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Annotated Links of Interest: October 12th 2008
Links of interest for October 9th 2008 through October 12th 2008:
- VloggerHeads – An 18+ onlys videoblogging site where comments are – in theory – taken seriously and meaningful conversations are encouraged between videobloggers. Yes, they’ve left YouTube for good reason. There’s a good rundown on the rationale behind the site in this Wired article: “Sick of Griefers, YouTube Vloggers Start Members-Only Site“.
- A Decade of Internet Superstars: Where Are They Now? [PC World] – A puff piece looking at the trajectories of internet meme folk after their meme’s energy has run out. Would you believe Chris “leave Britney alone!” Crocker has released his own single? Jennifer “Jennicam” Ringley has completely dropped off the web after being the most visible person on it for a while. And the Ask a Ninja guys are still answering questions … like ninjas.
- Tweethearts: blogger proposes to nerd girlfriend over Twitter, she tweets back acceptance. – Boing Boing – “seanbonner: @tarabrown so, um, you wanna get hitched?” Proposal by Twitter! (She says yes!)
- Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube [Institute of Network Cultures] – A fantastic collection of scholarly essays looking at YouTube as a cultural phenomenon. The entire collection is released under a Creative Commons (CC BY NC SA) license and features work by: Tilman Baumgärtel, Jean Burgess, Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Sean Cubitt, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, David Garcia, Alexandra Juhasz, Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, Minke Kampman, Seth Keen, Sarah Késenne, Marsha Kinder, Patricia Lange, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Matthew Mitchem, Sabine Niederer, Ana Peraica, Birgit Richard, Keith Sanborn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Thomas Thiel, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Peter Westenberg.
- YouTube Links to Online Music Stores [Google OS] – “YouTube started to add links to iTunes and Amazon MP3 for music videos from EMI Music and Universal Music. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs and video games — related to the content they’re watching on the site,” announces Google Blog. … For now, the links are only available in the US, but they will be added internationally if this experiment turns out to be a success.”
Annotated Links of Interest: September 10th 2008
Links of interest for September 9th 2008 through September 10th 2008:
- Pirates become canon keepers [The Australian] – “Some commentators have suggested that it’s simply easier for studios to replace the entire score than to investigate music rights. In any case, an unannounced modern alteration is cultural vandalism, even if you don’t think the original work was any good. As a result the DVD is useless as a piece of cultural history and as a representation of an original work. With the internet full of sellers (often fans themselves) willing to provide the copies of this and other series taken from unedited broadcasts, the studio has taken a huge step towards legitimising piracy as a means of cultural preservation.” (A fantastic, if rather sarcastic, article by Kit MacFarlane arguing that piracy may be the only course open to preserve tv texts in the face of minor – and major – alterations made by studios and distributors on the way to dvd releases and more. )
- BATTLESTAR GALACTICA returns to iTunes…in HD [GALACTICA SITREP] – Battlestar Galactica and other NBC shows return to iTunes (US). If you’re logged into the US store right now you can get 4×03 (He That Believeth in Me) in HD for free (logged in to the US store, I say, not necessarily in the US!).
- Australia rated foot of developed world on school funding [PerthNow] – “Australia’s government spending on public education is the second lowest among developed nations, a new report has found. Turkey, Portugal, Mexico and Iceland all spend more money on public education institutions than Australia. … Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says the new OECD Education at a Glance report highlights the need for the Rudd Government’s much-hyped “education revolution”.” (Yes, but WHEN is this much-vaunted education revolution actually going to start? It’s close to unforgivable that the once ‘clever country’ is so far behind in global terms.)
- Google Turns 20 (fiction) – “This month, September 2018, marks the 20th anniversary of Google as a business…” A provocative little piece of speculation fiction looking back from 2018 at the rise, and fall, of Google. A few ideas are a bit far-fetched (Windows Free?) but most are plausible; all beg interesting questions about current trends, from software design, to monopolistic practices, to (really) participatory culture!
- John McCain Gets BarackRoll’d [YouTube] – John McCain gets rickrolled by the all-singing, all-dancing Barack Obama show! LMAO!
Links for August 10th 2008
Interesting links for August 9th 2008 through August 10th 2008:
- Barack Roll [YouTube] – Barack Obama gets … or possibly embodies being … rickrolled.
- Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans [NYTimes.com] – “NBC’s decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC’s technological wall — by finding newsfeeds on foreign broadcasters’ Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites. In response, NBC sent frantic requests to Web sites, asking them to take down the illicit clips and restrict authorized video to host countries. As the four-hour ceremony progressed, a game of digital whack-a-mole took place. Network executives tried to regulate leaks on the Web and shut down unauthorized video, while viewers deftly traded new links on blogs and on the Twitter site, redirecting one another to coverage from, say, Germany, or a site with a grainy Spanish-language video stream. As the first Summer Games of the broadband age commenced in China, old network habits have never seemed so archaic — or so irrelevant.”
- Twitter Down for Hitler [Blip TV] – DownFall Hitler parody: “Upon hearing tragic news, Hitler decides to tweet his sadness only to learn it’s down. ” LOL
- So what if you give most of it away?: The Bikini Concept. [The Road To Attversumption] – “I found out the age-old concept of the bikini to apply. That by giving away 90% of the concept, and keeping 10%, the attraction factor was just as strong, if not twice as strong (there are reasons for me saying ‘twice as strong). And yes, what the bikini didn’t reveal, was the part the audience most wanted (naturally), and was the part they were willing to pay for.”
- Hamlet Retold Via Facebook (PNG Image, 1254×1608 pixels) – “Hamlet became a fan of daggers.” Clever little retelling of Hamlet using Facebook stories.
Links for August 4th 2008
Interesting links for August 3rd through August 4th 2008:
- Chinese netizens rail against Great Firewall [watoday.com.au] – A look at the heavy hand of internet censorship in China and the lengths China’s netizens have to go to to avoid being blocked. A recent example shows a meme that the phrase “I’m just doing push-ups” after the line was used by allegedly corrupt communist officials. The meme is going strong, one example being these photoshopped images of a popular Chinese TV host doing push-ups in various locations across China.
- Kind Strangers, Comicons, and the People that Need a Hug. [Nathan Fillion MySpace Blog] – Nathan Fillion, sees the future in Dr Horrible (despite being Capt Hammer!): “I think it can be said that Dr Horrible was a tremendous success. More than just an incredible project to enjoy, but a more than important view of entertainment to come. This is the future, everybody. This is a window into how things will be when the control is finally wrested from the moneyed claws of big business and placed, nay, returned to the caring hands of the creators.”
- Postmodern path to student failure By Justine Ferrari [The Australian] – In a new anti-postmodernism book, The Trouble With Theory, by Gavin Kitching, “insight” such as this appears: ‘Students equate the way language is used with the meaning of words, so that the word “terrorist” always means a person using extreme violence for political ends, and anyone called a terrorist is actually a terrorist. But he said such thinking excluded sentences such as: “Calling these people terrorists distracts attention from the justice of their cause. “They have a very narrow idea of how we use words. (They believe) words have given meanings, and these meanings have certain biases or prejudices. If you use words, you have to accept the biases or prejudices – you’re stuck with them. That you can use words ironically is not something they can take seriously. Clearly that’s not true. We use words to refer to things, but we can refer to them ironically, we can refer to them sarcastically, doubtingly, aggressively.”
- Britney and McCain in 2008 – Barely Political [YouTube] – New running mates: John McCain and Britney Spears. Not the most technically exciting YouTube political mashup, but the rhetoric matches perfectly!
- Notes on Cult Films and New Media Technology [zigzigger] – Interesting thoughts: “My basic point is that the availability of films to own on videotape, disc, or computer file marks a transformation in the way audiences engage with the film text, and that this transformation makes the cult mode of film experience much more typical, more available to more viewers and to more movies.”
Links for July 18th 2008
Interesting links for July 17th 2008 through July 18th 2008:
- Michelle Obama’s blog [BlogHer] – In a canny move, Michelle Obama has begun blogging from the campaign trail. It’ll help create her own voice which, at least on the other side of the world, really hasn’t been heard yet.
- Watchmen (2009) [Apple – Trailer] – The Dark Knight has raised the bar for graphic novel adaptations, but the trailer for Watchmen looks pretty damn amazing (visually). Let’s just hope the film turns out as dark and bleak as it should. The trailer does make everything perhaps a little too crisp (Watchmen is nothing if not gritty), but I thought the CGI New York with the Twin Towers in the background looked excellent.
- Rick Trooper [YouTube] – What happens when Dark Vader goes Rickrolling? [Background here.]
Links for June 19th 2008
Interesting links for June 17th 2008 through June 19th 2008:
- Study: 82 Percent of Consumers Accept In-Game Ads [Life from Wired.com] – “… according to a recent study crafted as a joint venture between the Nielsen company and in-game ad entrepreneurs IGA Worldwide. “82 percent felt games were just as enjoyable with ads as without,” the study reveals…”
- NSFW: A Beginners Guide To Sporn [Rock, Paper, Shotgun] – (Contains Images Only Intended for Adults!) “You give humanity a creative tool, the first thing a human will do is – well – make a tool with it. Since the Spore demo?s release, it?s become a bukkake wave sweeping the web: comedy pornographic images via Spore. Spornography – aka “Sporn”.”
- This is Sparta! ? Facebook prank or political statement?[ Examiner.com] – When 30,000 students taking a literature exam all write “This Is Sparta!” somewhere during the test and cross it out again, examiners discover there’s a Facebook meme at work, 300 style.
- Mum pleads not guity in web suicide case [PerthNow] – “A US woman who prosecutors say drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide with a cruel MySpace hoax has pleaded not guilty. Lori Drew of Missouri, who is accused of creating the fake MySpace persona of a 16-year-old boy…”
- Hollywood relying more on franchises [The Hollywood Reporter] – June 16, 2008: Hollywood is using more and more existing franchises and ‘superbrands’ in an effort to capitalise on existing consumer demand rather than risking new material in an era when promotion is harder and harder.
Links for May 23rd 2008
Interesting links for May 23rd 2008:
- Lessons From the Class Blog [zigzigger] – Reflections on 4 semesters of teaching with a class blog in a media course. Some useful observations about how much students blog, ideas about assessing blogs and whether ‘forced’ comments are of any use.
- Star Wars Kid: The Data Dump [Waxy.org] – Andy Baio takes a very in depth look at the Star Wars Kid meme (that he named, hosted and shared) from 2003, complete with very, very detailed stats and a look at the media coverage SWK got.
- Cash will buy clone of man’s best friend [PerthNow] – “A US biotech company will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions, in a move condemned by some ethicists who fear it could lead to human clones.” (Hello ‘RePet’ from The Sixth Day!)
That Hilter Meme
Memes are funny things (both funny as in odd and, if done well, often funny and in the laughing stuff) but I never really expected Hilter (or even an actor playing Hitler) to be become meme central. I guess that shows I really do underestimate those interweb folks! 😛 So, as you might have guessed, a new meme is rapidly spreading; it features new subtitles added to the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang) by Oliver Hirschbiegel, which depicts Hitler’s last 10 days. This footage is now being remixed with new subtitles added to talk about new topics, many of which are really quite funny.
The standout version thus far, though, has to be this one in which Hitler realises that he’s the new Star Wars Kid:
I suspect the ridiculousness and almost sacrilegious idea of Hitler as a comic figure is one of the reasons it’s hard to look away from this clip! [Via Kevin Lim]
Update: Chuck Tryon has some interesting thoughts about a version of this meme which parodies Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the democratic presidential nominee.
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