Twitter

Since the fall of 2008, Twitter has seen an explosion of growth. Knowing how to harness the power of this new social network is something that people are just now figuring out. Just like the way that the media as a whole is loosing its main business model, things haven’t been totally figured out yet.

My observations so far have been that no one thing is going to work. What does seem to work right now is something different for different people. 

Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur who started mahalo.com as just one of his online businesses. He also started a service at www.mahalo.com/answers that you can tweet @answers inside of twitter and it will post the question for other users to answer. The answers have been very in depth and sometimes experts in the associated field will answer the questions themselves.

Kevin Rose of Digg.com has had similar success. He promotes his site when big news comes across as well as his podcast, Diggnation. He recently started a site at wefollow.com which is a searchable directory of twitter users. It does a great job of showing the different categories of twitter users, from general bloggers, comedians, sports stars and so on. The site also shows you how popular a given use is, witch is a good factor to look at to tell if someone is really who they say they are on twitter.

A totally different way of using Twitter has shown up as well. Web cartoonists Scott Kurtz of pvponline.com and Tycho and Gabe of penny-arcade.com along with other cartoonists form a network of conversations that promote their work. They routinely offer special discounts or live video feeds of them writing and drawing the comics, sometimes days before the comic airs on the site.

There will be more ways of making this all work crop up I’m sure, but time will only tell where journalism on the web will ultimately take us.

Low Moral: Creep by Laith Bahrani

Low Moral: Creep by Laith Bahrani may not be a normal photo/video story, but it tells a story that I feel is an important one. The story is of an office worker being depressed in his current atmosphere. 

Making a music video is an interesting way to tell a story. You are using someone else’s words and your artwork or pictures to illustrate it. The problem you run into is the copyright. A lot of music is available with the creative commons license that can be used freely as long as you give credit to the creator of the content you use.

I feel that in this case the artist used his strengths (graphic illustration) to create his story. I would have added some black and white images scattered in at dramatic points in the music to add something that could grab the reader more effectively. Also photographs and very short video clips would have been a good point with this project to bring it into more of a news story than just a music video.

Evidence of My Existence by Jim Lo Scalzo

Evidence of My Existence

-Point of view

Jim Lo Scalzo presents his personal point of view of being on the road and traveling for a living as a photojournalist.

-A dramatic question

Has all the traveling been worth it? “How to stop moving?”

-Emotional content

He talks about his wife going to the doctor as he is on his way to cover the American invasion of Bagdad. He also includes very moving images and stories of the places he’s been.

-The gift of your voice

He uses his own voice, the only way in my opinion. It is his personal memoir.

-The power of soundtrack

The music he used was very effective in transmitting the feelings of the piece.

-Economy

The images used are nicely paced, fast in some spots then slower when the mood is right. The use of video is really not over done. He makes use of it to show a scene that can’t be captured in a single photograph thus saving us having to look at several photos in it’s place.

-Pacing

He uses pacing to create a feeling of movement. At the beginning the photos flash by fast to demonstrate the feeling of constant travel, then they move slower to illustrate the feeling of despair that his subjects were living in. At the end he slows it down a bit more to illustrate him stopping and staying with his family.

BJ Lewis and multimedia

I enjoyed hearing BJ Lewis. His perspective of coming from the writing side to multimedia was interesting. His interest and enthusiasm for multimedia made him interesting to listen to.

What I think I got from the experience was that I have to be the type of person to get out there and write, photograph and video everything and do it quickly in order to be competitive.

I believe that this is all very important, and must be included with tech skills to do this all digitally and on the internet.

Fort Worth will be the next name to be taken around the world by the U.S. Navy for the next 30 to 40 years

Friday Navy Secretary Donald Winter announced the decision to name the newest warship after the 17th-largest city in the nation, Fort Worth. The 160-year-old city received the honor due in part to U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, former Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, civic leaders and schoolchildren.

The naming of the USS Fort Worth will mark one of the last announcements of Winter’s tenure as Navy secretary. Friday he is expected to step down.

Granger was also named the ship’s sponsor, a significant honor. She has campainged for the name since 2006 when she enlisted the help of civic organizations, veterans groups, business leaders and schoolchildren and thousands responded.

The USS Fort Worth is expected to be completed sometime in 2012.

 

-Does this instill more national pride in you by living in/near to the named city?

-What city would you like to see named as a ship?

-Show a timeline of how long it takes to go from a name to a warship.

Full story here

March from Oak Cliff funeral home to cemetery sends a message of hope

About 40 marchers congregated at an Oak Cliff funeral home to march against domestic violence Saturday morning. The group walked six miles to Laurel Land Cemetery.

There they released purple balloons with the names of domestic-violence victims.  Everyone that participated in the event was involved in domestic violence in some way. They had either overcome the violence themselves or knew someone involved in some sort of domestic abuse.

Police escorted them as chants of “no more domestic violence” echoed through the streets. Responses varied from approving smiles to stares.

“I want people to know that they need to get a plan and get out of these abusive relationships,” said Carolyn Thomas, who has been through 13 reconstructive surgeries since being shot by her ex-boyfriend on Dec. 5, 2003.

 

-Ask if any readers themselves were effected by domestic violence.

-Show a map of the parade route and let people show where they live in relation to it.

-Have people explain their own triumphs over domestic abuse.

Full story here

Homeless man looks for hope through the Web

Webcasts at www.pimpthisbum.com are attempting to bring a human face to homelessness. Its controversial name drawing visitors to ask questions of Tim Edwards, self-proclaimed “world’s first online bum,” during the regular Webcasts.

Kevin Dolan, 55, a marketing specialist from the Houston suburb of Katy who with his 24-year-old son, Sean, created the Web site to “insult people’s sensitivities so they would go to the site and see Tim, and people seem to have fallen in love with him. He’s funny and doesn’t blame the world for his situation.”

The project began for them as a test for an advertising campaign and to generate publicity for their new Internet marketing business. 

Edwards will be undergoing a 35-day alcohol detox program at Seattle-based Sunray Treatment and Recovery free of charge. Webcasts will continue as he goes through the program.

 

-I would ask people how aware they are of the homeless situtaion in the metroplex.

-I would ask people if they were effected by this new type of web presence.

-I would like to hear about readers own encounters with homeless.

Full story here.

Tobacco to be regulated by FDA?

The $80- billion-a-year tobacco industry may soon have to answer to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A decade-old bill, called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, passed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in a 39-13 vote.

The bill is backed by the Altria Group Inc., owner of Philip Morris USA, and President Barak Obama. Philip Morris USA currently makes half the cigarettes sold in the US.

Opposition to the bill includes Representative Joe Barton, of Texas, who believes there are better ways to solve this issue. He warns there will be unintended consequences of the legislation and hopes other members will be mindful of that.

Smaller tobacco manufacturers also oppose the legislation. Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc. believe restrictions would continue the dominance of Philip Morris USA.

Legislation had failed in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005 due in part to the debate about menthol. Racism played a big role to this due to the fact that almost 75 percent of black smokers prefer menthol, with only 25 percent of white smokers preferring it.

World Echos Board Game Night

 
 

With the room buzzing with accents from around the world you might have to strain a bit to understand everyone, but the sound of laughter is universal. World Echos is a student organization that strives to provide an opportunity to interact with a variety of cultures at UNT. 

On board games night Rummikub, poker and Scrabble start off the night after a round of chocolate cookies. The members greeted each other like old friends and small groups quickly formed to start games after a short meeting.

Camila Valdiviezo, former UNT student and former vice president, is continuing to help out with events. She has been involved with World Echos for about 2 1/2 years so far. She got interested in the organization because it was not country based, but had a more international focus.

World Echos mainly does social events with some academic events. Events that the organization has done include cooking classes, indian dancing parties, camping trips and movie nights, Valdiviezo said.

The organization currently has about 300 members with 30 to 60 people showing up for a single event, said Carmen Banea, computer science graduate student and president of World Echos.

Banea helped found World Echos in 2001 when she and her sister found that most of the organizations on campus were more focused on a single group. She, being Romanian herself, wanted to have an organization that would fit the students that had hard times finding other students from their own ethnicities.

With varied types of events held different types of people show up to different events. Most of the advertising is word-of-mouth, and you can easily sign up as a member on the World Echos website. Dues for a semester are $5.

Banea’s goals for the World Echos in the future would be to have more students involved to spread diversity.

“There’s many people who don’t travel so this is the best opportunity they would have to see how varied the world is,” Banea said.

Marcus Potter, geography junior, decided to show up and check out board game night after receiving an email about the event. He signed up on the World Echos website and the board game was his first event to attend.

“I like gaming,” Potter said. “I got on Facebook and noticed they had like 273 members.”

Classwork

Even though salmonella was found in the peanut butter plant in Georgia the food still shipped. The tainted products sickened some 600 people and may have killed at least nine. 

This would have been a different story if the measure recently proposed had existed a year ago.

Georgia lawmakers have proposed a measure that would require a plant to report to state officials within 24 hours if any contamination is found. The senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved the plan, and it will go before the full Senate.

The plan will also allow Georgia agriculture officials to order plants to have their products tested at the plants expense. Those who withhold reports under the new rules would face felony charges that carry a sentence of up to five years in jail.

A growing number of civil lawsuits are pending and a federal investigation has been launched to find out exactly why this happened. Committees have also been formed by Georgia lawmakers and have proposed further legislation to bolster the state food network.