Tristan Friedrich Schmid’s take on the brave new world: news, music, technology, film, culture, activism, politics, reviews, the environment, etc…
Sitting here at the Blog Indiana conference on IUPUI’s campus, in their new student center (nice!)
Also set up a Twitter account. Like I was with blogging, I’m very skeptical of Twitter and its uses. There’s no way I’ll be fanatical like many Twitter users who update about everything they do (”I’m in the restroom right now!”), but it might be a fun, free tool to work with.
Last week while I was preparing to write a press release, I somehow came across a terrific website, Free Web P.R., run by fellow IU School of Informatics New Media alum and Hoosier media arts guru Neal Moore. Having grown up in central Indiana, I often saw him on Indianapolis CBS affiliate WISH-TV, my family’s go-to station for local news when I was younger. Growing up, I trusted what I saw on the station, and now as a discerning adult, I’m pleased to see that Moore’s still a positive influence in Indiana, and I was happy to discover the wealth of business-related resources on Moore’s site.
I checked out some of his posts and recommendations regarding public relations, writing, and media in general, and was fortunate enough to meet Neal (pleasantly, no “Mr.” required) at an alumni event a few days after I discovered the site. If you’re a student, starting a business, looking to improve your media-related skills, or even if you want to make it big in the music industry, you should check out the site.
I’ve got yet another new project: Indy Animal Media. Check out the website and its first podcast at indyanimalmedia.org.
I was interviewed on November 19th of last year by John Blue for the Indiana University Informatics Alumni Association’s “Bits of Informatics” podcast, and I’m pleased to say it’s now online for your listening pleasure. Over lunch at Aesop’s Tables on a cloudy, wintry day, John and I chatted about my telecommunications and new media experiences at the Bloomington and IUPUI campuses; surround-sound production and my 2-song Capstone presentation; how I met my wife in ballroom-dancing class; and List-en up, the Angie’s List podcast, which was in its infancy last fall.
Though my first name’s spelled incorrectly (I’m sure John will fix it soon), I got a kick out of listening to the podcast episode. It’s quite strange to hear my voice in a context outside of List-en up, but it was exciting to be the interviewee rather than be the interviewer. It was a bit nerve-wracking, as well — can you tell?
I figured I should follow up to the wave of responses I got about yesterday’s post, in which I dared suggest that blogs are a waste of time (I actually didn’t get any responses… Surprise!)
I do realize that blogs serve some terrific purposes: they’re great for podcasting, marketing, and SEO (search engine optimization) (that last link actually has some great reasons to blog). But when every other link in a typical Google Search results in a blog post (seemingly half of which are useless), the very idea of blogs can become quite frustrating.
It also seems that with so many blogs (175,000 created a day, or 2 per second!), the internet will one day implode under the sheer weight of them all, like a black hole. But until that technological armageddon, I’ll gladly keep adding my two cents and hope someone decides to pick ‘em up.
I’ve written a few times about this season’s whale hunt by the Japanese, but have realized that the BBC’s Jonah Fisher is a much better source for it. He’s aboard Greenpeace ship Esperanza and is also keeping a journal of the events, so I’ll just link to his diary. Rather than me regurgitating what I’ve read elsewhere, you can go straight to the source.
That’s my problem with blogs: most of them are used simply for regurgitation of info that can almost always be found more easily and with better information elsewhere. This whole “news aggregator” phenomenon of Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, etc., etc., etc. often leads viewers/readers to blogs with summaries of other stories, so what’s the point? I guess blogs are good for diary-like entries; they’re good for friends and family to check out and stay updated; they’re good for illegally posting copyrighted content. But what else are they good for? My guess is absolutely nothing (UNHH - say it again!) Oh wait, they are good for one more thing: wasting time.
Television might be the worst thing to happen to civilized society. Too many Americans rely on it for their political opinions, and taking political stances based on superficial exposure is a dangerous thing.
Take a look at pictures of the presidential candidates, and you’ll see there’s not an ugly, disfigured freak amongst them (although one of them is awfully elf-like… or leprechaun-like?). Not that it would necessarily be a good thing if an ugly, disfigured freak (like the hunchback in 300) were to lead our country, but it might be a good thing: it could show the world that we aren’t nation comprised only of self-absorbed, gas-guzzling, overweight, narcissistic, plastic-surgery-obsessed nation-rebuilders (no offense meant to those of us that are any of the aforementioned.) It would also show that we’re more concerned with what candidates do and say rather than how they say it.
My point is that people, in this country and others, rely far too much on what they see on TV for their information, political and otherwise. They tend not to read and do investigative research when making important decisions like who they’ll vote on to be president, and that’s unfortunate. They’re likely to take what they see on TV at face value, especially if it’s a pretty face saying some pretty things. McInformation is too ubiquitous in our culture and thus too easy to digest.
If Abraham Lincoln were to run for president today, he’d need an awful lot of makeup — kinda like one of the last guys who ran for president.
