update mar 20

Today I looked at a bunch of different sites about physical fitness. I used google to search key words, and I don't know if I found exactly what I want. I think I will use websites of popular magazines that I know to use for the project. I find they are the ones with the most in depth detail about specific exercises and what they do for you rather than these google search sites that are hardly ever updated. Some of them might be useful, but the magazine one's that are frequently updated are definitely the best. After the break I will need to sit and think about what I really want to do and get specific. I will start looking at stuff and putting it together. I will probably care more about this after the break. Below are the sites I looked at. I think they are helpful and will always be full of something good for me to use.

http://www.mensfitness.com/

http://www.bodybuilding.com/

march 2.0 madness

This is the month of March and that means it’s time to fill out NCAA tournament brackets. It seems like every website is having a bracket challenge, including Facebook, ESPN, CBS, and more. The Facebook contest is an example of mixed media, because a big company like CBS is combining with a social network to hold a bracket contest on their site. This is web 2.0 because of Facebook and because of the design of this contest. The official contest portion of Facebook reminds me of a wiki with its layout and content. There are many different links to click on that bring up a bunch of information such as brackets, teams, other people in the contest, your friends picks, message boards, and even pop up information about all 64 teams in the tourney. It is actually really cool and makes me happy that web 2.0 exists. Millions of Americans are going to be heavily using this web 2.0 spectrum over the next couple weeks and relying on it to show them just how bad their picks really are.

march 18 class

I am not sure what I am going to do for my project, but I think I might try to do something about exercise. Maybe I will do something that compares different types of exercises and rate their effectiveness. This would be a good topic because people are interested in exercise and there is a lot of information out there that I could use for sources. I don’t know what type of web 2.0 I would use to present this. I guess I will figure this out later. Maybe I could narrow it down to a specific type of exercise, like cardio or muscle building, or perhaps talk about ways to lose weight in certain areas of the body because people like to specifically target body parts and like to know the best ways they can burn fat in those areas. I think this is actually starting to sound like the idea I want to do the more I think about it. I will have to spend some time thinking about how I going to make it and what kind of information I want to use but I will do it.

video of web 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6SefbFbixI


Here is a cool video about Web 2.0, specifically about the power this guy has gained through broadcasting using Web 2.0. He talks about how as a kid he bought a radio transmitter and started having his own little broadcasts, and now he can reach so many people because of web 2.0. It really shows how much technology has advanced and how much more connected people are. His first broadcasts were just to his neighbors and family because that was all he could reach. Now of course this guy has a podcast and he has a global audience. The funny part is that the guy says he can now reach twice as many people as when he used to do his radio broadcast. Well, that would only make 10, so maybe this guy misspoke. But regardless, it is an interesting video that shows just another example of the power of web 2.0.

more on mixing media

I don’t know what we’re supposed to write about today, so I’m going to rant about something. I am noticing how more and more “news” websites are becoming blogger friendly. Sites like CNN.com, ESPN, and more now encourage blogging to the point where Anderson Cooper talks about how he is blogging while he is also doing his show. Tonight I noticed that the KansasCityStar.com is becoming more like a Web 2.0 wiki than a news site. I was looking at the sports page on the website and I see a headline that read “Baylor Coached Peeved”. Now before, every time I click on something like this on this site it brings up a news story filled with quotes, facts, and a real actual journalist who wrote it. But no, not this time. What came up was one quote and a box that asks “what do you think?” Underneath there is a place for you to type your comments and for you to read other people’s thoughts. They even have this after every news article now, where the readers can leave comments for the journalist about the story and sometimes, they even blog back. This is a news site, NOT A BLOG. I don’t care about what KUhawk92 thinks about the Big 12 tournament, I want to know what is actually happening from the journalists who are supposed to be doing their job of gathering facts, not asking for everyone’s opinions. What’s next, are they going to let people start editing the stories too? I appreciate Web 2.0 and blogging, but if our news sites become nothing but blogs asking for everyone to write their opinions and have a big old blog conversation, I’m going to read the paper.

power to the machine

I have seen “The Machine is Us/ing us” before in one of my communications classes, and I think that it is both scary and amazing. It is scary to see how connected we are as humans to the all powerful internet, which can show us anything and everything and that nearly everyone uses. It’s scary to think that in the future we are bound to only become even more connected through advancement, and to not know what this might entail. I do think that these advancements we have seen over time do have good implications for society. We can now learn about stories that affect us faster, such as recent murder cases we have seen. I have seen pictures all over the different avenues of Web 2.0 of the guy from the UNC murder case. Facebook groups, Myspace, blogs and Wikipedia all have posted pictures and allowed forums for people to talk and see if anyone knows who the guy is. This example shows how connectivity is good; when people in Missouri can find out anything they want about a guy wanted for questioning in North Carolina, the internet is making it harder to hide. So, people do control the internet, but sometimes the internet is out to get you.

on media convergence

I am already somewhat familiar with the idea of media convergence because I used to want to do journalism and learned about this before. I think “Worship at the Altar…” points out good examples of what convergence is. With all of the different types of media and technology (specifically Web 2.0) available, media was destined to collide in a type of head on collision. With virtually anyone able to be a “journalist” anymore, different types of media are always playing off one another. For instance, the example of the movie being recorded and put on the internet was easily predictable with the invention of cell phone cameras. I knew this would happen, because I predicted this to my friends back when these were first coming out. Is this good or bad for society? Well, it is bad for the people involved in the production of the movie, because this loses them money. But then again, it does give them more access and exposure. But how much exposure is appropriate? With the Bert and Osama example, clearly this boy had the right to make a website and to innocently post Bert’s picture with Osama. Also, the middle eastern man had the right to print it and put it on his posters. Also, Sesame Street has the right to be angry about one of their characters being associated with terrorism. This is the problem that will have to be answered with media convergence since it is such a new concept. How much is too much? Should all media be allowed to cover whatever they want and use any type of media available to do so? I don’t even know what to think.