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Understanding Creative Commons for Education
Late last year I was interviewed about online teaching by the team UNSW’s COFA team for their Learning to Teach Online project which aims to build a rich library of resources for teachers working online in various forms. You can find my talking head peppered throughout a number of their video episodes, but the main one, and one I’m really pleased to see up, is all about Understanding Creative Commons for education. I’ve embedded the video below, but you can also get a printable resources hand-out over and the Learning to Teaching Online page.
Incidentally, it’s worth mentioning that this video is about both how teachers and use Creative Commons licenses, but also, and quite importantly, about how students can use CC licenses when producing their own worth, be that text, photos, video or other combinations of media. If you’re an educator interested in this area, you might also enjoy the short paper I wrote a few years ago called ‘The Creative Commons: An Overview for Educators’.
Chatroulette Love Song
While it’s hard to look away from the many disasters still devastating Japan, sometimes we all need a lift, and this little Chatroulette Love Song certainly fits the bill for four minutes:
It’s all rather reminiscent of Merton’s Piano Improv, but that doesn’t mean it won’t warm your heart.
The Old Spice Super Fan and Insanely Clever Marketing (Updated)
You probably remember last year’s amazing Old Spice social media campaign (details here and here) in which the man from the ads started replying to people’s comments on YouTube. It was incredibly well put together and the most endearing and genuine use of social media for marketing to date. In a really clever move, after announcing that newly crafted ads were coming soon, the marketing team decided the best way to share the first new ad would be to give the link to just one fan and let them decide how/when/if to share it. Here’s Isaiah Mustafa in his Old Spice Guy persona looking for his Super Fan:
And here’s the just announced winning reply, a very endearing parody from teenager Chris Gatewood (@chrisscross):
Having a teenage winner is a slick move, since it really targets the aging Old Spice brand at a youthful demographic. It’s also a little risky, but acknowledging the importance and power of Old Spice’s fans (fans of the videos, and thus fans of the brand, even if not yet prominent users) is important and will endear the brand even further. The risk, and probably reward, comes in giving Chris Gatewood the only link to the new Old Spice advertisement, which a lot of people are waiting to see. If Chris uses this opportunity, it’ll certainly drive traffic to his twitter page and elsewhere. For the Old Spice folks, it really empowers one fan and encourages others to see Old Spice once again as truly interacting with their fans/consumers rather than just talking at them (as 90% of online brands tend to do).
Now, it’s certainly true that the largest single audience will be when the Old Spice ad plays during the US Superbowl (which is the peak ratings event in the US, and also where their most expensive ads usually debut), but reaching out to the online fans first is still a clever move. Here’s the hilariously kitsch video of the Old Spice Man calling Chris to tell him he’s going to posses the only link to the new Old Spice video in the entire universe for the next three days:
And if you want to see the new Old Spice ad … I guess you’ll have to follow Chris Gatewood on Twitter and wait for him to share a link. 🙂
Update: Chris has shared the link, so here’s the brand new Old Spice ad “Scent Vacation”:
Digital Culture Links: October 23rd 2010
Links for October 19th 2010 through October 23rd 2010:
- Facebook Advertisers Can Glean Private Data [NYTimes.com] – So Facebook is basically leaking private data? “Online advertising offers marketers the chance to aim ads at very specific groups of people — say, golf players in Illinois who make more than $150,000 a year and vacation in Hawaii. But two recent academic papers show some potential pitfalls of such precise tailoring. Both papers focus on Facebook ads and show that in certain circumstances, advertisers — or snoops posing as advertisers — may be able to learn sensitive profile information, like a person’s sexual orientation or religion, even if the person is sharing that information only with a small circle of friends. Facebook does not share such information with advertisers. The papers come amid an intense focus on vulnerabilities in Facebook’s privacy safeguards.”
- iMovie blocks studio names in new trailers [Engadget] – iMovie 11 and the words you can’t say: “Perhaps its testament to the quality of the iMovie ’11 trailers that Apple is blocking the use of big name studios in the titles. Ironic since Apple provides templates that ape the Paramount snow-capped mountain […] and familiar Universal Studios globe. Just don’t try to enter those studio names into the title sequence — the words “Paramount” and “Universal” will be replaced with hyphens. We suspect other studios are affected as well. Hard to say if this is Apple’s doing or the studios as both are notoriously controlling. We’d laugh if only we could stop crying.”
- Big Networks Block Web Shows From Google TV [NYTimes.com] – Will Google TV suffer the unending legal battles that have besieged Google Books? “In the latest sign that Google may struggle to transform television viewing with Google TV, its new service for Internet-connected TVs, three major broadcast networks and Hulu are blocking people from using the service to watch full-length TV shows on their Web sites. Initially, people could watch the full shows on TVs and set-top boxes that use the Google TV software, which Sony and Logitech began selling this month. But as of Thursday, most of the full shows on the sites of NBC, ABC, CBS and Hulu were blocked. People could still visit the sites to read text and, in some cases, watch short vignettes, but not full shows.”
- Google’s Street View broke Canadian privacy laws [The Register] – “The Canadian privacy watchdog today said Google’s Street View fleet broke the law when it collected payload data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. An investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, one of dozens launched around the world earlier this year, also found the practice was the result of a single Google engineer’s “careless error”, as well as a wider lack of controls at the firm. In some cases, Street View cars intercepted entire emails, said Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart. […] She did not announce any punitive measures, but recommended Google should destroy the data, tighten its privacy governance processes, and improve privacy training for its employees. The investigation will be closed in February next year, subject to confirmation Google has taken those actions.”
- Facebook Vows to Fix a Flaw in Data Protection [NYTimes.com] – “When you sign up for Facebook, you enter into a bargain. You share personal information with the site, and Facebook agrees to obey your wishes when it comes to who can see what you post. At the same time, you agree that Facebook can use that data to decide what ads to show you. It is a complicated deal that many people enter into without perhaps fully understanding what will happen to their information. It also involves some trust — which is why any hint that Facebook may not be holding up its end of the bargain is sure to kick up plenty of controversy. The latest challenge to that trust came on Monday, when Facebook acknowledged that some applications on its site, including the popular game FarmVille, had improperly shared identifying information about users, and in some cases their friends, with advertisers and Web tracking companies.”
Digital Culture Links: October 4th 2010
Links for September 30th 2010 through October 4th 2010:
- The Short Lifespan of a Tweet: Retweets Only Happen Within the First Hour [Read Write Web] – Interesting stats on the lifespan of a tweet: “For some, Twitter is a social network and for others it is just a broadcast medium. Judging from the latest data from social media analytics and monitoring service Sysomos, for the majority of users, Twitter is indeed mostly a broadcast medium. After analyzing over 1.2 billion tweets, the Sysomos team found that only 29% of tweets actually produce a reaction – that is, a reply or a retweet. According to Sysomos, just 6% of all tweets are retweeted and these retweets have a very short lifespan. Virtually all retweets happen within the first hour after the original tweet. If you are looking to get retweeted and nobody picks your tweet up within the first hour, chances are that nobody ever will. Only 1.63% of all retweets happen in the second hour and a minuscule 0.94% in the third hour. The same is true for @replies, too; 97% of all replies happen within the first hour.”
- MP in strife over Overland Facebook slur [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “A Victorian Liberal MP has used Facebook to attack the state’s Police Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland. Upper House backbencher Bernie Finn yesterday wrote he was “dreaming of when Victoria will have a real police officer as Chief Commissioner”. The post labelled Mr Overland and his predecessor, Christine Nixon, as “political appointees” who have “proven themselves incompetent in the areas of law enforcement and community protection”. Asked by a Facebook follower when Victoria might have a “real copper running the show”, Mr Finn replies: “after November 27…”, which is the date of Victoria’s looming state election.”
- Can companies ignore social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? [BBC News] – Beware or harness? “Once upon a time companies could afford to be rude. Unhappy customers would grumble to a few friends, withdraw their custom, but there was little else they could do. Today, they still tell their friends, but they do it online, using social media websites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Take the Canadian folk singer, Dave Carroll. After nine months of complaining he had had enough. United Airlines baggage handlers had damaged his $3,500 guitar, but the airline refused to pay compensation and its customer service agents were less than courteous. So he made a music video about the experience and on 6 July 2009 posted it on YouTube. Within three days it had been watched half a million times; by mid-August it had reached five million. United had a massive public relations crisis at its hands, not least as thousands of other unhappy customers now came forward to vent their frustration. These days one witty Tweet, one clever blog post, one devastating video …”
- Twitter Now Getting More Traffic Than MySpace [Mashable] – “Twitter’s number of monthly unique visitors finally surpassed that of MySpace in August. Though it ranked third among social networking sites, Twitter ranked #50 in the list of top 50 properties overall. The numbers were crunched by the marketing research firm comScore. Twitter’s (Twitter) lead over MySpace (MySpace) was marginal — 96 million versus 95 million — but the trend over time paints a prettier picture of the microblogging service. Between August 2009 and August 2010, Twitter grew 76% while MySpace dropped 17%.”
- U.S. single digital music sales flat this year: Nielsen [Reuters] – I wonder how this compares to the rise of micropayments for App purchases? “The rapid rise of single digital music sales has stalled in the United States, the world’s biggest and most important market, with sales in the first half of 2010 flat compared with a year before. According to research group Nielsen, digital sales for single track downloads were flat in the U.S. market after a 13 percent increase from 2008 to 2009 and 28 percent growth from 2007 to 2008. When combined with the growth in digital album sales, overall digital music sales were up over 5 percent in the U.S. Major music companies such as Vivendi’s Universal Music and EMI have pinned their hopes on boosting legal digital sales to counter online piracy and the collapse in CD sales.”
Digital Culture Links: September 8th 2010
Links for September 6th 2010 through September 8th 2010:
- In ‘Bed Intruder Song,’ Gregory Brothers Have Billboard Hit [NYTimes.com] – “Viral videos tend to have a short lifespan online. […] But in one of the stranger twists in recent pop-music history, a musical remake of a local news clip transcended YouTube fame and reached the Billboard Hot 100 chart in August. It was a rare case of a product of Web culture jumping the species barrier and becoming a pop hit. The song’s source material could not have been more unlikely: A local TV news report from Huntsville, Ala., about an intruder who climbed into a woman’s bed and tried to assault her. But with some clever editing and the use of software that can turn speech into singing, the Gregory Brothers, a quartet of musicians living in Brooklyn, transformed an animated and angry rant by the victim’s brother into something genuinely catchy. The resulting track, “Bed Intruder Song,” has sold more than 91,000 copies on iTunes, and last week it was at No. 39 on the iTunes singles chart. Its video has been viewed more than 16 million times on YouTube.” The background to this meme:
- Avatar activism [Le Monde diplomatique] – Henry Jenkins on the mobilisation of popular cultural in protest movements: “Five Palestinian, Israeli and international activists painted themselves blue to resemble the Na’vi from James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar (1) in February, and marched through the occupied village of Bil’in. The Israeli military used tear gas and sound bombs on the azure-skinned protestors, who wore traditional keffiyahs with their Na’vi tails and pointy ears. The camcorder footage of the incident was juxtaposed with borrowed shots from the film and circulated on YouTube. We hear the movie characters proclaim: “We will show the Sky People that they can not take whatever they want! This, this is our land!” The event is a reminder of how people around the world are mobilising icons and myths from popular culture as resources for political speech, which we can call Avatar activism.”
- Reputation bankruptcy :[The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It] – Should we be able to purge our online reputation record and declare reputation bankruptcy? Jonathan Zittrain: “As real identity grows in importance on the Net, the intermediaries demanding it ought to consider making available a form of reputation bankruptcy. Like personal financial bankruptcy, or the way in which a state often seals a juvenile criminal record and gives a child a “fresh start” as an adult, we ought to consider how to implement the idea of a second or third chance into our digital spaces. People ought to be able to express a choice to de-emphasize if not entirely delete older information that has been generated about them by and through various systems: political preferences, activities, youthful likes and dislikes. If every action ends up on one’s “permanent record,” the press conference effect can set in. Reputation bankruptcy has the potential to facilitate desirably experimental social behavior and break up the monotony of static communities online and offline.”
- What Are BP, Apple, Amazon, and Others Spending on Google Advertising? [Fast Company] – A peak into adword spending: “Google is typically very secretive about the specifics of its search revenue. I can’t actually recall any other leak quite like this one, in which the budgets of specific companies are laid out–kudos to AdAge for snagging the internal document with such rarely seen information. Much of the list, which covers the month of June 2010, will be of no surprise to anyone that uses Google Search regularly (which is pretty much everyone): AT&T spends ridiculous amounts of money, as do Apollo Group (which owns the University of Phoenix), Amazon, and Expedia. It’s worthwhile to note that some of AT&T’s $8.08 million budget was probably due to the launch of the wireless carrier’s biggest product of the year, the Apple iPhone 4. Apple itself spent slightly less than $1 million, which puts the company in the upper echelon of Google spending but not all that close to the top. 47 companies spent over $1 million, so Apple was, at best, in the top 50.”
- On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimony, and Historiography [booktwo.org] – A fantastic way to illustrate the importance of Wikipedia histories: “… Wikipedia is a useful subset of the entire internet, and as such a subset of all human culture. It’s not only a resource for collating all human knowledge, but a framework for understanding how that knowledge came to be and to be understood; what was allowed to stand and what was not; what we agree on, and what we cannot. As is my wont, I made a book to illustrate this. Physical objects are useful props in debates like this: immediately illustrative, and useful to hang an argument and peoples’ attention on. This particular book—or rather, set of books—is every edit made to a single Wikipedia article, The Iraq War, during the five years between the article’s inception in December 2004 and November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.”