Thoughts on McPhail Social Media Talk

During McPhail presentation in class the first thing i noticed was the large use of buzz words that were said. Generally speaking the "social media" phrase is a buzz phrase in it self. Then the web apps and sites surrounding it have generated a lot of buzz.

Look at Facebook and Digg for example. These have become massively popular social media sites. Where user generated comments are a primary source of attraction. McPhail did announce his dislike for facebook during the presentation. He explained this was mostly due to facebook's now money hungry nature. Since it has become a source for add revenue. Also that it has no data mobility. Meaning that once signed up to facebook, you can not completely remove one's self from facebook even after closing your account.

McPhail went into great depth about how companies should use social media. Its all about being a participant and joining the community built upon social media. He gave an excellent example to explain this.

Take the scenario of a party where a Insurance Salesman comes to the party uninvited. He hands out a bunch of business cards but no one really cares because he not actually a friend and is only there for business. That is like a company spamming a bunch of social media sites. A company has to become an active member that gives back to the community. Then people will take notice. Like the friend that comes to the party bringing along a case of beer for everyone.

Many of the new social media sites are multimedia pioneers. What they have done is taken forms of multi media and used and combined them in new ways. Mogulus.com is a great example of this. They take video and enable you to broadcast it live on the web site using webcams then allow users to live chat about the show.

Personally i can see many uses for social media services in regards to pioneering. What better way of creating a community and allowing interactivity. Though i can see how it can be hard to come up with something new and interesting.

Here is a list of great social media sites that came up in McPhail's presentation.

http://sproutbuilder.com/
The flash builder

http://twitter.com/
the " What are you doing?" instant Msgr system

http://www.qik.com/
live video broadcast from your mobile phone

http://www.mogulus.com/
web browser broadcast tv, from web cams

http://del.icio.us/
link aggregation- social bookmarking

Thoughts on the Rom and Steve Mann

On Friday I went on a field trip to the ROM, its located downtown TO. http://www.rom.on.ca/index.php

We had a host the whole time, he was the head of digital media section of the museum. He talked of how the financing works in the museum. We got to use a touch screen to view content and watch a clip of history using multi screen projector.

From a multimedia pioneer point of view museum are not really pioneers, they are slow adopters, and tend only to follow. But you could see that the Rom is doing their best to join the new media revolution. They plan on using video conferencing to give tours to people all around the world, that can’t physically get there. http://www.lifesize.com/

We also took a tour around the museum. They had more touch screen panels displaying content about the actual pieces using flash video. The set-up was really cool. We got to see dinosaur fossils exhibit. I came across http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/ when google-ing dinosaurs. It is a good example of how bad sites use to be and how we have progressed in web design.

We also got to meet the legendary human cyborg Steve Mann. He wears an eye piece for augmented reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann. He talked about how one day we will wear prescription glasses that auto adjust prescriptions during the day via a computer chip.

He also talked about his hydraulophone. a pipe that can play music when water is run through it. We got to see a live demonstration.

Thoughts on Eberhardt Mobile Presantation

http://eberhardt.ca/

In class today we had the luxury of having James Eberhardt give a power point presentation on Mobile technology. Its quite exciting as a Multimedia pioneer to think about mobile. As technology advances more windows are opening in the field. Mobile phones have been around awhile but as memory increases and prices get lower , the demand is increasing. Last year when I was still at Humber College my prof. was telling the class how big mobile is in Japan. People are basically using cells phones instead of laptops on trains. Unfortunately Canada is behind in the trend but estimating to catch up with in 2 years.

http://www.cbc.ca/theborder/?4

James told us about this mobile contest where you can take pictures with your camera phone of this special bar codes called QR code. And then send the picture msg to a phone number. Then you receive a confirmation to login on to a site and get information based on the code. You can collect them and are entered into a chance to win 1000$ from best buy. I tried it my self and it worked well.

http://www.aniway.com/flash_lite_for_mobile_game_developers/

The above site is a Flash Lite & mobile games development blog by Aniway. I found it to be an informative site about developing for mobile. They post stats about research based on the popularity of mobile gaming as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Lite

The wiki link is an insightful description of the history of flash lite and its uses.

http://www.jamster.com/

It is web portal site designed for mobile phones and devices. You can download ring tones, apps, and games for you mobile phone. You can tell that the site makers are pioneers who are thinking ahead.

In James presentation he was reinforcing in my mind what my Humber teacher said. The mobile future is coming soon. It’s good to be prepared. I learned a lot from his presentation.