“… [we’ll see] more media producers openly embrace fan practices, encouraging us to take media in our own hands, and do our part to insure the long term viability of media we like. Indeed, our new mantra is that if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.”

“Tony Blair became the first British Prime Minister to answer questions from users of internet video sharing site YouTube, as part of his governing Labour Party’s move to attract younger voters.”

In the face of massive debt (losing c. $200-400,000 a year), Queensland University of Technology is closing their school of Humanities and will no longer off a BA program. The Creative Industries, however, flourish…

Siva Vaidhyanathan: “There is much worth celebrating in our new mashup culture. … Mashups give everyday people the power to affect public perceptions and deliberations. But they can just as easily be shallow, hateful and harmful.”

“It’s easy to satirize Twitter’s trendiness, and cranky critics have mocked the banality of most tweets and questioned whether we really need such an assault upon our powers of concentration. But right now, it’s one of the fastest-growing phenom…”

Which colours to use when creating webpages which will use the least power when being displayed on CRT, Plasma, or OLED technology. (Not a bad colour scheme, either!)

Given that Order of the Phoenix is my least favourite HP, I’m really impressed by this trailer. It’s the ripest book for jetisoning the narrative fat and focusing on the action!

Pirates of the Carribean 1 and 2 in thirty seconds … with bunnies! I love these little flash film summary thingos! 🙂

THe Original Series crew of Star Trek re-cut to the tunes of Knights of the Round Table, Monty Python style. Hilarious! 🙂

On May 5, carry a camera: “What happens around the world in one day? In a word – life. Here on Flickr, photographers are sharing what they see: snapping daily moments, recording history, telling stories, capturing beauty.”

A look at the corss-media modes of Heroes, including a details look at everyone (fan and official) producing parts of the Heroverse! [Via]

Oh dear, push ring-tones are coming (the new spam is musical): “Push Ringer” allows a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to a receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone and override the phone’s pre-set ringer.

“Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. ” (Useful juxtaposition of photography-ready Fast Food against the purchased product.)

“In case you were wondering who’s to blame for the Virginia Tech massacre, I’ve created a list this morning to keep track.” (From Video Games to Atheists to the Devil, pretty much everyone’s been blamed by someone.)

A Flash-based photographic profile of the Viriginia Tech victims.

Two New Zealand teenagers have discovered the downside of Happy Slapping (beating another kid up and post the videos on YouTube) when they were arrested by police yesterday.

“Ismail Ax,” two words reportedly written on the arm of Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, spark a huge number of web searches.

Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) has started full-video (if only 320×240 sized) of its documentary and issue-debate style shows Insight and Dateline. Both are quality viewing, so I recommend this feed!

Dan Gillmor: “Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal.”

“Like most youngsters these days, victims of Monday’s senseless massacre had Facebook and MySpace pages. At risk of being too voyeuristic, here’s a few of their pages, some now updated with heart-rending messages from friends…”

Friday, May 25th, 2007, a 24hour Second Life Teaching, Learning and Research Conference, including papers and eventually Conference Proceedings. (Possibly a good time for academics to try out Second Life!)

“Students from poor backgrounds are just as likely as those from wealthy families to finish university, once they make it into tertiary education. Whether they attended a private or public school also seems to make little difference to their chances of co

“Last year I raised the question “Is Second Life sustainable ecologically?” This question was picked up by Nick Carr, who found that an avatar in Second Life consumes about as much power as the average Brazilian.” (That seems a lot!)

“Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui sent what NBC Anchor Brian Williams referred to as a “multimedia manifesto” to NBC between shootings. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.” [Streaming Video]. (More @ Boing Boing.)

“Online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life are absolute dictatorships, where the whim of the companies controlling them is law. Doctorow wonders if it’s possible to create a game that’s a democracy, where your in-world property is really yours.”

A gun-loving Virginia Tech student who was falsely idenitified as the VT shooter.More in The Age.

“The college student responsible for yesterday’s Virginia Tech slaughter was referred last year to counseling after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings, as evidenced in a one-act play obtained by The Smoking Gun.”

A teenage girl who posted a MySpace invitation including the line “let’s trash my house” has been questioned by police after revellers caused more than £20,000 to her parent’s home.