Tama Leaver dot Net

Interesting links for July 9th 2008 through July 15th 2008:

• End of an Era: lonelygirl15 to Conclude Aug. 1 [NewTeeVee] - “lonelygirl15, the pioneering online video series, will conclude on Aug. 1 to make way for a new show from its creators and their new company, EQAL. This announcement was buried in the second paragraph of an official blog post…”
• ‘World’s oldest blogger’ dies at 108 [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] - World’s Oldest Blogger Dies: “Born in Broken Hill in 1899, Olive Riley… Since early last year, she had written about 70 entries on her life experiences and posted them online, receiving feedback from all over the world.”
• Lively - Google’s answer to Second Life has arrived. However, it’s far more embedded (and embeddable) in existing web 2.0 scaffolding - following a YouTube logic - with a much thinner client. Only for Windows at this stage, though.
• Getty Images + Flickr Make a Deal [Photojojo Blog] - Getty Images and Flickr strike a deal which will allow Getty to scour Flickr and, with easy-to-use tools, contact photo owners and offer licensing deals to push their work as stock photos. Apparently launching later this year.

Tags: avatar, blog, lg15, lively, lonelygirl15, mmorpg, photography, produsage, socialnetworking, virtualenvironment, webisode

So who the hell is Dr Horrible, and why should you care?  Well, he looks to be quite an amusing character and the centre of a story written by someone who writes quite good stories: Joss Whedon.  More to the point, for a limited time, Dr Horrible’s story will be online … for free.  Oh, and it’s a musical.  From the guy who wrote the musical episode of Buffy.  And quite a few other bits of Buffy, too.

Dr Horrible is as much an experiment in models of distribution and commerce.  From Tuesday July 15th (US time … so some time Wednesday for most in Australia) an episode of Dr Horrible will appear every two days (with three in total), until they all disappear on July 20th.  Joss Whedon (and, indeed, quite a few other Whedon’s, it seems) are hoping that they can galvanise their fanbase (as they did so impressively for Serenity) and once everyone has seen it for free, perhaps sell a few full copies later down the track.  Apparently Joss thought up the concept during the WGA writer’s strike when other distribution methods were sorely needed.  As Joss describes his thoughts in Dr Horrible’s master plan:

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system. Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few. The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. […]

3) Joss, you are so kind, and generous, and your forehead is like, huge, like SCARY, like I think I can see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint hanging off it… what can WE do to help this musical extravanganza?

What you always do, peeps! What you’re already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen. Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.

So, once more, the success or failure of a Whedon idea is in the hands of fans. If you want to spread the Horrible word, the website has lots of spiffy banners you can use to link to Dr Horrible’s show.  It should be an interesting experiment. I’ll certainly be watching! (Early reviews seem very promising!)

Tags: dr horrible, joss whedon, webisode

I’m delighted to see that Jill Walker Rettberg’s book Blogging has just been released. I had the pleasure of reading much of this book in draft form last year while Jill was a guest researcher here in Communication Studies here at UWA, and on the basis of what I read I’m confident this book will be extremely well received. Jill’s work is neither a simple how-to guide (of which there are many), nor is it a book on blogging which presumes readers are already blogosphere aficionados. Rather, Jill has managed to write an engaging and critical book which situates blogging within broader histories - such as the role of blogging in terms of literacy, the evolution of citizen journalism, blogs and/as social networks, and even ethical frameworks which examine advertising and authenticity in blogs. More to the point, for someone new to blogs as an idea, or in practice, Blogging offers a world of insight and experience distilled into a readable and engaging form.

The table of contents and the (extremely positive) early reviews of Blogging are available on Polity’s website, and it can be ordered now from Amazon UK or will be available from Amazon US in about two months.

I strongly recommend you read Blogging for yourself!

Tags: blogging, Digital History, Jill Walker Rettberg

Interesting links for June 8th 2008 through June 11th 2008:

• Change Congress - NCMR keynote [Lessig Blog] - Lawrence Lessig’s keynote at the National Conference for Media Reform arguing for a mobilisation of talent to try and end (or, at least, decrease) the corruption in the US Congress.
• J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement [Harvard Magazine] - Rowling gives a really delightful and heartfelt commencement talk at Harvard, rather frankly talking about the importance and benefits of failure, hitting rock bottom, and working out what’s really important in life.
• 280 Slides - Create & Share Presentations Online - Nifty online version of powerpoint/keynote software. A lot more elaborate than Google Docs, but still a long way from Keynote or Powerpoint. A very good, simple and accessible way to do the basics. (I wonder when Google will try and buy this little startup?)
• Sex and the City: A Product-Placement Roundup [vanityfair.com] - The product placement in the Sex and the City movie makes the producers of the James Bond films look like amateurs!

Tags: academia, changecongress, creativity, film, harrypotter, jkrowling, keynote, lessig, marketing, politics, powerpoint, presentation, sexandthecity, speech, talk, usa

Even thought Viddler already does it, and does it better, I’m still quite excited by YouTube’s addition of annotation tools.  I’ve got 28 groups of students creating Digital Media Projects at the moment and one of the stipulations was that they have to examine the videosharing websites out there and select one to host their work: 27 of 28 groups selected YouTube (most of them rely on the simple point that YouTube gets the eyeballs … and, for now, they’re right).  From an educational perspective, critically engaging with digital video becomes a lot more fun when annotations, references and links can be added to existing video!  Even though they’re pretty crude at this point, the annotation tools for YouTube also mark a shift from treating YouTube as slices of TV (in video terms) toward an environment where the hypertextuality of digital video comes to the in to play.  A bit like what Quicktime already facilitates so brilliantly.

Of course, YouTube’s annotations are all in beta at this point (and proper, not perpetual, beta … you can’t embed annotations in external sites yet, and I’m presuming that eventually YouTube will allow optional viewer annotations, too), so the toolkit may very well evolve.  Until then, I can’t wait until I’ve got a cohort of students annotating away to critique and comment on digital video … what fun could be had with speak bubbles, I wonder?

You should probably listen to The Facebook Anthem:

This one has to be for Jean! [Via Alex]

Update: And what would Facebook be like in the “real world”?

Tags: facebook

Interesting links for April 28th 2008:

• Viralcom [Joey and David] - Wonderful satirical series of high-end videos which look at user-generated content, looking at the imagined high-end producers behind each viral hit! (Boy puts mentos in sister’s coke doesn’t just come from nowhere!)
• Mobile phones outnumber Australians [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] - “For the first time the number of mobile phones in Australia exceeds the population, with recent growth being driven by a dramatic increase in 3-G phones…. there are now 21.26 million active phone services in the country.”
• Uni chief lifted text from Wikipedia [Australian IT] - “Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O’Connor has admitted lifting information straight from online encyclopedia Wikipedia and confusing strands of Islam as he struggled to defend his institution’s decision to ask the repressive Saudi Arabian Governme

Tags: griffith, highered, mobilephone, parody, satire, stats, viral, wikipedia

Interesting links for April 27th 2008 through April 28th 2008:

• Nielsen Online: Produsage Trends in Australia and New Zealand [Produsage.org] - Using details from Nielsen Online, Axel gives an outline of how many Australians and Kiwis are using Web 2.0 tools, and how many are “produsing” (lowdown: a lot use, less make).
• Being a Researcher at a Liberal Arts College [Just TV] - Fascinating reflections from media scholar Jason Mittell and the pros and cons (mainly pros) of teaching in a US liberal arts college rather than one of the the larger, more prestigious, universities. (Esp useful for those of us outside looking in!)
• Israeli jailed for Facebook photo [BBC NEWS | Middle East] - “Israel has sentenced a soldier to 19 days in jail for uploading a photograph taken on his military base to the social networking website, Facebook. … The case follows widespread reports about the potential security risk of soldiers posting photos …”

Tags: academic, digitalculture, facebook, highered, Israel, military, newzeland, privacy, produsage, security, socialnetworking, socialsoftware, tenure, usa

Anyone who has ever tried to explain the importance of Creative Commons licenses to a new audience has probably played them the wonderful CC Mayer and Bettle Animation which was created back in 2005 by Pete Foley and others gathered together by CC Australia. The video features two animated characters whose adventures in downloading, copyright and content creation lead them to explore the utility of CC licenses for creators and for audiences. It’s also quite funny (featuring “the best song in the world!!”).

The great news is that the two central characters, Mayer and Bettle are back, joined this time by a new player in the game - Flick - in a new animated tale. This one looks at CC licenses in more depth, with a focus on making money off content creation while still using CC licensing. You really need to watch the original animation first for this sequel to make sense, but it’s another fine effort from CCau, making CC licenses understandable and accessible to a general (non-lawyerish) audience!

Here you go:

Update: For more info and a higher quality download, check out the official CCau blog. [Via Elliot's CC Blog]

Tags: mayer+bettle

While a lot of different people have attempted to deploy the term Web 3.0 to mean pretty much anything they like, I’ve read more and more reports in the last couple of weeks that seem to be positioning Web 3.0 as the locking down of all of the socially shared information that has been the core of Web 2.0. Here’s an example from Australia’s The Age:

WEB 2.0 is well established, and sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Digg have turned the internet from a static source of information into a huge, interactive digital playground. But where to next? What will the next stage of web culture - which some people call Web 3.0 - be like? The expectation seems to be that profound changes are on the way. If Web 2.0 is about generating and sharing your own content, Web 3.0 will make information less free.Privacy fears, new forms of advertising, and restrictions imposed by media companies will mean more digital walls, leading to a web that’s safer but without its freewheeling edge. [...]This openness is one of the defining features of Web 2.0. But software specialist Nat Torkington, of high-tech publishing house O’Reilly Media, predicts a backlash. He argues that one serious leak or theft of private data could change opinions overnight.”It could be a Three Mile Island of the net,” he says, referring to the 1979 accident that turned the US public against nuclear power.

While this story is more about a more locked-down web being forthcoming rather than present, it’s been noteworthy that the same paper has since run stories about the ease of hacking computers via browsers thanks to Web 2.0 technologies, the fact that stolen identities are being sold cheap by criminals since they’re so easy to obtain thanks to poor web security, and one more nasty tale about 6 teenage girls who lured another girl to one of their homes and then beat her viciously before posting a video of the beating online (or, as The Age called it “an ‘animalistic’ YouTube attack”).

So, the two broad possibilities you’d garner from reading The Age this week are either that Web 2.0 is the root of great evil and needs to be secured immediately, or that someone editing the technology sections of The Age is trying to push for a dramatic change in online culture. (Or, possibly, some middle ground between the two.) What do you think: are the freedoms of Web 2.0 going to be curtailed due to rampant misuse?

Photo by Darwin Bell (CC BY NC)

Tags: Web 3.0