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Aurélia Aurita (Comic Artist)
Posted in Visual, Art, Illustration on April 30th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
All image directors should have first been cartoonists. Fitting a whole story in one same page, with scenes rubbing backs with other scenes… is the magic of comic. And Aurélia Aurita is amazingly good at it, (more…)
Shooting the Shooting
Posted in Television, Citizen Journalism, Internet, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Great tragedies, such as the one Virginia Tech suffered just last week, have become a way to clearly understand how deep media, journalism and communication have changed in just a few years.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the 2005 London bombings, the Virginia Tech shooting just a few days ago: with each of these tragedies the figure of the Citizen Reporter and the role of the Internet as a source of information and communication are becoming an stronger, integral part in the news making process.
In this recent case, it was the video of student Jamal Albarghouti that offered one of the first documents of the shooting at Virginia Tech. A public debate was immediately raised about citizen journalism, authenticity and authority, and the protection of victims.
One of the things the Virginia Tech massacre showed us, from a communication point of view, is the value Citizen Reporters may bring to news making and how today, sometimes, the journalist isn’t the fastest and most reliable news source: " onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outbound/www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.media17apr17_0_7252873.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines_br_/');">social networking sites (Via PicturePhonning), like Facebook or MySpace were. In such dramatic, unexpected and immediate situations, traditional media is increasingly adapting the role pointing and getting out of the way.
´We live public lives on the web now.´ said Jeff Jarvis in CNNs Reliable Sources. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooting, that means the aura of the first hand reports of students, coupled with their newly achieved power to speak for themselves opens a discussion which can actually help to redefine the role of journalism nowadays, and brings a wider dimension to the discourse of power and media.
Co-written with Maren Hermans.
TV Production beyond the Renaissance
Posted in IPTV, Television, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
A few weeks ago we highlighted an article by Steve Rubel that explored the idea that TV might become the next great development platform, and how if he is right, this may bring a time of innovation, creativity and, in a word, renaissance to TV. Today we highlight an article by Mark Cuban(Via Digg) that in different words defends this same theory:
Remember when you would buy a new PC every couple years to keep up and you would buy a new TV every decade? Well thats about to reverse itself. You no longer feel the need to get the latest and greatest PC but you are about to get in the habit of upgrading your TV every couple years as new and original features and applications are developed for it.
Nowadays we can upgrade out TV sets by buying an Apple TV, a Nintendo Wii or an SlingBox. Tomorrow the options these add ons provide might come with the TV screen itself. That would of course influence what a TV production company is as TV content making would have to at least take into account concepts such as widgets (like the ones already found in Joost) or true interactivity and customization options, such as Dave Winner’s vision of future TV News.
Fear & Loathing
Posted in Television, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Notwithstanding a possible TV renaissance, and according to this CNET article, the Internet was actually the cause of much “fear and loathing” at the last NAB. The reason is that local TV stations seem to be the first to be facing “the net threat”.
Local television affiliates are watching prime-time content like Fox’s 24 go online and wonder if they’re the next business species to be endangered by the Internet.
CBS Video Distribution Strategy, for example, takes this “problem” to an International level, as foreign TV channels, much like local US television affiliates, structure many times their primetime around shows such as CSI, soon to be legally available and on demand anywhere in the world.
Links from Last week
Posted in Long Tail, Mobile, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Head music down by 20%, Tail flat. (The Long Tail)
Music Week’s latest study indicates that while sales of music’s top 200 sellers are plummeting by more than 20%, the rest of the market is dropping by just a 3%. So the music industry health depends in a large part of how well they manage the long tail, their catalogue.
Long Tail enemy #1 (The Long Tail)
The Long Tail enemy #1 is
(…) the convoluted rights clearance process, which imposes its costs mostly in delay and uncertainty, depriving both artists and fans of value from archived content.
Take for example, WKRP in Cincinnati.
Are Carriers Killing Mobile Innovation? (GigaOM)
Mobile might be the next frontier according to corporate leaders like Google CEO Eric Schmidt, but the market needs innovation (…) many worry about the chokehold of carriers on the wireless ecosystem, which they say is cutting off innovation’s air supply.
Heather Bailey (Fabric Designer)
Posted in Visual, Design, Illustration on April 23rd, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
Her fabric designs look almost unreal, like a drawing of a pattern on a drawing of a fabric. The color combinations and how shapes wisely repeat are so pleasant you can’t never stop staring, almost like the (more…)
Don’t Speak. Point!
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Internet, News on April 17th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Bruno Giussani published an excellent article on Lunch over IP about the future role of journalists and editors. In a world of Citizen Journalism, the role of editors and journalists is to become information facilitators, organizers and coaches. Their role becoming many times to “Point to people and get out of the way”.
Giussani explains how “old media” and “new media” aren’t antagonistic and as they are exploring how to best complement each other, they are changing inside out while at it. How will media look in the future? Giussani gives 3 example properties future media will have: Assembled media (the ability to potentially connect any media to any other media), the Read-Write Media (consumers participating and transforming media) and The Media as Places (changing the idea that a newspaper or a TV channel is a product to the idea that it’s a place).
Related: User-Generated Content Is Top Threat to Media and Entertainment Industry
Related: Huge interest in ‘Assignment Zero’ crowdsourcing experiment (Via Cyber Journalist)
CBS Video Distribution Strategy
Posted in IPTV, Television, News on April 17th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
CBS is trying to reach it’s internet audience through their “CBS Interactive Audience Network” including several non exclusive content-distribution deals. Premium, ad-supported CBS content will soon be available via Microsoft, AOL, Comcast, Bebo, Brightcove, Netvibes, Sling Media, Veoh and Joost, among others. Here’s a list of details on CBS video deals from Lost Remote.
The deal is international, as CBS estimates that 70% of their audience is outside the U.S., content such as “CSI”, “Survivor” or “Late Show with David Letterman” might soon be available anywhere in the world.
CBS is focusing on their core business, content distribution, moving away from the idea that broadcasters need to centralize all their contents on their own sites. The other, opposite trend is the one NBC and News Corp are working on, the so called “You Tube Killer“: a new place where viewers will be able to exclusively access all contents. CBS is hoping to strike a deal with them too and have their contents licensed as well under this portal.
Source Article: CBS Puts Its Shows, With Ads, Out Across the Web
Links from last week
Posted in IPTV, Internet, Radio, News on April 17th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Joost: It’s The Metadata, Stupid!
When talking about Joost, people tend to focus on its P2P infrastructure, its media center-like interface and its content deals. Now those are all valid points, but the real key to Joost’s success may be something else: A metadata framework that might just revolutionize the way we watch television.
Google CEO on YouTube, Clear Channel, broadcasters
Interview to Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the National Association of Broadcasters conference. The interview goes over the latest YouTube and Google news regarding media and includes advice to broadcasters and investors.
Internet radio dealt severe blow: Copyright Board rejects royalty appeal (Via Digg)
A panel of judges at the Copyright Royalty Board has denied a request from the NPR and a number of other webcasters to reconsider a March ruling that would force Internet radio services to pay crippling royalties.
Seonna Hong (Artist)
Posted in Visual, Animation, Art, Illustration on April 16th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.
Seonna started as an art teacher and is now combining solo shows with a succesfull animation career. Her art, either on canvas or celluloid, expresses a charming, somewhat asian-vintage, exquisite (more…)
