Slashdot Mirror
The Super Stars of New Social Media
sanspeak writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles the Moguls of New Media. It's not about the entrepreneurs who have created these new media islands like MySpace, YouTube and such, but people who participate in it and make it successful." From the article: "As videos, blogs and Web pages created by amateurs remake the entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are being catapulted into positions of enormous influence. Each week, about a half-million people download a comedic video podcast featuring a former paralegal. A video by a 30-year-old comedian from Cleveland has now been watched by almost 30 million people, roughly the audience for an average "American Idol" episode. The most popular contributor to the photo site Flickr.com just got a contract to shoot a Toyota ad campaign."
when TV companies stop showing their stuff in one region and sell it on the net, they'll have a global marketplace which'll make 30,000,000 people look pretty small.
Oh, and while I'm posting, I was thinking about social sites and privacy. If people are worried about people posting too much info on the net, and they're also worried about big brother style data mining of their details, why don't the sites respond by turning the typed text into graphics, displaying it as bitmaps, so that it can't be cut and pasted etc. You could use a subtle form of CAPCHA (or whatever it's called) encryption perhaps - nothing too hard to read - but even without it it would thwart casual searchability.
concerning youtube
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
...if companies started publishing really creative material (and by this, I'm talking about +5 insightful, interesting, and funny all at the same time), does anyone think there might be a market for the ADS themselves (let alone the product). If ads were more often than not the quality that movies (used to be) are like, perhaps there would be another method for money-making, and not only that, but economic Darwinism could then spare us the really stupid ones. Anyone care to sare an opinion?
If I watch 3 seconds of a dancing comedian from Cleveland before hitting my attention span limit for wacky online videos, do I still count as one of those 30 million?
Oh, and while I'm posting, I was thinking about social sites and privacy. If people are worried about people posting too much info on the net, . . .
.sig) where a small circulation national magazine posted enough descriptors of me online AND in print, without my name or physical description, for numerous people I have not heard from in ages to contact me and ask if it was me or if I knew 'Shooter'.
From a different tangent: I had a recent incident (noted at the link in my
Also, it was posted without my knowledge or permission.
Some insight into the ethics of that publication can be read here: Stupid Racist Reporter Tricks: Eve Fairbanks.
Yes, it is the same New Republic that gave us Stephen Glass.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"The most popular contributor to the photo site Flickr.com just got a contract to shoot a Toyota ad campaign."
I hope that those ad campaigns aren't as tough as at Toyota car. Those are nearly indestructible. Would be hard to shoot them....
I recently came across http://www.famousonthenet.com/ From their site: "We are a group of experienced Hollywood agents, marketers and entrepreneurs that have teamed up to create the world's first agency for "Internet famous" individuals. Our goal is represent these people, and provide them with the resources they need to further their Internet endeavors. Are people addicted to reading your blog? Do you have hundreds of friends on MySpace? Do your videos on YouTube get downloaded thousands of times? If so, we are very interested in working with you. " Looks like the greedy Hollywood folks aren't letting these 'amateur celebrities' slip under their radar.
Websites are famous when they are unique and have a lot of word of mouth advertising. Period.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Dear Myspace Tom,
No, you are not my "friend."
You're not even in my "extended network."
Get bent, you creepy mutant.
Sincerely,
Random Myspace User.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Wicked, offtopic and troll.
Considering how Roland is the person everybody seems to hate yet is one of the most active posters on slash I thought it was quite ontopic.
I probably am trolling though, but only gently.
liqbase
... for free speech, amongst other things.
Apparently, one US Congressman wants public access to social networking sites banned, all under the guise of protecting kiddies from molesters. If you're not sure what I'm wittering on about, then read about the "Deleting Online Predators Act". Banning access to these sites in public places is only the start of further restrictions to your rights online or otherwise. Act now, or pay later. You choose, whilst you've still got freedom of choice anyway.
I'm thrilled to see that the internet really is a World of Ends. As a blogger and a Slashdot whiner (er, commentor) I feel empowered when my fellow netizens reap the fruits of their labour on the world stage. I'm just concerned that if net neutrality isn't preserved these people will be muscled out of their needed accessibility by the Disneys and Microsofts of the world.
as more people are directly connected with one another, there's no need to go through the classic "get myself on TV" or "get myself a movie role" avenues to get popular attention.
In college, which is now between 3.5 and 8 years ago for me, my computer itself was far more popular than I was. I hosted all kinds of fun stuff (some legal, some illegal) but the popular things were videos I made with my laptop and webcam of amusing college exploits. I had microwave tricks with eggs blowing the door open, and stable plasmoids, as well as videos of driving an electric go-kart through the halls and up the elevator of the engineering building.
They were popular videos, and I had thousands of hits, but I was behind the camera.
Point is, when everyone has the ability to connect directly to one another through computers, the new "word of mouth" popularity is replaced and amplified by the email forward with a URL in it. The problem is that you can become famous in a matter of a week or 2, but you can be forgotten just as quickly if you don't keep it rolling.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
If I watch 3 seconds of a dancing comedian from Cleveland before hitting my attention span limit for wacky online videos, do I still count as one of those 30 million?
Many thousands of people rated that video 3 stars or higher (out of 5). I watched the video and it is not funny. At all. The comedian is somewhat talented and he provokes quite a bit of nostalgia but I don't think I even giggled once. He's a no one rehashing has-beens.
What struck me was the audience whose reaction can be heard in the video. I wondered how bored they must be to find the routine funny as opposed to mind-numbing. Or maybe it was a social thing: the stage and the performer socially demands the audience to laugh. I'm thinking of a mythical age when he would have been humored for a minute or so before being booed off the stage.
Maybe that's what the YouTube audience is: people bored enough they'll let amateurs entertain them, just like me and you when we read /.
Go figure.
blog
Aww crap I thought it said "The Super Star Wars of Social Media"...... I guess I read this for nothing.
The next generation of media theorists/journalists are currently in training. To rise to the titular "superstar" status, one will need to meet these two criteria: 1- Have mastery over the (presumably) English language. This is usually accomplished by studying English Lit, Creative Writing, or some related field. 2- Have a rigorous background in the relation between old/new media and society (Film Studies, Art History, or New Media concentration helpful) AND/OR have a broad understanding of the way technology functions at the technical level. Today's college students are subject to a system of academic fragmentation that has finally caught up to the division of labor needs of (at best) the mid 1980's. This are already enough forward thinking students and professors out there concentrating in previously disparate fields such as Systems Design and English Literature. I think there already is a "superstar" out there who has majored in the latter combo. Her name is Wendy Hui Chun and she teaches at Brown. If you can handle a little philosophy peppered with psychoanalysis, I highly recommend her most recent book, Control and Freedom, to any slashdotter. In time, a newly educated crop of ambitious and curious writers will fulfill this burgeoning demand for journalists who are literary as well as literate in technology. We just need to push for more New Media departments at the college level.
Why would established players not hire these people? They are skilled and motivated people who are passionate about their work. If anything, this is the cheap way out for the established players. What would be a headline is if someone was passed up because of their political or religious views, despite being an extremely talened content producer.
Which Flickr user is it? I look forward to seeing macro shots of flowers or Photoshop'd photos of sunsets and arty depth-of-field shots.
Nothing costs nothing
"As videos, blogs and Web pages created by amateurs remake the entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are being catapulted into positions of enormous influence"
I wonder how many of these people of enormous influence will be around in a year never mind six months. A quick perusal of Forbidden illustrates exactly what it is famous for. Nothing wrong in viewing tottie but does everything have to be reduced to the level of the Sun's tit page.
davecb5620@gmail.com
... so they think I will buy a Toyota because some moron from flickr is in an advert. Never, I say, never and thrice never.
Here's a new ad for Toyota to replace 'the car in front is a Toyota' - how about
'the car in front is driven by a mindless moron'.
I can't wait til Brandon Hardesty makes it big.
And Brookers, too!!! Go Brookers.
What slays me is that your blog is no different than millions of other blogs, detailing the mind-numbing minutiae of your day-to-day life. One of your posts is about writing a post, for shit's sake. If you have to sit and think about what you're going to write, maybe you shouldn't write anything at all and wait for something interesting to happen instead. This is the problem with blogs and why any "blogger" can expect a stellar 20-40/wk readership consisting mainly of close family members. Show me a guy getting donkey punched in the sack, add a gong sound-effect and wacky graphics, and if it turns out hilarious expect your hits to increase drastically.
We the authors of the new media rejoice, for this is our time to reign.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.