The psychsters over at Psychster Inc. have done something that media creators have been clamoring for ever since the collapse of the first internet bubble a decade ago.  They released a study looking at how engaged web users become with video content.  One of the continual challenges for web producers is how to effectively evaluate the cost benefit ratio of developing and distributing rich multimedia content online.  Consumers have more video choices now than they have ever had before, but video producers, directors, editors and writers are being squeezed by the emegence of “content farms” that produce very low cost (and sometimes low quality) video content for web sites.

There is a growing debate among media pundits and economists alike about the inflated valuations of tech companies like Groupon and Facebook.  These voices have raised the specter of a new and potentially bigger tech bubble developing.  Facebook, Google’s YouTube and other Web 2.0 giants have all pioneered business models based on user generated content—not professionally produced content.  Psychster’s recently posted study looks at the effectiveness of online video content in relation to production values.  In short, the study asks the question:  do web users engage with professionally produced video content more than they do with cheaper content?  Why is this important?  Lets back up a little and look at how video on the web has evolved over the last decade. Read more…

Media Space TV is among a trio of original UWTV productions that recently received recognition for Outstanding Achievement by the Telly Awards, a nationally respected competition for the broadcast industry. The awards were given for the UWTV programs “Fostering Leadership,” “Media Space,” and “Husky Softball: A Championship Journey.”

“Media Space: Entertainment & Content” was the award-winning episode that featured alternate reality gaming entrepreneur Elan Lee in its debut season, discussing his pioneering work in entertainment and immersive gaming.

“Media Space is our very public effort to connect to what’s next in technology and communication. Elan Lee’s pioneering work in reinventing storytelling clearly foreshadows how we’ll all be interacting with media in the years to come,” said host and MCDM Director Hanson Hosein. “I’m thrilled that we’ve won this recognition for such cutting-edge subject matter – it’s truly the best of what we do.”

John Haslam, General Manager of UWTV, said “It’s wonderful to receive industry recognition for these shows, which represented a shift in our programming to bring more original, entertaining and thought-provoking shows to UWTV. We are continuing our mission to create more original programming, including new arts shows premiering this spring, that showcase the people and stories from the University of Washington.”

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MCDM Faculty iconoclast Ken Rufo has been up to some interesting things lately.  Always on the hunt for enlightening challenges to assumptions regarding technology and digital communications, Rufo agreed to answer some questions about a new initiative he has undertaken with the help of some MCDM students.

The initiative has the provocative (if sightly opaque) title of “The Collective for Digital Pataphysics.”

Check out this video from the Collective for Digital Pataphysics about their “Trust Protocol” project:

FTM: What is pataphysics?  What specifically is “digital pataphysics?”

Ken Rufo: Pataphysics, which is often written ‘pataphysics, is a term coined by the French absurdist Alfred Jarry to describe a science of imaginary solutions.  It’s obviously a play on “metaphysics,” which it was supposed to supplement.  Pataphysics is a kind of absurdist, experimental way of thinking about the abstract as if it was concrete, or thinking about the exceptions that might otherwise prove a rule.  It’s comic, but never merely sarcastic or mocking.  The idea of digital pataphysics is really just my attempt to apply the same experimental, theatrical sensibility to ways of learning about digital and social media.

FTM: Who is Alfred Jarry?

Ken Rufo: Jarry was a Frenchman writing at the close of the 19th Century.  He’s probably most known for his play Ubu Roi and the book Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll.

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This is the third and final blog post of a three part series about my experiences as a presenter with fellow MCDM student Katherine Turner during the 2011 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. See the second post Monday, February 28th, 2011, “Easy Like Sunday Morning.”

Crowdsourcing

I had kept word that I was attending the conference from my parents. I also had to block my sisters from my Facebook updates about the trip to Puerto Rico. I had known for months. My plan was to surprise my mother at the mall, grocery store, or where ever she might be.

Everyone’s reaction to my plan – that’s a bad idea. Even the taxi driver on the way to Condado from Fajardo turned back while driving and looked at me square in the eyes and said, “Mijo, la vas a matar.” He was not the only local who concurred that I was going to give my mother a heart attack. So, I called my mother that afternoon. “Guess where I am?” A few seconds of silence goes by followed by “Get the **** out of here! How can that be?” Said a very stunned Señora, or as she will very happily point out to you, Señorita.

Whenever Katherine and I talked about presenting at an oceanography conference it always seemed strange. People would reply, “I thought you were into video or photography.”

Yes, we are into video. No, we aren’t oceanographers. “So, why are you presenting at an oceanography conference?”

My mother grew more confused and perplexed when I explained the reasons why I was in San Juan presenting at an International Oceanography Conference.

Carlos Miguel Sanchez & Julia Rodriguez (Dad and Mom)

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This is the second blog post of a three part series about my experiences as a presenter with fellow MCDM student Katherine Turner during the 2011 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  See the first post from Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011 “Hurry Up and Wait.”

Episode II, A New Hope

After waiting in line for nearly 40 minutes and salivating for a traditional  bocadillo I had to settle for avena or oatmeal. I was not able to upload the video for the conference to YouTube or Vimeo as the uploading time kept getting longer and longer. The panaderia was a ghost town as the morning rush had come and gone. Things were looking bleak.

Finally, I was able to send the video via a drop box service to the film festival producer — and the crisis was averted!

The day of the film festival we made our way back from Culebra to the mainland via an hour and a half ferry ride at the break of dawn. The whole point of coming to Puerto Rico early was to have plenty of time to fine-tune our ASLO Conference presentations.

Oh, hindsight. Why you are always two days late and a dollar short?

Sunday morning from Fajardo to El Condado was just 35 minutes and the same route in the afternoon is an hour and a half. Since check-in time was not until later in the afternoon we had to take refuge at the only familiar place we knew our kind was always welcomed. A place that inspires and nurture the human spirit – one person, one coffee cup and one neighborhood at a time. That’s right – Starbucks.

The line at the Starbucks in El Condado seemed to be one self-generating infinite loop. The irony of the situation was not lost on us. We come all the way to Puerto Rico and were now seeking settling in comfortably at a Starbucks. (In case you are wondering the only difference on the menu is Café Con Leche is listed under local favorites.) Here the tourists outnumber the locals 3 to 1.

The baristas were somewhat bilingual but not to fear I speke the Spanish.  Thirty minutes later it’s my turn and I blank on how to say quad espresso. We edge our way to a table, plug in our laptops to one of four electrical outlets in the store and boot up to get online. But …

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The 2011 Sundance Film festival wrapped last week and by all accounts the word among industry, insiders and critics alike on Park City’s picturesque Main Street was that the new crop of indy-docs and international features outshone the narratives and documentary premiers hands down.
Two documentaries received a lot of pre-festival buzz came from Sundance alumns –Pamela Yates’ Granito and Steve James’ The Interruptors — were the must-see documentaries in the festival and sold-out before the festival began. Granito is the personalized follow-up to Yates’ 1984 expose When the Mountains Tremble on the Guatemalan government’s genocide against the region’s indigenous people. James’ The Interruptors is an unflinching look at a group of ex-gang members turned community activists in the Chicago area who are trying to break the cycle of violence in their neighborhoods.

For those of us festival folks who couldn’t get a seat at these films, we did have one other opportunity to hear from the directors and ask them questions. Yates and James were on a Sundance’s Filmmaker Lodge panel “The Aha! Moment: Making Change Sticky .  The panel discussion centered on new media outreach strategies and how to break new ground in extending social change outreach for documentaries. They were joined by documentary filmmaker and physician Dr. Maren Grainger-Monson and producer Ted Richane from social change outreach partners Cause and Effect.

All of the projects highlighted by the panel took a long view in measuring the social impact of documentary filmmaking. The panelists agreed that it was no longer possible to effect change by just having a documentary shown in front of an audience (if this was ever really a path to serious impact to begin with). Yates introduced her project by issuing a challenge to documentary film makers: “I want to send out a challenge to everyone here: It is not acceptable, if you are going to make a film about social issues or human rights, not to think about outreach and audience engagement at the outset of making your film … you are going to shortchange yourself as an artist if you don’t get involved from the very beginning and see it all the way through to the finish.” Read more…

Last week, a new “information experience” startup – Qwiki – received a fair amount of publicity after closing it’s first round of funding totaling $8 million and announcing some upcoming features.

Qwiki provides rich media to consumers by scrubbing the web for content and assembling it into a short presentation with narration. Users can suggest content, but unlike Wikipedia, users can not actually edit the presentations.

Qwiki was first demoed last September at TechCrunch Disrupt where it was selected as the top disruptive technology (keynote). Recently, several large news outlets including ABC’s Good Morning America discussed whether or not Qwiki will be able to “flip” Google. With a new round funding and several internet moguls at their side including a co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin and Jawed Karim, a co-founder of YouTube, it appears there’s nothing stopping them.

On Friday, MediaPost reported that later this year Qwiki will provide a service that allows people to merge their Facebook and LinkedIn data, along with other online content, into a nice little “Qwiki”.

I was a bit skeptical about Qwiki’s ability to auto-magically tell my story but after watching Robert Scoble’s Qwiki, I think this could be a possibility.

What are your thoughts?
Will you tell your story with a Qwiki?
Will you tell your client’s stories with a Qwiki?

After new media turned the old-media world upside down, a couple of digital hipsters tilted their heads and gave analog a second look.

Ben Terrett and Russell Davies, of the European design firm Really Interesting Group (RIG), spoke this month in Boston at the Razorfish agency’s client summit. They were discussing their venture, Newspaper Club.

Their goal is to move “past digital infatuation and analog nostalgia” and into “the post-digital world.” They want us to recall the power of physical contact with tangible things, and to use the right tools for the right purposes. A friend had aggregated various readings from the Web into a book titled “Things I Would Rather Read on Paper.” The RIG boys saw this and realized computer screens are a “really terrible way to read,” and books and newspapers are “a fantastic technology for reading.” Read more…