Boston Media Makers, Meeting Notes, March 2, 2008

Here are some highlights from the March 2, 2008 meeting of Boston Media Makers.

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Comcast does not want public voices heard

On Monday, February 25, 2008 the FCC held a public hearing, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society on the campus of Harvard Law School. It turns out that Comcast was paying people to fill seats in the Ames Courtroom to prevent net neutrality supporters from participating in the dialog.
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Time viewers spend on then net is rivaling TV time

An IBM survey of consumer behavior, reported by the Hollywood Reporter in the article “Study: TV is taking a back seat” by Georg Szalai, documents that the time consumers spend on the Internet is rivaling their TV time. I took away two interesting data points from the article: First is that “consumers are divided over their preferences for free online content with ads or subscription fee-based content without commercials. About a third is for free content, but about 20% are willing to pay for the HBO-style model” according to the IBM report. Second is the stark numbers documenting television’s decline as our primary media device, according to the survey, “19% of respondents said they spend six hours or more each day on personal Internet usage. That compares with 8% who said so about the TV. One to four hours of TV usage was reported by 66%, compared with 60% for the Web.” Any netizen understands this trend, and it reflects my own experience, but it often takes numerous reports of stark numbers to wake up the sleeping giants. And when they awake, it will be an awakeing of “Jurrasic Park” proportions, although, in the end, the smaller, smarter, nimbler little creatures win out in the end. We’ll see how it plays out.

Boston Media Makers, Meeting Notes, December 2, 2007

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield.

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The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media literacy

The Center for Social Media has released a new report titled, “The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media literacy” which is available as a pdf download. The report sheds light on the fact that media literacy education is compromised by unnecessary copyright restrictions and lack of understanding about copyright law. Copyright law permits a wide range of uses of copyrighted material without permission or payment. Educational exemptions sit within the realm of fair use, however, far too many educators don’t have a good understanding of what constitutes acceptable fair use practices.

Information R/evolution

Here’s the sequel to Michael Wesch’s Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, which I blogged about a while back and another example of using the medium of the web to communicate ideas about the web, I’m sure this one will spread just as the first one did. Thought provoking, yes, but it still takes a book like The Wealth of Networks or Understanding Media to get the complexities of the issues across.

If it’s not on Flickr, did it happen?

I’ve been saying for a while now, I don’t like it when I go to an event and I don’t shoot photos and then experiencing the feeling that, if it’s not on Flickr, it did not happen, this has been troubling me, and now I read “Will You Marry Me? Say Cheese!,” an article in the September 20th New York Times which mentions visual anthropologist Mike Wesch (known for his amazing Web 2.0 video):

Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University who studies the impact of new media on human interaction, said: “I watch students come to the realization that there’s an internal contradiction in their lives. They both want to be famous and they want to be authentic, and yet there’s something in their striving to archive their lives that’s inauthentic.”

One of his former students recently posted his own proposal photographs on Facebook, he noted. That site and others like MySpace “allow them to be their own publicists,” he went on. “Which ties in with the marriage thing. It really is a fascinating phenomenon. It’s almost like if it’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen.”

I’m starting to wonder if we should produce less media, rather than more?

Boston Media Makers, June 3, 2007

It’s been a media saturated weekend, first was at the Making Media Now Conference at Boston University on Friday and now its Sunday morning and I’m attending the monthly Boston Media Makers meeting held the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain. The image to the left provides a link to my meeting photos in Flickr.

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Making Media Now (slides from Opening Remarks)

Here are my slides from the Opening Remarks I made at the Making Media Now: Filmmaking in Transition conference held yesterday at Boston University. A special thanks to Jennifer Kaplan, Bonnie Waltch, and all the people and sponsors who made this lively and engaging event possible.

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Jenkins’ nine big ideas regarding YouTube (plus one more)

I’ve been a fan of Henry Jenkins’ writing and media analysis ever since I read Textual Poachers in graduate school. Last year I read his book, Convergence Culture, back to back with Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks and together they present a must-read pair for anyone wanting to better understand media change. A couple of days ago Henry posted in his a blog a post titled, “Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube” where he presents nine big ideas about the role of YouTube in our contemporary cultural landscape.

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