Special Topics: Convergence

Collaborate (Will's Final)

2006-04-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Hey All,
My final project is based on a collaboration I did with my little sister. Basically, she gave me a very rough version of one of her songs, and asked me to produce it as a rock song. Many interesting issues came up over the course of this project that I thought would be interesting to attempt to convey through an interactive piece. Therefore, when I started brainstorming about what to do as my final project, it wasn't too long before I settled on basing it around my work with Laura. Click below, explore and enjoy!!

Kristin's Final Project

2006-04-26T14:12:00.000-04:00

My final project can be found at:
www.myweb.neu.edu/~kmattera/SpecialTopics

Feel free to e-mail me with any additional feedback. Thank you.
-Kristin

Ben Woods final

2006-04-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

click the image for the main blog, and then the poster images can be found here, and here.

Thank you everyone for helping us out with critiques and discussion!

David Kavaler: creating for convergence final project

2006-04-26T03:46:00.000-04:00

Here is the link to my final project:

I thought that everyone's presentation went very well. It was a lot of fun to explore everyone's final product, especially since we all took the project in different directions. It was great that so many guests showed up and stayed the whole time. It was the first time m a presentation to professionals in the field, so thanks Ravi for the opportunity. Without a doubt this has been one of the most interesting classes I have taken at Northeastern.

The Lost Experience

2006-04-25T11:48:00.000-04:00

The creators of Lost are launching a game that involves:

-- web sites
-- telephone messages
-- billboards
-- email
-- TV

Hmmm... does this concept seem familiar to us? They are leveraging the world that they've created to develop new experiences. This will be interesting to check out! And it's not essentially a marketing tool (though of course, to some effect it is), in that the show creator's are behind it (and not the ABC promotion dept.)

New York Times article
E-Online article

Reading period meeting

2006-04-19T22:56:00.000-04:00

A reminder that we will be meeting tomorrow morning at 8:00 in 303 to run through final projects in anticipation of next Thursday.

I'm "illing" a bit (I'm hip with the kids' lingo), so don't know how long I'll last, but I was thinking we could run through from 8 until 10, with everyone doing about a 20 minute presentation (with Kristin leading off!)

Jain out!

04/13 class

2006-04-12T16:43:00.000-04:00

It's Donut Day (ie. last class).

Post your donut wishes, else get a plain jane donut in the a.m.

On hand for tomorrow:

1. Fill out teacher evaluation forms (no connection to the donuts, I assure).

2. I'll do a full-semester recap -- I'd like to touch upon some of the themes that we first explored in the first few weeks and restate what our goal/definition of the "Convergence of Media" and the challenges (and opportunities) for creating content that spans across media/distribution.

3. Final Project Presentation Plan discussion (still thinking Tuesday, 4/25 at 5 pm)

MIT Convergence Culture Consortium

2006-04-06T10:56:00.000-04:00

I've added the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium blog to our sidebar -- some engaging posts with links/references to projects that tap into some of the issues we've discussed during the semester.

Pulse Point Wish-list

2006-04-06T09:13:00.000-04:00

Hot on the heels of our gabfest/noshfest with DC Denison last week, I throw out the question to all of you:

What would you like to see in a Pulse Point if we could set one up on Campus?

What ideas do you have about content?

links for 04/06 class

2006-04-05T22:34:00.000-04:00

Some links for customizing blogger templates:

-- Google Groups: Blogger Help Group
-- Blogger for Dummies
-- Blogger Help Pages
-- Paul Stamatiou's How To Make A Blog Header Graphic

QuickTime Tutorials
We'll be looking at using Text Tracks in QuickTime Pro (to add chapters and URLs)

DIY classcast 04/06

2006-04-05T10:25:00.000-04:00

Okay kids, here's your chance to create a "live classcast" experience. Follow these easy steps:

1. Put on some funky ambient music
2. Fade music after 5-10 seconds
3. Say, "This is the Special Topics in Multimedia Classcast for April 6th"
4. Fade up music for short blast then fade way, way down.
5. Say, "It's all about final projects from now on. We'll go through some demonstrations that can help you with your final projects: a look at how you can customize your blog templates and some more things we can do in QuickTime Pro and TextEdit to add chapters and/or URL links to your video files. After that we'll have lab time and I can answer any questions you may have. Remember we should have 'an arm' done by now!"
6. Slowly fade music back up.
7. Say, "We'll see you tomorrow... Jain out!"
8. Fade down music.

Frequency_v2.0

2006-04-04T20:50:00.000-04:00

File size: 18 mb Run time: 1minute 16 seconds

Here's the link to Frequency_v2.o, with podsafe audio compliments of Podsafeaudio.com. The new version is set to the tune of Orthodox Pleasure, a song by the group Bit Rationale.

It is also noteworthy that only by coincidence did kristin and i use music by the same band, how bout that.

03/30 Class -- Field Trip

2006-03-29T15:30:00.000-05:00

We're closing out March in high fashion with a Newbury Street field trip for tomorrow's class.

We'll be meeting with the Boston Globe's technology writer DC Denison at Trident Cafe to talk about the Pulse Point project at 9:00 a.m.

Please bring laptops, if you have -- and I'd like someone to sign out the class camera to bring. We'll get the lay of the Pulse Point land from DC and then create some content to post.

We'll wrap up class at 11 to give people time to get back to campus.

In light of the 75% absence rate of last class, I need everyone to confirm attendance by commenting on this post. DC's taking time out of his schedule to meet with us and I've assured him of full attendance!

Update
Clarification -- We will meet at 9 am at the Trident Cafe.

Nocturnal Impulse

2006-03-22T17:42:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,
I just thought I would leave a link to my band's new website so y'all could see what I've been working on for the past month or so. Let me know what you think, and/or if you have any suggestions for improvement.
Nocturnal Impulse - Official Website
Cheers!!

digital media sharing

2006-03-22T12:21:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on the protection of digital media from unsolicited copying and sharing, could be important for us artists down the line.

Classcast?

2006-03-22T09:35:00.000-05:00

Was the classcast *just* a first half phenomenon?! No ClassCast today kids!

Get your paper walk throughs together for tomorrow's class. We'll also talk about digging into blogger templates to customize your blog. And we'll discuss Pulse Points which will lead us into a field trip next week (March 30th).

Oh -- and if you have laptops, bring them tomorrow please!

My videocast

2006-03-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here is my video "The Architect in the Wild", where I am attempting to sneak up on my boyfriend in the architecture studio.

Quicktime mpg4 file (5MB), Run time 1min, 56sec. Play movie.

Music: "Slide" by Bit Rationale. Courtesy of PodsafeAudio.com

Free Culture Forum

2006-03-16T08:39:00.000-05:00

March 23, 2006, from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm.
450 Dodge Hall
FREE

Overview:
According to Lawrence Lessig, the free culture movement is concerned about big media protecting the interests of big media over creators. Free culture supports and protects creators and innovators and seeks the transformation of culture through the free exchange of ideas.

Join us for a lively discussion of artistic freedom, the public domain, copyright, control of the media, open access, open source, free software, academic journals, institutional repositories, and consumer rights.

Panelists:
Professor Lawrence Lessig, Founder, Creative Commons & author of Free Culture
Derek Slater, Activist, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Nelson Pavlosky, Founder, FreeCulture.Org
William Wakeling, Associate Dean, Northeastern University Libraries

Sponsored by:
Northeastern University Libraries
NU Department of Communication Studies
WRBB Radio
Music Entertainment & Industry Student Association
Intellectual Property Society

Library Posting

Second half of semester

2006-03-15T11:48:00.000-05:00

I don't have our classcast together -- I've been a bit under the weather! I'm also rejiggering our syllabus for the remaining few weeks of the class...

So perhaps classcast tonight? Or perhaps not!

Also -- FYI, I've been having some difficulty loading images with blogger.

VideoString

2006-03-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

"An interactive Flash application allowing users to explore the evolution from written language to video communication by creating linear, syntactical, 'sentences' out of short video clips."

Check out Serra Shiflett's thesis project -- VideoString. I told Serra that our class would check it out -- she has a survey set up on the site.

In fact, this is a good example of project planning/user testing, which is going to be the focus of our class on Thursday (I'm rejiggering the syllabus).

Random Brain dump of links and such

2006-03-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to post the different things I talked about in class today:

Podsafe music- "The Rock and Roll Geek Show- Indie Cast": a branch off the normal "Rocka dn Roll Geek show" the indie cast highlights podsafe bands in an interesting format. Update: iTunes has just made a separate section for the Indie casts, but feel free to check out the regular broadcast of the Geek show! The host is Michael Butler.

Da Vinci Code experience- So much better if you have read the book!

2006-03-02T09:34:00.000-05:00

The first episode of "Treacherous Tales of Being an RA", from the NU RA podcast series. This episode is from February 2, 2006. It features the voice talent of Ben Woods and Kristin Mattera. Thanks to Archive.org for providing storage space for this file. Duration: 4m 26sec. Format: mp3.

Pirates of the Digital Age- Presentation

2006-03-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

On March 13th, at around 5:30 pm the Business, Law and Multimedia class will be hosting the authors of the book "Pirates of the Digital Millennium : How the Intellectual Property Wars Damage Our Personal Freedoms, Our Jobs, and the World Economy". John Gantz and Jack Rochester will be speaking on Intellectual Property and Copyright law and how it impacts us.

The book is great too- you can order it cheap from Amazon.com, or even download it! I would recommend that everyone reads this book - especially creatives.

The presentation will mostly likely take place on the first floor of Ryder hall, in one of the classrooms near the School of Architecture office.

Cell Phone content query

2006-03-02T07:21:00.000-05:00

Mark Glaser solicits readers as to what type of content they want on their cell phones. Let's discuss in class!

paying for podcasts

2006-03-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

found this article on a messageboard but couldn't find the link to the original, so here is the text:

Update
Ben, I'm posting a link to the article instead of putting it in this post.

Classcast -- 03/02/06

2006-03-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

As promised -- a Wednesday a.m. delivery!

Sean is ranting again...

2006-02-28T23:55:00.000-05:00

My friend Sean has an anger management problem...

Conviction

2006-02-24T12:14:00.000-05:00

NBC offers viewers free 'Conviction' download two weeks before debut

UPI News Service, 02/21/2006

NBC Tuesday broke network ground by offering the pilot episode of its
new drama
"Conviction" as a free download two weeks before its TV debut.

The "Conviction" pilot was made available Tuesday morning on Apple's
iTunes
music store along with a number of bonus features, Daily Variety
reported.

While UPN offered "Everbody Loves Chris" and WB offered "Jack and
Bobby" to Web
surfers before those two shows debuted, they were offered only as video
streams,
not downloads, Variety noted.

Video streams can only be watched on computers while downloads become
the
property of the viewer.

Christopher Monks blog

2006-02-23T09:43:00.000-05:00

Here's the post about Christopher Monks' Star Jones piece that we looked at (note the link to the permalink!)

Classcast -- 02/23/06

2006-02-22T22:01:00.000-05:00

The classcast returns!

BFPUG meeting

2006-02-22T10:34:00.000-05:00

The Boston Flash Platform Users Group is having a demonstration on Flash Lite 2 and developing content for mobile devices (a topic of focus for us after the break) this evening at the New England Institute of Art.

02/23 Assignment

2006-02-16T11:26:00.000-05:00

Read this two part article on podcasting from nefilm.com

Part two is here.

2006-02-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

Leave it to the Beaver

Watch the video

Ravi bonds with Shintaro Miyake aka The Beaver.

No classcast

2006-02-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

No classcast tonight kids! Video fun tomorrow!

Ben and Kristin's second podcast

2006-02-09T08:54:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to our podcast.

WHOA

2006-02-09T00:10:00.000-05:00

ok this is totally unrelated but also totally sweet

article

Classcast -- 02/09/06

2006-02-08T23:31:00.000-05:00

No time for an enhanced cast this week kids! Just a plain vanilla mp3.

How to do stuff in 5 easy steps - Ep. 001

2006-02-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

there's the url for our latest podcast. enjoy.

Archive.org

2006-02-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

I sucessfully posted my files last week on Archive.org.....except I can't find them now! Any idea how to do that?

-Kristin

PS I found it. Thanks Ravi!
http://ia300025.us.archive.org/2/items/Week1_NURA_podcast/Podcast_2_1_plain.mp3

2006-02-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

Vlogging at CCTV

Watch the video

Here's a video from the videoblogging class that Steve Garfield and I are teaching over at CCTV tonight.

Local Talent Watch - Episode 001 - Nocturnal Impulse

2006-02-06T08:22:00.000-05:00

There's the url for our first podcast. Enjoy.
--Will

Campus Movie Fest

2006-02-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

I don't know if this would work into the class schedule, but Campus Movie Fest is coming to NU 3/21/06. Movie making will take place from 3/21-3/27 and the Movie Finale night is 4/10.

Visit www.campusmoviefest.com for more info.

Registration is from 2/1 - 3/19.

Podcasting links

2006-02-02T07:03:00.000-05:00

I've found the official Garageband manuals to be helpful. And here's a good overview of podcasting posted on nefilm.com

Class Podcast -- 02/02/06

2006-02-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

Here's the podcast preview of tomorrow's class.

Update:
I've posted an enhanced version of the podcast here (not an mp3, but an mpeg4)

NBC series airs on web

2006-01-30T10:06:00.000-05:00

Per this post on TVguide.com (scroll down to JESUS LIVES! AND APPARENTLY HAS DSL), the canceled series Book of Daniel will have its unaired episodes broadcast on the web.

Also check out the official site for the show -- one of the characters has a blog, with open comments from visitors (which mostly bemoan the cancellation).

Note: the site says Windows only... I'll check this on a Windows box today.

Cell Phone Film Fest on NPR

2006-01-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

Listen to this NPR piece from this morning about a cell-phone "film" fest. We'll talk more about this stuff when we get to mobile video.

Also -- let's talk about how many of you can shoot video on your cell phone... again when we get to that (but remind me if I don't bring it up!)

Readings/ Brainstorm ideas

2006-01-26T08:06:00.000-05:00

I found the reading interesting (Everything Bad is Good for You)- it kinda unearths why people may be so addicted to reality tv- all the complicated relationships. And it is also interesting how involved we get into these relationships, where we are just active viewers, instead of participants (in the sense that we are not on the show itself and we don't know these people, but we feel that we do).

For brainstorming- I brought in two pieces that I have written before....I guess in part to show my style of writing, but also for an idea basis. I think it would be cool if we start in the present, and find info about the past and have all these layers that a viewer would need to go through to get to the whole story. I like mystery and exploring for information.

good multimedia blog

2006-01-25T21:12:00.000-05:00

a blog link to another blog... this is a blog from an ex nu multimedia student now at an NYU graduate multimedia program, I know will knows him. He keeps some pretty interesting mobile technology/interractive articles up there, alot of it correlates pretty directly with the stuff we're doing.

Class Podcast -- 01/26/06

2006-01-25T20:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a preview of tomorrow's class -- both in content and form -- a podcast I put together this evening with Garageband.

NY Times Circuits section

2006-01-25T08:39:00.000-05:00

Today's Circuits section in the New York Times is a special look at issues of convergence of media. Pick it up if you get the chance! We'll discuss this article tomorrow in class.

Disney to buy Pixar?

2006-01-24T03:18:00.000-05:00

While not wholely related to convergance, this article is very interesting. It briefly makes mention of 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' episodes being distributed for Ipods. I think you guys will have to create a free NY Times Online account to view it. It's quick and easy... and free. LINK

Convergence Center at Syracuse University

2006-01-24T02:42:00.000-05:00

Here's what Syracuse is doing to educate its students about convergence. LINK

The Definition of Convergance

2006-01-24T02:33:00.000-05:00

What does convergance really mean?!?! LINK

2006-01-24T02:27:00.000-05:00

I thought the most interesting part of this video was how the presentation is made interactive. Also the built in Isight camera is just one more way of converging technologies making webcams somewhat obsolete. LINK

convergance in advertising

2006-01-24T02:05:00.000-05:00

It certainly appears that everyone is jumping on the convergance band wagon. Here is an example of what is happening in the advertising industry.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4142062,00.html

Online Conservatory

2006-01-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

Hey,
So I was thinking about the definition of convergence, and I realized that the BSO Online Conservatory is definitely of that category: an online resource relating to, and adding info about a specific concert series performed by the BSO. Check it out.
http://www.bso.org/images/conservatory/beetschoen/BSOStartHI.html

MediaShift blog

2006-01-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

PBS has started a blog "hosted" by Marc Glaser, a media critic and journalist, called MediaShift.

I'm adding it to our sidebar of links, along with Henry Jenkins' site. You should check out these sites regularly, especially resources like the Reading List on MediaShift.

CBS micro-series

2006-01-17T21:42:00.000-05:00

Advertising campaign as transmedia microseries (link here).

British mobile TV study

2006-01-17T17:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to an article about a British study on mobile TV. Doesn't talk so much about original content beyond what is served by television (ie. content created specifically for mobile devices). Still, interesting nonetheless.

Fernandez article on Lost

2006-01-16T18:28:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this link to Maria Elena Fernandez' article about Lost that we read and discussed in the 01/12/06 class.

First post

2006-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

This is a blog for the Special Topics in Multimedia: Convergence Creation class at Northeastern.