Microsoft Surface Computer. I.E. Coffee Table

Has anyone seen this before?
Microsoft has invented a new touch screen computer that acts as a coffee table. You can digitally view photos on this computer, and even edit or resize the images. It senses objects that are placed on to the table/computer, and it can recognize what it is. It's really cool. You can also see that there is a "digg it" above the article.

Watch the video and see what else it can do here:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid932579976/bclid932553050/bctid933742930


You can read the article and see the website I got this video from here:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html

Facebook? Nyet, Livejournal ...

So, remember Livejournal? Where you vented in high school about teachers who didn't know how to teach, friends who stabbed you in the back, parents who didn't understand you ... and such things that really just proved how much of a whiny punk you were? Well, it's apparently still going strong in ole Mother Russia according to a French graphic. My French is terrible (READ: nonexistent) so someone else will probably make more sense of it, but I'm led to believe by Journalistopia that it's a breakdown of popular social sites across the world.

Here's the graphic.

Au revoir, mes amis ... is that right? ...

Better than an 8x10

I was looking for potential hockey-puck-worthy photos, and came up with a few:

Our first choice was a plate of food, but...

I could see how if you just got a ticket, you may want to order a photo like this as a hockey puck...

Or maybe if you got arrested... a commemorative hockey puck...

I didn't find any hockey photos, just wrestling. And snow photos.

But seriously, it is good to note that the format has changed a little for photo-viewing, in that the purchase options are now by default, hidden, and you have to click on "Buy this photo" to be bombarded by them.

Ping Pong

As we begin to shoot video, I looked for some well put together videos. I found this one on the Washington Post's website. It's about adolescents committed to the sport of ping pong. The shots are very crisp and the transitions are nice. It's very basic, but presented in an effective manner.

Ruckus

Jared's post raised the question in my mind about how Ruckus works, as partnered with the University of Georgia. I have not signed up yet so I am clueless on what it has to offer. Does anyone know what types of music is free to download on Ruckus? Can you find any song you want or is it limited to a certain database of songs/artists?

Does anyone know if you can transport the songs on your ipod BACK onto your computer? I recently lost everything on my hard drive, including my music, but I still have my ipod in tact.

Music on my mind...

Here's yet another link I was recently introduced to that has proven quite helpful to me as of late. The site is called freeplaymusic, and what it provides is a database of over 2500 royalty-free songs that are free to download. All music from the site can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. Though one might be tempted to think that free music of this sort must come with some sort of catch, perhaps in terms of overall quality, I can personally attest that after having scoured the site for a few hours, sampling different offerings here and there across several different genres, I found myself continually impressed with the general consistency in quality I heard from song to song. Sure, this isn't the work of A-list artists by any means, but that's not to say this stuff wouldn't be perfectly suited for use as background ambience in a short video piece, audio interview, podcast, etc. We just recently used a few songs from the database for some of the graphics we put together for the Red Clay Chef competition this past weekend, and the music definitely worked to enhance the overall production value of the event. And hey, like I said before, IT'S FREE. No need to worry about copyright violations or anything of that sort...So, check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

regarding next week

Hi guys,

Can someone please tell me what we are doing and what we are supposed to do again for next week?

Priyom.

Animated Editorial Cartoon

Flash Goddess Mindy McAdams pointed me towards this: The Detroit Free Press has posted an animated editorial cartoon. All done in Flash, they put it together in one day.

Thoughts?

"In Character" at NPR: The Cookie Monster Interview

NPR has been running a series called "In Character" where they examine iconic American characters like Darth Vader. It's also an interactive series as listeners are able to submit their essays with the chance for them to be heard on-air. Of course, the best tidbit is the video interview with Cookie Monster that is not to be missed. They even ask the "Inside the Actor's Studio" questions to find out his favorite dirty word.

Tips on shooting video

So I found this great little tutorial on tips for shooting video at the Knight Digital Media Center written by Ellen Seidler and Paul Grabowicz. Some of this we covered it class, but it's still worth the time it takes to skim through it.

Moving from Print to NPR

Poynter's Chip Scanlan has an interview with NPR's David Folkenflik that's well worth a read. Folkenflik was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun before moving to NPR in 2004.

Some quotes to ponder:

In the body of the story, you really need to guide listeners by the hand -- there are a lot of external distractions as they hear the stories. So you have to convince them this is worth listening to and you can't expect them to remember everything as the story moves along.

You need to honor the way people speak, to let their cadences unspool and thoughts unpack, more than I did for written articles. You have to learn to get out of the way more. And I had to cast aside my ignorance of (and relative lack of interest in) technology to recognize its importance in conveying the stories I want to tell.

What Goes Online, What Doesn't

Mindy McAdams, the Flash Goddess, posted a list of things to think about when deciding what to turn into a multimedia piece. Worth taking a look at as we'll be discussing this next week in class.

Sky Mall rocks!

I am at home in Kentucky this weekend and I flew to get here, which means two things to me...long lines in the airport and Sky Mall magazine. While I was flipping through, I saw something really cool. The EX-V8 Exilm Digital Camera has a You Tube capture mode on it. According to the company, you can shoot and upload videos to You Tube in seconds. If anyone is in the market for a new camera and likes to upload video, this camera is cool!

At Long Last ...

... my web site is no longer a design disaster. Poke at it, tell me if it's broken. 

Basic design was inspired by Khoi Vinh's Subtraction site. Damn, that's elegant. Read about his grid, though I don't think he's using tables, it's probably all CSS. 

I want to control text like that.

Because one occasionally needs to vent

So this has nothing to really do with multimedia, but it's an interesting perspective on the career which most of us seem to have chosen. AngryJournalist is a place to just vent about stuff that irks you in your pursuit of truth and journalistic integrity. Or in your pursuit of a good job. Anyway, I thought some of the commentary was ... enlightening ... and interesting. It's all anonymous, but it's still worth a look. Some people bring up really interesting points, whilst others whine about things, and then there's the occasional dork who tries to be cheery.

One thing I notice throughout most of the pages are people complaining about other journalists and editors who don't see a point in going digital.

The flu

I have been sick all week, so I decided to look up multimedia about the flu. Unfortunately for Ole Miss, the youtube framing covers up the nameplates they made on the video (one disadvantage to using free video hosting).

Journey of a Diamond

I was looking at this thing about the journey of a diamond on msnbc's website, and it is very interesting. It had a lot of black and white photographs of the miners in Africa and their lives, and it made me think about what Mark said the other day about how poor people are always photographed in black and white. I think black and white has a very different feel from color, and there should be an intention behind using it. When do you think it is appropriate/necessary to use black and white versus color to tell a story? What kind of effect do you think it has?

An Interesting Crime

Stories like this make me proud to be an American, where we're at least free in most senses to speak our mind and make up crap on the internet. Apparently in Morocco, that's not the case. A Moroccan computer engineer, Fouad Mourtada, who is 26 years old, is accused of stealing a Moroccan prince's identity. No he didn't get his social or look through the prince's trash for information. He created a profile on facebook of the prince. It's not that funny of a story being that the man is being beaten in jail. This just shows the absurdities of modern technology and anachronistic laws.

Polaroid's New Inkless Printer

As sad as I am about the discontinuation of Instant Polaroid Cameras and Film -- actually, I'm REALLY sad about that, Polaroid has invented a new inkless printer that is also mobile and portable. You can send your pictures from your digital camera or your cell phone if you have bluetooth. The photos are "virtually indestructable," according to the promoter. America is finally stepping up, since something like this has already been in Japan and Korea many years ago. As cool as this is, I'm skeptical about the quality of the printer, and I'm still sad about there being no more Polaroids in the future.

Here's the video.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcasts/showandtell/site/2008/01/16/st.ces.printer.cnn?iref=videosearch

Yeay! There are some jobs for multimedia people. A lot of these have to deal with design...but hey, puruse and see what'll work for you. You might find something you didn't expect to find and be wowed....

Learn 4 Good

oh hey one more

if you have an iphone and have taken snazzy pictures with it, you should put one in a contest. deadline march 31st!

http://www.ippawards.com/

Indekx.com

A Spanish 3010 classmate showed the class this website the other day, and I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Indekx.com is a website that presents a map of the world as its homepage, and certain countries are represented by clickable flags. When a viewer clicks on a flag, he or she may then choose between several newspapers published in the chosen country. I don't suppose that this offers any insight as to how individual papers can improve their own multimedia aspect, but it is a multimedia convenience for worldly newspaper readers.

bloggery

check it yo!

www.tumblr.com

it's another blog type thing, except I don't think you could make posting multimedia bits any easier than they did. what makes me sad is you can't comment on posts.

"The DV Rebel's Guide"...

...is essentially the Bible for all things related to digital filmmaking, as well as the sole classroom text I can honestly admit to having read cover to cover more than once. Though the techniques described by Stu Maschwitz (author and digital video genius) are definitely geared more towards those interested in narrative filmmaking, the message he puts forth applies much the same to all types of video production. That message, in and of itself, is quite simple: production value is what your audience sees, feels, and believes when they experience your finished product. It is the "perceived quality" of the finished video or movie, and is in no way tied to the budget of a given production. Throughout the text, Maschwitz demonstrates that even when filmmaking with a low-to-no budget, production value can still be achieved simply by cutting a few corners here and there. So, for a rather enjoyable and fairly quick read, I would definitely recommend checking this one out. The practical knowledge it puts forth is both eye-opening and amusing, and each and every time I find myself reading it I can't help but feel more inspired about experimenting with new and different tricks and techniques the next time I find myself behind the camera. As cheesy as that may sound, you'll see what I mean...

See more about the book at its main website here: The DV Rebel's Guide

Good Tips on Audio Slideshows

Colin Mulvany has posted a good round up of ways to improve your audio slideshows.

Wonder How To

I was looking around the net tonight and I stumbled on this page. It's pretty awesome...it looks like a pretty neat (yup, neat) resource for those interested in video. Check it out and enjoy the ride.

In other news, anyone ever heard of Blackle? It's an energy-saving search engine, created by Heap Media. Check it out and save the world.

Athens music, circa 1986

A little piece of history here, a documentary of Athens music made in 1986, the time of REM's come-uppance. Not everyone in it's recognizable of course, and it seems to have a little bit of "making of" in it that's not from 1986, but still kinda cool to see some of this shizzy. Is that a young Mr. Weaver of Weaver D's I see in there?

bloggggrg

hey it's pi time a.m.! (3:14). If I seem tired in class you know why.
So I actually got that link to that How to Be Creative thing from this thing, A Photo Editor. but for some reason i didn't think of linking it in the first place, so now I am. It is the blog of Rob Haggart, an actual photo editor of big time magazine. Some notable posts, here.

What's really wrong with newspapers

portfolio website design

inside the great magazines

Ethics of Blogging

I'm working on a paper in Fink's Media Ethics class about the ethics of blogging. We've talked a little about this in class, but I was wondering if you had any input about the limitations of these ethics. I found a few websites that have attempted to set boundaries, such as CyberJournalist. Has anyone given this thought or have any guidelines they follow?

Soundslides

I have been looking at Soundslides presentations at various newspapers, and the Shelby County Reporter in Alabama has some kind of nice ones, but I thought they could use some improvements.

The Shelby Shufflers had some nice images, and some of the audio with the music is nice too. However, I think it gets too long and redundant.

The Blue Star Salute has some nice images and audio in parts, but the images do not always go along with the audio. The thing that bothered me most about this one was that all the pictures were up for the exact same amount of time and were not coordinated with the pauses or phrasing of the sentences in the audio. The part where the cannon is shot off is really nice though.

Nothing to do with Journalism ...

... but it's a lot of fun - Pong as played with Post-It Notes. 

Anyone want to try something like this? Can you use this idea for a news story?

NASA

I googled "multimedia," and the search engine results led me to looking at NASA's webpage. There are a lot of multimedia related topics. A lot of audio clips, and videos. Take a look if you're interested. I love space!

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.html

Intro to Final Cut Pro...

Again, here's yet another link to a site that many first-time users of Final Cut Pro might find somewhat helpful. Like last week's post to Creative Cow, this site offers a series of free downloadable podcasts designed specifically for those without any prior non-linear editing experience, or for those simply looking to re-learn a few of the basics. Topics covered on this site include logging and capturing (the starting point of all DV editing, unfortunately), the layout and program interface, as well as how to use and navigate the timeline, amongst others. Yes, they may seem a bit basic at times, but that's the point - to familiarize yourself with essential features and functions of the software and to then build upon that knowledge once sufficiently mastered.

Free Dreamweaver tutorial

I haven't been able to fully explore the content of this site, but I think that a website called Learn That can be helpful to those of whom need a little extra help regarding Dreamweaver. I found a free Dreamweaver tutorial there that seems pretty thourough. It might help out whenever we need some help and Mark can't be reached for help.

UGA alerts

As most of you know now, our school is getting ready with its Emergency Programs. UGA Alerts is what it is called I believe, I'm not really sure. I've been getting automated calls and texts on my phone lately, which is a good thing, because it shows that the system is working. How many people have subscribed to UGA Alerts from this class? I am just curious to know.

We specially don't need any trouble after the Virginia Tech incident.

Speaking of which on a similar note, more on college shootings, check this out.

"A gunman at Northern Illinois University kills five people before shooting himself."

perverse and often baffling

Yay Friday. Today you will listen to the most recent episode of This American Life for free soon ("Tough Room"), or else soon it will not be free. Or just get the podcast. Beginning part is cool, about how writers at The Onion select their funniest stories. And then seriously you must listen to Act 4 about Malcolm Gladwell's first journalism job at the Washington Post.

After that you will read this post, "How to be Creative," written by this guy who runs a blog of cool doodles he makes on the backs of business cards. This list is helpful not just for elite hip creative types, but also maybe multimedia journalists. examples.
1. Ignore everybody
3. Put the hours in
16. The world is changing
36. Start blogging

Robert Capa

It's the man himself. He's the photographer that Mr. Johnson always alluded to in photo journalism class. He's also the one with the famous quote, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." Recently, The New York Times published an article about a lost suitcase that was recently found, which contained negatives from the Spanish Civil War by Capa. The Times printed an article that is three pages long, but also has a slideshow to go with it. It's an interesting piece.

Valentine's Day

Okay, it's Valentine's Day, and I'm hoping for something interesting in the way of "True Love Stories" from somebody. So, first I found the Palm Beach Post's "Love Conquers All" bit. I was a little uninterested for the most part, though the last one had a bit of an interesting side to it. The Oregonian has two pieces for Valentine's Day, one on an elderly couple getting hitched and the other on a florist, both of which were lacking. And for some seemingly inexplicable reason, hometownannapolis.com decided to post 4 photos in a Soundslides (minus the "sound" part) about pets getting dressed up for Valentine's Day.

My enthusiasm for this holiday remains deflated.

first web site

Just wondering, how many people have had personal websites before. I mean, websites that were created not for any class assignment but just for fun or something like that. And I don't mean having a blog, that doesn't count. Maybe some people had a Geocities? Angelfire? I remember thinking that the free web hosting sites were about the coolest things ever. Anyone else?

Animal videos help adoption

I know that homeless animals are not "news," but I do want to give kudos to The Augusta Chronicle and other newspapers that offer a video pets section on their websites. The section features a weekly video of animals, often up for adoption at local animal shelters. (This week the feature was about an emu that was running around on I-20 that got adopted.) It's hard to decide on adopting a shelter pet as you see it in its tiny cage. The videos offer people a glimpse at the animals out of the cage, and interacting with others.

Lost and Found

Just wanted to let y'all know that I found some foam-covered ear buds on the desk in the corner. Anybody missing a pair?

~Jake

Multimedia, LA Times style

As I was surfing the internet, I came across the LA Times website. I immediately went to their photography & multimedia section (surprise, surprise). They're doing some pretty amazing work (minus the sound being turned all the way down on one of their audio slideshows). I looked at one in particular, it's an installment called The Lifeline. It consists of three parts about wounded soldiers in Iraq. Each installment is about 5-6 minutes, but I'll warn you...it's a bit graphic and not for the faint at heart.

Slide Show Issues

Given how many emails and messages I've gotten, we'll go over the uploading and linking again on Tuesday.

Problems uploading slideshow and getting it RUNNING

Ok, MANY people are apparently having problems uploading their slideshow to the server.

This is what I did. I couldn't even upload my slideshow "folder" with  dream weaver. What I did was I MANUALLY went to and logged in my drive, and uploaded each and every individual file from the "WHOLE" slide show folder to my web server folder at my drive.

After THAT, when I refreshed on dreamweaver, all the files showed up. But then after I edit my webpage and do the resume link thing and save again and resynchronize. It doesn't work. The link doesn't even show up when I run my page... as if my page hasn't been updated at all, after I check it on safari, fox or whatever.

Well I hope there is help soon, because some people are still "doing" their slideshows right now. I've been done with that for a while, just been trying to get it "uploaded" and running for over 2 hours now.

"Wounded Marines learn something new"

Multimedia is everywhere!
This is a slide show of war veterans learning the process of filmmaking through an apprenticeship program by the Wounded Marines Careers Foundation.

montgomery advertiser

I like ballet a lot. The Montgomery Advertiser has a video of the Montgomery Ballet rehearsing and then one after that, about the children who dance at their studio. These two are under a big "LifeStyle" video section. They're not bad. Some parts I wish the camera person would stop trying to zoom in, even though seeing things closer is nice, but then the dancers move and the shot kind of trails after them.

Project Help

So on Cade White's blog there is a list of newspapers that are incorporating video and other multimedia paraphernalia. It’s not updated in the least, but, hey, it’s a start. This could be especially helpful to those who don’t have their newspaper picked out let for their projects. Very helpful stuff. And anybody let me know if there is a more updated version somewhere else.

Hi all,

In my internet surfing, I have found one of hte most hilarious ideas ever. This is not very journalistic, but it involves multimedia and I think everyone will get a kick out of this. At Prankvote.com two college roommates have this vindetta against their third roommate that plays out through pranks that they play on him. Some of these ideas are really creative; my favorite is the spiderman one. Anyways, the premise of the whole thing is that people go to the site not only to watch these (sometimes cruel, but you-can't-help-but-laugh) videos but also to vote on what happens to Ernie next!

When you get to the site, start with Video 1; it will explain everything. Then, progress from there.

You can also find these videos on Youtube, but you can't vote.

Indiana University School of Journalism

The Indiana Daily Student is an independent newspaper serving the campus at Indiana University. It is what The Red & Black is to UGA. I checked out their multimedia and found a video entitled "People are still having sex' dance party". It's about 4 minutes long, not too journalistic (no narrative, no real point), but it's definitely interesting. Check it out.

Downloading Youtube Videos Without Hassle!

The question of whether videos online from sites like www.youtube.com, etc can/should be legally downloaded or not is still a very debatable issue.

Besides that point, I have noticed that the "downloading itself" has become more difficult than just a few months ago. If you go don't know what I am talking about, there are softwares available out there that help you "download the videos from websites like youtube, etc, DIRECTLY to your hard drive". Apparently there have been many versions of "Youtube downloaders, etc".

Here's how you can find out about the process a little.

The problem is that, out of all the many softwars there are out there for downloading videos from online, they all seem to stop working after a while. Apparently they are not "free" anymore. They ask you to pay after a couple of downloads, or even without asking to pay, the software just stops working without any reason! Makes you think of capitalism or corrupted software? Does anyone know why this is happening; because they were said to be free first.

Anyways, for the benefit of everyone, I've even come across a website that lets you use the site itself to download online videos directly to your hard-drive. This seems to work and is more convenient perhaps for many people because you don't have to bother having a softwared downloaded first that will be used for the "online video downloading". Enjoy!

Priyom.

Blogs and anonymity

The authors at firejoemorgan.com, a really cool baseball journalism blog, revealed their identities to the public on Tuesday after having remained anonymous since the blog's inception in '05. It's a big deal because it's a pretty popular blog (it won a popularity contest between 64 sports blogs at Busted Coverage), and because of the blog's unique purpose: exposing b.s. sports journalism. In this way it's kind of like media matters, but for sports, so not as important.

When the authors revealed their identities on Tuesday they cited "The people we make fun of have a right to face their accusers." and "We don't want anyone to be able to write off what we say as the un-credited ramblings of people too afraid to stand behind them. (The ramblings.)" as reasons for shedding their anonymity. Authorial anonymity isn't unique to to online journalism (at least I don't think it is), but blogs seem to really lend themselves to the practice, and I guess that has advantages and disadvantages. One the one hand, anonymous blog posters don't have any built-in credibility like a print reporter that has a byline next to his story, as the authors perceived in the second quote that I pasted here. But on the other hand, anonymous blog posters can be freer in who they target and in how scathing they are toward their target (i.e., they can curse more). The guys that run firejoemorgan aren't pros, though, so I don't guess revealing their identities will have a real impact on their work. They don't contact their targets either.

Knowing your way around Google

Most of us feel like we have a pretty good grasp on how to search for topics easily in Google, but did you know that Google can do a lot more than simply search the web? It has quite a few tricks up it's sleeve, both trivial and useful. There was a list of 10 Google tricks on Digg.com, but the bandwidth overload had exploded the website. So someone in the comments posted a link to 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing. Even if you feel like you know all the calculator, define:, site:, and "phrase" tricks, I promise you there's something you don't know in this list -- maybe even something that will change the way you use Google.

BBC Again

For online news lately, I've been going abroad to the BBC. They have phenomenal web content. On top of their podcasts, video and online journalism, they have Learning English. This section is for people who are trying to improve their English. They provide simplistic news and then definitions to difficult words. I thought how popular this would be for a paper in the United States or for a Spanish one to do "Learning Spanish."

Video Editing

I figured that since we will start working with video soon, I would post a link to a site I was recently introduced to called Creative Cow. It features a number of forums and blogs about anything and everything related to editing and post-production work, from performing a basic edit to creating stylistic graphics, texts, and other various effects. It covers a number of computer applications as well, including Final Cut and After Effects. One of the great features of the site is that it offers free video podcasts that act as step-by-step visual tutorials for completing various tasks in these programs. This link will take you directly to the Final Cut portion of the podcast section, and while some of the tutorials are designed for achieving very specific tasks, there are a few that cover the program's general interface as well as how to perform simple insert and overwrite edits.

Can one image tell a story?

I read a blog entry by Mindy McAdams about multimedia journalism. At first, McAdams says that an image in and of itself is not capable of telling a story without movement or words. What do you think of that?

Toward the end, seemingly a complete opposite idea, McAdams argues that as many words as possible should be cut because things tend to be too wordy.

Or is this to say that we should always pair words or audio with images, but that the words should be simple and important, only?

Also, just a little random piece of fun:

View the most EMAILED links for today from CNN.com:

1.
Surfing cat
2.
Defendant slugs lawyer
3.
Friendly moose raises eyebrows

Effective Journalism?

Mark's question in class about video footage, and what qualifies as being an effective means of journalism, really stuck with me. When I was looking at news about the recent storms that hit my hometown in the The Courier Journal, I came across this video. A reporter for the paper took a home video of the storm. Does this count as journalism?

Assignment: SoundSlides, readings

By Friday, please post your autobiographical SoundSlides piece to your web site. Link it off the resume page as a minimum, but it would make a nice "About" link that you could add to your template and have on all your pages.

Think about how you can use the site as a self-promotional piece, how you could use it to sell yourself for a job or internship.

Additionally, for next Tuesday, please read chapters 7, 9 and 10 in the Journalism 2.0 book.

I will be on campus from 8 to 4 or so on Thursday (disappearing around lunch), but will not be here on Friday and unreachable until Sunday afternoon. (Heading off to the boonies.) Stop by if you have issues or expect to.

Examples from Class

The first one on music teacher Nancy McClellan who is apparently retiring. This goes on too long, it is visually and audibly redundant after a while. Needs a tighter edit. Careful with the click - this is set to auto-play when the page loads. I hate that.

Up next, we watched a piece looking at a graphic designer turned sculptor. Pay close attention to the audio here - it has some issues, particularly with the frogs and/or crickets fading in and out. A quick solution to this would be to record a few minutes of just pure, natural sound to layer into the background. That would help take out the sudden fades.

Lastly, we have Kuni Takahashi's piece on poverty in Illinois. Twice as long as the music teacher presentation, this flows much better. Note the use of text slides to help advance the story and fill in details. It gives the reader more information without bogging down the flow. (And why are all poverty stories shot in black and white?)

Just a Quickie

"No Mr. President, it's called a quiche."
This is just something I found that I really enjoyed. I liked the subject matter and I like the design of the site so much that I'm now semi-determined to learn Flash. Dear me.

Medals of Memory.

Cleaning the clutter

I suppose I'm still considering Prof. Fink's newspaper management class, but I cant help but wonder why the abh continues to clutter the website...They have the same concept, "spotted" as say the Washington Post's "Day in Photos" but only one site makes me want to look at the photos, the other I pass off are more advertising. Just wondering what yall thought could be different to catch the reader's eye ...

BBC

Recently I started reading the BBC more. I've been fed up with CNN because it's constantly political analysis. The BBC has great podcasts. You can subscribe for free and play them on your RSS or ITunes. It's simple and informative. I've been listening to a podcast on global news. Besides the podcasts, they have live radio. While it has some news about England, it is mainly world news. It's a great tool for information.

blogs

An adjunct prof at NYU named Clay Shirky writes about the internet, a loooot, and going through some of his stuff I found one that was kind of exactly what we were talking about last class w/ blogs and publishing and "publishing," just with a little more elaboration and forecasting.

http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html

Yardbarker and Dontrelle Willis

I follow major league baseball compulsively and a couple of months ago I came across this sports blog site, yardbarker.com. The coolest thing about it is that some athletes have their own verified accounts and they post articles and comment on other people's articles. I only really follow one athlete there, though - Dontrelle Willis, former Florida Marlins and current Detroit Tigers pitcher. I follow him because he posts a good bit and comments a ton, sometimes on articles that don't pertain to him or baseball at all. A user named MixMakers posted an article about LeBron James using profanity on live tv and Dontrelle commented "so what. who cares."

It's fun to think about rich athletes just dicking around on the internet. It's also an interesting side of journalism, having the subjects of mainstream news stories commenting in their own words in their free time, and as part of a community too.

I stumbled upon stumble upon....

So, am I the only one who is completely behind technologically speaking and just discovering the Stumble Upon Website? It's similar to the Digg website we saw in class Tuesday, except that there are different things to tag or choose as favorites in terms of media categories. In Stumble Upon, (which I'm sure there are many more features) you can choose your favorite photos, videos, websites, people, etc. as opposed to just articles. Well, if anybody else knows anymore about it, please post (This is mainly because I just found it and I'm sure some of you know a little bit more about it than I do. That's not saying much though).