The NOTES

these are just my handy reference notes for class
pay no atrtention to them
they're just i can walk in paperless.

From eric
It is an English-to-Hindi-to-English translation of the Hokey-Pokey.
"You place your entire being insideYou place your entire being outsideYou place your entire being inside and vibrate your entire being everywhereYou do the hokey pokey and revolve your being in a circleThat is the complete essense of everything."

So we’ll watch this, kind of to get us in the mood.

annie

a framework for discussing something: (the arrival of my cable guys)

constructive media

freshness
rocketboom

imitation
fake RB

I would give her a job.

nyc blogger


Holly :Is Writing a Curiosity of the Past?The written word has survived over thousands of years, having come about from the basic human needs for communication, creating order, and preserving knowledge. Writing is culture's shining achievment. From the actual beginnings of the written word somewhere around 3100 BCE with the Sumerians, the Canaanites, and the creation of the first alphabet; the need for law and order, the 'discovery' of a universal god; the advent of the Torah and other sacred texts; archeology and the Bible - all of these things constitute and include the major characteristics of civilization.But with the more modern advent of the phonograh, telephone, television, video, instant text messaging, etc., are language arts in writing only one stage of our evolution? Five thousand plus years of evidence would prove a formidable foe, without question, but that doesn't mean the visual arts are no less powerful.Vlogs, born out of the written blog, might be the next logical step in a sort of evolutionary process of methods of communicational technology. Video representation tends to appeal more to people's emotions than to logical reasoning, and therein lies its own inherent problem. A society that runs on sheer emotion is terribly easy to manipulate. Emotion can be a very good thing, but there must be a balance between emotion and logic.With vlogging, and video, viewers don't need to make an effort to pose critical questions while they watch. And later reflection might not be forthcoming because once something is out of sight, it is often also out of mind. Media moguls and big business take advantage of this by pounding out the same brief message repetitively - whatever it is that they want the viewer to believe is what is communicated and all the thinking has already been done for you. Studies show that video representation comes at a cost of less comprehension when they are not supplemented by written text. Understanding is diminished and decisions based on knowledge absorbed via video is often not good enough when it comes to making vital decisions. Children, however, embrace the video format culture. It is immediate, requires a short attention span, and allows for the open-and-shut comprehension and thought process that accompanies traditional learning, reading, and writing. Used together, though, both can do certain things very well and learning can advance with the help of each one as long as people create time to think. As adults we know this. As children, we do not. Children today don't have the advantage of experiencing both and learning critical thinking because it's all being done for them. We are creating an "arcade-experience society," and I'm not so sure that's a good thing. With all of that said and done, I think vlogging is something that requires little perfection and even less thinking. It seems to me that vlogging is spontaneous - perhaps even impulsive. Many of the vlogs I looked at for class were downright silly. As entertainment they're fine. As detailed sources of legitimate information they are sorely lacking.

Erin -- on authenticity
Like with television, there are some vloggers that are there for entertianment, some that aim to inform, and others that strive to do a little of both. I felt as though in a lot of the blogs we read, particularly in some of the political ones, the writing was not always top notch and the "facts" the bloggers were presenting were not always well researched. We all seem to have distrusted many of the bloggers we've read for this reason. We didn't want to trust important information on things like current events from uncredited, unknown, unpaid sources. Introducing video eliminates some this problem to a certain extent when it comes to sharing information. It's easier to believe what you see than it is to believe what you read. Of course you can't trust everything (even Amanda of Rocket Boom didn't trust the video of the Mini Cooper robot she posted earlier this week), but I generally don't feel as distrusstful when watching blogs. When your face is actually on the screen and people can hear your voice, it's harder to hide. You lose some of that annonymnity that regular blogging offers.

Vlogs (sounds dirty)
Vlogs are creepy! They run totally counter to everything we have learned about blogging. We aren't dealing with disembodied people anymore. We now get to see and hear the people behind the opinions who we so readily trash. Enter, the man. I feel like I know him now so I am less inclined to weild my opinion so freely and make blanketed generalizations. Furthermore, here I am sitting with my labtop on my lab, in my cozy pink laura ashley vomitted in room and this guy is looking me in the eye telling me his opinions on vlogs. Totally breaking down the 3rd wall here. They are also harder to keep track of. you can skim words and pretty much get the content within the first two keystrokes of blatant republican or liberalism but you need to actually listen here. Vlogs are certainly not for the boring day at the office types who want some quick news. They are also not for the i spend all my time in the library types, like this girl, right here, because when you do actually get the thing to play, they don't play with volume/fellow patrons of the libes get mad when they do. So instead, now i have these guys in my bedroom. Jerry is currently getting me intimately acquainted with the blisters on his hand. He seems to have all the same mindless comments to make that most of the other bloggers we have, ie, "i go into a bar and i meet a girl" but becuase he litters it with interesting visuals, his tale is a lot more interesting-although it certainly makes me feel more awkward. He's actually quite painful, but in that indy film sort of way that makes you uncomfortable to watch yet you can't end it. Is it funny? My fave comment on his vlog being, "you need a girlfriend and no, your mother won't do." What if comments could be vloged. Wouldn't it be neat if you could record your comments and post them on other people's vlogs and then you would essentially be having a disconnected conversation. Talk about tripy! Rocketboom chick, Amanda says (once again, right to my face) that "I get some pretty crappy comments and to have some fun, I like to visualize the commenters"-now, she wouldn't have to. Although I think this would change the face of what people were saying. It's harder assuming a fake identity or a character when you're totally putting yourself out there. Does that alter what people are willing to say? It hasn't yet, but it seems that the genre is so different that generally people aren't saying, "Hi. I'm Will and here's why I don't like Bush"I also look at vlogers a lot more than bloggers. It seems to take a lot more time and effort so what's the general motivation? If it's fame it's certainly a very specific, less anonomyous sort of fame. I mean, Amanda Rocketboom has costume changes and everything. Does she have a tonuge ring (totally irrelevant). She's like a diet tina fey. Her comment from the "angry republican character is" i watch your show every day and i can't stand it but i can't help but keep watching becuase i keep hoping you'll change." it seems that this attitude fuels a lot of people-but weren't we saying in class that most of the gents reading blogs are looking into like minded blogs? It's different here though with vlogs because things have so much more flava! You are so much less limited to format. This Minnesota chick is also creepy. Are there no normal people who vlog? I guess they'd be just as boring as normal bloggers. Or maybe I'm just hypersensitive becuase it's late at night. Are these people using vlogs to get their cinematic "talents" out there just the way that amateur writers use blogs? some of this stuff is quite good. Has anyone been discovered yet?



Marc: the capitalist I know a couple for kids who have set up a tent, downtown, and they sell first run movies for $7.00. The movies have been filmed, usually opening night, with hand held cameras. Sometimes they have movies that have yet to open in Hartford, I saw "Get Rich or Die Trying" two weeks before it was at the Crown. After the first 30 seconds I cannot tell the difference between the product from these entrepreneurs and what I get at Blockbuster. Their business is booming. After looking at vlogs I can see the Napster style business model emerging. The faster the Internet becomes, the more people that get connected, the more people will get into vlogging. The more people in vlogging means bigger and better vlogs; therefore more corporate involvement.Believe it or not, Apple is leading the way for vloggers to eventually proliferate. Fans of iTunes represent an unstoppable force. Who wants to keep all those CDs if you can carry around 1,000 songs on an iPod and easily expand that library through the Internet? Not many I suspect. Nor is this growing army of Internet-savvy users going to stop at music. Not too far in the future an iVideo and perhaps an iTome, for downloading literature and audiobooks, respectively, will be available.Already, I can hear the distant wail of writers and producers and directors. But they better get used to it. People now expect to pick and choose. They have been doing it close to a decade with online versions of newspapers and magazines. Resistance will only embolden more pirates in Napster-like attempts to outflank the news and entertainment Establishment. What evidence shows that all the lawsuits have slowed music pirating? Sales continue to plummet, about 25% this year alone and the music industry rightfully blames illegal downloading.Hollywood is already starting to delve into the vlogging world. Famous producers and directors are starting their own vlogs and what will follow, ala David Lynch, will be vlogs for a fee. If the rich charge a fee, the poor will circumvent that fee and try to deliver it for a smaller fee, or, for free to the masses. The law says we can cut and paste without fear or reprisal so copying video will be an industry in itself. I only wish I could figure out the angle so I could make the money.


what are the mefeedia people TRYING to advance? what do they love? what is the philosophy?
Sometimes, it’s just about the cats
josh


vogmaa manifesto [ in no particular order ]
a vog respects bandwidth
a vog is not streaming video (this is not the reinvention of television)
a vog uses performative video and/or audio
a vog is personal
a vog uses available technology
a vog experiments with writerly video and audio
a vog lies between writing and the televisual
a vog explores the proximate distance of words and moving media
a vog is dziga vertov with a mac and a modem
what the vogma guy thinks of the ipod
Video iPod
Filed under: Vogging Theory, Vogging Tools — @ 12:06 pm
Well, it happened. Lots of commentary, excitement in parts of the videoblogging community. Lets rake the coals, read the tea leaves, or whatever it is one says.
They will sell very well.
Eventually most people will realise that most of the time they just use their iPod for sound, and only very occassionally for video.
There will be a small group of videoblogging afficiandos who use it a lot for video, these will be a tiny minority.
This will happen because things like portable sound devices (we’ve had them ever since the transistor radio) work very well - we can easily do other things while listening to sound.
In the same period we have pretty much always had some form of portable TV - you often will see (hear) people at a picnic listening to a sporting broadcast, very very few are watching it on their portable TV (the attention economies are too different).In other words portable sound has always worked, portable televisual has not.
Podcasts (whether video or audio) are a step backwards because they break all the networked aspects that make the blog part of audio or videoblogging of interest and value:
You lose the context of the post, eg post title, date, time, and any accompanying text such as trackbacks, comments, links (are we inventing a new rich media language or are we just wannabe TV stars?)
You lose any possibility of connections between parts (the basic logic of blogs) since the iPod is network deaf and
The player supports zero interactivity (can you click on the link in the movie?)
It enforces the academy aspect ratio (4:3) for content
· So now we can all walk around with baby TV sets in our pockets to watch self contained episodic moments, bit like having a portable VCR that includes your library.
· A bit like a Walkman where the iPod represents a qualitative change because it now includes your archive
· The ability to carry your archive with you is the one innovation.
· Promotion of appropriate microcontent might be another, but it will all aspire to be a show reel and land you that job you always wanted making real movies.
Media that confuses portability with new forms misses the opportunity to invent something more than a genre.
Jerry – creating a “ pod” of appreciators