Podcast

Click picture to hear podcast!

Wow!! you really don't know what a podcast is until you actually make one yourself. Without the free help of Audacity, we would all be lost. The most difficult aspect of the podcast was recording an interview. We chose to interview through Skype, and there was no program that allowed us to record our Skype conversation, and because of that we hit a brick wall. We tried a couple different ideas and then we ultimately decided to have the person we were interviewing download Audacity.

This turned out to be perfect, after we straightened a few kinks we were able to have him send us his recording. What made this work was a synchronized recording (on both ends), that made the questions and answers fall under the same time space. Then, Audacity overlapped the two audio clips perfectly and thereafter we were able to edit particular sound bytes.

Our podcast is interesting in that the person we interviewed was one of the first persons to post a picture (any material) of the AA plane that landed in the Hudson river. He used the social network Twitter to send his breaking news. He was later contacted by major media networks and his story was disseminated on television and not just the Internet.

Show Notes:

00:10 Ben (I) introduce the show, speakers, and special guest, Janis Krums

01:58 Ginny interviews Janis about his experience after posting the famous Twit Pic

5:28 Reanne and Janis discuss social media and citizen journalism

09:15 Austin presents concluding thoughts, outro, and thanks to Janis

Blogjects

The image to the left is of a reconnaissance pigeon. These pigeons were once used during WWI as a means of spying. This was first developed in 1903 by German engineer Julius Neubronner. The camera was ridged with a timer which would systematically snap photos when the bird was in flight.

It all started with a note tied to the foot of the pigeon and has now evolved to Blojects. Blogjects, for the those of you who don't know, are any object that can be connected to the Internet and streaming any information that object may encounter. The first study involves a device attached to pigeons which measured air pollution in LA. It also used a GPS system to track the birds flight. The information measured on the mounted device would be streamed directly to the Internet, like a blog.

I found this to be amazing just think what scientist can do with this. They can ultimately share all their information to the public allowing i different kind of information flow. Just think whale migrations, your cat/dog, and any other species you can possibly think of. People can make their own conjectures. For instance, we can actually see the air pollution And just think about what this could do for the spy world.

Their is a current deer blogging. His name is "Thor" and he blogs every 5 minutes by sharing his GPS location with all of us. This blogject could be used by rangers, biologist, meteorologist, etc. If you can image seeing what your hunting season could look like. By tagging one or a couple you could see what their patterns may be over a years time. One might argue, well scientist already do that. But their information is not available to all of us, and certainly not in a timely fashion. Just imagine how valuable this could be to a journalist, he could literally be pitched this story by a deer and it could be timely, valuable, and novel.

Newspapers, nothing really new afterall

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100256908
This is an interesting NPR podcast/article. It is about one of Americas oldest newspapers in Hartford, Connecticut. The idea of the article is exactly what we have been talking about. There are two people mentioned one a smart professional who turns to the internet to get a new job. The second is an old timer who looks at the newspaper front and back for his new job. The main problem the article poses is that the newspaper is losing money and having trouble competing with other medias, much like all newspapers. What they argue is that if they lose their LOCAL newspaper, then they will be losing a sense of community. A man states that the community will be out the window if they have people online just looking through a 100 different articles a day.

What do you think?? Is this community what really makes us Americans? Don't we and can't we live without it??

E-Book Blogger, which could only have been blogged

OK this article has a lot of interesting information in it. Information that can be useful to all bloggers. The most interesting point he makes is about the 'Magic Middle'. This middle class of bloggers tends to write about issues that are relevant on a personal level. These people tend to influence customers and people by their online blogging communities on a more real and personal level.
These are things i can agree with because you may be able to pitch and protect your product online, but actually touching real people is the key element, and just offering or recommending a product does not do that. Human emotions have to be conveyed some how so that person can feel important on an emotional level. However, it seems like doing this through the Internet would be much harder. This all relates back to the Cluetrain manifesto idea about each conversation being a market.
I do not necessarily agree with all his statements, like when he compares journalism to blogging, but he does correct himself.
Today I thlink this statement would have writers' knees buckling and people like Brokaw Broke and in Awe. Journalism, for me, does not coincide with blogging. While they are both effective ways for reaching an audience blogging still does not have the same reputation. In part because blogs are loaded with opinion, unidentified sources, and for the most part lacking substantial language and spelling use. Also because it generally requires no formal education and is not backed by any legitimate organization. While there is still good and reliable information being blogged, there is still an enormous number of people that cannot be trusted. Good example of this is his e-book, where there are frequent misspellings. With each misspelling his argument loses validity.