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Links for August 1st 2008
Interesting links for August 1st 2008:
- Malwebolence – The World of Web Trolling [NYTimes.com] – A really fascinating article from Mattathias Schwartz trying to take a serious look at the more extreme edge of trolling culture, searching for meaning behind what at first glance are random acts of online cruelty. Schwartz paints the biggest trolls as quite complicated people, who have their own rationale for what they do, albeit often quite a hard to comprehend one. [Via Christy Dena]
- Rebooting America (Book) [Personal Democracy Forum] – The blurb: “The Personal Democracy Forum presents an anthology of forty-four essays brimming with the hopes of reenergizing, reorganizing, and reorienting our government for the Internet Age. How would completely reorganizing our system of representation work? Is it possible to redesign our government with open doors and see-through walls? How can we leverage the exponential power of many-to-many deliberation for the common good?” The entire collection is available online, for free, as pdfs and features lots of people you know, or should know, like Yochai Benkler, danah boyd, Howard Rheingold and Clay Shirky. The whole thing is released under a Creative Commons license, too! [Via danah]
- Beijing lifts some internet restrictions: IOC [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Chinese organisers have agreed to lift all internet restrictions for the Beijing Games, IOC vice-president Gunilla Lindberg says. “The issue has been solved,” Ms Lindberg said. “The IOC Coordination Commission and the Beijing Olympics Organising Committee (BOCOG) met last night and agreed. “Internet use will be just like in any Olympics.” ABC journalists in Beijing said they could access internet content about Tiananmen Square and other previously banned websites. But it was not immediately clear if the restrictions had been lifted outside hubs for foreign media.”
- Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here [delicious blog] – No longer del.icio,us, Delicious had an overhaul, a facelift, and now resides at delicious.com. To see what’s different, check out the video or read What’s New.For readers of this blog, the biggest difference will be that I can now use 1000 characters in teh notes section, so my annotated links posts will often have considerably more annotation! 🙂
- Scrabulous Returns As Wordscraper [All Facebook] – “One of the big news stories this morning is that the Argarwalla brothers who founded Scrabulous have launched a similar application called “Wordscraper”. The application, which is similar in style to Scrabulous, has attracted over 8,000 people so far. It also appears that the brother no longer have an announcement message on Scrabulous and have instead completely pulled down the application.” (That said, using Facebook in Australia I still have perfect access to Scrabulous today!)
- Blocked websites ‘not Olympics related’ [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Internet censorship in China is now being allowed during the Olympic period on the basis that the blocked websites are not related to the Games. The stance is a backdown on earlier promises made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)…”
Creative Commons Australia – 3.0 License Drafts and more…
I’ve been meaning to post about all the exciting things Creative Commons Australia have been up to since I returned from the fabulous Building an Australasian Commons national conference (and the linked Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons international conference), but it’s taken a few weeks so first off I want to draw your attention to the Creative Commons Australia 3.0 draft licenses which have been ported to Australia, bringing CCau up to date with the global 3.0 releases. The licenses are in draft form and open for comment now, so I’d encourage you to take a look and leave comments if any come to mind. This version is more directly based on the CCNZ 3.0 licenses which are considerably more understandable for the layperson (ie non-lawyer, like me). The public comment phase has been going for a while, and for comments to be addressed before the official release they need to be made by 1 August 2008 (yes, I should have mentioned this earlier, but go look now, you’ve still got a couple of weeks).
Equally exciting, a global project spearheaded by Creative Commons Australia has been released: the Creative Commons Case Studies project. One of the biggest challenges when explaining Creative Commons licenses to other people was the lack of examples. Sure, we can all talk about Cory Doctorow’s exemplary book licensing, but there are so many other projects out there using CC licenses to share, publicise and allow others to build upon and remix their work. Well, the Case Studies project makes life a whole lot easier, collating a wealth of examples from across the globe when groups, bands, corporations, universities and more have used CC licenses. Each case study features an overview, how the CC license is used, and the motivations for choosing a CC license; this structure ensures that we understand what CC licenses can achieve and the various philosophies behind their use (from philanthropic to purely promotional). The best part, though, is that the Case Studies project is wiki-based, meaning anyone who wants to can add an example either of their own use, or of someone else’s exemplary work under CC. I’ve got a couple of examples of past work with my students I’ll by adding soon, and I hope if you’ve been using CC licenses either in education or anywhere else, you might want to consider documenting your best examples to share with the world, too.
Links for July 7th 2008
Interesting links for July 4th 2008 through July 7th 2008:
- Iran: death penalty for “corrupt weblogs” [Boing Boing] – “New legislation has been proposed in Iran that could make blogging a crime punishable by death. … A translated English copy of the proposed legislation is here.”
- Watching you, watching YouTube [BBC NEWS | dot.life] – A thoughtful and cautionary response to the release of YouTube viewing data to Viacom. Also, see YouTube’s official response to user concerns about the ruling.
- The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs [Online University Reviews] – Proof that many good academics write many good blogs (on many, many different subjects). I read about a dozen of these. [Via Chuck]
- Google must divulge YouTube log [BBC NEWS | Technology] – “Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled. The ruling comes as part of Google’s legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.”
- Fox News: The return of yellow journalism and photoshop [Dennis Dunleavy] – Fox News photoshops images of their press critics. Dunleavy: “promulgating a use of technology that imperils journalistic standards and deceives its viewers.” [More.]
Links for July 2nd 2008
Interesting links for June 30th 2008 through July 2nd 2008:
- The Internet Has the Power to Transform Your TV Show into a TV Brand [Deep Focus/Yahoo!] – New research (from a survey of 2000) which shows viewers under 35 treat the TV show as part of a franchise or brand, and that engaging with the franchise online strengthens brand ties (viewers > 35 see the TV show as the main event). [Via Nancy]
- World’s Best Presentation Contest [SlideShare] – Online slide sharing service Slideshare are running their annual competition to find the best slides (ppt, keynote, whatever else in pdf form) from around the world. We need many examples of powerpoint done better, so get sliding! (Entries close July 31st 08).
- Fast-talking Fred is the toast of YouTube [The Age] – Fourteen year old Lucas Cruikshank and his online persona, 6 year old Fred (with anger management issues and a chipmunked voice), is YouTube’s latest (and very annoying) micro-celeb. Visit Fred’s Channel.
- The romantic appeal of the “long tail hypothesis” [PopMatters | Blogs] – An interesting critique of Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory: “With our identity riding on what we consume, we come to believe that there’s something valuable about having unique tastes, but we don’t actually pursue such a course in practice.”
- That Violet Blue thing [Boing Boing] – Boing Boing respond to accusations of censorship, stating their own position (they can retrospectively delete whatever they want) and getting quite a few comments in response!
- MySpace suicide: new law outlaws cyberbullying [The Age] – “Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed a bill today outlawing cyberbullying, just kilometres from where a 13-year-old girl committed suicide nearly two years ago after being harassed on the Internet.”
- EA Grabs Your “Spore Creature Creator” IP [Clickable Culture] – “Talk about harshing my buzz. Electronic Arts is going to let us design creatures with its long-awaited Spore game and stand-alone Creature Creator, but in using the game and creator, we agree to hand over all rights in our creations to the megalithic publisher…”
- swedish teenager making millions off her blog? [jill/txt] – Jill Walker Rettberg looks at the fascinating case of a Swedish teenager who appears to be making a very healthy sum blogging by inserting paid ads and editorial comment without disclosure. [More links here.]
Links for May 27th 2008
Interesting links for May 25th 2008 through May 27th 2008:
- Death knell for television as we know it [The Age] – “Japanese television technology that will give viewers access to high-speed broadcasts over the internet could render conventional television obsolete and transform the media landscape within years, analysts have predicted.”
- Owning the Clouds [how now, brownpau?] – A worrying look at the way Google’s copyright takedown system favours big media over amateur production by letting derivative works (initially) send takedown notices to the original authors!
- HSC students to get Wikipedia course [The Age] – In an Australian first, NSW HSC students will from next year be able to take a course in studying Wikipedia, the online collaborative encyclopedia. Wikipedia,… has been listed by the NSW Board of Studies as prescribed text for an elective course…”
- Joss Whedon Fans Jump the Gun [NewTeeVee] – “Perhaps still smarting from their precious Firefly being killed off so soon, Joss Whedon fans are already mobilizing to save his next show, Dollhouse? before the first episode airs.”
Best of Student News
On Tuesday, the students from my Digital Media class, as well a few invited guests and colleagues, enjoyed a screening of the Best 8 Student News Projects from the unit. This project, the first major assignment for the unit, takes place after 4 weeks of workshops which introduce digital video cameras, sound recording and (very) basic lighting, non-linear editing and copyright in media production. It’s a bit of a whirlwind, but the culmination of these workshop is a project in which students, working in groups of 4 or 5, get exactly one week to produce a 3 minute news story on the basis of pre-assigned topics (all of which are based on relevant local issues).
Once the projects are completed, part of the feedback process is not just comments from myself or Christina (who is tutoring half of the classes, I’m tutoring the other half) – although we do give a fair bit of written feedback – but we also have a reflective seminar where the projects completed by the groups in these seminars (there are 4 groups in each seminar) are viewed and the other members of the seminar offer written and verbal feedback. I find this is always a very rewarding process, as students often engage more directly with peer feedback. To top it off, at the end of each seminar (there are 8 ) each seminar votes and the best project, along with the top from the other seminars, become those which make up the Best of Student News screening. While I am a little hesitant to place too much weight on the ‘best’ projects – learning is, after all, not a competition – students nevertheless respond well to this voting process. I suspect the idea of them deciding the best projects rather than the course staff is very appealing! Then, in the Best of Student News screening, the students get to vote once more and select their choice for the Best Student News Project of the year.
I have to say, I think the level at which students produced their projects this year has been outstanding. Even though most of them have learnt their media production skills over 4 one and a half hour workshops, many of these projects can stand up against the work of professionals who’ve had 3 year of training. The Best Project for the year, as selected by their peers, shows that humour – when used properly – really is one of the universally appealing elements of media. So, without any further ado, this year’s Best Student Project takes a comical look at the role of community radio in the era of media conglomeration.
At the screening, there is also a Staff Award given the the project which got the highest overall mark. This award went to the group behind a technically outstanding project which explored whether Australia’s young Olympians are adequately prepared to be thrust into the media spotlight at the Beijing Olympics.
Young Olympians and the Media Spotlight?
There are two other projects from the screening I wanted share: one takes a look at the proposed redevelopment of the Perth inner city foreshore, and the other asks to what extent Earth Hour is a genuine attempt at ecological change.
One other noteworthy aspect of these projects, and of many others students created for the course, is that after our discussions on copyright, each of the projects above has selected to place their finished work under a Creative Commons license. Among other things, this suggests that far from the end of the conversation, some of these student projects may, indeed, have an interesting life being screened and remixed in different settings.
The students in this unit are now working hard on their second project, which is explores more specifically the affordances of digital video on the web, and I have to say, having just heard their Pitches for these projects, I’m really exciting to see the next projects as they’re completed!
Links for May 16th 2008
Interesting links for May 15th 2008 through May 16th 2008:
- From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 years of “exergaming” [Boing Boing Gadgets] – A fascinating look at the ancestors of the Nintendo WIi Fit system, from excercise bike/game hybrids to Dance, Dance Revolution.
- US ‘cyber-bully’ mother indicted [BBC NEWS] – “A Missouri woman who allegedly used a fake MySpace profile to bully a girl who later committed suicide has been indicted by a federal Grand Jury. Lori Drew, 49, allegedly posed as a boy on the website to befriend Megan Meier, 13…”
- Google fuzzes out faces in privacy push [SMH] – “Google has rolled out a new technology which automatically blurs any human face appearing in street-level photographs taken for use in its mapping services by its fleet of camera-mounted vehicles.”
- Dr Who fan in knitted puppet row [BBC NEWS | Entertainment] – “A Doctor Who fan is embroiled in a row with the BBC after she published knitting patterns for the sci-fi drama’s monsters on the internet.” (Sicking the lawyers on fans? Never a popular plan. Dare I make the pun: it’s Ooderous!)
Nine Promotes Canal Road By Allowing Free Downloading of Episodes
After the recent debacle with Nine’s Underbelly series becoming a star of the peer-to-peer downloading circuit, the network have taken an entirely different approach with their new offering Canal Road, making the initial episodes available as free downloads. From NineMSN:
After battling illegal internet downloads of its hit program Underbelly, the Nine Network will offer up free online access to its new series Canal Road. Viewers will have the opportunity to download the first four episodes of the new Aussie drama for free before it debuts on national television on April 16. […] Ninemsn will make the first two episodes available for download on April 7, with episodes three and four following on April 14. Every other episode will be available to download immediately after it airs on the Nine Network.
Nine said in February it was considering taking legal action after thousands of people started downloading leaked episodes of its controversial gangland drama Underbelly, which was banned in Victoria. This time around the network is keen to stress that viewers will be able to get a preview of Canal Road legally. “All downloaded episodes of Canal Road can also be legally shared with family and friends by saving them onto a DVD or through the existing peer-to-peer file sharing programs,” ninemsn said in a statement.
Kudos to Nine: while streaming video of episodes and the occasional downloadable-but-expires-within-a-week episodes have been tried by Australian broadcasters in the past, Nine’s Canal Road episodes can be downloaded, kept, played offline and won’t “expire”. Indeed, this new ‘Catch-Up TV’ service sports the following message regarding Canal Road:
You can also copy, share and burn each episode to DVD or even distribute the files via file-sharing applications, such as Bit Torrent.
In actually encouraging Australia TV watchers to use Bit Torrent, Nine is finally trying to build on what they know a reasonable segment of their audience are already up to. However, that notice is a little disingenuous: yes, users can download and redistribute the episodes, BUT in order to play the episodes back, you must have the Hiro Video Player Plugin (which works with Windows Media Player on PCs and Quicktime on Macs) and Hiro inserts advertisements into the downloaded episodes. So, in order to play the episode, each computer must have Hiro installed. More to the point, “burn each episode to DVD” sounds like the file can be either converted to a DVD format or can be played in DivX compatible DVD players but this simply isn’t true.
So, while Nine have made leaps and bounds in providing downloadable episodes for their viewers (and certainly Canal Road will be benefiting from the press surrounding such an experiment), they’ve still made claims (such as the episodes being burnable to DVD) which, while not completely untrue, are a little deceptive. That said, if you are willing to put up with a few ads you can’t fast forward to rewind — Hiro doesn’t seem to insert that many ads (I got three single ads, all around 30 seconds in the 45 minutes playback of the first episode of Canal Road) — then the episodes are of a very decent quality (720×576) although for some reason they did play back on my PC in 4:3 when it was clearly shot in 16:9.
A few solid steps in the right direction here, but still a few more steps worth taking to get legal downloads right!
Links for April 2nd 2008
Interesting links for April 2nd 2008:
- Bringing the cloud with you [Official Google Docs Blog] – Google edges even further in Microsoft’s heartland as Google Docs becomes available offline!
- Google April Fool’s Jokes Galore [Google Blogscoped} – A round-up of Google’s extensive April Foos offerings. The best one, of course, was the Australian based: “gDay with MATE technology to ?search content on the internet before it?s created,?.”
- YouTube’s Video Identification in Action [Google Operating System] – What options go content owners now get if YouTube detects others using their copyrighted material? They can either “block (no exposure and no money) or track (exposure, but no money) or monetize (exposure and money).”
Links for March 30th 2008
Interesting links for March 30th 2008:
- Getting Started [Photoshop Express] – Great set of simple explanations (in video) for making the most of Photoshop Express.
- Adobe Photoshop Express – Adobe’s push into online applications continues, this time with a (very) scaled-down version of Photoshop as an online tool. Adobe are clearly getting into the web 2.0 side of things, too, with online galleries and a few basic community-building tools.
- An Example of Creative Commons Not Working [Aaron Landry] – An interesting post by Aaron Landry who was disappointed to see Cory Doctorow inadvertently violate a CC license. The issue has since been resolved, but the post raises some important issues about CC, fair use and understandings of ‘non-commercial’.
- Jobs to go in ABC production shake-up [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – Looks like Aunty is centralising in the Eastern states even more, and shrinking infrastructure under the guise of use new technologies and “maximising creativity” while minimizing costs. (Why does this sound so ominous for our national broadcaster?)
- Legal battle over Warcraft ‘bot’ [BBC NEWS | Technology] – Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of Glider bot which can ‘play’ Warcraft, on the grounds of a very technical copyright breach.
- Cyber vigilantes foil gadget thief [The Age] – Feel-good crowdsourcing/collective intelligence story about Jesse McPherson whose X-Box was stolen, the police couldn’t help much, so he turned the clues he had over to Digg and mobilised a smart mob who found the theif and his lost goods!
- Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On [New York Times] – “According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well ? sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks.”
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