The end has no end

Why hello there blog readers.
It has been a great term, full of blogs. As seems to be the current trend I am now posting my 'last post'. This blog was started because this past term I was enrolled in a blogging course. It was pretty fun, I learned a lot through practical application. My homework was my blog, and my blog, in a way became my life. In everything I was searching for things to blog about; blogs are a super way of communicating with others that share interests all over the world. Anyhow... this past week was the final for blogging, I am no longer required to post five times a week. However, it has become so routine for me to open up blogger and share things that I will keep this blog up. I probably won't blog 5 times a week, but I intend to post regularly.
Thanks to everyone who reads my blog, comments, or finds it mildly amusing. You have truly made it a pleasure to blog for.
Ok! On to the madness that is the last week of school. I'll see you around the blogosphere LATER.

Could it be the End?!

A week ago today in my Blogging class we watched a three part mini-series about how new media is affecting more traditional media. I think this topic has been fairly widespread in recent news, classes, and even discussions (at least for me- then again, I am in MTP). The End aired on CBC (you can watch it online though), and discusses radio, TV, and print. Since watching I have been left with several questions to ask myself, especially since I participate in several of the media that have raised this issue (ie: blogging, watching TV online, downloading, research online, etc.). Over the past week I have monitored my mediaviour (haha get it?! media behaviour?! Clever, I know) to come to some kind of a conclusion.
Over the past week I have:

1. WATCHED ON TV- DVD of Wickerman (another Nick Cage MASTERPIECE haha), an episode of Oprah on cell regeneration (I'm not a big fan but this was actually fascinating, and a roommate was watching it), The Rick Mercer Report twice (because I love it), and of course, The Office (but it was recorded on our PVR).
WATCHED ON THE INTERNET- Scrubs, Some Youtube videos.
2. READ IN PRINT- 3 issues of the Gazette, Print Magazine, and Watchmen.
READ ON INTERNET- Several Webcomics, electronic sources for essays (normally I do books but not for this essay), COUNTLESS blogs, articles on things I think are fascinating.

3. LISTENED TO RADIO- Every morning I wake up and listen to about an hour of most beloved CHRW.
NOT ON RADIO- A podcast for a paper, music from cd's (dark was the night, and OH! compilation on heavy rotation right now), myspace songs (Fantasies by Metric available for streaming!), and downloaded music.

So now I come to the part where I discuss my views, opinions, and theories on the matter at hand in conjunction with the mini-series. I don't think any of these media are at risk of dying out provided they have supplement themselves with more accessible content. I know this can pose a problem for some smaller companies, they have to PAY for streaming. Who knew?! It's a fast paced world out there, everyone is looking for a way to be more efficient, they want things that are convenient, and these new forms of media (blogging, youtube, streaming, online news, etc.) are providing it. They are also acting as an alternative to main stream media, it's refreshing to hear new opinions and ideas. That being said, sometimes there is nothing nicer than sitting down with a cup of tea and the Globe and Mail, a good book, or watching Scrubs on TV, or waking up in the morning to the radio, not knowing what you'll get.
I like the system of new media supplementing more traditional media. Here are some reasons:

1. I think it's easier to hold onto an idea, or get attached to something more tangible, the internet is always changing, always evolving, always updating, it can be hard to keep up to date on things or even remember what you have or have not read (fun fact... every new site you go to there is a 2/3 chance you've already been there courtesy Spark podcast #28). I find it easier to remember or get into a song I stumble upon on the radio (I'll immediately go look it up), or a book I can hold and read (easier on the eyes too).
2. I feel like blogging and alternative news sources have too many opinions, I like that I can read news from papers (even though I can't read it right now as a poor student), and then read articles on the internet about the same thing to hear other opinions, but there are so many on the internet it's overwhelming.
3. Media, and communication technologies are ALWAYS being replaced by new and better ones. People think this is the first time it's happening, but it's not. Think of how much has changed over time: there used to be people that memorized stories and re-told them, then people wrote them by hand, then the printing press happened. It's just the fact that we are progressing so quickly now that is making people see this transfer.

So there you have it, my ideas based on observations from my life. I think if anything, these mediums will have to re-invent themselves, much like radio did with the advent of TV (a shift from stories and variety hours to news, music, and talk). Maybe they should become more publicly owned and operated with more independent programming (I would love more stations like CHRW). Look at the issues and the facts, what do you think? Do any of you think that print, tv, and radio are dying? What do your mediaviours tell you?

We Feel Fine

Have you ever wondered what other people are thinking? Well this was shown in one of my lectures last week and ever since I've been playing around with it a little. We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale. It is a site that tracks feelings posted on blogs (the system searches for 'I feel' and 'I am feeling') and puts them in a database. The interface is pretty easy to use and seeing all the feelings is really cool. There are many different ways to sort them so you can sort by correlating pictures, particular feelings, place, age, even weather.... anything really "Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved."
It's really interesting to see different feelings around the world from different people. We Feel Fine is a really neat site that makes use of blogs, it's kind of a blog of blog feelings. It offers many interesting angles to seeing these feelings. I think it's cool that the feelings move and have colour and shape. It's almost hard to understand all the systems used, but I'll figure it out. As for me, I'm feeling nostalgic. Maybe it's looking at all these feelings, maybe it's reading week and being with my high school friends, but that's what I'm feeling. I wonder if that will make it on to the site...

Why YOU should join the blogging revolution- State of the Live Web Response

As a student of MIT, I have certain areas of study I enjoy much more than others. One particular area I enjoy and find fascinating is Grassroots media. I think grassroots media and blogging have great potential, and judging by Sifry’s Alert from April 5, 2007- The State of the Live Web I’m not the only one.

This article uses information from Technorati to show just how popular blogging is and the figures are, well, astounding! I mean check out these stats:

· 70 million weblogs
· About 120,000 new weblogs each day, or...
· 1.4 new blogs every second

Blogging is still fairly new, so the web 2.0, sharing, networking revolution is only getting bigger. More and more people are looking for news sources outside main stream media to either supplement or replace the usual formats. Lately there have been more and more accounts of media fraud uncovered by bloggers, For example During the Israel–Hezbollah War of 2006, bloggers caught Reuters publishing doctored images from Lebanon (you can read more about that on First Monday article Reviewing Fauxtography). And remember when bloggers proved CBS had used fake memos to document a story about President George W. Bush’s national guard service right before the presidential election?

This is why blogging is so important; people can seek out new opinions, ideas, and sources (and judging by outfoxed this is totally necessary).

Blogging also allows for networks of bloggers to work together creating communities of similar interests and ideas. Blogging helps you keep current, explore interests, and develop ideas. This is another reason why tagging is handy. Tagging allows users to so easily search for terms, connect different ideas, and share their own ideas. So bloggers, take advantage of built in tagging systems, explore del.icio.us, and stumbleupon things! (Can you Digg it?)