HigherEd BlogCon :: New Media in Communications; Resources for Further Learning

HEBCWednesday, April 19, 2006: New Media in Communications; Resources for Further Learning

Podcasting Agriculture News

Blair Fannin
Texas A&M University System
AgNews - Texas A&M

Using Wikis to Facilitate Communication, Collaboration, and Knowledge Sharing Among Admissions and Administrative Personnel

Brendon Connelly
George Fox University
Brendon’s Blog - Slackermanager

Sean McKay
George Fox University
Sean’s Website

How Can I Learn More About New Media?

Dan Karleen
Thomson Peterson’s

Nancy Prater :: Podcast :: Ball State University’s Social Media in Student Recruiting

HEBC Ball State University is doing some remarkably innovative things with social media. Meet Nancy Prater, John Dailey and Heather Shupp. They are the brains behind this truly interesting “Brady Bunch” homage that is making Ball State University a place to think about for college.

This fall, Ball State University took blogging to a new level by offering a multi-media version that includes podcasting and video. In addition, the blogs are unedited and the comment feature has been left on, allowing for more interaction with prospective students. Learn about how they did it and how they plan to research the blogs’ effectiveness.

View the video presentation; requires Windows Media Player.

View the PowerPoint for this presentation.

And, we have a podcast that I recorded with Nancy a few weeks ago. Sorry for the delay in sharing it, but I’ve experienced a computer crash and had to retreive and restore a great deal of information. Time for a new computer, I fear.

The podcast link is below (18 minutes). Please visit Nancy’s presentation, too. Case Study: Blogging and Podcasting for Student Recruitment.

HigherEd BlogCon Starts Today!

Today marks the launch of HigherEd BlogCon, “an online event focused on how new online communications technologies and social tools are changing Higher Education. The month-long event begins with a week of presentations about the impact of new tools on teaching and the learner.”

Please visit HigherEd BlogCon and see some truly wonderful examples of social media and online strategies being used around the web.

This is “a fully web-based event focused on how new online communications technologies and social tools are changing Higher Education. Except as noted, presentations are offered free of charge.”

Link Love :: With a positive purpose

Scott Baradell, Media Orchard, wants some Link Love, so I’m sharing it with him.

This is a wonderful opportunity to revisit a project that I think has promise and virtue for everyone that chooses to participate.

Let us revisit Operation Link Love - PR Bloggers “Pay It Forward” and Give Back. Read that post and the associated links to see what the project is all about. Or, go straight to The NewPR/Wiki page for all the details.

This is a project all about links that can serve a positive purpose. I hope you will get involved. Write about the viability of social media for nonprofits. Find a nonprofit blog that you can add to the wiki list. Link to them, and I bet they will link back. So, everyone wins.

I’m working on a fix for the image code. For now, feel free to hotlink to the image above.

iPorn :: iPod’s first black eye?

iPorn on the iPod. Could this be the first black eye (aside from cracked screens on the Nano) that afflicts this brand?

TV cable news and print has already leaped upon this story. Search for iPorn (Google Web and News) and see how many links you get - already. How unfortunate is the “iPorn” tag that all seem to be ascribing to this new market?

So, what are the stories we can see appearing on the horizon?

First school to confiscate an iPod from a child because of porn?
First story of a child running up a large bill downloading porn?
First university (the ones providing free iPods to their students) noticing increased downloads on campus servers?
First effort by porn providers to protect their product (a la record labels) from peer2peer sharing (a la Kazaa)?
First story about porn providers (like record labels) wanting a piece of Apple’s iPod revenue pie?
First kid porn addict (because he was exposed to it at such an early age - via his Christmas present)?
First dumb blog meme about the fall of the Apple brand? Oh, wait. I may have started that one already.

So, is this a big deal. Or, is the iPorn story just the flavor of the week. I don’t know. This may never manifest into a PR problem for Apple, but - it has possibilities - if only by association.

For any company or institution to have their brand so intrinsically tied to their product, it could pose a problem. Clarification: Don’t you want that? Brand product identity? But, if iPorn is synonymous with iPod, doesn’t it sully the brand? It certainly is something you want to protect.

Today, Apple may well be better known for the iPod than for computers (although they categorize it as one). Apple makes more on iPods than they do on anything else. Certainly, they want to protect it. And, since there isn’t any iPod clone, it is all about Apple for now when we talk about video ‘pods’. Even MP3 players have failed to make a terrific dent in Apple’s market share for that product alone.

What do you think?

Web as mass entertainment medium? Not yet … but, closer to realization.

MediaPost :: Live 8 Sets Web Records

EARLIER THIS YEAR, YAHOO!’S MEDIA group head, Lloyd Braun, lamented that the Internet still hadn’t had its defining “I Love Lucy” moment, the turning point that would transform the Web into a mass entertainment medium. That moment might have arrived Saturday, with America Online’s live streams of Live 8 concerts in six cities worldwide.

The streams, available for free and in real-time while the performers were on stage, set records for Internet viewing. America Online reported over the weekend that 5 million users visited the site at some point during the live feeds, while 175,000 users streamed simultaneously at the height of the day’s traffic.

Live 8 certainly made a big splash, but I am not too certain that this was the “I Love Lucy” moment that everyone is seeking.

Lucy was, after all, a series with long running power and synidcation power for years and years. (It is still on the air.) So, show us that kind of power and then the Web will have arrived as a mass entertainment medium.

Is there any example of that kind of mass entertainment staying power in anything that is, or has been, on the web? I don’t think so. Tell me your best examples of such mass entertainment examples. There is streaming sports audio … taking all examples into one group could be one example. But, in the music / comedy /drama area I don’t know of anything that comes close. Live 8 was, after all, a one time event. Aren’t we all looking for sustained continuing content? Or, am I being too old world, broadcast method retentive?

A “Virtual Coup” :: Cory Treffiletti, MediaPost

Interesting story and ideas from MediaPost and Cory Treffiletti.

Do You Podcast?
by Cory Treffiletti
From: MediaPost Publications Home of MediaDailyNews, MEDIA and OMMA Magazines

If you take note over the last few weeks of my columns and those of my colleagues, you will continue to see more and more proof that we are losing control. We are losing the battle for ownership of the media we create. The consumer is becoming a partner in its development by demanding what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. Sooner or later, it’s inevitable that the consumer will completely own the relationship. The iPod ad, the Nike ad, the Volkswagen ad… these will be examples of the future. This year might be recognized as the year when the consumer overthrew the throne. A virtual coup, if you will.

I, of course, think that this ‘losing of control’ started a long time ago. Perhaps the first real change was the VCR. Maybe you could go back to the days when making cassette tapes of albums was seen as so cool. But, those are minor compared to the loss of control going on today.
Read more

TCS: Glenn Reynolds - Are Blogs Busting Loose?

First, you MUST watch the video. Scroll down to the bottom of the article at the link below and watch. It is fun and informative.

The conversations are great. Several bloggers, attending BlogNashville, were interviewed. The main theme of the discussion? Making money from blogs.

Now, I don’t see that happening for me, but if you are going to counsel a client on blogs - I bet they’ll ask you about it. So, begin considering the ideas that others are talking about today.

Also, check out this link and follow the link in the excerpt to an interesting and funny list of some ‘potential blog business models’ that will, if nothing else, make you smile.

TCS: Tech Central Station - Are Blogs Busting Loose?
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Contributing Editor, TCS

Last weekend I attended the BlogNashville blogger conference, held at Belmont University in Nashville. It was the third conference of that sort I had attended, and it underscored the way blogs, and blogging, are changing.

In 2002, I went to Yale’s Revenge of the Blog conference. In 2003, I attended Harvard’s Bloggercon I. The atmosphere at this one was different.

At those earlier conferences, everyone was still focused on the newness of blogs, and on the amateur spirit, and political emphasis, that marked blogging at that point. Now blogs aren’t quite as new, and though there’s still plenty of politics and amateurism, people are now talking about making money.

In fact, the two recurring themes of this latest conference were making money, and video.

Related Article

Technorati Tags: VidCasting | Vodcasting | multimedia | blog business models.

BlogTelevision.net :: Interesting Site, Community…

Update: I should have started this post with an explanation. The following post is an informal review of a site. My students will be asked to do the same kind of exercise in their blogs during Spring semester. My intention is to be fair and critical. I believe that was achieved in this post. Comments are enabled (although moderated due to spam) and I encourage feedback. Please read the post and the accompanying comments. Thank you.

Sam from BlogTelevision.net commented in infOpinions? about his new blog/site. Sam’s domain was “Created on: 06-Oct-04″ and seems to be getting some traffic.

I responded to his comment. Then - today - I thought I’d give the site another look from a PR/Marcom point of view. Hmm? Interesting findings.

BlogTelevision’s Purpose

Now, here is the kicker. “BlogTelevision.net is a project of Odin Metatech, Inc.” The BlogTelevision site is actually a ’sales tool’ for “the Odin Organic Framework content management system” - a CMS platform. We must give Sam points for demonstrating his product with a fun content idea which is likely to draw traffic. Good job!

But, there are problems. The Odin site offers six case studies highlighting current sites using the CMS.

Of the six, one is the Odin corporate site. Read on for the entire review. Read more

Vidcasting? FeedsterTV

From Shel Holtz: Video to follow podcasting

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a rudimentary application, Vogbrowser, is already available to offer video feeds to subscribers via RSS. It’s the logical evolution from the podcasting phase, according to a Wired News item.

Oh, this is good. Now, to watch what other opensource offerings will follow. iPodder is the podcasting software I’m familiar with and now there is vogbrowser. I’m happy, but impatient. This will be fun to watch develop over time.

Now, for ‘podcasting’ and what it is, Dave Winer is featured in this Thursday Nov. 04, 2004 IT Journal Entry by Chris Preimesberger. Check it out. An interesting take on how we now “want to hear a few flaws, because that helps us understand that real people did this.” Well, that pretty much sums up a lot of podcasts. Podcasts can still have great value (see/hear IT Converstaions), but much of podcasting is still rather - uh, raw.

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