Week 6 - Response to Content

“Viral marketing is a marketing technique that focuses on customers and users spreading information about a product or brand” (Oden 2011, p.1).

An example of a viral site for movies is Flixster. This is a social movie site and a great way to let the world see your product through viral marketing. You can watch new movies and hook up with other movie buffs and share ratings (Wikipedia 2011).

Viral marketing is an example of marketing at its best. It is cost effective as the producers don’t have to pay to have their advertisement aired on television. An advertisement gets spread through the internet from forwarding it on to friends. It is a great way to get the word out about a product at a small cost for production of the ad.

I found a great example of viral marketing for smart water with Jennifer Anniston – it was her first viral marketing advertisement - it's already received over 9 million hits since March.

References:

Oden, N & Larsson, R, 2011, ‘What makes a marketing campaign a viral success?’, Institutionen for Informatik, Umea Universitet http://umu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:433110/FULLTEXT01.

Wikipedia 2011, Flixter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flixster

You Tube 2011, ‘Jennifer Aniston goes viral – smartwater’, viewed 5 September, via <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc47LcvIxyI>.

Week 8 - Response to Content

Indeed it takes two to tango and two hands are better than one but when it comes to creativity I believe in the saying ‘the more the merrier’ and that’s where participatory culture comes in. Participatory culture is artistic content generated by a community of people to achieve a common goal (Jenkins H 2006). This means collaborating to achieve a result that one couldn’t do on one’s own. I used to be really guarded when it came to playing my guitar and writing music. I wasn’t so keen on sharing any of my creativity with anyone. It was more the fear of being judged and told that what I had done wasn’t good enough but I didn’t look at it from the perspective of how much I was actually missing out on when it came to sharing my music with the world along with giving and getting ideas. We must always be passing our knowledge on to avoid it going stale within us. What participatory culture brings to the table is another realm of expression. It allows online communities to come together and express themselves with the use of theirs and other people’s material. We learn in many ways from others and from working together our ideas expand. From participation comes growth. Sharing and contribution opens a whole new world of learning.

References:

Jenkins, H 2006, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21^st Century, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Week 8 - Tutorial Task

I have now overcome the issues with copyright by doing an advanced search on Creative Commons by going to advanced search and making the modification to use strict filtering. There are fewer photos to choose from but as we only need around six photos for our movie, I am still able to find enough relevant pictures. My tutor, Lauren showed me how to reference the photos. I have saved the downloaded photos & not the actual page that they have come from so I have to re-find the photos again so I can get the correct referencing & this is very time consuming. Another lesson learnt. As the author’s photos do not carry specific instructions on how to reference them my tutor said to reference them all the same and send and send an email to the author to let them know that this is what I’ve done and to let me know if they would like me to change it in any way. 

We had some issues with a documentary that we found and wanted to use. It took a short while to download last week and it also took some time to figure out how to edit. We thought that that was that but it turns out, after looking at the copyright that it can only be for re-use and not for remix. As we need to cut the 30 minute documentary to 2.31 minutes, we have had to find another video.

We shot the footage that we are going to need for the film. I play the main (or should I say only character) in the trailer. There were about 6 scenes that we filmed. It was based in the computer lab and I also recorded some informal additions to a blog I am creating that forms part of the script. All we will have to do now is edit. We are very pleased with the process and how we are travelling.

Week 7 - Tutorial Task

Our group met up again this week to talk about what we have come up with. We are able to use Christina’s Macbook pro which has I Movie. Christina played us some sounds that she’s been working on; from a scary computer voice to the Nokia phone ring and some scary music that we can use.  I was able to download some photos that we could use of computers and I phones exploding, however we have since learnt that we will need to do an advanced search on Creative Commons so the 20 photos I have found will need to be discarded and I will have to start again.  A strict modified search will allow us to the full rights to use pictures as the ones that I have downloaded have a copyright. I have found some newspaper articles in regards to e-dumping and what people are doing to help in the quest to lessen the impact. I also read another interesting newspaper article about the death of a Chinese man whose I Phone exploded in his pocket which resulted in his death (Ikram 2011). After reading through the newspaper articles as a group we have come up with a further plan of for the movie and are going to include an environmental theme of e-dumping rather than just focus on it being a scary movie where technology is angry about being upgraded, used and abused. The message will now go a lot deeper and it can be a warning to people to think twice before upgrading as our planet is becoming a cesspit.   Lisa was able to download part of a documentary from Real Player Download-Converter about e-dumping. We have edited this at just under 30 seconds. It is a very significant part of the movie as it has a clear message about what happens to our technology after is no longer needed. 

We met up again this afternoon to do some filming but were unable to find a spare room to film in so we started discussing how our storyline would go and commenced writing our script.

Reference:

Ikram 2011, ‘It’s all about new Technology’, <http://euro-tech.blogspot.com/2007/07/exploding-motorola-phone-kills-chinese.html>

Week 7 - Response to Content

We looked at ‘Produsage’ and what it is exactly in today’s lecture.  Dr Axel Bruns; lecturer at QUT has done some extensive research on the topic, thus an expert in the field. My understanding of the word is as follows: There is so much information in the world for every subject and every topic can be debateable and open for interpretation. Someone will have had different experiences to the next person due to the internet sites they have looked up, television shows they have watched, countries they have visited and people they have met and experiences they have had. “Produsage is a celebration of the incomplete” (Nicolis, J 2011, pers. comm., 6 September). It allows people to add to information that is already available rather than re-creating new material. It gives us a chance to build upon material and collaborate with other participants to achieve a common goal.

Well we all know about generation X and generation Y but have you ever heard of the new generation… Generation C? Standing for not just ‘content’ & creativity’ but goes hand in hand with ‘casual collapse’ of mass media & it seems that as times are changing the Encyclopoedia Britannica is moving aside for the popular Wikipedia (Bruns 2006, p.1).Generation C have the power and with their technical advantage and new doors opening in every direction with abundance of social media sites, open forums to exercise their citizen journalism skills they are in their element to move forward and collaborate with their peers.

                                       (as producer)


Content >>>>>>>>        Produser      >>>>>>Content


                                          (as user)

Above image shows that the participation of the contributors is open.

References:

Produsage.org, 2007, image, viewed 6 September 2011, http://produsage.org/produsage

Bruns, A, 2006, Futures for user-led content production, p.1 viewed 6 September, 2011, http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholarq=cache:7SUXrLXLLcIJ:scholar.google.com/+produsage&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Week 6 - Tutorial Task

We chose our groups this week about the short movie we are to make over the next few weeks. I will be teamed with Christina Earnshaw & Lisa Townley. Our brainstorming session involved several ideas to see what everyone was thinking in regards to the content for our movie.  The first theme we were considering was going to be about an online dating service. This would include three people talking about their experience in the dating world, however we did not follow through with this idea as we thought our next idea would be more fun to create.

Technology fights back. A trailer for a scary movie about technology being upset about being used and abused. This would involve new communication technologies trying to kill a man who was continuously upgrading and disposing of his old technology. From phones to computers; technology will gang up on this ‘upgrader’ to the point where it could result in his death.

In regards to sourcing material, we have decided to film the majority of this film. We are thinking about technology going wrong & filming scenes such as the cord of the mouse wrapping itself around the victim’s neck, a computer typing death threats into the keypad and have the words appear on the screen much to the horror of the victim and a phone talking to the man whilst he is trying to dial.  We will also need to download pictures of technology exploding to put into the movie as we are going to have a series of photos flashing in front of the man on the computer.

Our Tutor, Lauren spoke to us about issues regarding copyright and how we could get around it. We learnt about a site where you can share information called Creative Commons. This means that if we use material from this site whether it be photos or videos that we may need for our short movie; we wouldn’t have to reference the material that we embedded in our project as People can upload their work so that it can be shared with others may wish to use the material.  Under the Creative Commons licence, exclusive rights of one’s work are surrendered and shared amongst the public, giving others freedom to use the material on this site without having to credit the work of the artist (Creative Commons 2011).

Reference:

Creative Commons 2011,Creative Commons legal Code viewed 3 September 2011 via

<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode>.

Week 9 - Response to Content

What opportunities can you find for political participation via the internet. How many of the following can you achieve while sticking to your political beliefs?

1.    Sign an e-petition

·         http://goldcoastpets.com.au/2011/02/24/allconnex-water-rate-rebellion/

I had to analyse Disconex’s PR campaign for Public Relations so this assignment got me signing this petition to support the cause. NCT – not just challenging but also pushing me forward to take a stand & help the people.

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=908583

Another great cause.

2.    Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.

·         http://blogs.news.com.au/bossy/index.php/news/comments/how_do_i_know_if_hes_a_woman_beater/

Added my 2 cents to the comments page.

3.    What is Barak Obama up to today? Can you send him a message about the importance of freedom on the internet?

·         http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog This is the White House blog that numerous people post to daily.

      http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

      (twitter account) – who isn’t on twitter these days?  Besides me.

4.    What are the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")?

Internet service provider filtering will help diminish restricted content that relates to children and their wellbeing.  This will protect children and limit searching and downloading illegal material and also limit availability to sites that could be harmful to children (Australian Government 2011).

Reference:

Australian Government 2011, Internet service provider (ISP) filtering, viewed 23 September 2011 via <http://www.dbcde.gov.au/funding_and_programs/cybersafety_plan/internet_service_provider_isp_filtering>.

5.    What place does censorship have in a democracy?

·         http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/intolerance-and-censorship-have-no-place-in-democracy/ - I think the title says it all “Intolerance and censorship have no place in democracy” This is a great way to get people talking about Politics – Politics with the Punch!

6.    When will the NBN get to your place? What are the benefits?

·         http://www.nbn.gov.au/

·         http://www.nbnco.com.au/our-network/index.html

It seems that there are lots of advantages. I’ve named a few below:

Cheaper: As the optical fibre is cheaper to make than copper wire and in turn saves the provider money which I would think will be passed onto the consumer.

Better signal: Optical fiber can pick up signals better than copper wire – this will result in less frustration to the general public who rely on internet access for work and study.

Not a fire hazard: Electricity is non-existent which lowers the risk of fires by 100% (Freudenrich n.d).

Reference:

Freudenrich, C, W n.d., How Fiber Optics Work: Advantages of Fiber Optics, viewed 22 September 2011 via <http://communication.howstuffworks.com/fiber-optic-communications/fiber-optic4.htm>.

7.    Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are. Send one a message.

·         http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-elctr.asp

·          (member list) – Steven Ciobo MP – Local Federal Division of Moncrieff

·         http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?electorate=Moncrieff

·          (contact information for Steven Ciobo MP

·         http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=4351#local (Local Members of State Parliament – Peter Lawler MP + PDF with contact details)

·         http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=3883 (Councillor Susie Douglas + contact details)

8.    Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.

·         http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/summary/summary.w3p;orderBy=date-eFirst;page=0;query=Steven%20Ciobo;resCount=Default (newest one I could find through the search function of Hansard)

9.    Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.

I’ve changed this to his first speech as although Steven’s name appears in Hansard I was unable to locate the speech itself.

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/firstspeech.asp?id=AN0

            Dear Steven, 

Your first speech was an inspiration to me. So eloquently written and expressed. I too enjoy quotes by Aristotle and to speak of one in relation to your beloved wife about friendship is both beautiful and brave as you share it amongst all the people listening to your profound love.  From your speech I I understand you are a man of passion for all that you believe in and your dedication and appreciation to friendships is honourable.  I wish you all the very best in your leadership role. Yours sincerely, Renae Bressi

CyberPolitics

Step into the 21^st century where almost anything goes on the internet. Do and say what you like in group forums, create a blog with your opinions and share your knowledge on the world wide web. As long as what you are doing is not illegal you can develop a voice and use it loud and proud.  I travelled around Cuba in 2004 and you would not hear so much as one political word spoken by the people. “Fidel Castro is good”. “Our government is good”. Any opinions about the government or a person’s personal views was not shared. There is no freedom of speech amongst the people let alone on the internet. It was rare that anyone even had the internet connected and if they did happen to be in the small percentage that did, they would not be sharing their thoughts in a blog about their political views. Freedom of speech is unheard of and any expression of that sort will get ‘the offender’ put behind bars.

Internet politics otherwise known as ‘CyberPolitics’ is the exchange of political information that is communicated over the internet by discussion groups, databases and news sites (Whillock 1997).

Not only do we live in a democratic society but a multicultural Australia opens the doors to a mix of different cultures and opinions that give us broader first-hand knowledge and conversation on how the other half live.   

Whillock, RK 1997, ‘Cyber-Politics: The Online Strategies of ‘96’, The American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 80, no. 8, p. 1208 viewed 23 September 2011, via ProQuest, <http://search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/docview/214771763?accountid=14543>