Last year, in an effort to suss out how to evolve and sustain the good work heretofore put into the Flip the Media blog, we initiated an Independent Study: Flip the Media: Building an Outlet. The call was to be part of team to experiment in the planning, creation and deployment of a transformative media outlet.  Topics included, writing for the web, news room design, SEO, multimedia, web analytics, content management, and monetization models. Alex Stonehill and Sarah Stuteville provided the guidance and a group of MCDM students took on the task.   One of the many recommendations (more to be published soon) was to have more formal student leadership and oversight.  To that end, we’d like to introduce our new FTM editors.

Congratulations to Cohort 10’s Dan Thornton and incoming student Jonathan Cunningham, who will be sharing student editor duties for Flip the Media for the coming year.

Jonathan is a successful music blogger who has worked with the Seattle Weekly and Publicola, and as a trainer with youth media literacy programs. He will formally become an MCDM student in the Fall, but has been volunteering with Flip the Media for the last year, writing popular posts on topics ranging from viral videos to cloud music services.

Dan has extensive experience in film and design and teaches at Bellevue College. He worked with the Flip the Media independent study during Winter and Spring quarter, authoring and editing dozens of posts.

“I am keenly dedicated to enhancing the relationship between Flip the Media and the larger MCDM community,” Thornton said in his application letter, adding “…the goal is to establish Flip the Media as a ‘go-to’ destination for readers interested in the cross section of technology, media and culture.”

Jonathan will be recruiting contributors to the blog from the broader community, and writing a bi-weekly column. Dan will be managing and scheduling posts as they go out and building relationships inside MCDM.

Corey Christiansen will continue as Technical Coordinator, and Alex Stonehill will stay on as Faculty Advisor to the blog.

A shoutout is also due to the rest of the team who helped run Flip the Media this year: Sophia K. Agtarap, Brook Ellingwood, Suna Gurol, Elizabeth Hunter, Beth Koemans, Toni Del Rio, Carlos Sanchez, Inge Scheve and Sean Wang.

Flip the Media is seeking writers for the summer, and the coming academic year. Submit your story idea here, or send completed posts to dan@alibipictures.com or wordlush@gmail.com.

Who doesn’t like videos of cats?  Who doesn’t like videos of cats barking like dogs?  These are the types of eternal vexing questions the resident “storytellers” here at FTM ask each other all of the time.  We are just too chicken to post any videos of cats…

Until now.

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A feature in this year’s conference is a panel on “Information, Values and the Justice System”. The workshop, which takes place on Tuesday the 8th, is organized by members of the Technology Committee of the Access to Justice Board, of which I am the current committee Chair.  The panel will examine the role that technology plays in assisting access to the resources of the Washington State court system. Technology and access are key components in how citizens can make effective use of government services.  The policy implications of how government agencies can provide technological access to services across geographical, cultural, social and economic areas are immense.

Transmedia Storytelling and Net Neutrality were the topics of the night last Tuesday at the MDCM’s first ever Four Peaks public salon. The salon started with a live broadcast of MediaSpaceTV featuring an interview between MCDM director Hanson Hosein and Brent Friedman, CEO of Electric Farm Entertainment. Transmedia Storytelling, an interactive and multi-platform storytelling method, is according to Friedman, a way of exploring “additional tributaries,” and selecting tools from a “digital sandbox.”

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I give a lot of presentations.  I hate making slides to support them.  I find it tedious, and often more time-consuming than creating the presentation itself.  And I can’t help but thinking that I’m not necessarily enhancing my talk through this extra effort.

I’ve heard a lot about Prezi, (Prezi is a flash-based nonlinear storytelling tool for creating dynamic multimedia presentations. The end result is not a set of slides, but a canvas where the user can zoom in and out, discovering contextual relationships) but I finally decided to give it a try after reading one of my students rave about it on Flip The Media.  True to my nature, I took my chances and took it for a test spin in front of 50 Very Important People at the University of Washington’s College of Arts & Science board annual meeting.  I was the lunchtime keynote, hence I needed to provide a balance of enlightenment and entertainment.  Here’s my Prezi (which I co-presented with my MCDM colleague Scott Macklin, as well as with our student Katherine Turner):

Zynga Homepage

According to my Facebook News Feed, we are facing an agricultural crisis: I have more than 20 friends whose FarmVille crops need fertilizer. However, since FarmVille’s debut last June, the popular Facebook application has done more than flood my feed with farm-related requests. It has enabled its creator, Zynga, to reportedly rake in more than $200 million in 2009. But how can such revenues be possible if social gaming is supposed to be free? The answer lies in the sale of virtual goods and the games’ use of compulsion loops.

In social games, users are encouraged to enhance their farms or strengthen their mafias through the purchase of virtual goods. These can include fanciful structures (Ferris wheels), seasonal items (mistletoe-shooters) or tools (tractors) that enrich gameplay. Such goods allow users to customize their profiles, advance more quickly in the game or “keep up” with other players. In short, virtual goods are a graphic extension of common user behaviors such as self-expression or competitiveness.

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As go-to sources for innovative content, amateur bloggers have been teaching mainstream media professionals some new tricks. Once considered the sideshow of journalism, blogging has taken the center ring. Even traditional media outlets have joined the fray, bolstering blogging’s reputation. But for amateur bloggers not writing for a trusted brand, establishing a trustworthy reputation remains important. For Justin Carder of Capitol Hill Seattle, consistency is key: “You do the same good stuff day in and day out for long enough, and you become trustworthy. It’s a function of effort as much as anything.”

In addition, here are five tips for gaining your audience’s trust, and writing like a pro—even if you aren’t one:

1. State your credentials: When positioning yourself as a blogger, you must inform your audience of your qualifications. Credentials inspire confidence, and the term does not exclusively apply to professional degrees. For instance, if a blogger is an experienced ballet instructor and writes about ballet’s emotional benefits, her opinion has merit, even though she is not a licensed behavioral professional.

2. Write what you know: When you write about subjects you have in-depth knowledge about, your insights are richer and more authentic than when writing about a topic requiring extensive research. “Because I care about what I write, I can help my audience by making useful suggestions, interesting observations or just making them chuckle a little at what happens to me,” explains Candy Martin, author of the Seattle P-I reader blog Mother of Style.

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Last night, MCDM launched Beyond the Fail Whale: How Twitter is Changing Organizations, “what may be the first university-level class dedicated to Twitter in the country.”

The class, taught by @kegill,

“explores the impact of Twitter on how organizations communicate (internally and externally) — from facilitating knowledge sharing to bypassing traditional communication gatekeepers, from social network impacts on content creation to new methods of conversational marketing.”

Students will research how Twitter is used in selected industries and compile their reflections in an ebook or print book.

As is the custom at MCDM, students will be using Twitter during class. Follow their tweets in real-time at #uwtwitbook, every Tuesday night from 6-10pm (PDT) through August 11, 2009.

Update: The hashtag for the class has been changed to #uwtwtrbook.

Update, August 17: TwitterBook OpenHouse at University of Washington (CMU126) and on uStream.tv

Students will be giving five minute presentations on the “best of the best” uses of Twitter in their study area—including airlines, hospitals, food banks, politicians, government, Latin America, news media, food service, visual communication, and the military.

Twitter account holders, RSVP at http://twtvite.com/3df62z

Presentations will be shared at http://twitter09.wordpress.com/students/final-presentations/

Note: The uStream link will be added.