Media
Media
A Busy Day
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/07/2008 - 22:08It has been a busy day, mostly spent in meetings. It has piled up more and more things I need to write about, but at this point, I’m too tired to put the energy into some of the more serious posts, so I’m going to write about some of the more day to day things.
On one list, I was pointed to Yuwie. If you join this MLMOSN, you’ll get paid to blog, upload pictures, spam your friends, and look at lots of advertisements. Next.
BlogCatalog sent out an email that they are doing some sort of partnership with SezWho. “SezWho is a distributed context, rating and reputation service for blogs, forums, wikis and other social sites.” That is, of course if the blogs, forums, wikis and other social sites use Wordpad or Moveable Type. Next.
Two new Ning sites: Visual Editors and Social News Central. I like Ning. I like the sites that friends have built. I gladly joined both groups. I’ll probably even stumble back to those sites one of these days.
That said, the innovate of the day goes to Lillie Yifu for wikiHUD. It is a heads up display (HUD) in Second Life that allows you to look up Wiki entries. Right now, it is set up to look up entries off of the Second Life Wiki. I haven’t had a chance to start playing with Second Life Wiki, but it is a good site.
Another website that was highlighted to me today was Central Grid Community. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. I am already on SLProfiles, SLUniverse, Bloghud, have a stub on Second Life Wiki, am on rezzed.net and probably several others that I’ve forgotten. Do I need yet another site for my virtual world personae? Not really.
Okay. You got me going. Let me toss out a few other things about the move to multiple grids. Have you played with SLURL with other grids? It kind of works, if you’ve got a region in your grid that maps to a region in the main Second Life grid and so on. Take a look at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Central%20Grid%20HQ/130/135/25. It ends up bringing up a Google map without anything to click on. What would be nice would be if you can have an SLURL that would like something like http://slurl.com/Central%20Grid/Central%20Grid%20HQ/130/135/25, where the name of the grid was part of the SLURL. Not there yet. However, going to secondlife://Central%20Grid%20HQ/130/135/25does seem to work in the Central Grid.
While we’re at it, it would be great to see AjaxLife add Central Grid to its list of sites.
Beyond all of that, I set up a Drupal 6 test site today, noted the beginning of the Year of The Rat, and random other stuff.
Thoughts about Blogging the AGPA Annual Meeting
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 16:37As I get ready for the AGPA annual meeting, there is some discussion on the mailing list of group psychotherapists that I’m on about a blogger being there. Dr. Bob, who has posted comments on the blog here, has asked an important question. How do the group psychotherapists attending the annual meeting feel about being blogged about? It relates back to an earlier discussion about members of the list using material from the group. It relates to boundaries. It relates to narcissism.
For some, the old quote from Oscar Wilde may come to mind,
“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
For others, perhaps including people who have talked about introversion on the list recently, the opposite holds true.
Some people have some very practical concerns. Can blogs, along with traditional media, be used to elevate the perception of group psychotherapy as a beneficial form of treatment for some patients?
Others may have reactions based on fears about the ambiguous nature of blogs. Within the blogging and journalism communities there are lots of discussions about exactly what blogging is. Is it journalism? What sort of ethics apply to bloggers? Is it the same as applies to journalists?
This leads to complicated decisions by organizations about whether or not they will provide media credentials to bloggers. More and more organizations are, but it remains hit and miss. Since I've been credentialed by many major organizations, getting credentials for me seems easier, but this ties back to the credentialing process and the issues of 'Am I good enough' that seem to emerge in every field.
I will note that my access to the AGPA annual meeting will be essentially the same as that of any other reporter. It might be a little higher based on the trust I've established with some group psychotherapists on the mailing list, but on the other hand, I am committed to journalistic ethics and trying not to damage that trust.
All of this said, I am very interested in hearing people's concerns about a blogger in their midst at the conference. It is something that I have to face where ever I go, and I trust the reactions here will be open and honest and perhaps give me useful insights which will help me be a better blogger.
Most of the above, I sent in a slightly different format to the list.
Dr. Bob responded (and I’m quoting him with permission),
I guess I see bloggers as like critics. Or, more neutrally, like reporters.
So I feel anxious. Self-conscious. Will he pan me? Or give me a thumbs-up? Or not mention me at all? The issue isn't just his opinion, but the opinions of those he influences. And it's not just about me, but about my work. So it's complicated. But we share some interests, and I've read his blog (and posted to it), so overall I'm hopeful. Expectant.
It is interesting to read Bob’s reaction. I don’t usually think about my opinions as being able to cause others anxiety, but I guess I can see that.
There are still a few weeks to go before the AGPA conference, but I am hoping that during these coming weeks I can explore more of my own thoughts about going the reactions of others and learn more from all of it.
Attention Data
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/25/2008 - 16:03718 unread emails. Following 183 people on Twitter. 467 friends in Facebook. 102 of them have recently updated their profiles. 145 unread messages in Facebook. 567 unprocessed updates and requests. 298 RSS feeds in Bloglines. 128 friends in Second life. 58 friends and 179 admirers in MyBlogLog. 70 friends and 40 communities in BlogCatalog. Spock, Wink, Plaxo, Pandora. The list seems endless.
I remember years ago teachers asking for my complete undivided attention. Now, everyone wants my constant partial attention. It seems unmanageable. Beyond that, I want to get as much constant partial attention from others as possible as well.
To get other people’s attention, I make sure that when I do something, it gets out to various places. I send text messages from my cellphone to Facebook and Twitter. Facebook also feeds twitter, in the event that I put something on Facebook directly. Both of them feed jaiku. Twitter feeds MyBlogLog, Spock and Plaxo. When I put up a post on Orient Lodge it feeds Facebook, in a couple different ways, as well as Twitter and Jaiku. When I take a picture with my cellphone, it goes to Facebook and Flickr. From Flickr I can send it to Orient Lodge. When I shoot video from cellphone, it goes to Facebook, Youtube and blip.tv. Blip can send it on to Flickr and to Orient Lodge.
There are probably a lot of other connections I’ve established that I’m overlooking right now. Confusing? You bet it is. It makes it even harder to track what is where.
So, what gets my attention? Well, this shifts frequently. I’m doing a lot in Second Life right now. I have TwitterBox running so I stay on top of my incoming Tweats and Second Life IMs. I’ve been playing a bit with Spock recently. Mostly I see tweats there that I’m already seeing in Second Life. However, I do see people’s updates in Spock. My experiences with Plaxo Pulse are fairly similar.
Right now, the feed that probably gets the most data is my Plaxo feed. However, since it is listening to a bunch of different feeds, it gets redundant data. So, as an example, 18 hours ago, I put up my post about Clinton, Edwards and the FISA legislation. 17 hours ago, Twitter picked it up. Then Plaxo Pulse picked up on both the link on the blog, as well as the link in Twitter. Four hours ago Jaiku picked up the feed from Twitter and then three hours ago, it picked it up from my blog directly. So, the same key piece of information shows up in my Plaxo Pulse four times.
This illustrates a few different things. One is the latency that it takes for information to get out through the network. It illustrates the duplication of messages. Yet not all the messages are duplicates. In some cases I post a quick message in Twitter without posting a message on my blog.
So, how do we aggregate, sort, filter, and make meaningful all this information without introducing more latency? How do we add something new so that, for example, if I find a new friend, I can get him added in all my social networks, get his statuses on Twitter, Facebook, track his RSS feed and so on? And for that matter, how do we plug it into other systems, like Pandora so that if my friends twitter or write blog posts about music, I can hear related music? I don’t know, but it does look like as the data that comes at us starts coming more quickly, we need to come up with better ways of processing attention data. Perhaps most importantly, how do we do it in a way so that people don’t simply turn off their computers and communication devices and walk away?
Media and Democracy
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/18/2008 - 23:27So, the candidates are "whining about the media", according to CNN's Jack Cafferty and he asks, "Is it the news media’s job to keep all the candidates happy?"
Sounds a little defensive to me, sort of like Cain responding to the Lord about the location of Able after Cain had murdered him, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
So, I left my comment there. We'll see if it makes it out of moderation.
To the extent that the media is a corporate entity, its responsibility is to maximize shareholder value by reporting what is titillating and entertaining. To the extent that it is the fourth estate and crucial to a successful government, it has a responsibility to educate and inform.
It seems as if too much of media is focus on the titillating and entertaining, on the horse race aspect of politics, the mudslinging and playing gotcha.
So, perhaps the question shouldn’t be, “Is it the news media’s job to keep all the candidates happy?” Perhaps the question for everyone who calls themselves a journalist should be, which do you love more, your paymaster or your country.
Unfortunately, I see too little love of country.
A New Writing Endeavor
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 01/14/2008 - 22:56Over the past few months numerous people have approached me about writing for their site about Second Life. I’ve had protracted discussions with many of them about writing style requirements, what sort of compensation I would receive, what the considerations are about me posting the material to my own site, or writing for other sites as well. In just about every case, the discussions just sort of petered out, or the expectations were higher than the compensation justified.
However, recently I’ve had some good discussions with Garret Bakalava of SLNN.COM. We haven’t nailed down all the details, but I have agreed in principal to write for and edit the business section of their website. I will focus primary on inworld business and another editor is likely to focus on real world businesses in Second Life. To me, the RL/SL division always seems a bit artificial, but so do many other ways of categorizing business or other topics as well.
My goal will to be write and/or edit approximately two articles a week, with another two or three announcements each week as well. To do this, I will be looking for writers interested in Second Life writing. By a normal writers pay scale, the salary sucks. By a normal bloggers pay scale, the any sort of income is nice and by Second Life standards, we’ll do what we can to be fair.
It will be an interesting challenge for me, since news articles should be in the AP style; a style that I’m not completely comfortable with. My normal blogging style is first person with an ample sprinkling of my own opinions. I will need to keep that in check as I write for SLNN
One of the conditions that has been important to me with whatever Second Life site that I write for, is the ability to cross post the stories to my own site. To the extent that I am writing an opinion piece in my blogging voice, I will post it on Orient Lodge, and allow it to be cross posted to SLNN. To the extent that I am writing a news piece for SLNN, it will go up on SLNN first and at a later point, I will add it to Orient Lodge. These posts will be mostly for archival purposes and are unlikely to appear on the front page of my blog, although they will occur in the Games section. The first story that I wrote specifically for SLNN is now cross posted here with a link back to SLNN.
Meanwhile, I continue to strive for at least one or two blog posts a day on Orient Lodge, running the gamut from the political to the personal, with technology, games, social networks, poetry, and whatever else thrown in. Stay tuned.
