Converting bloggers to vloggers

Have you ever watch a YouTube video on a computer with a slow connection and after playing three seconds the video freezes. And you have to restart the video twenty times just to get past the first thirty seconds?

According to this article Internet providers will soon give more people the ability to explore the vast library of videos that are available on the Internet without wondering if their Internet connection can handle it.

Faster Internet speed has already made huge leaps in e-commerce and how people get the news.

With faster Internet people who used to organize social gatherings and debate issues on MySpace to take the next step by watching and creating videos on YouTube.

It is also giving bloggers a chance to step out from behind the current of anonymity and show the world what they are really talking about through vlogs.

While you can already buy a cheap web camera at Best Buy for under $50 Sony has created pocket size web cam that allows you to publish videos directly to web file-sharing sites or to your personal vlog that will only set you back $200.

While YouTube already allows you to upload video from cell phones this camera will allow vloggers to store up to five hours on a 2 gigabyte memory stick Pro Duo media card.

The GC1 Net-Sharing CAM will be available in September.


"Comcast is reportedly working on technology to provide broadband speeds of up to 160 megabits per second, roughly 26 times faster than its current 6-megabit service."

Maybe in five to ten years it will reduce the time it takes to download a movie from several hours to a day to a matter of minutes.

Right now faster Internet connections are allowing more people to watch videos on YouTube, catch up on old episodes of their favorite TV shows and watch streaming TV channels through services like Joost.


It is not only opening more eyes to the power of the Internet superhighway but it is giving them a chance to interact and use it to get their individual message out there. It is pushing inter connectivity to its limits and it is letting us access information on any subject we desire in a matter of seconds.

The more people use the Internet the better of a tool it will be in helping people to connect and take part in the global debate.

Google understands this and has made a bid of $4.6 billion in the upcoming federal auction of spectrum to break the strangle hold that phone companies and cable companies have had over high speed Internet access.

"That would be revolutionary," said Bob Williams, director of Consumers Union's HearUsNow.org, a website that promotes telecommunications competition.

"If you want high-speed Internet service, you basically have a choice of two, and in a lot of places you don't have any choice ... and that situation has to change."

Google wants to stop cable and phone companies from continuing to raise their rates because they have virtually no competition.


Wireless companies control all access to the spectrum they license from the government, which is why Apple Inc.'s iPhone can't be used on any network other than AT&T's.

Under Google's plan, people could connect any device to any network and run any software they want on their phones, including free Internet-based calling systems such as Skype.

This is what we need to make the Internet cheap enough so more people can use the Internet to its full potential on all their electronic devices from home computers to cell phones.

As the Internet becomes cheaper more people will use it when more people use it ad rates will go up way way up and maybe just maybe people will stop telling us that print media is a dying industry.

Google is trying to speed up this process. Adding competition to the high speed Internet market could free millions from slow Internet connects and give them the power to interact with the information superhighway instead of just observing it.

Presidential candidates debate on the Web

from this?



To online debates

Yahoo, Slate and the Huffington post have announced that they have are co-hosting the first-ever online presidential debate. This comes two weeks after the Democratic presidential candidates all lined up behind former Sen. John Edwards by refusing to participate in a debate that was sponsored by Fox News Channel and the Congressional Black Caucus. That was in the wake of remarks made by Roger Ailes that President Bush would have trouble telling the difference between Obama and Osama bin Laden.

There will be two online debates, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans candidates both hosted by Mr. Charlie Rose held after Labor Day.

The debate will feature real-time questions sent in by the online audience, and viewers questions uploaded on video.

So why online as opposed to the old TV model?

With an online debate the though is that you can engage rather then enrage the audience. For many people the TV presidential debate sometimes feel like way to scripted like a planned out TV drama. With online debate you can members of the public participate in the debate. The 2008 campaign has been all about connecting people through the Internet and giving them the tools to blog about the candidates and raise money online.

This is also a sign of how the campaign is moving away from TV and one to the Internet where you can produce videos and upload them to YouTube for free.

In the past local TV stations have relied on political ads for a large part of their revenue.

"In the 2003-2004 election cycle, some 80 percent of new revenue for local stations came from political advertising," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said.
Durbin told this story by way of explaining why he has introduced, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., S. 936, the Fair Elections Now Act. Durbin says he's tired of political campaigns being a "cash cow for TV stations."

While it is hard to believe that Durbin's plan to take the money out of politics will work I think that the Internet is completely changing the way our candidates campaign.

Now that all the presidential candidate have YouTube channels and some of them have already begun to use their channels to ask questions of the public and answer them in short videos.

In a way the online debate has already began. Through the site ExpertVoter.org you can even keep track of what issues the candidates have made videos on.

What are you going to do to bring about change?



RE: David's Question on Education in a Changing World

Airing Uncomfortable Truths

In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech Massacre CNN received cell-phone video shot by Jamal Albarghouti through their I-report initiative, that encourages viewers to send in video and photographs to the network's website. The video recorded outside of Norris Hall caught the sound of several gunshots. Its the only footage of that catches the shooting as it happened. This video has been played over and over again on CNN over the last week.

In the past reporters usually arrive to the scene of a crime after the smoke has cleared and the police have taken away the bad guy.
Technology has made it easy for eyewitnesses to document events as they happened. Within a few hours the media can broadcast the footage for millions to see.

The key to Citizen Journalism is usually about being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Jamal Albarghouti was when he found himself outside of Norris Hall.

bringing the audience closer to the action and seeing it from the point of view of a direct witness tot he events rather then a reporter flow in to cover the story is an example of how citizen journalism can enhance news coverage.

A few days after the massacre NBC aired the video that the killer sent them. NBC received heat from the victims families for airing what they saw as propaganda of a delusional psycho while other people in the media argued that the public needed to see this to reignite the debate about what to do with the mentally ill and gun control.

Jeff Jarvis said that the video could have ended up on YouTube if NBC did not air it or another site.

"We need a debate in this country about our mental health and privacy laws." Jarvis said.
"It is Journalism's jobs to give us the uncomfortable truths."

When I first saw the footage my first reaction was why are we airing the rant of a madman? why are giving him any air time at all, to glorify the mass murder that he carried out?

After taking in the coverage I think Jarvis and other members of the media that have defended NBC for airing the clip. I have a hard time believing that NBC could keep the tape from ending up on YouTube once they realized what they had. As long as the video is not played every time they find a new detail about the killer.

You can see what the President of NBC had to say about airing the video at http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=6405306


Protest of airing VaTech killer video


Should the video be taking off of YouTube?


Bringing uncomfortable truths to light to the public light is part of the media's job. It also their job to continue the public debate even of issues like gun control and how to deal with the mentally ill that have not been address in a long time.

The coverage should focus less on what was in the killer's head and more on how he was able to carry out this horrific act despite all the warning signs.

We need to reexamine our laws regarding the purchased of firearms. We need to take a second look with how we deal with mentally ill people. Most of we need to remember the victims and how 32 lives were destroyed in one day.

Tribune to victims

Milestones in Blogging

For those of you that still believe that bloggers should not be considered part of the "Press" because many of them are written by geeks from their parents basement this story may change your mind.

The California Legislature gave blogger Frank D. Russo a "Press" credential by the California Correspondents Association. Russo is the first blogger to be credentialed for his blog the California Progress Report.

Politics and Technology: California Legislature credentials first blogger as "press"

will this lead to more bloggers being credentialed and being treated like members of the "Press"
or is it just a sign of the blurring line between citizen Journalists and real Journalists -(Whatever that means anymore) no one knows.

I think that what it proves is that you do not have to be part of the corporate media to be recognized by the CCA as part of the "Press". Bloggers and other citizen journalists should have the opportunity to become credential members of the press if they have a proven background of providing accurate interesting news.

Their body of work of a journalists should matter more then what college they graduated from or if they worked for the mainstream media.
Since I have spend the last 2 years working for the school newspaper my body of work is next to worthless.


The blogosphere hit another milestone recently Blogs turn 10
people have been ranting and raving online for ten years on every subject imaginable. Now there are over 100 million blogs around the world this is now the hobby of computer geeks and their four-eyed, pencil pushing children who are spending more time in front of the Computer screen then the Tele.

However in China Blog is still nasty version off that evil thing we like to call "Free Speech"
Zhang Ming, Dean of political sciences at Renmin University of China lost his post for a blog post that broke the "hidden rules" of posting an article attacking the "Bureaucratization of Chinese colleges."
Zhang will remain a professor at the university bu the university said that his blog post was lies which "Victimized its faculty".

But Blogs are so last decade today's techy are wasting their time glued to the YouTube watching vlogs that range from funny version of the news like Rocketboom to a Vlog by US soldiers in Iraq. The vlog called "May God have Mercy on our souls" made by a Fort Lewis Stryker recon platoon known as "Deuce Four" called



A memorial to Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk



So keep Vlog, blogging and logging hour upon hour on Warcraft slowly the mainstream media is realizing the power of citizen journalism.