Ever wanted to know exactly who are the folks involved with and working behind the scenes at this growing digital news site? Ever thought about contributing to Flipthemedia.com? Now is the time to come and chat with us in person. We here at the Flip are making a concerted effort to be more visible this year.  We will be attending more events throughout the Puget Sound area and also throwing a couple of our own.

Next Friday, February 10th, we’re putting on a Flipthemedia mixer at Big Time Brewery in the U-District from 6-9pm. It’s all about getting together, having a few drinks and talking casually about digital media. Something right in between a focused happy hour and just hanging out on a Friday evening. Our idea is to make this an informal gathering where people get in the same room and have a few good laughs as we promote Flipthemedia and introduce the editorial staff currently involved with the site.

Big things are brewing with us in 2012 and we’d love to have people come by Big Time Brewery for a drink (or three) and figure out better ways to work together in the future.

On Thursday, January 5th, The Federal Communications Commission released a report confirming that the presence of low power FM stations (LPFM) do not impact the advertising or audience of full power FM radio stations.

Currently there are 838 LPFM stations in the country operating at 100 watts or less and reaching a radius of three to ten miles. In 2007, bipartisan legislation was introduced to increase the number of available LPFMs. It was then that the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) came out strongly against the introduction of what they called “thousands of micro-radio stations to the FM band”. It is possible that several hundred nonprofits will apply for new LPFM licenses when the application window opens in fall 2012 and the NAB has been concerned that they will interfere with full power stations.

This finding wasn’t new to those of us who follow LPFM, but the FCC had to issue the report as a provision of the Local Community Radio Act that President Obama signed in 2011.

Read more…

Sometimes inserting technology and digital media into a conversation can alter the outcome in a negative way. Having bright lights and cameras inside of an intimate setting intrinsically alters the flow of the discussion. But often, the stories that are told in intimate settings deserve to live on if you can find the right balance.

Such was the case with deciding whether to film last week’s heavy-hearted conversation between Olympia-based singer songwriter Kimya Dawson and Detroit-based writer, and filmmaker dream hampton. Both are highly analog individuals with strong presences online. They have an engrained understanding of the need to switch between hyper-connectedness and simply turning everything off which created an important paradox for us. The natural inclination for many of us in the MCDM program is to capture stories with authenticity. Given that MCDM is now partnered with Michael Hebb’s salon style Night School events, filming portions of them are key for the story to live on, but having a camera running the entire time changes the nature of the events themselves.

Luckily, we found a happy balance. Below check out footage that Scott Macklin pieced together from the green room sessions of Kimya and dream laughing about motherhood as Kimya sings a personal ode to her five year old daughter. It’s precious and only a handful of us witnessed this in person. After that check out a full live stream of the green room session itself with nuggets of wisdom galore from both of these women.

Read more…

The Occupy Seattle protests reached a milestone on Saturday afternoon with their estimated numbers reaching close to 3000. Saturday’s protest activities included the movement’s “Night of 500 Tents” where protestors set up tents in a direct challenge to the city’s stated commitment to evict campers from the park after 10:00pm. By 9:00pm there looked to be around one hundred tents set up in the center of the park.

On Thursday night, 10 protestors were arrested in the park when they refused to dismantel and leave a tent structure in the park. On Friday some of the protestors did move to City Hall Park, which the city had offered as an alternative to Westlake Park where protestors have been for nearly three weeks. The city has stated that the occupation was in violation of the park’s terms of use and for most of the previous week, occupiers have been in the park without a permit for demonstration activities.

Accompanied by a light contingent of bicycle police, city sanitation workers began arriving at the park around 8:00pm, but by 10:00pm the sanitation workers and police had disappeared, leaving the protesters alone in the park without incident. Numbers in the park remained high late into the evening with protestors at one end of the park dancing around a large drum circle while the protest’s biggest General Assembly to date met at the other end. A joyous and festive mood among protestors held steadily through the night. Read more…

Saturday marked a turning point of sorts for the now two-week-old Occupy Seattle protest movement. In a day marked by rallies, demonstrations and a seven–block march through Seattle’s downtown retail and financial cores, the number of protestors reached its biggest number so far. With nearly a thousand protestors joining the march, the day’s events ended with a tense but peaceful standoff with police at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pike Street.

The encampment at Westlake Park is a patchwork display of people and political causes.  Anarchists commune next to college graduates. Young parents push strollers past seniors– some carrying signs and talking animatedly among themselves about the issues behind the protests. In snippets of overheard conversations, the words “greed” and “banks” are often used. But the movement’s aims are diffuse and inchoate. Not unlike some Tea Party organizers, people here are quick to point out that ideological labels are secondary to the grassroots nature of the protests. Looking across the waves of marchers in the street, you could indeed see signs excoriating Wall Street greed next to anti-war placards, socialist banners and anarchist flags. Despite the crazy quilt of causes on display, the umbrella of corporate greed vs. economic equality held steadily throughout the day.

Read more…

At the Great Wall (Badaling Section)

Thousands of people flooded around me. I stared in exasperation at the sign. Yet, I knew that it had to be emblematic of something about my week-long trip to Beijing — my first to China. True to my personality, I had tried to go against the tide by trying to enter the Forbidden City from the less popular north gate. But as of July 2^nd, the sign informed me, visitors to the very much once “forbidden” home of the Emperor of China, had to enter from the south, and leave by the north.

I had been happily using my Garmin GPS watch to track my weekend pedestrian expedition in Beijing.

But the thought of trudging back to the south end, only to end up back where I was presently, and then have to do it all over again to get to the subway seemed like many steps too far.

So what did I do? I skipped visiting the Forbidden City – a treasured UNESCO site – altogether. Rather I content myself with a deep hangout at Beihar Park, and then Tiananmen Square. And I spent all day using stodgy Internet connections through Beijing to download a rental of the Academy Award-winning “The Last Emperor” from iTunes for my return flight to Seattle. Bertolucci’s famed exclusive access to the Forbidden City for his film would have to suffice.

My walk through Beijing

After all, I had accomplished what I had set out to do: to get a glimpse of China for the first time, especially from a digital media perspective. My vehicle in was as a participant in transmitCHINA, where I hobnobbed with entrepreneurial digerati from both the Middle Kingdom and the New World.

Read more…

Sabrina Roach is Brown Paper Tickets’ Radio/New Media Doer. She has worked in community and public radio for the past 10 years at KBCS 91.3 Community Radio and KUOW 94.9 Puget Sound Public Radio in various capacities.

Prometheus Radio Project’s summer interns explain why the radio dial is so crowded, and how the FCC plans to make room.

We have two online community radio stations in the Seattle area: Hollow Earth Radio and Voice of Vashon. I’m consistently delighted to see how they engage their communities and generate creative, hyper-local media. They also invest in organizational and facility development. These are two particular stations I love, but surely not the only ones doing great things. Do you have an online community radio station you love? Post it in the comments.

Both online radio stations have been working on getting terrestrial signals for the past several years. Both have been hopeful in watching the progress of Low Power FM (LPFM), as it traveled from President Obama’s desk where the Local Community Radio Act was signed in January, to July when the FCC released a proposal to save channels for community radio, and opened a period of time when public comments would be accepted. Applications to apply for stations will be due as early as June 2012.

I recently viewed a map of the top 150 radio markets, which showed that some urban areas have room for new community radio stations. Seattle currently isn’t slated to get any LPFM frequencies, though advocates are pushing for more flexible technical rules that should allow a few stations to squeeze in.

Read more…

Intrepid MCDM game lovers have instituted a monthly gathering to celebrate their love of puzzle solving, dragon slaying and world conquering.  This now regular event was born out of the Spring 2011 section of Ken Rufo’s Gaming, Virtual Worlds and Communication seminar.

So far there have been two gatherings at Ballard’s labyrinthian (appropriate game-speak intended) Card Kingdom, which boasts several attractive rooms dedicated to games, models and gaming literature.  They even have a bar–with booze–although on this particular evening they were out of one of their signature potions, something called “Goblin’s Blood.”  They serve food, micro-brews, liquor and even mead, hazzah! They have several private rooms for groups to socialize in, play games, drink and have dinner or lunch.   They even have friendly game docents who go around and help groups of players navigate the complex rules of multi-player games.    You can play one of their publicly available selection of games or bring your own game to play.  Its family friendly and MCDM Game Night organizer Monique Priestly encourages people to bring family and friends to these regular gatherings.

See more photos from the most recent Game Night gathering below. Read more…