Tim McCall Weblog

I was searching YouTube and I found a music video that I did with a few guys for a class. It’s pretty ridiculous but I thought I should share. Enjoy…

Everyone loves the underdogs right? Our favorite movie characters and sports stars are that much better if they have a little adversity again. The competitive nature in us or jealousy for others makes us want to take out the person on top. Even if he/she/it is positively benefitting us we want to be in charge, or at least in on whats going on. Then you have to consider the he/she/it that is on top and is in control of things. Sometimes this position can cause he/she/it to lose track of the main goal. Even with good intentions, issues can be overlooked. This is where the outsider comes in and brings the issue to attention. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing I just think it’s the way we are. I think the Microsoft story is a great example of this underdog theory.

Microsoft

The people at Microsoft aren’t superhuman. They are no doubt very smart, and very human. This does leave room for error. While publicly criticizing the error is effective, it is also humiliating and probably wont shed a good light on either Microsoft or the harsh critic. The realization that can help designers create better usability in our software through civilized, and most importantly, two way conversation is incredible. You know someone is listening, and I think that an overlooked aspect of customer blogging is the extra motivation a designer has to create a better product. It reminds me of the saying, “talk to me man to man” because instead of being angry at “Microsoft” which is a emotion that will get nowhere, you can criticize someone who works there in a blog and get a response that will more than likely clear up your confusion. The underdog aspect goes out the window and both sides benefit.

Gilbert

One of the coolest things about Blogging for me is that everyone is on an even playing field. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t be able to talk to a professional basketball player without paying to go see a game and ask for an autograph. Now I can go on a favorite players blog and tell him what I think. It is up to me to get his attention in order to receive a response, but the fact that this person will read my comments is fufilling just the same. Not just athletes, Movie stars, singers, politicians are all blogging and this is also helping both sides. No one can say that their voices aren’t being heard if they are going to the right places.

Gilbert Arenas is famous for his alter egos on the court and his blogging antics. I visit his blog often, and it is usually good for a laugh.

WHERE’D YOU GUYS GO?

When we were younger, my brother, cousin and I were three of the most adventurous kids around. We were always outside, always climbing trees and using our imagination. Then the Sims came a long and I was left climbing trees and building forts by myself. Another story which has molded my opinions of online gaming started in my senior year of high school when everyone was having a good time and spending our last days with friends we wouldnt not see as much anymore. The first couple months were great; parties, dances, events, and even just hanging out. Then HALO was introduced to my group of friends and spread like wildfire. One by one, friends would stop hanging out and stay in to play the game with one another. By the spring, half of my friends were like ghosts, and when they were around they were talking about this game. It is almost a joke amongst my friends how much I dislike HALO simply because of this loss of personal contact.

I don’t know why I have resisted these video games, but there is something in me that cannot get into them. I understand the attraction and was perfectly willing to give Second Life a try. Maybe because it is not a game or competition, I would find something else in there that appealed to me.

ARTICLES?

First, I read the three articles to see if there was any advice, or anything to get me more pumped up about this virtual experience.

Pine and Gilmore, really gave me a new outlook on a world that I am very negative about. It made me see more than just these social/gaming possibilities of the virtual world. I would say that the greatest thing that I got out of this reading was a more signifigant appreciation for what could happen in the near future. It is almost like a renaissance, in which everything, including business will become more artistic. I totally agree that experience outweighs goods in many cases, so I guess that it is kind of hypocritical that I am anti-halo. The experiences that people recieve when they are in the “Halo world” are real and are something that people can take with them anywhere. So maybe I am coming around on the game, but I will still take a real-life experience over a virtual one any day.

PLAY

I agree with Michele; Play is Play. I think that the only difference with play in the virtual world is having responsibility for your actions. In most places you can do what you want online with little accountability. I think that this is something that the virtual world is getting better at and they have started to regulate more. The aspect of play does connect to the Experience Economy article in the fact that play can also be serious. Just because something is meant for business, doesn’t mean that it has to be uptight and have no entertainment value.

The third article put the cap on my misunderstandings with one quote. “One notable result of Second Life’s openness and success is that it’s becoming an even more conducive environment for people to make real life connections in business or creativity or even (especially) romance”.
For the first time I realize that I have been cyber-stereotyping. Not everyone in Second Life is looking for cybersex, or fighting aliens. This place could help me find a job or opportunity. And not like Monster or Craigslist can. This is the next step.

SECOND LIFE
Ok. So now I’m pumped. A new outlook on the Virtual world. Timo McCallen is ready to tour tutorial island….

It started off great. Someone asked me the other day what my superpower would be if I could have one, and my wish of flying was granted. I perfected this, and then landed down the road where I was graphically hit on by a man on a steam roller. I then found myself in a stripclub which happened to a few people in this class. After running away from strippers and bartenders, I wound up in the desert. I was lost and couldnt find Tutorial Island. It was dusk and getting dark quick. Second Life, like Halo and the Sims before it has left me lost and lonely. I decided to call it a night in my second and first life. I guess Im not meant for the virtual world, or maybe I need to practice.

The experience was not all bad. Combined with the readings, I learned that the virtual world does have a lot more to offer than I thought.

-Tim-

More and more we are finding ourselves in a collaborative society via the internet. With web sites generated by Wikimedia and other sites like Flik, Youtube, and JumpCut, Internet users are increasingly sharing information. We are also seeing an increase in the sharing of videos, but where is this all going? What new niches are being evolved with video? How will this inevitably impact television and on other broadcasting productions?

Our group will be looking into the current trends and usages of online video and editing. We will be taking into consideration what technologies exist today and the changes that are already taking shape. By doing so, we will identify the impact these changes will have on television and video production and what will exist for the future of mass collaboration and video production.

We will be using various resources from internet and journal articles, and excerpts from books. One online source that we have found is the web blog TechCrunch, which reviews new Internet products and companies. They have several entries on new video editing software and their increasing popularity.

Mashable.com also has articles on the latest trends of online editing tools and updates on collaborations of online services. They have an article that looks into the merging of YouTube videos into Google’s News page. We will also be looking at the web site for the IEEE which is the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. This will inform us in regards to the technology of the future. A book that we are trying to get our hands on which relates to our topic is; TV.Com: The Future of Interactive Television by Swann.

One expert that we came across is Tracey Swedlow who is known as a trusted resource for multiplatform, broadband interactive television. Her newsletter provides information on industry developments, technologies, and content projects.
Jens Frederik Jensen who wrote; Interactive Television: TV of the Future or the Future of TV is another expert in the area of Interactive Television that we will be referencing in our research.

Some scholarly journals that we have come across are the Journal of Television and New Media, as well as the Video Age International Journal. These contain articles that will help us build on our thesis and create new ideas for research.

Our aim is to inform broadcasters and producers the developing changes of online video and how this will impact the industry.

To handle this topic successfully, we have divided the research into three different themes. Tim will be looking into the existing and developing technologies, software, and delivery devices of video editing and production. Jen will be researching the involvement and collaboration of broadcasting companies, the web, and its users. Caitlin will be investigating the future impact of this collaborative media.

Caitlin, Jen D. , and myself will be meeting on Thursday to set up our game plan and create the proposal for our white paper project. We met today(Tuesday, Oct. 16) and have changed our topic to the future of Interactive Television. This is due to the fact that it is hard to compete with RAND on the topic of NetWars. We will be focusing on new technologies and methods of delivery, and issues such as the Black Box. We feel there is substantial research in the field of Interactive Television.

Thanks-

I’m am perfectly content with my news comsumption methods these days. I can be the creator and the consumer. If I feel that a television station is being biased on an issue I can simply find hundreds of other resources about that issue on multiple mediums. If I feel that none of these mediums have the story right, then I can go bitch about it, with the same worldwide audience as the big guys do. If you have read my previous blogs, which my blog stats say you havent, I am very torn on just about every issue we discuss. This is because I am worried that we are moving so fast that we might go overboard with a lot of the advancements we are making without thinking about the consequences of our actions. And as always it comes back to the same issues; if everyone is making news, who is reading/watching/listening to the news. Also professionalism and democracy are huge issues.

GET EDUCATED

I watch the news when I don’t want to do anything. I watch because it allows me to be informed about daily issues with little effort. I guess the transformation in me that has taken place in the past 5 or so years is that I look as news more as entertainment rather than information. If I actually took the local news as fact, and let the sensationalization seriously, I would never step foot in New Haven again. They make it seem like as soon as you cross the town line, you can hear shots fired. If people are critical of media, then they are free to make their own minds up about issues. People have been critical for a long time, and now there is a international platform for them to voice their worries. I like this aspect of the common person keeping checks and balances on the creators of news, but people go to school to become journalists and broadcasters, and whether or not it is something you can simply decide to do and create quality material is debatable. Some journalists cant blog, I guess it depends on the techniques that you are used to.

ILLITERATE

I do think that the issue of media literacy is huge, and we should be teaching it at younger ages in our schools. I did not even know the concept of media literacy until I was a freshman in College, and it is something that has benefited me greatly. I think that by teaching media literacy it will create more critical users, which allows people to not be taken advantage of by biased news.

After thinking for a little while I started wondering if there was such a thing as unbiased news, and as Bruns discusses in the wiki news article, would people even be interested in unbiased news? Even I was saying that I don’t take most news very seriously, and watch and read for entertainment purposes. Everyone has very unique opinions and I don’t think that there will ever be such a thing as pure news. Money, and personal beliefs of not only the professionals, but the amateurs as well will always get in the way of the facts.

So, I dont think the news isn’t changing, just the medium, and accessability and massive amounts of varying opinions. This is going to create a more networked system of news, rather than the heirarchal way we are used to. I am fine with this and I just hope that quality does not suffer as a result from it.

Pretty cool mashup for hip-hop/rock fans….

I was fine with Yahoo. It was my home page, and it was fine for my search needs. I don’t know when I made the transition to Google. It happened without me knowing. I think that there was so much buzz around Google, and since everyone was using it as a search engine, I started using it. I have started wondering, Is Yahoo dead? This article shows how the leaders of the Yahoo team are trying to get them motivated.

After reading these articles, my initial reaction was to compare and contrast the two. Evaluate the pros and cons of collocated versus virtual teams. The obvious and what seems to be the big issue that keeps arising is the value of personal versus virtual relationships. Then I realized that it shouldn’t be a versus thing. It shouldn’t be a matter of which technique is better, but rather a hand in hand advancement of team collaboration practices. The in person techniques work and the virtual techniques work so a combination is probably the best fit for most people.

I understand the points about people not trusting other people in a group, and people not being stupid, but I think that Verzuh thouroughly explained how to deal with trust and why his rules were basic.

TRUST ISSUES
I believe that there is a difference between professional trust and personal trust. Developing personal trust is something that I have with only a few people, and this has taken years to gain. In a team assignment or project, you rarely even have months to complete it. This professional trust is not trusting somebody with your deepest darkest secrets, it is having a mutual respect and understanding in regards to the task at hand. This is why I believe that it is an essential task of the leader to collect a group of people who are qualified for the job. Verzuh talks about an interview process which would make sure of the dedication and pride that will earn this professional respect amongst colleagues. Trust starts at the top, and the leader of the group should have absolute confidence in everyone in the group. Knowing that your leader has trust in someone will allow you to be reassured that your peers will work hard along side you.

MOTIVATION
The trust issues take place when skill and motivation are lacking; therefore the leader must always recognize motivation and keep the goal in mind. I don’t think that Verzuh wanted to say that people in the cooperate world are dumb and can’t remember the overall task. I think that in situations that become complex and have many different pieces that fit into a whole you can get bogged down into that one piece and forget where and why it is going to fit in. This is why you need to always keep that goal handy so you dont lose track of the big picture. When reading about web design many authors say that this is a key aspect to success.

COMBO
Ok so now that our trust is established and our goal is readilly available, where do we go from here. I think that a combination of in person and virtual collaboration is the perfect fit for a team. We know that we need that personal touch to explain ourselves and set the groundwork, but for the individual aspects that go into the whole project the tools that the virtual world offer are so much more efficient to use and share. As for an identity, I think that this can also be a combination of both forms of project team techniques. I like the example that Lipnack and Stamps give of the Distance gauge will help your team know who is available in person and who is only available via other communication techniques such as the web. Using this you know all team members involved and you understand what it takes to collaborate with them.

I found it interesting that Verzuh’s article was written almost ten years after Lipnack and Stamp’s. This is just evidence that there is still a split between those who are pushing for more virtual interaction and those who prefer strict personal contact.