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Googlezon .. a vision of our future?
For those of you who have seen the flash film ‘Googlezon’’, the future is coming.
Google have recently released the Google phone, G1, after blatently denying they were creating it only a year ago. The phone is similar to the iPhone in that it has a large screen and makes viewing the net on your mobile phone easier. The company hopes to generate $US20 billion in revenue this year from selling ads that are shown on mobile devices.
Yahoo and Microsoft are also investing in the mobile market in an attempt to prevent Google from continuing the dominance it already holds in online searches from PCs.
In a move representative of Googlezon, one of the initial applications on the G1 phone will allow users to download songs from a music store operated by Amazon.Inc. Perhaps as a point of difference, these songs will have no copy protection once they are downloaded, unlike iTunes.
What does this mean?
Beijing Beat is a site connected to the Washington Post website in the US. The site provides information about Beijing and a snapshot into the lives of people who live there.
The site is quite simple and easy to use, all the information is stored on one page and users are expected to click into the movie files to find out more about the headlined topic. The site mostly uses broadcast elements to tell the story along with short articles and some statistics at the bottom of the page. The focus for the site is a looping shot of Beijing which at first looks like a photo until you look in closer at the traffic. The picture sets the scene for the accompanying information and takes up most of the first screen of the page. Smaller still shots surround the main picture and show different aspects of life or people in Beijing which you click to play. The movie then appears in the central screen accompanied by a small amount of text.
The stories are well presented and cover a variety of information although the headings don’t really help to understand what you’ll be watching. I guess you could argue that the lack of information next to the movie clips makes you curious, although if you were looking for something particular you might bypass the site as it’s not immediately clear what it is trying to tell you.
I found the site interesting, the more you look, the more you find…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/interactives/beijingbeat/index.html?hpid=multimedia2&hpv=national
Faster Cheaper News
• Quality online content
• Demand for information
• Future of journalism
In the wake of the 15th anniversary of the world wide web as a free resource, the ABC hosted a conference on the future of journalism online
Media commentator Roy Greenslade labelled the newspaper format “a dead duck”.
As the internet becomes increasingly popular with a tech savvy audience, readers are looking for faster, cheaper, environmentally friendly ways to access information.
The demand for updated information has the potential to affect content, as journalists battle time constraints, decreasing staff numbers and revenue.
The pressure to release stories online as quickly as possible can result in unreliable information being reported. However, this can be easily rectified as stated by Jonathon Holmes “If it’s wrong, it’s not wrong for long”.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=p690zESW34o
Notes on Barons to Bloggers – Confronting Media Power
Lance Knobel, Jay Rosen, Eric Beecher, Guy Rundle, Margo Kingston, Andrew Clark. Introduction by Donald McDonald.
Each Nation its Own Free Press
Clear and open communication needed for a democracy.
Press is expanding. Online blogs means everyone can have and “own” their voice. No longer controlled by media corporations. Opinion to the news can come from everywhere.
New kinds of journalism/ press; participatory and mixed media. News as a conversation rather than the public being told what the news is.
Weblogs – information flows from public to press.
Nullius in verba – Navigating through the New Media Democracy
Nullius in verba “Don’t trust in anyone’s word”
Media becoming more democratic – in voice and style
Current media considers us consumers or observers – with weblogs we are creators.
Four pieces of hardware helping to democratise media; blogs, wiki’s (e.g wikipedia), Google and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) where news feeds can be constructed from content on a website.
The internet provides numerous sources and while not all are intelligent and informative we can choose which we listen to and recommend to others.
Personalised media – you decide what news you want and configure your own newspaper updates. May be a dangerous ideal as it limits your knowledge of the wider world and in turn limits the stories that are produced as there are not enough people who are interested in them.
“Young people no longer need to see a need to keep up with the news”, David Mindich. They construct their own worlds through their interests and needs. Tool managers rather than tool users.
The End of Serious Journalism
Media has entered unexplored territory. Technology has provided a new platform and society now wants a new message.
Society is no longer a consumer of media but a creator. Daily newspapers are no longer in control of news and opinions. Shifting balance of power between bloggers and mainstream media.
Internet provides speed of delivery but how does this affect investigative, reflective, discursive journalism?
New business models needed to sustain journalism as we know it.
The Future of Fair Dinkum Journalism
My name’s Kate and I’m a New Zealander who came to visit a friend in Melbourne and am still here two years later…
This is one of my first classes in the Graduate Diploma in Media & Communications. I recently made a career change into a communications role and this has kickstarted me into study.
Research is probably one of my main strengths. In this class I’m looking to build on my online writing and gain a better understanding of online technology so I can funk this page up a bit!
