Deb Roberts

Day 2 - Web Directions South - 15 October, 2010

2010-11-23T09:47:00.002+10:00

Let’s see what we can see - Michael Migurski

Michael’s presentation showed “how information visualization is making it possible to comprehend a live, vast, and deep connected web of data, with a special focus on interactive and geographic work”.
• Examples of how we can take large amounts of data and display it in interesting ways
• In showing data in this way we are telling stories both actively and passively
• Construction of data is an active process and you can choose the data and how it talks back to you.
• Technical problems and solutions are becoming intertwined with the needs of the people.
• This method helps to apply scale and meaning to a problem.
• Michael notes that data is the public good and cites an example of a data map of crime in Chicago.
• See below for a snapshot of top #wdx users by tweet count from Web Directions http://archivist.visitmix.com/4b0cf001/1/User (see below - @deborahroberts)

To see more information on Michael Migurski go to http://mike.teczno.com or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/migurski

Juliette Melton – user experiences at a distance

Juliette’s presentation focuses and discusses how web professionals can improve and understand how their website is being used and learn about user experiences. As noted in the program, this workshop “will show you how to build an effective user experience research program from scratch and how to keep it going over time”.
Areas discusses were:
• Understanding remote user experience research methods.
• Nuances of body language understanding user needs and preferences.
• Discussing how remote research is studying behaviours of participants who are not in the room with you.
• Check and don’t make assumptions
• Identifying the participants and understanding cultural nuances and when to find this out in the research process.
• Understanding the role of the moderator and how to you deal with reluctant participants
• Dealing with tech failure for remote research – don’t scream or stomp feet!!!
To see more information on Juliette Melton go to http://juliemelton.com/ or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/j

Lisa Herrod – The Age of Awareness

This presentation by Lisa Herrod discusses how, with an awareness of Inclusive Design we can all develop websites and systems that are useable and effective to a diverse range of users, and not just those with disabilities.
• When looking to ensure inclusive design in a project – compliance with guidelines only one element of the process.
• Wider community awareness of accessability needs to be considered.
• Inclusive design barriers – budget a large concern, don’t know how
• Individuals have the power to effect social change!
• Budgets and knowledge – these are noted as two of the main barriers to inclusive design practice.
• Inclusive design – look outward – discover and question what are other industries doing – can they inspire you on your design journey?
• Be the change you seek!
To see more information on Lisa Herrod go to http://scenariogirl.com/ or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/j

Shane Morris – 101 things I should have learned at Interaction Design School
Shane Morris talks about his 20 years as an interaction designer — reflecting on what he has learned and the things he would like to have learned along the way.
• Recommended reading - 101 things I learned in Architecture school – Matthew Frederick
• Interaction Design means to turn something functional into an experience
• We can design experiences and put in place tools and components to allow our users to build an experience around the artefact
• “Functionality is the enemy of useability” - Shane Morris
• the level of detail in your mock-ups should reflect the level of confidence in your design.
• Approach vs technique
• Data gets turned into information then into knowledge (application of information) then is transferred into wisdom
• Like buildings applications can break at the joins
• One-metric-shit-load of money – Great way to sum up it cost a lot!
• Design it with models (and not of the female variety)
• Design the façade that conceals what is really going on in the background.
To see more information on Shane Morris go to www.ixd101.com

Matt Balara – Flogging design – best practices in online shop design

• Types of online shoppers
o Browsers - Come and have a look around and if you are lucky they will buy at the end - first impression counts on your eCommerce site – dress to impress – give you a range and number of products and interests
o First impression counts on your eCommerce site – dress to impress - not just look good - look suitable @MattBalara #wdx
• Help them navigate as much as you can “Toys R Us” interesting example
• eCommerce convince people to buy things as well as help them to find out what they want
o Quester – knows exactly what they want – Amazon example – good filtering
o Out of the box solutions don’t always work well for very specific searches
• There is such as thing as too much information!
• Socialite www.j.mp/doz7m
• www.zappos.com short urls = sharing freedom, tell a friend option = put the details
• share = broadcast your taste
• bookmark and share
o The blow in user
o Minds work well imagining things with enough input
o Use great imagery with detail – give the buyer a feeling of what your product is
• Biggest disaster in eCommerce – give them the feeling of lots of people wanting to serve them
• eCommerce forms – less is more – make it easy for the customer to purchase your product
• What users really want – web design forms by luke wroblewski
• Dark patterns wiki
• www.mattbalara.com

Day 1 - Web Directions South - 14 October, 2010

2010-10-14T11:22:00.007+10:00

Well lots of webbie goodness on show at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre (SCEC) for Web Directions South. In fact there is so much on it makes me want to clone myself so I can take in all the fabulous workshops on offer!

The day of course started out with coffee on tap at the SCEC which of course made me very happy after getting into Sydney at 10pm the night before and a night of no sleep!!! All the conference attendees have been given funky little canvas bags (well I think they are funky) which was good as it suplemented the crap I dragged along with me from the hotel!

In the end I chose to go to the following workshops, of which will be detailed below...

Opening Keynote: Designing Obama
with Scott Thomas

Key points:

Scott Thomas presented on the online work he and his team did for the 2008 presidential campaign for Barack Obama.

The team noted that the original website had much room for improvement being very busy and not consistent with the brand.

Time was a key factor with the project to update and essentially rebrand the site in such a short timeframe. Unfortunately little user research was undertaken for the project prior to Scott’s involvement, and as Scott notes, this project was like “we were building an airplane while it was in flight”.

The team went to great effort to ensure that the online presence achieved consistency with the messages and branding in the physical world establishing both consistency and balance. It was also important that the online presence connected with potential voters on an emotive level.

The redesign was broken down and focussed on key areas such as persuasion, raise money, activate the community, localize, represent, educate, introduce and connect. These areas formed the core components and architecture of the website.

Yes we can was the motto that the whole project team within the campaign to deliver a successful online presence!

Working on the campaign made the team think and question how they gather data and communicate. This in turn led to projects such as the online organising tool – organise events etc through to the White House web and online communications. This campaign changed the way the American people communicated, i.e. YouTube, Twitter etc

To see more information on Scott Thomas go to http://www.simplescott.com/ or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/simplescott

HTML 5 audio and video

Dr Silvia Pfeiffer conducted this workshop on html5 and presented updates on the latest in code for html 5 audio and video. Silvia discusses the html and tag and as she has noted on her website discusses how this will allow the web to go “from a predominantly textual experience into a predominantly audio-visual experience” (Pfeiffer, S. 2010).

As a non technical person I found this a very information presentation and gave me a greater understanding of the latest techniques. Great theory to underpin how the web works with this new format and a greater understanding of how this will impact on our work at UQ in the very near future.

To see more information on Silvia Pfeiffer go to http://www.gingertech.net/ or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/silviapfeiffer

Design Thinking and Doing – David Gravina of Digital Eskimo

David Gravina discussed in the presentation on “Design Thinking and Doing” how we can create strategies by thinking. The goal of the presentation was, as David noted in his bio “to take a look at what Design Thinking is and it’s potential to amplify creativity so that we may embrace and apply our skills to the messy problems that business, government and society face every day”.

David notes that the initial process is the big picture business strategy done first the brief given over to the designer. The designer can rebrief and advise of directional changes and can impact and help design the strategy incorporating multi-discplinary teams. Where once designers who were “the doers”, they are also now the thinkers.

Services Design – in essence is really the designing the entire existence around a person – when you design and interactive system on a – a system to meet the users

To see more information on David Gravina go to http://digitaleskimo.net/ or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/deskimo

Workshop 4 – Grant Young – Creating Platforms for Social Innovation

Founder of Zumio, Grant’s presentation discusses the relationship that people have with organisations when “Creating platforms for social innovation”. He also discusses and gives examples of how innovative organisations are using these platforms to create value for the organisation as well as the community. Grant points out the “people are redefining the relationship they have with the organisations they interact with, empowered by social technologies”.

“the future is here just not yet…” William Gibson

This presentation looked a how social technology allows us to share on real world objects, i.e. sharing digital, i.e. flikr etc. Social technology allow us to embrace our “human-ness” of wanting to connect – and gives us personal connections with flexibility.

Social technology allows us to create human brands – ones we would like to be friends with as well as participate in co-creation, i.e. taking an active role in creating and using these technologies to create their own services etc.

Authenticity and transparency – market needs to win back trust of the consumer with these methods. People want information a “personal way” and “delivered personally” creating a sense of authenticity.

Responsibility – people want to support organisations that are responsible to each other

What does it mean to be a business in these economies? Business should look to a number of different ways to incorporate social innovation. Social innovation – innovations the support individuals or communities increase their wellbeing and sustainability with the shift from ownership to access. Online sharing rebuilding trust – social media breaking down barriers to trust and unlocking opportunities with social innovation.

Organisation seeds community – community creates value – community grows – value grows in multiple dimensions = a cycle of value exchange.

• Purpose – have clear objectives and activites
• Intrinsic – belonging to a thing by its very nature
• Extrinsic – being outside a thing outward or external
• From business models to betterness models
• Views: Ted Pink – RSA video on TED website.
• Purpose is one of the key drivers for employees

Trust – employees you have to trust them to do their best supporting policies and mechanisms. Trust your customers – engaging them in the process of developing your organisation.

Co-creation (of multi-dimensional value) to creating for and with your customers.

Building user engagement into an organisation is difficult and behavioural economics should be investigated.

Social innovation can change your business model.

Interesting links from the conference:
http://zum.io/2010/09/28/web-directions-south-creating-platforms-for-social-innovation/
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/364481/online_offline_social_networks_cross_paths_wake_gfc/

To see more information on Grant Young go to http://zum.io/ or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/grantyoung

Keeping your content alive from the cradle to the grave – Donna Spencer

Donna Spencer writes the “web is not a publication — that it’s a living, evolving thing” and notes the a substantial amount of content “still appears to be ‘published’ once and then left alone”.
This presentation explored content and identified what to create, best format, what needs to be left alone, and which needs to be looked. Donna also explored how to revive existing content as well as checking whether your content is still working for its readers and when its time to archive.
Slides on the presentation discussed:

• Content strategy plans for the creation a, publication and governance of useful and useable content.
• What happens over the whole lifecycle of a piece of content? How does a lifecycle work.
• Why is it not right to leave your content once its published?
• Expectation changes of people, devices change. Credibility.
• People believe what is on websites!!!
• Examples of old websites – Jacob Nielsen’s website quoted!!!!
• Important to think about content lifecycle.
• Figure out what sort of information we might be publishing
• First step is to identify content to leave alone/manage
• Check if it is one-of, needs updating and checking, grows over time
• Identify content and address what needs to be done over time
• Reviving – why restart when you can reuse?
• Information architecture
• Is your content still working - walk through your content with user scenarios in mind
• EG for UQ what am I studying and how much will it cost
• Donna noted that using sites like http://www.crazyegg.com/ will assist is giving us the metrics to understand and monitor user behaviour.
• Undertake useability testing – focus on information architecture.
• What do you do when retiring content – out of date message – change the tense to past tense etc
• Used UQ Psychology and programs and courses as good examples!!!
• Distributed authorship
o Run content like a project
o Set milestones/deadlines/tasks
o If you have identified what you need and what its lifecycle is this is easy
o Walk through to key tasks
• Look after content for its entire lifecycle.

Interesting links from the conference by Donna Spencer:

http://maadmob.com.au/presentations/keeping-your-content-alive-from-cradle-to-grave
http://www.slideshare.net/donnam/keeping-content-alive-from-cradle-to-grave

To see more information on Donna Spencer go to http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/ or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/maadonna

Web Directions South 2010

2010-10-08T21:41:00.003+10:00

Looking forward to attending what will be one of the most interesting and informative Web Industry conferences for 2010!

With some of the worlds leading web practitioners talking on a range of diverse and interesting web topics from technical and non-technical perspectives, there are going to be many "nerdgasms" had by the audience - myself included!

I am hoping that I can walk out of the conference at the end of the week better informed on the latest trends in web development that will benefit both my "Webbie" work colleagues and our wonderful visitors to the universities websites!

Check out their website at south10.webdirections.org/ to see the smorgasboard of offerings available at the conference!

Blogging about whatever comes to mind....

2010-08-19T14:08:00.010+10:00

A SciFi loving geek nerd & part-time Internet Comms uni student with an obsession for social media the Internet and chocolate coated strawberries...

3.3 TALK TO ME! CHATTING/TEXTING/TWITTERING AT EACH OTHER

2010-08-17T20:24:00.002+10:00

LEARNING PORTFOLIO

As I have a keen interest in social networking due to my professional role, Module 3.3 has thus far been my favourite module in MED104.

Jane Armstong posted a number of questions for the group to answer relating to Twitter, Facebook, Replacing, recycling or reviving old and new technologies and media, convergence and the public vs privacy on the internet debate.

Personally my use of social networking communications is very much mirrored by a vast number of the MED104 group with Twitter and Facebook being my favourite methods of communication. Google Wave was utilized at the commencement of this unit but sadly dwindled away to nothing due to lack of interest and a preference for Blackboard where we could interact with the whole group rather than the 5 in our small group.

We were asked to discuss some of our Twitter habits which I have posted below from my post in response on Blackboard.

TWITTER

After almost 3 years being on this site I have come to the conclusion I have an ongoing love-vs-hate relationship with Twitter and use it for a multitude of reasons...

1. As a budding cyberstalker I enjoy following what my friends are up to (even if the Tweet the most inane things) as well as hanging onto every word that flows out of my favourite celebrities!
2. I enjoy finding out about whats going on in the world of SyFi as well as my many other eclectic interests such as astronomy and all things NASA and the Space Shuttle (going to see a launch next year!)
3. I use it to follow researchers for all things related to this Internet Communications Degree
4. I use it to verbally vomit whatever is on my mind (that I would not usually put in my Facebook status update for fear my friends would really think I am nuts!) although I am careful not to reveal too much for fear of lawsuits!

For my ramblings please go to www.twitter.com/deborahroberts

Regarding to who is listening/reading tweets, for me I tend to skim through and read them all and follow links that I find of interest. I also really don't care if anyone is listening or reading mine as twitter is my cyber voice to have a verbal vomit!

PRIVACY VS PUBLIC

In response to Jane’s starting thread on this topic I noted that I have personally concluded the there is no privacy on the internet and if its in writing it can be used on you in a court of law. In my view if its digital and on the internet it can be copied and therefore not private anymore - regardless how much security/threats for lawsuits is in place for the writer or recipient – for example Wikileaks.

If I want a private conversation I certainly don't do it on the internet and am wary of this due to having seen too many people do stupid stuff on the web that come back to bite them in a nasty way!

FACEBOOK

I use Facebook as part of my job but do find that it does have many different applications for business depending on the type of outcome that is the end goal, i.e. advertising, promoting new products, competitions, selling stuff etc (the list is endless).

For example my use, as defined and informed by our core marketing and communications plan (and strategic plans), is as a tool to communicate with a very specific target market that has already "bought into" the group that I created and moderate. Through this group (which is private) we hope to communicate and talk directly to them and thereby influence them into choosing our university as their first preference (I work in a marketing & communications office at a university).

We find that thinking backwards, i.e. what is the end goal, informs how we will build it and how it will work with our target market, i.e. a 17 year old is going to interact with different subject matter and branding that a 50 year old. We also stick with our Marketing & Communications plan and make sure we keep an eye on whats taking place on the discussion board and wall ensuring that all spam and porn, if found, is removed promptly as it takes up valuable space and turns off your fans!

REPLACING, RECYCLING OR REVIVING

I look at old technologies with nostalgia - my 8 year old asked me what a cassette player and typewriter were the other day (gosh I felt old when she said that)... this was whilst she was viewing her favourite website and doing a powerpoint presentation for school and Skypeing her friend about homework (all at the same time). In 20 years time she will probably say the same thing as me!

For me personally I feel that someone out there in our lovely global community of ours will always use the typewriter or cassette player or beta (and now vhs) video recorder... and there will always be that small niche business that will make cassettes and beta tapes and typewriter ribbons - selling them in their eBay store of course!

Some will be recycled - look at LP records - saw a record player recently on sale in a Target catalogue and some won't... Benefits of old vs new... well that probably depends on the user... I do feel like I am constantly being swept along on a constant ride of new technologies...

Anyway...

- my Mum loves her land line and I hate mine (only have one for my Foxtel and ADSL but its days are numbered!)...
- my best friend loves her work social club and my life is organised by Fabebook and social networking...
- and online vs classroom - well that a no-brainer for all of us (my employer won't be happy to hear that)

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS

Facebook describes itself on its website as “a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers” (Facebook Factsheet, 2010). This interesting article written by Westlake about Facebook takes us on a journey through Facebook’s history from its creation in 2004 as a social networking tool for American students to interact with their peers, explaining along the way the history of Facebook’s metamorphosis.

This article also goes on to explain the multitude of different interactions that can be achieved from using Facebook. Users can play games, poke each other, use it as a tool to communicate and for users in geographical diverse areas to keep in touch, create pages for special interests and even create new identities.

Westlake goes onto explain that many of the changes that Facebook has instituted over the past 6 years have not been popular and have invoked the wrath of many of its users. Examples of changes such as the introduction of newsfeeds in 2006 had left many users uncomfortable and concerned over the lack of privacy that they were exposed to.

Social networking, including Facebook has also changed the way we interact with each other online with Westlake looking at how the differing generations interact with the social networking tools as well as with each other.

As things change so much over the internet, Facebook, as of August 2010 had over 500 million active users world wide (Facebook Statistics, 2010).

3.1 INFORM ME! NEWS MEDIA

2010-08-17T20:23:00.000+10:00

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS

In Christopher Harper’s Journalism in a digital age, he explores the media in the mediums of newspaper, radio, television and internet and discussed how they have all individually defined themselves. The way that these mediums are operated and how they broadcasted the media in differing ways depending on the era are investigated, i.e. Harper notes that this defining moment “means the way which a story or an event has defined a specific medium or brand name” (Harper, C. 2003). This article goes on to give examples of how these mediums have defined themselves such as print journalism, and its defining moment being the Vietnam War or Watergate.

I enjoyed Harpers depiction of media as one that “emphasizes specific events, ideas and social values” and Harper writes that the media “does not determine what one thinks, but rather what one thinks about”. This simple definition reflects itself in all types of media, whether that be print, radio, television or internet media.

Harper makes a point that the internet is giving more power to the amateur online journalist to produce and be in control of the way they view of news and media. I have drawn upon an example using CNN later in this assignment.

Harpers article from 2003 quotes statistical information stating that only 2% of American users gain their news sources from online methods. In 2010 a simple search of the internet revealed that approximately 61% of Americans get some form of their news via online methods (CNN Tech. 2010). Interestingly what is not noted in Harpers article is the references to social networking and the impact of this on the news and journalistic practices. CNN Tech notes that “Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have made news a more participatory experience. People share links to news stories by e-mail, post articles on their Facebook and other networking feeds and tweet them on Twitter” (CNN Tech. 2010).

Online media is impacting how offline business performs. An example of this is the shift from offline media to the new online format. Areas such as advertising, which print media, TV and radio etc rely on for survive, could cut back or abandon these formats to shift to the online medium. This will impact on the profit of the organisations and therefore potentially whether publications/newspapers are printed or radio/television shows produced.

In exploring differing media news sites including the examples given in this module, I drew on the case in point of Cable News Network (CNN) which I highlighted in my MED104 assignment 2 (Roberts, D. 2010). From its beginnings in 1980 as the worlds first 24 hours news organisation (www.turner.com. 2010), CNN has transformed and bridged the divide between both traditional cable television media, and online media at www.cnn.com, whilst still allowing each media format to remain credible and up to date in their own sphere of influence. As I noted in my earlier writings I discovered that “both media formats actively work together to cross promote media in the many differing formats, readily encouraging both users and producers to collaborate” (Roberts, D. 2010).

CNN has embraced user generated content to make this one of the most up to date media news services in the world. I drew upon the example of CNN’s iReport (http://ireport.cnn.com/ 2010) in “that offers users the ability to contribute to the news and to take part in the news to help shape what CNN covers and how” (Roberts, D. 2010).

2.3 ENTERTAINING THE WORLD: USING MEDIA ACROSS CULTURAL BOUNDARIES

2010-08-17T18:39:00.001+10:00

LEARNING PORTFOLIO

Again another enjoyable and engaging module which was fun to undertake! As I noted in the readings that I classify myself as a Pop Cosmopolitan due to my enjoyment and immersion of the genre of SciFi, and in particular the Stargate franchises.

I am also in a unique position that I was born in an era of pre-internet and therefore any enjoyment and information I got from being a Pop Cosmopolitan was done through television, magazines, books and specialist publications, as well as meeting face to face with other Pop Cosmopolitan’s who share similar interests.

This module had allowed me to reflect that over the past few years, the internet has allowed me to easily access information and entertainment on my interests, meeting and connecting with likeminded people from across the globe.

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS

The internet, with its ease to reach such geographical diverse audiences, has spawned a society that is able to easily access the popular culture fictions of other societies, and thus embracing and allowing them to be part of their daily lives.

Jenkins describes these people as “Pop Cosmopolitans” and notes that “cosmopolitains embrace cultural difference, seeking to escape the gravitational pull of their local communities in order to enter a broader sphere of cultural experience” (Jenkins, H. 2006). Jenkins also writes that to understand pop cosmopolitains you can not study popular culture “without understanding its global context” ” (Jenkins, H. 2006).

In looking at American pop culture, we note that whilst this culture has been a huge influence on other cultures for many years, it is interesting how Asian pop culture, in now influencing Americans. Examples of this being Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Manga to name but a few.

Jenkins also describes how media convergence is influencing popular culture around the world and this illustration of Asian popular culture in America is an example. With the convergence of old and new media such as the internet, mobile telephones, cable television etc, access to media is only but a press of a button or click away and allows is to be able to access and share, interact and participate with fellow pop cosmopolitains from around the world.

In his introduction, Jenkins notes examples of “Pop Cosmopolitains” detailing the interactions of fans of the Japanese media or “Okatu” in the seemingly innocent environment of a grocery store in Clayton, Georgia USA. This made me question myself and my enjoyment of popular culture. Am I a pop cosmopolitan? I would have to answer that yes I am.

I am a pop cosmopolitain in that I enjoy all things Stargate to the extent that I watch and have all episodes of the TV show, follow Sci-Fi and Stargate on Twitter, Facebook and associated websites, read and write Fanfiction from this genre, discuss and enjoy dialogue from the series with my work colleagues, who are also aficionados of this genre and participate in online discussion boards. I have not gone to the point of changing my life or the way I look to embrace this genre (can’t afford it and my external life could not cope with this!) but certainly embrace this culture with likeminded contemporaries.

In Srinivasan’s journal article “Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media” he writes of the differing challenges and advantages that new media poses to groups of culturally and linguistically backgrounds.

Whilst as Srinivasan notes that this article relates and is primarily based, although not limited to native communities within the United State of America, in reading his findings there is much relevance in these findings to other native communities globally.

Ethnographers note that a concern of the impact of new media is that there will be the loss of traditional face to face meeting points to share and exchange information. If these face to face information exchange points are lost, Srinivasan writes that “communities must push to develop new media and information systems that are not just exhibitions or aggregations of content, but also are built around locally and culturally specific representations and paradigms” (Srinivasan, R. 2006).

An advantage of this new media is that not only are these indigenous groups able to share their culture globally, they are able to actively collaborate as a community to produce new media that accurately portrays and records their culture. New media also gives these groups a tool with which they can use as their voice to actively record their stances on projects that may effect their community, i.e. Srinivasan details the Kayapo people of central Brazil and their use of new media to document events of a potential political nature that impact on the Kayapo people with the potential to change their culture, society and life’s.

Another advantage of the use of new media is that it allows indigenous groups to connect and re-establish connections with each other. This is particularly important when these groups live in such large geographically diverse regions without access to proper roads or transportation.

2.2 DON’T TOUCH THAT! COPYRIGHT, OWNERSHIP AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL

2010-08-17T18:37:00.000+10:00

LEARNING PORTFOLIO

The readings from this module very much bought to my attention how I was going to undertake the remediation task without incurring problems with Copyright and Fair Use. As my use of the genre of a television program, remediating to a blog for this task had been decided upon, it made my think more critically and creatively about how I would get around the problems as noted in the summaries of the readings.
Whilst this remediation task is only hypothetical and I can easily remove it from the internet once MED104 is completed, it made me ask myself what if I was in the position that I had to create media content for my job? How would I get around any problems faced with Copyright and Fair Use? How far could I push the boundaries before I would incur the potential of legal action?

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS
Collins gives a brief overview on what is Copyright and Fair Use, looking at the historical perspective dating back to 19th century England to the present, as well as examples on how these are used.

When looking at the definition of copyright, The University of Reading describes this as “Copyright is a property right which subsists in virtually every kind of work (written, printed, electronic), as well as in the typographical arrangement of published editions, and in sound recordings, films, broadcasts or cable programmes. Copyright protection is automatic, giving control of the right of copying to the authors/creators or to their assignees/transferees” (The University of Reading. 2010).

As well as explaining what is “Fair Use” or as Collins writes, “Fair use is a safety valve on copyright law to prevent oppressive monopolies” (Collins, S. 2008). This article briefly explores the impacts of copyright and fair use and what this means to current users when they explore the web and create content using Web 2.0 technologies and digital media.

This article demonstrates what can happen when copyright, web 2.0 technologies and user generated content collide. The Holden Lenz YouTube video of the child dancing to the Prince “Let’s Go Crazy #1” and the subsequent legal action by Universal (the copyright owners) created media coverage both online and offline and demonstrated that whilst it appears that the copyright owners were only acting in the best interests of the artist and copyright it may have backfired against them with publicity making the video hugely successful and viewed on YouTube and led to a “less than reverential opinion of Prince and Universal” (Collins, S. 2008) by internet users.

After reading the Don Tapscott book “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration changes everything”, I found this article by Steve Collins had many similarities to Tapscotts writings about the roles of the consumer and the producer, or “prosumer” as Tapscott writes, in the production of web content and online media.

At the end of this article in the references I noted that Collins has detailed some excellent links for further exploration on this topic.

In the Youtube video “A Fair(y) use tale” (dangerousnerd. 2007) the Disney Corporation is used as an example to define how copyright and fair use operates, and explains copyright laws. Such topics as copyright definition and how “only the copyright owner has the right to use their work” (dangerousnerd. 2007) are expressed by using Disney characters as examples.

It also advises that it is forbidden to use copyrighted works without the permission of the holder of the copyright and if permission is not granted by the copyright holder or owner then there is the liability of legal action that can be taken against the user. When exploring the question of what things can’t be copyrighted, Dangerousnerd notes that “books, plays, music, dance, movies and pictures, and you can’t copyright an idea” (dangerousnerd. 2007).

The video also looks at copyright and the public domain and explains that copyright can only be used for a fixed time of 14 years giving the copyright owner or holder time to make enough money. It goes on to elucidate that after this time it can go into the public domain making itself available for use by any person. Items within the public domain is free for use as this video advised that our culture is one that creates idea and that for new ideas to be formed works created earlier need to be build upon. This is necessary for a living and thriving society. The antithesis to this is that it states that copyright is now getting longer and in some cases may now last a lifetime.

When viewing the explanation of fair use the video details this a being limitations on copyright and explains that there are ways for copyright to be broken. For teaching, news reporting, parody, and critical comment a small amount of work may be borrowed for use. Users should demonstrate the for fair use to occur rules such as the nature of the work, amount of the work borrowed, the commercial impact – of which does not change the original work, are followed.

The video creator used the example of Disney in this video as they as a global organisation use their power to intimidate anyone who takes a Disney copyright work. In order for fair use to be acceptable then this YouTube movie will have legal protection.

In the Lawrence Lessig TED talk, the discussion dialogue centers around user generated content and the topic of its use in business. Lessig goes onto explain when in 1939 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) raised the rates for their works to broadcasters (ASCAP. 2010), the majority of these broadcasters moved their business to the non-profit-making performing right organisation, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) where public domain works were given away free to subscribers (BMI. 2010).

The internet is the tool that allows and empowers us to give rise to user generated content, creating and producing culture and subject matter for love rather than for monetary gain. Lessig uses examples of user generated content, taking a song and video and mixing it into something different. The Jesus the musical video, remixed to a Gloria Gaynor soundtrack then re-edited, created a humorous video and musical mashup.

It is noted that the sounds and our way of life and traditions that we are immersed in our daily lives can be taken to an online format, remixed and as Lessig notes “become tools of speech and how our kids speak and think” (Lessig, L. 2007).

When discussing the architecture of copyright and digital law, Lessig noted in this video that “every single use of culture produces a copy and therefore requires permission and therefore makes you a trespasser” (Lessig, L. 2007). He also goes on to detail that there has not been a revolution or uprising protesting against this law as yet, thus common sense has not yet triumphed.

There appears to be growing hostility from both positive and negative sides to this copyright and digital law which seems to be fought at every possible opportunity. The opponents to the law challenge their opposition in rejecting the copyright laws with the battlefront taking place on websites such as YouTube where content is regularly taken down as it is deemed to be breaching these laws. Interestingly whilst these so called breaches of the law have been taken down they are not forgotten. The website www.youtomb.com preserves screen captures of videos removed due to copyright complaint (YouTomb. 2010).

Government policy makers are not doing much to fix this issue and what is needed is balance for both sides of this argument for and against these laws so that all sides are satisfied with the outcome. Lessig notes that a solution could be the “artists and creators embrace and choose that their work available more freely, eg freely for amateur not commercial use with business embracing this opportunity and build a culture of more free and less free working together” (Lessig, L. 2007).

2.1 Entertain Me! Who makes your entertainment? Institutions, audiences & participatory culture.

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SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS

As fanfiction is a personal interest of mine it was with enthusiasm that I undertook an exploration of the Fanlore Wiki http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanfiction as detailed in MED104 readings. Fanlore is a one-stop-shop for all things fanfiction whether the participants are producers or consumers of fanfiction. Fanlore also has a number of useful resources to assist the new, as well the experienced author in the production and online publication of their work. Fanlore also has an informative section on terminology that is used for both the fanfiction reader/audience and the fanfiction authors and has an online community that promotes social networking and online chats within the community.

Fanlore has opened my mind to the varying types of fanfiction being written as the vast topics that have inspired theses online fictional writings.

I am also interested in how fans expressed their passion for their favourite fandom prior to the world wide web and would like to further explore use of media in pre and current world wide web. It was through reading Henry Jenkins interview with Joan Marie Verba (Jenkins, H. 2010) that I decided to explore further Verba’s work and was able to read exerpts of her book “BOLDLY WRITING A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967-1987 Second Edition” (Verba, J.M. 2000). I hope to be able to source the full version of this book to further explore Verba’s writings at a later date.

Through the example of Star Trek, Verba chronicles “the trends, obstacles, hard work, and success of the revival efforts are detailed through the first 20 years of fan publications” and notes that it is the work of fans through “clubs, organized conventions, published newsletters, letters to Paramount that kept interest in the show alive and flourishing” (Verba, J.M. (2000). In Jenkins interview with Verba she notes that prior to the world wide web old media “fanzines and fan publications were our primary means of communication” (Jenkins, H (2010).

When thinking about who produces entertainment media, movie studios such as Paramount, Universal Studios, Sony and Warner Brothers and television studios such as ABC & NBC in America or Channel 7 or 9 in Australia are the first to leap to my mind.

In reading Cucco’s “The promise is great: the blockbuster and the Hollywood economy” it appears that financially the Hollywood “blockbuster” or as Cusso describes, a movie that is “either a very expensive but unsuccessful movie, or cheaper but successful one”, is a powerful entity that can impact other entertainment media such as television, newspapers and the internet (Cucco, M. 2009).

To communicate the movie to audiences requires considerable advertising and marketing and in some cases where a movies advertising and marketing is online, the advertising and marketing is entertainment in itself. An example of this is the movie Avatar - www.avatarmovie.com/.

The official Avatar website is an example of a text that I consider to be an interactive media tool. The features that make this website interactive are tools that encourage the user to view videos, play games, join Avatar related social networks and online communities, create Avatars as well as purchasing Avatar related merchandise (Avatar the Movie. 2010). All of these tasks can also be accessed either via PC or mobile devices for consumption by audiences at home or on the move.

1.2 THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE? WHEN THE MEDIA CONVERGE

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LEARNING PORTFOLIO
For the learning portfolio and upcoming assignments and remediation project, a blog has been chosen as the format for communication. The blog can be located for viewing at www.debroberts.blogspot.com, although as at 25 June 2010 it still is a work in progress.
The underlying principle for choosing to produce the learning portfolio in blog format is that it will give me the ability to flexibly record and communicate notes from my readings as well as being a tool that can be used for my remediation project and assignments.
In undertaking the remediation project in using blog format I am anticipating that it will give me the ability to add a number of features such as www.youtube.com videos, as well as www.flikr.com and www.twitter.com newsfeeds etc, that will relate to the target information for the project.

FAVOURITE MEDIA TEXT
As a enthusiastic SciFi fan of the original 1994 Stargate movie, as well as the Stargate franchise of Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis (SGA), and recently Stargate Universe (SGU) I am intrigued by the level of interest this genre creates by SciFi enthusiasts, fan fiction writers, artists, photographers and video producers.
For my final assignment and remediation I am hoping to explore in further depth how, from 1994 to the present, Stargate fandom has gone from old media such as newspapers, comic books, novels and specialist magazines, to the new media of mashups on youtube and Vimeo video, social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, fanfiction, and websites devoted to all things Stargate. I am anticipating that this will be remediated into a blog style format although I will finalise the direction of this project in the coming weeks.
After an analysis of my favourite media texts relating to Stargate, I have identified the Stargate Atlantis television episode “Sunday” (Gateworld.net. 2007) as my preferred text for this project. This episode offers an ever-changing richness of stories and messages relating to themes and characters of the series.
As this episode is only PG rated I do not believe that the content has the ability to exclude or offend viewers and does not content that is potentially “MA” rated etc.

SUMMARIES FROM THE READINGS
My first reading for this module was “Four Puzzles from Cyberspace” by Lessig. Whilst I do believe that there are many rich interactions, relationships and communities built in cyberspace such as the example noted by Lessig of “massively multiplayer online game” (“MMOG”), there are also a number of internet users that do not understand this sense of online relationships and community as shown in MMOG’s. These users see the internet as “black and white” in that the internet is just a tool with which to find information and as Lessig writes these users see “the Internet simply as a kind of Yellow-Pages-on-steroids” (Lessig, L. 2006).

Nancy Baym writes that “those who argue online groups cannot be communities often consider common geography a necessary condition of community” (Baym, N. K. 2010). Four puzzles from Cyberspace explores how the internet breaks down the geographical boundaries and barriers of thinking that we can find ourselves constrained to in the off-line world.

Lessig explores the examples of how a user can be successful producing and authoring stories online of a violent and explicit nature that would in real life be unacceptable and as Lessig writes the internet lets “characters do things in the virtual world that they would never do in the real world” (Lessig, L. 2006).

Lessig also comments that the way some users see the internet is “generational” and writes that "for most of us over the age of 40, there is no “cyberspace,” even if there is an Internet". This statement I do not feel is true and believe that this article has boxed any person of this age as web redundant. I have also noted in the previous weeks learning log there is evidence that as noted by Cole “in specific areas, there is often little difference in use of online technology between older users and some of the youngest users” (www.debaird.net. 2008).

As I noted in my discussion board post, using Facebook as an example, 38.5% of their 400 million+ users (150million pax) are in the 35+ age group (Gen X & Boomers etc) with the 55+ age group achieving a 922.7% growth rate in 12 months to 1/4/10. (see www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/). Certainly these statistics can produce a good defence that the over 40’s are a substantial proportion of internet users and I would hazard a guess many of these users are web savvy and can navigate their way around cyberspace.

CLASS DISCUSSION:

Due to the diverse and interesting nature of the MED104 class number of interesting points of view on topics such as privacy, and in particular privacy on Facebook, were discussed and concerns expressed by the group.

Facebook has, over the past few years, regularly changed its privacy settings potentially exposing its users to reveal personal information over the internet. Whilst I am in agreeance that the issues of privacy control on Facebook are at times unacceptable I acknowledge using Facebook is all about choice and education. If users are not happy with the privacy controls they should educate themselves how to lock down their privacy settings therefore protecting their personal information from the exposure to anyone searching the internet.

Unfortunately with 400 million active Facebook users worldwide (Facebook Statistics. 2010), there are always going to be many users who are not educated enough to lock down their privacy settings away from prying eyes.

Web Directions South

2010-06-26T20:58:00.003+10:00

Well what can be said here...

Looking forward to attending what will be one of the most interesting and informative Web Industry conferences for 2010!