Everything that has a begining has an end...

So I am now wrapping up my networked media unit with this final little blog post. I must admit this has been my favourite class of my first semester at uni, but what have I learned? I think really the most valuable lesson to be learned is that of the power of networked media. The more connections that you attach to your message the the richer it becomes.

With that in mind, how has my blog benefited from networked media?

To be honest not overly;

however I do understand why. I came into this unit assuming that there was some kind of army of social recluses who read all the blogs on the internet. This obviously isn't true; you have to stand out. My shortcoming was my belief that a nicely designed blog would be enough to encourage people to read. If I was to do it again I would definitely include more quick content. Rather than heavy blocks of text, photos and videos to grab people's attention and links to easily show what my interests are. Also some sort of facebook integration would be handy to channel some more traffic.

What was my valuable content?

2/18/10: Entering the blogosphere.

Understanding my interests and technology in an off-line state.

3/21/10: Perfect time to hit the blogs

Uploading and adapting my interests and ideas to an online world.

4/9/10: Love that site

Experiencing and understanding the full potential of networked media.



These three stages are reflective of my progress and understanding of networked media. I know use a collaboration of networked media platforms as a self promotional tools for my music works. I also use other platforms to advance and escalate my creativity and technique. For me, networked media is an invaluable resource.

Geo-disaster!

My geo-narrative is complete and I am quite proud of it too!

The strength of the geo-narrative is definitely twofold. Firstly you can develop a physical idea of the scope of a story though the distances travelled and the places visited. I used this to aid in creating the almost surreal nature of an empty city. The protaginist is a local and she knows the area well, when all the people are removed from the equation, she becomes confused. Disoriented in a place she knows like the back of her hand.

Secondly, I used Google Maps' ability to reference external material. Using images from flikr, video from youtube, blogs and other links I developed a sense of authenticity. You get the feeling that not only would this be a an accurate depiction of hypothetical disaster but you can also start to image these things happening in reality. I think this makes the geo-narrative form an excellent vessel for modern horror stories similar to mine.

Of course this kind of story wouldn't be relevant in previous years, with the advent on ubiquitous mobile technology and terror warfare this story could only work in the modern day. All the external material would be out of reach for the one girl to have in her pocket. Now, however, things like cameras, GPS, phones and note taking devices are all condensed into mobile technology.

This leads into what I believe is the heart of my narrative. How would these events unfold if they took place today? This is my take on the question taking into account cultural context: Mobile technology is everywhere, we use it everyday and everyone has access to it. We have even learnt that twitter can work quicker than an earthquake. It is the forseeable that we would use these devices to record any kind of disaster situation, which we do. In order to understand an event others too must view it through the "lens" of mobile technology.

The geo-narrative incorporates all of these aspects and that is why I used it to write and to tell the story that I did.

Progress!

The geo-narrative is coming along well! So far I have drafted my story (just need some editing) and taken my images. So currently I'm editing my images and mocking up a short video. I would like to build a couple of basic websites relevant to the story, however, I may condense these to blogs given my limited time allowance and other work commitments.

Rather than take a more full on zombie apocalypse story I decided to take a step back and make something a little more mysterious. I'm not going to go into huge detail and ruin the story but I tried to make a few connections, references early on which on make sense when you get the whole picture. I really hope some of the extra content, videos and blogs, etc. will help expand the narrative.

As far as technical progress, so far building the geo-narrative has been quite simple. The google maps interface doesn't take much learning. There are a couple of feature that would be handy, primarily, stringing placemarks together with a line without having to create a new line icon. However, these are all menial disruptions. Editing the images should be fairly painless as should video. Building other media does take time though, as mentioned, I believe I can make some effort and hopefully keep authenticity to a believable standard.

Back to work

Geo-Narrative?

So after seeing some of the previous geo-narratives in the tutorial I've scrapped the the dataviz idea.

I think the fact that the geo-narrative assignment allows me to really create something. I don't have the know-how to build a datavisualisation but the geo-narrative seems to me like a really interesting task. Linking various media types, I think, will make for a really cool story. I plan not only to use short bits of text and images but also use videos from youtube, websites and other links to really enhance my story.

My current idea involves ZOMBIE INVASION! We follow a night's adventure of a apocalypse survivor. Snippets of their story have been captured and mapped by mobile technology. Online video clips, websites, pictures and witness reports are all pieces of the puzzle. What caused the mayhem? Cane it be stopped and will our protagonist make it through the night?

stay tuned for more updates on my thrilling geo-narrative.

No sparks

Data visualisation, simple concepts, easy to understand but I'm finding it very difficult to find something special.

I've seen some very interesting and cool visualisations in the past week. I understand how dataviz' work and how they can show important information. The use of networked media makes sense, however, what makes a good dataviz great is so elusive.

Some visualisations use clever way of displaying info, focusing on creating a strong visual affect to empower data. The BOS average age dataviz we saw in the lecture is good example. One of my favourite visualisations has been WE FEEL FINE. It is the data which really made the visualisation come to life, it's something that no one would never discover by themselves. WE FEEL FINE allows anyone to actually take a close look and compare the feelings among bloiggers. Pulling data from most of the major blogging platforms, WE FEEL FINE has huge scope, creating an environment to pull apart the blogosphere. It's is really entertaining to use and the design and visuals add immensely. A variety of tools allow as much or as little exploration as desired. WE FEEL FINE is an amazing dataviz.

I however cannot think of a good idea. hopefully inspiration will strike soon.

website idea

Are you ready for a revolution in the way you search for images online?

Our concept emerges from the idea of viewing topics through a tagcloud and is enhanced using microsoft's seadragon software. Our website will connect visual artists; painters, graphic designers and anyone who uses image to send a message.

When A search query is entered into the website it will create a node of images. other relevant seach queries will appear around the central search. The nodes shall contain images, the most relevant or popular first, then as so explore further inside the node more images will appear. The same function will appear on surrounding nodes and accessing other nodes will display even more relevant nodes. This will allow the user to theoretically make their way through scores of images without having to re-search.


WImages will be streamed from supported image sharing sources using APIs as well as a dedicated host sever built into the website. Displaying images will also allow access to extended image information as well as contact information and links to other images (these will be displayed as a node also)

The end result is an infinite universe of images that can be explored. Browsing images becomes a much more interesting experience and users will become more connected and create a stronger community.

Love that site

I'm so glad I hosted my website. I've been making a few CDs of my DJ mixes recently but I'm trying to host most of my stuff online because honestly, who uses CDs these days?

Now by using the very web 2.0ey soundcloud I can share my music with aaaaall the world. My next step is to set up a soundcloud dropbox. This will allow others to send me music that they're listening too or making. Then I can play them in my DJ sets, sharing to even more people who can go to my website and give me their music. Time to harness the collective intelligence of the procrastinating youth.

Honestly this is one of the things I've been having trouble with in terms of music. Searching for new music takes a long long time and unfortunately this is something I'm not gifted with at the moment, the ability to pretty much outsource a lot of music searching to friends is going to same me big time.

Another problem I face is that after extended periods of time, you start to develop a strong idea of what you're looking for, so much so that you can overlook other great music that doesn't fit into your category. That's why I'm always glad to have a fresh set of ears to help broaden the sounds of my sets.

Aside from soundcloud my other fantastic web 2.0 tool is the ubiquitous facebook. When it comes down to it, bigger is better and facebook is the biggest. By hosting profiles to a huge majority of my target demographic, facebook allows me to share my music with anyone who cares to listen.

The features of facebook's artist profiles are fantastic. As the administrator I can actually pull apart my following into demographics and compared popularity between ages, gender, nationality, etc. I can see what aspects of my page are most popular (pictures, videos, etc.) and analyse activity over time. This is, I admit, somewhat limited in use with my narrow following but it is nonetheless fascinating.

Finally, my most loved web 2.0 tool is the soundcloud app for facebook. Now everyone can actually access my music from facebook. Allowing me to really tap into facebooks vast resource of social connections.