Hanson Hosein I’m tired of being in a perpetual state of communication (says the digital media journalist guy via Twitter and Facebook). [7 comments, 6 people liked this]

Hanson Hosein How to restore “contemplative balance” in an info-saturated world. Love that notion, wish I were in town to attend: http://is.gd/4NbSK [my wife liked this]

Graphic by Kim Rosen

I also joked on Twitter: I’m thinking of starting a Master of Communication in Analog Media.

Far too many people expressed interest, leading me to believe that all us tech-lovers secretly despair of our passion for all things digital.  I had mentioned as much during a Fireside Chat on Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW, which led to this article in the upcoming issue of Seattle Magazine, “Sound Off: Examining the Value of Tuning Out” (in fine analog style, the columnist Karen Johnson, interviewed me in September, a fact-checker contacted me about my quotes in October, and the dead-tree December issue has yet to hit news stands).

And now I’m up late on a Sunday night — having finished grading assignments, and attempted the Sisyphean e-mail push uphill — writing this blog post.  Overwhelmed, overloaded perhaps, but forever propelled by anxiety.

Yup, I’m afraid of missing out — on the latest Tweet, the latest Google Wave plug-in, the latest bit.ly — on any development that will rock my world as a digital media professional and professor.  It’s brutal out here in this unsettled, shaky world of technology.  From the Seattle Magazine piece:

We’re in the midst of a perfect communication storm. Twitter and Facebook have given us the power to forge vast social networks, and mobile devices allow us to do almost everything online all the time…Many of us have learned first-hand that hypercommunication and multitasking come at a cost: stress, shortened attention spans and a constant sense of urgency.

I know this to be painfully true.  Even in my current course (Strategic Research and Business Practice), we’re clearly no longer in my father’s classroom.  With each session, we have to manage a Twitter feed (#mcdmresearch), an ongoing conversation via a collaborative online workspace, a live video stream of our lectures, and the upload of our various slide presentations prior to class.  They’re all effective tools for the 21st century classroom, but there’s a lot going on even as we teach.  My dad actually is a professor, and I think he just uses the overhead projector and a marker…

I’ve started to take countermeasures to defend my personal time.  I’ve turned off the e-mail on my Nokia smartphone (too smart for my own good) after 9 p.m., and on weekends (for the most part).  When I really want to think, I either (a) step away from the computer and pick up a fountain pen, and paper, plug into a tube headphone amplifier and listen to something like The Band’s The Last Waltz (b) get on a flight for at least 3 hours, where I can read, contemplate and be in a state of blissful disconnect from the phone and the web; (c) take my daughter to the bookstore to help her choose another adventure about Thomas the Tank Engine.

I’ve forgotten what it was like not to be perpetually connected, but I suspect it was a little more peaceful, and a lot less stressful.  I may have even made it to bed by 10.

My students were surprised, and a little concerned, when I actually admitted to getting 9 hours sleep a few days ago.  But that only happened after a heavy storm knocked out the power around 8 p.m.  My laptop did have enough battery life, and I could have tethered my cellphone’s data connection to keep working in the dark.  But even I knew then, that enough was enough.

Related Posts

• May 1, 2008 — Flip the Baby (3)
• May 2, 2009 — Twitter & Skype classroom coverage of Paul Gillin (4)
• February 2, 2009 — Videos of UW Insight: The Digital President event (0)
• January 29, 2009 — To Twitter, or not to Twitter. (8)
• September 28, 2008 — Twitter is “Real-time” Social Media in its Infancy (1)

Here’s why. Currently, retweets that are executed via the Twitter web “retweet link” are visible to your followers who are using the web interface to read your tweets but are not visible to popular third party clients.

Let me say that a different way: popular third party applications are currently not displaying RTs executed via the Twitter web interface “retweet” link. In other words, these retweets are MIA in a follower’s timeline in popular third-party clients. The exception: Tweetie2.

This may be a “cart before the horse” problem. In other words, third party applications may not have had a chance to integrate the new API. Or it may be that Twitter privileged Tweetie2 developers. I don’t know.

But if most of your followers read your tweets using third party desktop clients, this “bug” could have a serious impact on your personal retweet rate in the short-term. Experiment wisely. And mindfully.

See the story in pictures on WiredPen.

Related Posts

• November 9, 2009 — An Ode to Contemplation (2)
• October 17, 2009 — Twitter, Latino-Style (3)
• September 8, 2009 — A Guided Tour Through Twitterville (1)
• July 20, 2009 — The Economic Espionage Act: Does It Apply To TechCrunch? (0)
• July 14, 2009 — Teens, Banking, Twitter and Media Madness (3)

Tolkien may be onto something … – and the cell phone industry certainly seems ready to embrace the concept of “One Device to do it all.” Smart phones have become the multi-tool of the 21st century, although I’m personally still eagerly awaiting the first models to feature a folding knife and a pair of pliers in the accessories list. Preferably, this phone would be rubberized, water and dirt proof too.

Meanwhile, I am excited to see that it’s getting easier to use smart phones to find these dirty, wet places. Last week, Google announced it will offer free GPS service for smart phones using its open-source Android operating system. Google’s announcement instantly led to a decrease in the stock values of traditional GPS for-pay services and device providers Garmin and TomTom by 16 and 21 percent, respectively, according to the New York Times. Google’s free navigation system comes with all you expect from a GPS device: 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic route recalculation. All you need is a smart phone.

And today, Motorola is releasing its newest smart phone, the Droid, which instantly starts Google’s GPS navigation app once placed in the car bracket (sold separately). Now we’re talking one smart phone. Unlike Apple’s iPhone, the Droid can multi-task apps – it can be used as a navigation tool while you’re talking on the phone and listening to MP3s.  Oh, yes, and unlike the iPhone, the Droid – and certainly any new smart phone to follow – is totally customizable; you can consolidate all your e-mail accounts, the OS supports Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail, and you can add your Facebook and Twitter widgets to the home screen. You want a knife and an LED flashlight with that? Sure.

But Google’s free GPS app is just the beginning. Within the next two years, smart phones will be outperforming the laptop, says Bob Tedeschi, New York Times technology columnist. He adds that today’s new smart phones can do almost anything a PC could do in 2007.

For instance, Nokia’s senior vice president Henry Tirri says cell phone camera lenses will double as binoculars, and even augment reality by fetching close-up images of what’s up there in the distance from the internet. Software that knows what you want, makes reservations for you based on general requests for “something casual, Italian and fairly close to work” is also on the horizon, according to reports coming from cell phone manufacturer SRI International’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. SRI also hints that within a couple of years, typing on a touch screen will feel like hitting individual keys.

Now, if only someone would recognize the need to harness all of these capabilities in a more rugged device… and I’d like that folding knife and pliers with my next cell.

Related Posts

• November 3, 2009 — Google, The Platform (3)
• May 11, 2009 — Google on TV (4)
• April 4, 2009 — Twitter on the auction block (4)
• March 5, 2009 — Twitter To The Rescue (3)
• March 3, 2009 — WHERE are you? A few thoughts on LBS (1)

Traditionally, artists have had several income streams. These include income from record sales, live performances, performance/mechanical royalties, songs used in television or film, merchandising, and endorsement deals, just to name a few. But it can be difficult for an independent musician to access some of these streams without the help of a well-established label.

New business models are springing up all over the Web to help independent musicians get revenue from their music. The Future of Music Coalition recently highlighted some of these in its “Music 2.0” series at the 2009 FMC Policy Summit:

• Internet radio. Internet radio, which is seeing an increase in listenership, plays more artists in more niche genres than traditional radio would ever be able to. Last.fm and Pandora both stream independent music and pay royalties to performers and songwriters.

• Fan sponsorship and patronage. New online services such as ArtistShare and Kickstarter help artists raise money to fund projects and underwrite some of their expenses. Fans can donate money to their favorite artist through these sites and get access to part of the recording process, such as a songwriting session. Depending on the amount donated, incentives for fans can include everything from a free download to getting executive producer credit on a CD.

• Corporate sponsorship. Recently Gap, Coke, Burger King, Converse, Jeep and Jansport have all posted listings on Sonicbids looking for independent bands and artists to sponsor. The site’s founder, Panos Panay, thinks this is because brands realize today’s young consumers are more skeptical when it comes to traditional advertising and seem to connect most with the authenticity associated with independent artists.

It’s an exciting time to be a musician. There are new income opportunities on the Web, though the examples above will most likely be supplemental income streams for most musicians and not a significant source of revenue. For the artistic middle class — like any middle class — vertical mobility can be difficult. Hopefully this won’t always be the case.

Kelly Manix is a graduate student at the University of Washington in the Master of  Communication in Digital Media program. She is an independent musician and music marketer. Her EP, Emerald City, was released this fall.

Related Posts

• June 4, 2009 — YouTweetFace (1)
• May 2, 2009 — Twitter & Skype classroom coverage of Paul Gillin (4)
• March 13, 2009 — The Potential of the Crowd – The Case of Kutiman (1)
• March 10, 2009 — TwitterFall: Twitter on crack, on roller-skates… in a jumpsuit (1)
• March 3, 2009 — The Search for the Elusive CC Music (Part 3/3) (1)

When Apple introduced the Macintosh with that Ridley Scott commercial, the company was making a statement about the “cultural implications of personal computers.” Apple’s deliberate shunning of IT departments, Steve Jobs’ goal of democratizing technology, the 1984 slogan “The Computer For The Rest of Us”, the 1998 slogan “Think Different” — each are examples of a company positioned as the alternative to “the enterprise.”

For most of the 25 succeeding years, that positioning has been an uphill battle. The protagonists? First IBM, then Microsoft, which replaced IBM as “the enterprise” platform-of-choice — because most computers were bought by “the enterprise” not by the consumer. Last year, global laptop sales exceeded desktop sales for the first time, thanks in large part to consumer (not enterprise) demand for netbooks. Apple, which announced a shift in focus to laptops in 2003, has 75 percent of the laptop market for machines costing at least a grand. Yes, some of these machines are in “the enterprise” but they represent another break on how personal computers are perceived and used.

Then there are smart phones.

In 2008, we bought 173.6 million smartphone ‘units’, according to PhoneMag. We’ll buy 159 million laptops this year, says The Guardian. Analysts right and left point to smartphones and mobile devices as the future of the Internet (and thus the future of computing).

Mobile is clearly computing’s next phase, and Google’s introduction of Android (a “platform”) and Chrome (a “platform”) might be viewed, one day, in the same historical light as Apple’s introduction of the Macintosh: paradigm-shift time.

Its rise has been phenomenal and, some say, unmatched. In 10 years, Google grew from being the new kid on the blog to “number seven in global brand power,” according to Gartner analyst Whit Andrews. Inquiries about Google from IT professionals are at an all-time high, according to Hung LeHong, even though Schmidt says Google doesn’t think about the market segments like the analysts do, because the line between “enterprise” and “personal” is disappearing.

Google is on track to dethrone Microsoft, which seems caught by incumbent organization paralysis in the face of disruption (Christensen). MSFT today: $27.60, trending down. GOOG: $536.71, trending up. Oh, IBM? $123.53, trending down. And AAPL, $188.85, trending down.

Listen to this snippet, where Schmidt talks about Google and “the enterprise.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt At Gartner Symposion

This post first appeared at WiredPen.

Related Posts

• April 4, 2009 — Twitter on the auction block (4)
• November 6, 2009 — Smart Phones Rule (5)
• May 11, 2009 — Google on TV (4)
• February 15, 2009 — Microsoft’s Research on Perceptions of Online Profiles (5)
• January 29, 2009 — Should The President Keep His “Blackberry”? (0)

But thanks to a pioneering social media strategy, grassroots interest in our film, and really good timing, a lot of people paid attention, and our documentary has been viewed around the world.  We continue to get requests to attend community screenings — from Hyannis MA to Port Townsend WA, even as some of the issues have evolved (Wal-Mart has turned over a new leaf, Starbucks is in slow retreat, many Americans now truly mistrust their powerful institutions and believe in “local first.”).  We’ve had broadcast deals, and we’ve sold DVD’s.  It was probably one of the main reasons why the University of Washington hired me to lead its graduate degree program in digital media.  So have we benefited enough? Is it now time to give it away, streaming it for free on Hulu, second only to YouTube when it comes to online video?  Isn’t that what you do with your content in the multimedia age?

It’s a challenging question for someone in my position — both professional creator and academic trying to understand the future of media.  The filmmaker wants to retain control over his creative work, and continue to profit from it (Independent America never made us rich nor Super Sized us, but we at least made a decent income from our monumental effort).  The professor tells his students about Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks, and how thanks to a proliferation of content creation tools and distribution platforms, amateurs can now compete with professionals for reasons other than financial.  Content has become a commodity, we must find other ways to monetize the fruits of our creativity and earn that scarce currency of fleeting attention.  Maybe widespread proliferation of this film will build brand awareness and demand for its sequel, Rising from Ruins?  Or maybe it doesn’t matter as we cultivate goodwill by contributing to the media commons?

And as I try to lead the charge for the dynamic duo of storytelling and social media, it makes sense to showcase how I stand for these two pillars through my own work — especially as I contemplate writing a book on the importance of storytelling in the 21st century.  Except that I’ve never been able to bear reading any of the online comments related to the film when it was featured by Yahoo! News, and I’m certainly not going to be able to stomach the exposure we’ll get through Hulu.  So much for my advocacy of engaging community, and joining the conversation!  And what about building a brand through the Groundswell?  Or Here Comes Everybody?

Even more conflicting for me: there’s nothing user-generated about Hulu.  It’s Hollywood’s attempt to wrestle multimedia dominance away from YouTube (as an NBC/News Corp. joint venture) — the Empire strikes back against the amateurs who had taken the first few innings of the game.  So in a funny way, I’ve proudly hit the big time with our homemade film, by returning right back to where I started (as a former NBC staffer).  Presently, it’s featured on Hulu’s homepage slideshow, right after De Niro’s Ronin, but preceding Dracula, Speed Racer, and 30 Rock.  And irony of ironies, the intro ad just may be from Disney, Wendy’s or…Wal-Mart depending on when you stream (already prompting one negative comment, “who paid for this?”).

After waxing poetically to our recent cohort of students about how media was in the middle of a seismic transformation, I then joked that it has been said that all revolutions eat their young.  We just may have been devoured.

IA on the Hulu homepage

Independent America: A Q&A with Filmmaker Hanson Hosein

Most Commented Posts

• November 21, 2008 — Crowdsourcing: Name the New MCDM Center! (37)
• February 25, 2008 — Flip Video Vlog: Codecs and You! (24)
• November 12, 2008 — Yammer: An Experiment In A “Closed” Tweetspace (15)
• November 13, 2008 — Ask Not What The MCDM Can Do For You. Ask What You Can Do For The MCDM, Vol. 1 (15)
• November 23, 2008 — Even Facebook can’t make you popular (13)

As go-to sources for innovative content, amateur bloggers have been teaching mainstream media professionals some new tricks. Once considered the sideshow of journalism, blogging has taken the center ring. Even traditional media outlets have joined the fray, bolstering blogging’s reputation. But for amateur bloggers not writing for a trusted brand, establishing a trustworthy reputation remains important. For Justin Carder of Capitol Hill Seattle, consistency is key: “You do the same good stuff day in and day out for long enough, and you become trustworthy. It’s a function of effort as much as anything.”

In addition, here are five tips for gaining your audience’s trust, and writing like a pro—even if you aren’t one:

1. State your credentials: When positioning yourself as a blogger, you must inform your audience of your qualifications. Credentials inspire confidence, and the term does not exclusively apply to professional degrees. For instance, if a blogger is an experienced ballet instructor and writes about ballet’s emotional benefits, her opinion has merit, even though she is not a licensed behavioral professional.

2. Write what you know: When you write about subjects you have in-depth knowledge about, your insights are richer and more authentic than when writing about a topic requiring extensive research. “Because I care about what I write, I can help my audience by making useful suggestions, interesting observations or just making them chuckle a little at what happens to me,” explains Candy Martin, author of the Seattle P-I reader blog Mother of Style.

3. Use credible outside sources: Outside sources bolster your own research and help persuade your audience that you already have others on your side. Using outside sources also demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to verify your facts. Moreover, the old saying that “you are judged by the company you keep” also applies to writing. Make sure your sources are worth defending and not just convenient. If they seem dubious to you, they will look even more dubious to your readers, and so will you.

4. Write with authority and accuracy:  When trying to prove yourself to an audience, how you write is just as important, if not more so, as what you write. Information riddled with grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors will be dismissed by many readers as not credible. Use a confident, professional tone, and proofread your content before posting. In this way, you not only ensure that your writing is polished, but you communicate to your audience that you are careful and methodical.

5. Respond to comments: Interactivity is a key element of all online communication. By posting something online, authors instantly subject themselves to scrutiny, and it’s likely that their audience will respond to what they read. Part of being a credible source is a willingness to engage in further conversation with your audience.

What are your strategies for strengthening your credibility online?

Megan Jeffrey is a graduate student in the MCDM program at the University of Washington. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo. She has worked as an account assistant for Verdin Marketing Ink and as a HubPages.com columnist. Megan is currently a community manager for Serra Media and a social media strategist for the UW School of Drama.

Related Posts

• October 24, 2008 — Blogs fostering a golden era of journalism? (0)
• May 29, 2009 — UW MCDM 2009 Film Festival (1)
• March 10, 2009 — TwitterFall: Twitter on crack, on roller-skates… in a jumpsuit (1)
• December 3, 2008 — Everybody can be a journalist (0)
• September 6, 2008 — Digital Media Education (1)

On Sept. 14, Matt Nadeau, owner of Rock Art Brewery in Morrisville, Vt., received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer for Hansen’s Beverage Company, owner of the popular Monster energy drinks, demanding that he pull one of his beers — the Vermonster — off the market. A potent barleywine clocking in at 10 percent ABV and 100 IBU (beer talk for really, really powerful stuff), the Vermonster was an aptly named behemoth. However, Hansen’s interpreted this as a threat. The company’s letter alleged that use of the Vermonster name infringed Hansen’s trademark rights and constituted unfair competition.

It’s dubious that Hansen’s had a real case, since “the crux of infringement [was] a likelihood of consumer confusion and it seems doubtful that many consumers would confuse a regionally-brewed alcoholic beverage as being produced by a national energy drink company,” said Ryan Fant, a Stanford law student specializing in intellectual property. However, Hansen’s had the upper hand: The legal fees from fighting the accusation would likely bankrupt Nadeau and force Rock Art out of business.

But Nadeau decided to fight back. Using social media and digital communication, he quickly gathered supporters.

He began by talking with his customers, who took the story to the local paper. He posted the cease-and-desist letter on his Web site and e-mailed everyone he knew; many of those people forwarded his e-mail to their contacts, who forwarded it to their contacts.

Nadeau tweeted his case to @rockartbrewery’s 307 followers on Oct. 3. The following day, the brewery had 377 followers; it currently has 1,508. Hashtags such as #boycottmonster, #isupportrockart and #Vermonster sprung up. People added badges with X-ed out images of Monster cans to their avatars.

An Associated Press story on the fight was published in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and several other newspapers on Oct. 12, providing more fuel for the fire.

Green River Pictures donated their services and created a six-minute video for YouTube, posted on Oct. 14. In it, Nadeau described the brewery’s humble beginnings and what the fight meant to him as a brewer, a small-business owner and a Vermonter. Within five days, the video had 63,334 views.

Bloggers from across the country expressed outrage and encouraged others to join the fight. “The fact that this is how corporate America operates is pretty disgusting. If you don’t drink energy drinks, tell your friends that do to stop buying Monster. Post on message boards. If you own a store, pull your stock and stop buying it; there are plenty of other popular energy drinks out there,” wrote Seattle Beer News on Oct. 14.

A University of Vermont student created a Facebook group called Vermonters and Craft Beer Drinkers Against Monster, which grew to more than 16,000 members in less than two weeks. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders even made an appeal for Rock Art by writing Hansen’s CEO a letter.

Hansen’s didn’t predict this kind of reaction. After deciding it would be more profitable to end the craziness altogether, Hansen’s accepted Nadeau’s terms — an offer it had previously rejected — on Oct. 21. Rock Art would be allowed to continue to brew and distribute Vermonster. For Hansen’s, the situation backfired. Instead of ridding the market permanently of Vermonster, thousands of people now know the name and will seek it out. Many involved will continue to boycott Monster and Hansen’s products.

The case was successful because Nadeau and Rock Art were able to quickly provide high-quality, shareable content, which became more in-depth and legitimate as the case snowballed in popularity. Both Twitter and Facebook allowed supporters to pass along articles and blog posts covering the affair, circulate an online petition and share the YouTube video and links to Hansen’s customer service page.

In addition, the outrage came from multiple niches. Craft-beer lovers, notoriously sensitive to the actions of large businesses after years of Anheuser-Busch dominance, rallied in support — even those who had never taken a sip of Rock Art. Vermonters, staunchly anti-commercial residents of a state where even billboards are illegal, took umbrage to a large California company telling one of their own what to do. Plus, the injustice of a large corporation bullying a small mom-and-pop business was enough to unleash anyone’s inner Michael Moore. Nadeau strategically focused on each of these aspects in his YouTube video, ensuring he would receive everyone’s attention.

The incredible viral rallying power of the Internet gave tiny Rock Art Brewery an equal voice with Hansen’s Beverage Company. As Nadeau said in his Oct. 22 letter to supporters, “This was accomplished by Americans communicating and working together and using the POWER of SPEECH. This speech was harnessed through traditional media as well as the new social media such as Twitter, FaceBook, Blog sites, e-mail lists and web sites to name a few. … It’s the same right we have had from our forefathers, free speech. It has been adjusted to meet the new demands of today’s world.”

I’ll drink to that.

image from Sioux Brew

Helen Pitlick has been a student in the MCDM program since spring 2009. She works with social media as an intern at Foodista.com, and in her spare time she reviews craft beer.

Related Posts

• June 24, 2009 — Writing the Book on Twitter at MCDM (4)
• February 2, 2009 — Videos of UW Insight: The Digital President event (0)