The Lonely Island

After talking about the various web tv series I remembered one that became very popular but started out at a grassroots level. The Lonely Island features different comedic skits by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg. All three received many fans, followers, and much support through their skits and various short movies. One of which was a web series entitled "The Bu" which was a drama based in the California city of Malibu. Their shorts became so popular that many were featured on SNL. Popular shorts include "Jizz in my pants," "Like a boss," "Dick in a box," and "i'm on a boat." They have re-vamped their website and moved it to blogspot.com but i found it interesting that you still have access to their old site exactly as it was. I like the new aspect of having their info in blogform because, as is intended by any basic blog site, there is more participation and constant updates.

The Pew

I found an interesting site that does research into the social impact of the internet, as they say, "The Pew Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world." The Pew has many categories that it researches including blogs, gaming, health, politics and many others. They post the most recent articles about their research and within the last year have posted some interesting articles about politics and the internet. There are articles like, " How the Shift to an Online, On-Demand World of Content Could Impact Political Discourse" which talks about the high turnout of voters in the last election and what the increased use of the internet may have done to increase this turnout. I found that most of the articles, especially, about politics, are things we have already discussed in class but this site seem particularly good at having a good group of infomation that is informative yet engaging.

The Truth's and Philosophies Behind The Daily show

I stumbled upon this book while researching The Daily Show a bit. As an avid watcher of both Stephen Colbert's 'The Colbert Report', and Jon Stuarts 'The Daily Show', I have always wondered what the main purpose, goals, and philosophies were behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I always wanted to know the irony of it all, and how many of these so called "jokes" are intended to be taken lightly.

This book called "The Daily Show and Philosophy" answers many of these questions throughout the novel. This book analyses and discusses some of the big questions in politics that are talked and joked about in the show. It discusses just how fake the show really is and the show's views on religion. I think people should know the rationale behind the jokes on these shows. They "joke" about some pretty serious issues that really might not be a laughing matter beyond the TV show.

I hope I can get my hands on a copy of this book.

Obama Longtail

Good evening everyone!

We've been talking all quarter about the longtail. We have touched on things such as Google's ability to harness it and become profitable as well as general comments about how is it conducive to the spreading of a more complex, diverse culture. More and more companies are starting to take advantage of the longtail as a deviation from the traditional business model, the online music industry is a great example of this.

That said, the longtail extends beyong the web. I just found an article that discusses how Obama took advantage of the longtail effect but with regard to campaign financing. Basically, Obama didn't spend all of his time and energy seeking out a few multiple $K campaign contributions but made an effort to receive MANY smaller dollar amount contributions; the average contribution was $109. All in all, he raised to most money out of any of the candidates by taking advantage of the longtail.

Pretty much Obama has been our prime example this quarter for a various number of topics and is just another instance.

Second Life

I know we have spoken or at least mentioned the huge hit, Second Life, in class at some point this quarter. I just wanted to speak on it a little bit more. I recently remember talking to a friend of mine who had friends who were married that used Second Life. The reasons for using this site was because they could create anyone and do anything they wanted in their own virtual realm. What caught me off guard was that the people involved in the Second Life scene were caught up more in the virtual world than in the real world. One went as far as having an affair with a person they had met in Second Life.

I guess my question is how are we to stop this virtual world from taking over our physical, tangible world? It seems like it is taking over our daily lives with email, social-networking sites, news, etc. When something along the lines of an affair happens, is this virtual world damaging to us?

The Future of the Long Tail

Will the long tail hold up in the future? Ralph Simon is a host of a show called Future Talks series on the Media Conversations channel. Ralph discussed the future of the long tail with Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard on a episode ironically called The Future of the Long Tail . After a short ten minutes of deliberation there wasn't a decision if there the long tail would survive but will change. Here are some of the theories of what will happen to the long tail in the future.
+ Expansion of whole planet will cause the long tail to not get longer but fatter
+ Long Tail companies
+ Pieces of the "tail" will separate into other realms/ forms

Under Age Social Networking

Recently there have been several articles and videos on cnn.com about under age social networking. Technically you are supposed to be 13 years of age to sign up for social networking sites such as facebook and myspace. But recently these sites have seen and explosion of younger kids bypassing these limitations by lying about their age. Here is a video with several skype guests discussing the problem, and here is an article that came out right before the video.
I feel the moral issue on this is very hard to solve because every one grows up with different rules and boundaries. Some adults may do well in teaching their kids how to be mature and safe while others might shelter their kids so much that the kid actually ends up acting out. It is hard to draw a line on whether one is mature enough to be on these social networking sites, but then again we see immaturity everyday with people 20+ like what is mentioned in the video. I am also not sure where I stand on this issue because I have a younger brother who is 12 but has a facebook. From what I can tell he acts maturely on the social site but there could be many things I cannot see that he's doing.