Media

I hear voices: Could highly directional sound advertising be the next big thing?

UPDATE: An earlier version of this blog incorrectly described the technology used in an advertisement for the A&E's TV show Paranormal State. The technology, developed by the Holosonic Research Lab, uses a beam of ultrasound as a "virtual source", which changes into audible sound as it travels through the air. Please read the technology's inventor, F_J_Pompei's comment or visit the Holosonic Research Labs site to learn more.

The folks who heard the ad for A&E's TV show Paranormal State emitted from a billboard in New York City's Greenwich Village … Read more

MTV's 'Choose or Lose' announces citizen journalism campaign

As part of its quadrennial "Choose or Lose" youth voting initiative, MTV has announced a "Street Team" of 51 young amateur journalists, one from each state and the District of Columbia, who have been selected to cover the 2008 election and emphasize issues important to the younger generation.

"We couldn't ignore the explosion in self-publishing and self-organization and all the tools that young people have now to express themselves on issues of importance as well as consume information," said Ian Rowe, vice president of public affairs and strategic partnerships and MTV, "and … Read more

The key to New Media's victory: communities

As a member of both the Old Media and the New Media, I've come across a variety of values that different publications covet. Some in the Old Media require the tried and true forms of journalism that revolve around the idea of talking at readers. On the other hand, I've worked in the New Media environments where I have been asked to talk with readers and develop a quasi-friendship through my columns and their comments.

And while both have their own merits, the Old Media style is based in the past. After all, before we had the Internet, we were inundated with newspapers and magazines that allowed writers with a significant lead time to discuss topics they were passionate about in the hopes that their readers would care.

Compare that to the New Media style of community and immediate response, and an interesting dichotomy develops where those in the Old Media are still clinging to the past, while those in the New Media are trying desperately to move away from the ties that still bind us to the twentieth century.

But if we've learned nothing else over the past decade, we now know that people have been craving for the ability to communicate. For too long, readers like yourself were caught in a trap where writers would write and readers would read. If the reader wanted to cross that boundary and write, they would need to send a letter to an editor and hope to see it in a future issue. By that point, almost everyone has forgotten the topic and the reader will never be able to see a response.

Some people say that the New Media -- namely, blogs, podcasts and IPTV -- has been successful because of its ability to bring important information to readers in shortest amount of time possible. And while I believe that has contributed to its success, it has been this enormous growth in communities that has ushered in a new era of journalism.… Read more

The one thing (question) for a better world

In fin d'ann?e mood, saving the world is en vogue -- and asking the "one thing" question obviously, too.

Inspired by Leonardo DiCaprio's gloom and doom documentary "The 11th Hour," OnEarth magazine asked a panel of leading scientists and activists to "move beyond bleak diagnoses and offer concrete proposals for a sustainable future:"

"Which one thing would you do to save the world?"

You can view it on YouTube or read a transcript of the entire conversation here.

In a similar vein, but slightly modifying OnEarth's impetus (and … Read more

A license to blog?

On Thursday, David Hazinski posted a column on the Web site of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggesting that "unfettered 'citizen journalism' (is) too risky." He points out that the online medium creates an opportunity for anyone to provide informational content, but that this new venue is prone to inaccuracies and hearsay. He argues that so-called citizen journalism "isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse."

In his article, Hazinski suggests that unless the news industry acts now to regulate amateur-professional journalism, it will be "just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere." In his defense, a similar scenario did play out over three years ago when Benjamin Vanderford, a San Francisco resident, produced a fake video depicting his own beheading at the hands of Islamist extremists; then again, it was a publisher from the establishment press, William Randolph Hearst, who is credited with helping catalyze the Spanish American War through manufactured news. Hearst told a reporter, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war," and history indicates that he may have done just that.

… Read more

Attention profiling: How radical do you want radical transparency to be?

Michael Pick of Particls has written the perhaps most comprehensive overview of attention profiling and APML (attention profiling mark-up language) to date. APML is a proposed standard that allows users to share their own personal attention profile and compress all forms of attention data into one portable file format that can be traded between attention seekers and givers:

"We have reached the point of information hyper-saturation. It can become quite a chore to find relevant content online, when there is so much other information competing for your attention. But by implementing attention profiling, it becomes possible to have the … Read more

RIP: PlaysForSure 2004-2007

Microsoft has reached a turning point in its music strategy: admitting it has a problem.

When it first announced its Zune plans last year, the company denied that it would mark an end to its PlaysForSure program, an effort that aimed to unite various compatible devices and services using Microsoft's Windows Media technology.

Others, though, saw the writing clearly on the wall.

Microsoft was in a precarious place, though. It had lined up MTV Networks as a partner for its Urge service, which was to be part of Windows Vista. That service had not even formally launched yet, so … Read more

Bebo unveils new application platform, touts Facebook compatibility

This post was updated at 10:18 a.m. PST to add information about Bebo's plans for OpenSocial.

SAN FRANCISCO--When Bebo co-founder and CEO Michael Birch took the stage in a theater at the Metreon complex here to announce the social network's Open Application Platform, he made the eyebrow-raising claim that the new initiative was, "dare I say it, 100 percent compatible with the Facebook platform."

Bebo representatives had hinted at Facebook compatibility last month when the social network officially joined Google's OpenSocial initiative. The new platform officially goes live on Wednesday night. "There'… Read more

Helio brightens its YouTube offering

To use the worst of bad plays on words, YouTube has thrown itself into the Ocean: Youth-oriented mobile carrier Helio announced Wednesday that it has souped up the YouTube video offerings for its Ocean handset.

Owners of the double-keyboard smartphone are now able to upload videos to the Google-owned service more easily, fill in various criteria for them (privacy settings, tags, descriptions, categories) and "geotag" them thanks to the handset's GPS capability. Additionally, the Ocean YouTube application facilitates access to some of the social-networking features previously unavailable to most mobile versions of YouTube--rating, commenting, and access to … Read more