadcast. Generic products offer a price break.

Second, to me, Radio Shack represents one of the final stages in the evolution of a marketplace, from a proprietary product or idea, to an industry standard, to the wide availability of a generic version of that product. It seems like WM9 and its relationship with the SMPTE is following along a similar market progression. Not surprisingly, the manufacturer in this case reserves some of the shinier bells and whistles for a higher end version of the product. One bonus could be the addition of a DRM program. The consumer could purchase the simpler version at one price, or download it for free. To protect their concepts & designs, another price and another product.

Wootten calling

2006-07-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

Quicktime overpowers the competition by performing all of the functions for all of the media players. Is that what Wootten is saying here? Was the Quicktime chapter written by an Apple marketing ghostwriter, or by an expert with thoughts on the leading media players, platforms and encoders?

More exciting than a media player and faster than flying there yourself, the Quicktime VR application puts a user where the party is. The producer can take the user to the tip-top of K2, or into the deepest dungeons in Transylvania and give the full story, the full view. Just imagine, producers of political media robbed of their animal behavior practices (picking and choosing the frame, the players, the protocol), and the almighty audience has the opportunity to watch what they want to watch.

I want see this technology move forward into CSPAN’s realm there, on the Senate floor, in the courtroom, or at a White House press conference, the camera would be at the whim of the webuser. No longer confined to the still frame, now we have video stitched together to meet individual technical directio. It is a matter of control. Who should we watch, the politician or the members of the press corps? Think of the reactions that are too often missed because the TD is slow, or the politics of the producer doesn’t allow for a little candid humor.

innovative standards and standard innovations

2006-06-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

Typical. Average. Standard. Not the most effective calling-card adjectives in the media world. Singularly, media firms thrive on ingenuity and innovation to provide unique content to their audience. Collectively, however, they depend on industry or technological standards to insure to that such content reaches consumers as intended.

There are two types of firms in this discussion of the innovation vs. standards evolution. The first group is made up of platform and service providers: innovators in system and software design. Wootten describes the technological journey as beginning with proprietary services developed by a single company. The conception of an innovative service or platform is noticed by competing firms, who jump into the game and set up parallel services, with unique parameters attending to and manipulating the content.

The service or platform market expands to the point that a third party joins in to address the all-too-many unique parameters. The market is crowded with idiosyncratic media providers and, thus, standards are set to add efficiency; the skeleton is created for the content providers to flesh out. Similar standardization procedures connected European railroads and put ball bearings on the map, as well.

In that case, standardization is the friend of the content provider and of the consumer.

The second group in this discussion is the content providers, and is further divided into the small firm and the corporate, net-work sized firm (i.e., YouTube and NBC, Inc., respectively). In this second case, standardization is the enemy of the consumer. YouTube has provided an innovative way to post amateur video on the web for world-wide exposure. A friend of mine in New Orleans is addicted to this site, and looks to it for new ideas, a cheap laugh, or to effectively send dailies of his latest baseball murder/thriller to me across the country. (BTW, he is on his third full-length feature about the same team that is enjoys on-field success, but suffers an off-field curse.)

With NBC hitching their two-ton wagon to the YouTube star, the innovative firm (YouTube) is able to retrieve a generous payback for playback. This fuels the fire of firms elsewhere and generates such incentive that future innovation promises to follow. In this situation, however, we might well see a “regulation” rather than the standard “standardization.” And that, to me, sounds like “sedation,” rather than “creation.”

Super Moderne

2006-06-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

My internet usage is probably limited in comparison to other
students in class.

Top five reasons for using the web:

1. Check the everlovin' email (we all know that 30-somethings are
addicted to measuring their popularity levels);
2. Buy a plane ticket or research exotic travel information;
3. Upload info on one of the three websites to which I have access;
4. Send office documents on the job (boring, but fast, efficient, and
leaves a time/date trail);
5. Research firms and seek out bids for work-related procurement.

For most of the work day, I am incarcerated at my desk working on number four. A good day, however, will require a bit of number five: a thorough search of local or national vendors for an upcoming media piece. For the most recent project, the scope of the search included an HD director of photography, a gaffer and grip, and a post-production house that could edit and color correct for mass media.

The film industry has much to gain from innovations in streaming media. Everybody loves a teaser, and what budding film student wouldn't mind sending a calling card with her URL, instead of mailing out those pesky demo reels?! For post-production houses, or for web design groups for that matter, streaming media on the web is instant access to the capabilities of the firm. The proof of whether or not the vendor will be able to meet your needs are all too easy to determine.

Modern Digital (www.moderndigital.com) is one of the leading post-production houses in the Seattle area. The website utilizes stylized photos of their office to represent the different work groups within their firm, and is highly interactive beginning with the opening page. A concentric target draws the eyes, and the mouse will follow, to "open" the front door of their building. From the "lobby," the user can choose from a list of client services (i.e., Graphics/3D, Interactive, Filmmaker's Guide).

Click on the Filmmaker's Guide to find a photo image of a binder, or work folder, with tabs. Using Flash, the website offers handwritten notes to potential clients. Follow the Film Credits tab, the fourth and final tab, and the pages will turn an appropriate amount of pages to finally land on a list of Modern's former or present clients. The same information, Client List, is available on the index page with a small font link; no need to go through the lobby, then to the filmmaker's guide, etc. A potential client, however, has the opportunity to walk, or click, through the creative and technical options that the firm offers.

Aside: Companies that rely on their website to serve potential clients should measure the incoming traffic to monitor the effectiveness of their distributed information.

East v West

2006-06-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

Television: Kuwait123.com

Inspired by the latest Osama Bin Laden posting, I went on a search of Arabic websites that offer streaming video. I didn’t expect to understand the specifics of the subject matter, yet was looking at the method of dispatching video content to the site’s users.

The most media-intensive site that I could find was www.kuwait123.com. I looked at the Bani Samet television series. The videos were accompanied by an audio (and laugh) track that was much more comprehensible than the video was discernible. Seemingly, the site is dedicated to situational comedy, provide in chapters, and complete with laugh track. The episodes are displayed in a table, columns and rows of screen shots from the video. Below the chunky, pixilated graphic are choices in speed: 28k, 56k and “Better Real Video.” The latter choice is a larger file that uses WinZip to further compress the data.

Film: Expiration Date

The upcoming release of Expiration Date, a full-length feature film independently produced and shot here in Seattle, has city media in a stronghold grip. The film’s producer, Rick Stevenson, is rejecting the high-end Hollywood marketing and distribution model in favor of a word-of-mouth marketing campaign, and distributing directly to independent theaters. That arrangement will rely heavily on a robust and entertaining website to attract the attention of filmgoers and theater owners.

The film’s website, www.expirationdatethemovie.com, explores the far-reaches of wide screen real estate. Video is available from the intro page, and a short clip is featured at the opening of each link, or subchapter, of the site. The short clips are followed by Seattle-centric still shots.

Finally, the trailers are offered at a choice of media platforms: Quicktime (high and low), and Windows Media (high and low). The terms “high” and “low” are not defined on the webpage. By exploring each option, however, it becomes evident that the terms correspond with the pop-up player window sizes. “Low” is a small and inflexible (cannot be made bigger or smaller) window; “high” is a larger window, also inflexible. Aside from the size differences, both levels seem to offer similar quality of video.

Summary/Questions:

In class on Tuesday, one of the slides portrayed the broadband penetration by household in the US. It would be interesting to explore similar statistics at an international level and then to look at how, or if, websites offer media at download or streaming rates compatible to the capability of the domestic (or the linguistic equivalent) audience.

If the video is doomed to be blurred or unclear due to available technology, either by the user or provider, is it more sensible to concentrate on maximizing the quality of the audio? This question comes into play in discussions regarding broadcast news transmitted by satellite.

How do you program the pop-up windows to remain at a desired size that maximizes the quality of the media (given the compression method and streaming rate)?

March!

2006-06-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

Congratulations. You have made a good decision to go back to school. You are now sitting in a classroom of peers and, perhaps, future colleagues. Wow, you are a shooting star, a rocket scientist, even. Go on out the door and have a celebratory beer, there's always room for one more.

There...that's better.