A few months ago I was told about this website from a friend. The premise is very basic. You click start, enable your webcam, and you're connected to another user somewhere in the world also using this site. It's 100% anonymous and random, so there's a huuuuge variety of people you meet.
There's the classic perverts that are pretty naked, people wearing halloween masks, people having parties with chatroulette broadcasting, and sometimes you may even see a celebrity.
I think this a pretty great idea, as simple as it is. With everything, now all users need to figure out how to do is make money. Broadcasters could simply provide a running advertisement/movie poster and it would flash to every user who connects. Or maybe it would flash clips from unreleased movies, stimulating buzz from a group of random people privileged to have connected with that user.
Either way chatroulette is something interesting that everyone should try (remember though, it's 100% uncensored. Be careful and watch out for a large amount of naked dudes. Outside of that it's fun and goofy.)
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Best of Youtube
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The organization I chose for the "Best of Youtube" assignment is Google. They host a variety of videos on YouTube (conveniently they own YouTube) that assist users in getting the most out of their services. From Blogger templates, how to use search, and specifications on their upcoming cellphone, Google uses YouTube to it's fullest potential. Because they're so large and to my knowledge do not have a support center (maybe support forum, but there it wouldn't be official Google responses) they take a proactive approach, by showing us exactly what they offer and how to use the services.
Here is a few examples:
Here is a few examples:
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tweet about Obama Assassination
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http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/the-secret-service-is-investigating-a-conservative-bloggers-oba/19408303/
After the health care bill passed last night, a conservative blogger tweeted about an apparent assassination to Obama. The author also doesn't see his prior threats as very serious and sort of shrugged it all off.
This is pretty ridiculous to me. Any sort of threat to anyone for any reason should be thought of as serious. If I told you in person that someone should kill you, you'd be pretty freaked out and probably call some sort of authorities. When an anonymous person talking about the highest ranking official says something threatening, regardless of which medium it was expressed in, should be held accountable and looked into.
Authors and PR people need to realize their posts and tweets are all seen by the masses. They seek positive attention for a provocative and thought provoking post, but shun the negative attention there is going to be when they post something dumb and anarchic, such as in this case.
After the health care bill passed last night, a conservative blogger tweeted about an apparent assassination to Obama. The author also doesn't see his prior threats as very serious and sort of shrugged it all off.
This is pretty ridiculous to me. Any sort of threat to anyone for any reason should be thought of as serious. If I told you in person that someone should kill you, you'd be pretty freaked out and probably call some sort of authorities. When an anonymous person talking about the highest ranking official says something threatening, regardless of which medium it was expressed in, should be held accountable and looked into.
Authors and PR people need to realize their posts and tweets are all seen by the masses. They seek positive attention for a provocative and thought provoking post, but shun the negative attention there is going to be when they post something dumb and anarchic, such as in this case.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Widget Company — Huisstijl design, briefpapier en visitekaartje
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The Widget Company — Huisstijl design, briefpapier en visitekaartje
Originally uploaded by Third Eye Grafische communicatie
The Widget Company — Logo design, instructie
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This photo now shows exactly the colors, elements, and layout of the logo for the client. This shows they're very helpful and open sourced to their client, allowing for them to keep a consistant color scheme throughout various marketing materials.
The Widget Company — Logo design
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Here's the finished end logo that was sketched in the first post.
Third Eye Grafische - Use of Flickr
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The Widget Company — Schetsen voor het nieuwe logo
Originally uploaded by Third Eye Grafische communicatie
This is excellent because anyone searching for a design company and searches on Flickr (although in another language) will probably come up with this photostream first.
It also takes away the element of surprise for any first time clients, as the process is shown from start to finish in a photo narrative of various projects.
How Iowa Wesleyan College could use Flickr
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Iowa Wesleyan College already has a strong presence on Flickr. Just do a search on the popular website and over 500 photos are found. Some are scenic photos of our campus while others are imporant politians during visits to our school.
The problem comes in the fact that not too many people randomly decide to search for Iowa Wesleyan College on Flickr. The fact that theres many of these wonderful photos that we are apart of, but no one knows about, is making the photos practically worthless. Why wouldn't we promote the fact that John McCain visited and spoke to our school during one of the most important elections ever? We promote our Facebook and Twitter accounts but never once have I seen promotions to follow or search for us on Flickr.
There has to be some sort of widget or application which the school could add to the main website, which automatically updates new Flickr images with the search terms of Iowa Wesleyan. This would be a great promotional tool that allows all different points of view (obviously moderated) of our college.
The problem comes in the fact that not too many people randomly decide to search for Iowa Wesleyan College on Flickr. The fact that theres many of these wonderful photos that we are apart of, but no one knows about, is making the photos practically worthless. Why wouldn't we promote the fact that John McCain visited and spoke to our school during one of the most important elections ever? We promote our Facebook and Twitter accounts but never once have I seen promotions to follow or search for us on Flickr.
There has to be some sort of widget or application which the school could add to the main website, which automatically updates new Flickr images with the search terms of Iowa Wesleyan. This would be a great promotional tool that allows all different points of view (obviously moderated) of our college.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Amazing New Presentation Tool
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Hopefully not tooo many people in our class read my blog and steal my idea, because I'll probably be using this in my final presentation.
It's a flash based powerpoint alternative called "prezi" that is free (to a point) for students and educators to use. You can either use it online or a standalone on your computer, and it works with depth to shift from "slide" to "slide" instead of left/right up/down as power point does. You can also move in any direction, using paths to go from point a to point b, but the transitions are seemless and very smooth.
Here's an example of a Prezi that works very well with the program (although the subject matter might not be the most interesting) so you can get an idea.
It's a flash based powerpoint alternative called "prezi" that is free (to a point) for students and educators to use. You can either use it online or a standalone on your computer, and it works with depth to shift from "slide" to "slide" instead of left/right up/down as power point does. You can also move in any direction, using paths to go from point a to point b, but the transitions are seemless and very smooth.
Here's an example of a Prezi that works very well with the program (although the subject matter might not be the most interesting) so you can get an idea.
Copyright Violations
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The most common form of copyright violations I see is in file sharing. Constantly people are asking me to put music onto their iPod, lend them a CD to rip/copy to their computer, and various other things. We discussed in class all of the ways that music sharing is illegal, even in the sense of playing a CD at a party without securing the rights. This seems pretty ridiculous to me, especially when the artists imply that money is not the motivation behind their copyright fiending.
Music is a form of art, hence why they are called "artists", and for artists in other mediums it's more of a struggle for them. They pride themselves in their form of file sharing with websites such as deviantart, flickr, and various others. They just put a simple watermark or some sort of signature so if someone was to use the image, it's automatically given credit. Music has something similar, with the id3 tag of the mp3 file, but rather than embrace that their music is getting out for free to many people who would never have heard the music, they become money hungry and began the lawsuits.
Another thing that is ridiculous about the legality of filesharing and license agreements is the double standard. This is expressed perfectly in this link, where the author discusses that when you purchase a CD you are purchasing a license agreement as well. So you cannot distribute the CD in anyway possible. This comes in outlets such as online, playing it at a party (as we discussed in class), etc. But when your CD becomes scratched and irreparable, the license agreement becomes irrelevant and you cannot obtain a free physical or digital copy, which would make sense upon purchasing such an agreement. (Please visit the link for a more indepth discussion).
When it comes down to it, the muscians who are worried about pirating are making the majority of their profits from touring, merchandise, and various contracts outside of music. The fact that they want to squeeze every penny out of consumers is ridiculous and they will never get my support for such a thing.