The Onion

So right away when the topic of new media journalism came up, I instantly thought of The Onion. I know The Onion started out as a newspaper that was produced from Boulder, but since they have been utilizing the internet their fan base has grown much bigger. Instead of just news articles they offer videos and radio as well, along with all of the ways to share them through social networking sites.
This is one of the examples of the videos that they offer. Right now the video is the most popular on the site but you can browse through all their video content.



Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

I think The Onion, by using fake news stories, really shows how ridiculous and over the top news and media can be now a days in an effort to get people to watch. I also think they make good use of sarcasm to draw people to the biases and issues we have as well.

Oh and as a side note I noticed today, the Hulu posted The Yes Man movie we just watched if anyone is interested.

Social Media Revolution

One of my former high school teachers just posted this on her facebook. Very cool as it has everything to do with what we are talking about in this class.

The Yes Men interview

Please watch and comment on this video of The Yes Men on Bill Moyer's Journal. Pay particular attention to the discussion of how The Yes Man pranks relate to journalism.

You can check out their past and future projects at rtmark and at The Yes Men.

Nike Plus

So for my project today, I am going to talk about the Nike + Ipod. The Nike + Ipod combines workouts, music, and the computer to help people obtain goals. It is actually really interesting and I will share more about it in class today, but I think it is a great example of convergent culture. The Ipod comes with a chip that you place in your Nike running shoes. Then you have your playlist during your workout, come home, and plug your ipod into your computer. It then shows you, your entire workout while syncing to your computer. It is pretty amazing and a cool idea. For more information check out: nikeplus.com and the apple store.

SourceForge.net

When it comes to participating in the internet culture, it's important to have the necessary tools to do so. http://sourceforge.net/ is a free open source database that allows participants to develop as well as use these software programs for many different kinds of purposes. Instead of paying hundreds or thousands for some Adobe software, users may be able to find a free alternative version to the kind of software that they need for the creation of digital media or programs.

These programs could also include useful tools, such "Fire" that allows groups to do virtual conferencing.

The Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit organization that started in 1996. The website, www.archive.org, is dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library and an archive of the World Wide Web. So it is basically like a “digital time capsule”. This is a great tool for historians, scholars, and the general public to access the historical collections that exist in digital format.
Since 1996 expanded into different archive projects, which include:

• Wayback Machine: Screenshots of websites.
• Open Library: Archiving tool.
• Media Collections: Moving Images, Audio and Text collections.
  

The Wayback Machine is how I first found out about the internet archive. What it does is archives screenshots of websites that would otherwise be unseen after a site would update.
So this allows user to see the progression of the internet from 1996 to the present, and it also shows hows how user interactivity of website platforms has changed over the years.

John Stewart Views of Net Neutrality

This is a really funny explanation of net neutrality from an recent episode of John Stewart. He puts it in a very entertaining explanation of his own views verses people against net neutrality. This is an old concept with what we are talking about in class, but in light of the great video we saw of him on Crossfire in class i thought it would be entertaining. He discusses the Internet Freedom act of 2009, which sounds like it would be a good policy but it gives the freedom to companies to control the internet. One of the biggest supporters was John McCain, who we have learned the only source of internet he uses is e-mail and that is only to an extent. This is a great video and i especially enjoy the closing comment John Stewart says. Watch it and see what you think!