Just a quickie… I tried out the Kodak Easyshare V705’s panorama tool. Man, my former employer really nailed this one. I’ve been very impressed with the camera - both in terms of lens technology and the user interface itself. It’s great to see Kodak continuing to live up to its boo-yah, non grab-ass vision outlined earlier this year:

That’s about it. I’m currently closing a karma circle and writing a letter of recommendation for an excellent student who is hoping to get a summer internship at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Obama isn’t the first candidate of the ‘08 race to use the web as a video distribution medium. In December, John Edwards announced his candidacy in his YouTube Tomorrow Begins Today video. On the surface there are numerous similarities between the YouTube and Brightcove sites. Both stream video, allow direct linking to videos, and also enable the video content to be embeded in 3rd party web pages (though I can’t seem to get it to work with Wordpress). They allowed the candidates an easy method to distribute their message and ensure that the video can be aggregated to various sites.
But, as we look closer, the similarities quickly end. Brightcove primarily hosts professionally generated content, created by established media outlets like Dow Jones, Newsweek, and various TV networks. While the website invites content submitted by video bloggers, a quick scan didn’t find much “citizen” content.

YouTube is the opposite: user generated dwarfs profession content (not to mention that much of the professional content has been captured and, illegally, posted by members of the viewing audience). Community participation is at the core of YouTube model, and it creates a very different sharing space than Brightcove. YouTube allows viewers to leave public comments on videos. While Obama’s page only contains the video announcement, Edward’s annoucement is accompanied by a discussion of more than 88 postings, pro and con, from people who have watched the video. That is only the beginning.

Both sites feature links to related content from their pages. Obama’s announcement on Brightcove only references other videos that his campaign has posted. That is in stark contrast to the page which contains Edwards’ announcement. Following the YouTube model, a wide range of user generated content associated with John Edwards is linked on the page, including these three videos:

• RE: Tomorrow Begins Today - Brian Russell (yesh.com) and Ruby Sinreich (lotusmedia.org), two activist Bloggers speak in support of Edwards campaign. There are a number of other pro-Edwards postings.
• Response to John Edwards - A woman in New York State attacks the Universal Health Care proposal Edwards made as part of his Tomorrow Begins Today speech.
• John Edwards 2008? - A self identified Democrat from North Carolina (Edward’s Home State) who proclaims Edwards “unelectable.”

These examples highlight an interesting problem for candidates: while YouTube offers tools to manage posting comments, you cannot control what content your page links to. In going to “where the people are,” you leave yourself open to direct commentary from the people. Counter-commentary may be located directly beside your stumping. Contrast this to Brightcove’s promise of control, an interface that does not link directly to intertextual documents. Additionally, even when you find commentary on Brightcove, it is coming from established sources. While you might get criticized it is coming from the media, rather than the people you are trying to reach.

Note that these implications can be projected onto the videos themselves. Some have called attention to Edwards’ decision to speak extemporaneously, on location in New Orleans versus Obama’s use of a controlled backdrop and a prepared speech and teleprompter — organic contact with the people versus control over environment and message.

Ultimately, the candidates may find that hopes for controlling their distribution is a pipe dream. In less than 24 hours, more than 17 “bootlegged” versions of the Obama video have surfaced on You Tube. Almost all of them have, individually, received more viewings than the original video at Brightcove. And, a search for “Barack Obama Announcement” also includes a link to a Right Wing radio show host offering counter commentary.

RIT isn’t the first school that springs to mind when someone says “beautiful campus.” In fact, I’ve heard it described as “neo-grotesque” and the person who said that wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek. Yet, in the wake of the storm, a glistening layer of ice provided a new perspective on our “brick city.”

This was the view from my office window earlier today as snows continued to fall. That’s the Liberal Arts building in the background.

RITchie, the school’s mascot, covered in snow and ice.

Near the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, there is a little garden. It’s always been a favorite spot of mine on campus. If you visit my flickr account you can see this little house from a number of angles.

To wax philosophic for a moment, seeing the campus this way made me think about my task as a teacher. It’s to get students to see the mundane - in this case media that they’ve been immersed in from day 1 - from a new perspective, in order to gain a new appreciation for it and develop a critical eye. I still am trying to get a handle on ways to accomplish this.

Last night, and into today, Rochester was hit by the big storm that came across the US. Like many places, this weather came in the form of ice. RIT canceled classes. So I have spent most of today grading (as I did yesterday). I’m almost caught up. I did manage to sneak out for a bit and take a few pictures. The one above is of the Hawthorn tree in our front yard. I hope the plants that we added this past summer survive this weather event.

It also just occurred to me that all of my RSS feeds are now broken. Though, actually, I’m not sure if they ever worked correctly. One of the great things about this reskinning project is that I’ve finally taken the time to really pull the Wordpress engine apart.hI have a much better understanding of how it works and how it can be tweaked. And that provides me with new insight into finally getting a number of Wordpress plugins to work.

In other news, its the first day back here at RIT after the mid-quarter, winter break. And sadly, I’m still grading.

In terms of the PhD hunt, I’ve received confirmation now from NYU that they have all of my components. Now the waiting officially begins.

Done Items:

• applications for PhD programs - Check. Cornell, NYU, and Columbia are all in. I just confirmed that Cornell has all my materials. So things are good there.
• redesign for Wordpress - Check. Things seem to finally be holding together and the Frank Cost youTube isn’t blowing the page out anymore. I also upgraded Wordpress. I have to say that, plus the new version of Firefox is a great combination (in particular FireFox’s built in spell checking).
• Finally, got the PS2 hooked up again and rocked out with Guitar Hero. Drea rocked to. We rocked hard. Thanks again Aaron.

Mostly Done Items

• grading - all but caught up.
• revised CV/Resume - one last edit to go.
• filing the past few month’s mail - just about there.

Still to do

• Finish writing and uploading the rest of the website.
• Revise my thesis for the next round of publications tries.
• Get consulting gigs up and running.
• Work on wiki research.
• Get back on exercise program.

Still, Aught-Seven is off to a good start.

I know that the research area of Citizen Journalism is a fruitful one. And I think it’s definitely worthy of anthropological study. I just am having a dickens of a time trying the articulate why. Or at least do so in a way that I think will get me into the program of my choice.

oy.

I will say that its interesting to see the reaction to “social computing” as Time’s person of the year. I personally think it’s a bit of a ridiculous choice — I don’t think it’s had an effect that is yet socially significant enough. That said, let me present to you what will hopefully be the next viral YouTube video. Here’s the Assistant Dean of my College and a laser pointer: