There’s the billion dollar question. While there are no 100-percent guarantees in this ever-changing markets, it appears that the traditional top-down processing will continue to thrive and galvanize the next generation of out-of-the-box thinkers.

This trend was pointed by M.I.T. professor Neil Gershenfeld‘s talk in 2006 at a TED conference. He first mentioned how aid for the growth of technology has followed this pattern and how technology itself will undoubtedly succumb tot he same framework as well.

“The real opportunity is to harness the inventive powers of the world to locally design and produce solutions to local problems,” he said.

The most tangible example of this are the numerous “Fab Labs” that Gershenfeld and his associates have been able to set up around the globe. With just $20,000 worth fabrication equipment entire villages have been able to only empower themselves but to contribute advancements to society as a whole. Such results, which are quite astonishing, reminded me of another TED conference of IDEO founder David Kelley where he mentioned how a colleague from Stanford, Martin Fisher, was able to use his business, ApproTEC, to bolster Kenya’s economy by  starting 19,000 companies employed by 30,000 workers — and probably counting. This effort was fueled by the  entrepreneurial spirit of a people known only by the rest of the world for their distance running pedigree.

When Gershenfeld said that the way to close the world’s fabrication and instrumentation divide “is not IT for the masses but IT development for the masses,” I was reminded 0f the old maxim: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”

It is instances like this where knowledge really is power. It’s heartwarming to see the technology of tomorrow shared in an equal-opportunity format that could one day greatly bolster the quality of life in third-world countries. Professor Halavais mentioned a favorite maxim of his from computer scientist Alan Kay: “You understand the future by inventing it.” Later Halavais summed this idea up on this own words: “One of the best ways to predict the future is to engaged in creating it.”

While I can respect this notion, at his point in time I have no desire to be part of the possible future that computer scientist Gordon Bell and other “lifeloggers” are helping to create. I am appreciative of the value of personalization, but recording every facet of one’s life seems like the empitome of the acronym TMI (too much information). The web is already oversaturated with oceans full of  bits of information, many of which is non sequitur. Lifelogging  appears only to exacerbate the problem of an overload of data.

I liked what technology writer Clive Thompson said during an interview on the WNYC radio piece, “On the Media: The persistence of Memory,” when he uttered the following: “There are parts of your life that maybe you shouldn’t remember, and making sense of your life is as much about forgetting the vast majority of it or subtly distorting it as it is perfectly remembering it.”

As a (former) journalist, I loved to know what happened and I loved the search for the real story. I loved knowing that I helped serve as a sort of historian for an event by chronicling what happened. Not everything in life, though, needs to be chronicled. If you go through a horrible break up or attend the funeral of a younger sibling, I’m not sure you would want to capture every moment of those events. Yes, the truth can set you free, but it can also imprison you.

So…

… where to next in the semi-immediate future? It would appear the answer lies somewhere near the further development of mobile Internet devices — or whatever the teenagers in Japan and Scandanavia are into these days. I found the first chapter of Howard Rheingold‘s 2002 book “Smart Mobs” to be rather enlightening. What intrigued me most was the fact that America was so far behind the rest of the digital world in terms of texting and the mobile Internet culture.

Although the origins of  texting and mobile Internet are of a bottom-up processing nature, American companies were determined to disseminate it through a top-down means when the technology first was introduced here. “U.S. operators did not bypass their corporate cultures, made text messaging too expensive, failed to bridge barriers that prevented messages from traveling between different operators, and marketed text messaging services to thirtyish executives rather than teenagers,” Rheingold wrote.

A majority of the interviews he conducted took place in 2001, which was one year before I purchased my first cell phone. In 2001, I still managed to go through life without one. Looking back, I really can’t remember that way of live. It was still another couple of years before I started to text with regularity. Now that, too, has become part of the fabric of my everyday life. I’m also amazed at the dichotomy that exists among the older generations of cell phone users. Take my parents for instance. My dad loves to text and send pictures. My mom, on the other hand, has never sent a text in her life and probably does not plan on doing so.

One final thought

In his online lecture, Professor Halavais mentioned the topic of RFID tags and how they will eventually revolutionize how business is conducted.

If anyone would like to delve deeper into this topic, I recommend a stop by the Web site of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas. Before heading out east, earlier this year I wrote a profile on the center’s executive director, Bill Hardgrave. He is considered to be one of the top experts on the subject.

In the article (which unfortunately no longer exists online), Hardgrave mentioned that RFID technology will be in most major department stores within the next two to three years. In January of this year, he received a report that all nearly 600 Sam’s Clubs in the country and about 1,000 of the nation’s approximate 4,100 Wal-Mart stores were RFID friendly.

He would know. Wal-Mart, which is based in Northwest Arkansas, is the main reason the center exists in the first place. The center began in 2003 with a $4 million that was earmarked from a $50 million gift to the University of Arkansas from the Walton family. At the time, the only other school that had a university-based facility was at M.I.T., but it was more concerned on RFID innovations (still is). The center in Arkansas was strictly built for applications for the betterment of business.

Hardgrave said that one of the obstacles of putting RFID tags on individual products — and not just paletes — was the that RFID energy is absorbed by both water and metal. That problem should eventually fade away with the invention of electromagnetic ink that at the time of the article was in its testing stages at M.I.T.

“This is a technology that is going to make life as a consumer much better and much easier,” Hardgrave said at the time. “It’s going to help retailers ensure that it’s the product you want, when you want it and where you want it, and it’s going to help you get in and out of the store faster.”

I’d like to start this post with a proposal to our good friends at Google: Come up with an application called “Google Open” in which all of its uses of the data gathered on its gazillion other applications are known to the public. The company loves to use common vernacular in its other programs — eg. “Hooray, no spam here! on Gmail. It could simply explain its policies on the information it keeps on its infinite amount of network space.

While although virtually everyone uses Google applications of some variety — I use four main ones on a constant basis — all those who address the issue of Internet privacy seem on edge about what Google has up its sleeve. The CNBC presentation in 2006 of “Big Brother, Big Business” (brought to you by Google Videos, of course) mentions the possibility of the online giant one day selling the personal profiles of its users to retailers and other private agencies. It should be noted that Google turned down the show’s request to be interviewed whereas other representatives of other private information gathering systems such as Axciom and Verint Systems did not.

A 2004 article in the The New York Times, “To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye On You” by Louise Story serves as a foreshadowing of such possible activity by Google and other search engines: “The Web companies may prove they can use their algorithms and consumer information to better select which ads for visitors better than media companies can.”

Now that’s pretty much a proven fact.

I also found the following quote very interesting from a man who is considered one of the forefathers of biometrics technology, Joseph Atick, who is now the executive vice president and chief strategic officer of L-1 Identity Solutions: “Big Brother is a concern. Big Brother, if let and allowed to happen, will happen. And our job as responsible humans in society is to make sure that does not occur.”

With Google and others being allowed legally to keep quiet, Big Brother is being allowed to happen. And as citizens of this planet, we should not be happy about that.

The solution? Not clear. In this day and age, saying you’re going to boycott Google is like saying you’re going to boycott high fructose corn syrup. It’s everywhere. I, for one, am a proponent of what is suggested in the CNBC video: calling our local legislators about the issue. At least that would be a start in the right direction of forcing more a different kind of open, two-way discussion in the realm of interactive communication: the one between us and the giant companies that help us navigate through life.

As my partner Blogging as a Second Language has addressed on her blog, we don’t foresee too many legal issues coming our way if we were to launch our Web site. Like the products we would hope to promote, our site would be of an organic nature, composed of the efforts of our staff and other hand-picked contributors.

We would not be selling any products on the site, so we wouldn’t have to worry about any of the possible ramifications or regulations regarding that matter. The only real possible issue we forsee is the music aspect of our site. Given the fact that we are trying to appeal to the 18-30-year-old demographic, music would be an integral part of our marketing, and ultimately, the face of our Web site.

We would not condone pirating music, but we would promote musicians who make a sincere effort to support a green lifestyle through their daily practices and the time, energy and money they donate to the green movement. We would also not be opposed to playing songs or snippets of songs of local artists who are going to be the open acts of local music festivals such as Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, Conn., or who are trying to create events to raise donations for green organizations. We would never be so involved with the dissemination of music that we would have to worry about the DMCA Safe Harbor Act, although we would make sure we complied with it to be on the safe side.

In addition, we do not forsee any type of patent or trademark infringements regarding the construction of our site.

Say what?

“Legalize what it is to be young again.”

This was part of the solution given by Creative Commons co-founder Larry Lessig during a presentation in 2007 at a TED Conference. This is a fascinating idea, but how would you do it? I admire Lessig’s ideology but it seems that most his age lose their sense of being young, and in essence, being a kid.

Based on my initial research and everything I’ve observed, it appears that one of the benefits to working in the interactive communications/Web design world is the idea of always retaining one’s youth—and hopefully the creativity, imagination and exuberance that comes with it. In a field such as this, the trick is not to fall into any static practices, but instead to keep one’s approach almost ballistic, always moving, always looking for ideas.

Furthermore, I loved Lessig’s quote when he talked about the “ecology of freer content” and its relation to youth: “You can’t kill the instinct that technology produces. We can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it. We can only drive it underground. We can’t make them passive again. We can only make them ‘pirates.’”

Following a fluid parallel structure of thought, Lessig sums up the main issue at hand in just six sentences. If his statement rights true, then the fear of the Internet into a one-directional medium—or what Lessing refers to as a “read-only culture”—like radio and print media, should be perhaps be calmed somewhat.

Why? Because even if the telephone/communications monoliths do supersede net neutrality as talked in the “Humanity Lobotomy” video, the youthful instinct that technology produces would figure out a way to somehow overcome the powers that be to be continue to cultivate the two-way interactive conservation modality, referred to by Lessig as the “read-write culture.”

Now, do I want this theory to be put to the test by taking away net neutrality? Absolutely not, but it’s comforting to think that the evolving technology would see to it that the magnificent creativity that comes from the read-write culture would never be stifled by some Orwellian force.

Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, is at one point quoted in the video as saying: “Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the Internet and now it’s the basis of a society we’ve built on the Internet.”

Amen. Let freedom ring.

Another thought

I find it interesting that the original purpose of copyright law was “to promote a communal advantage of innovation in society”—as discussed by Professor Halavais in his latest online lecture—when an argument can be made that those who oppose any notion of copyrights could share the same stated purpose.

By holding exclusive rights to a piece of work, can author or inventor can claim something that is his, at least temporarily, and be recognized for his contribution to the overall discussion or tapestry of a certain subject or genre.

On the other hand, those who contributed interviews to “Steal This Film II” talked about the intrinsic human need of sharing and how trying to create a wall around this need was unnatural.

“How do you create a wall or a boundary against the very basic desire of sharing?” Lawrence Liang of the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, India, asked.

Using the example of the growing “grime” music scene in London, the film’s producers showed how one group was able to take a piece of music, share it and have someone else expand on it, much to the pleasure of the original creator.

Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay said at the end of the film that the point of media and culture is not making money but “making something.” While I can understand the merits of their reasoning, I also want to know where they think money fits into the picture because I checked we live in a capitalist society and that won’t be changing for quite some time. How do all these “pirates,” and film makers and Internet renegades make money? Obviously academic minds such as Yochai Benkler are nicely compensated by Harvard University (at the time of the
film’s production, Yale Law School), but for the others I can’t seem to wrap my head around their economic scheme. Is it just through advertising?

It is a wonderful idea to think that we can share everything for free but that is an ethereal idea seriously lacking a practical application—just like communism or socialism.

Now do I think that entertainment companies and their entertainers are horribly overcompensated? Yes. We as a country pay way too much to be entertained, giving professional athletes, TV and mainstream movie actors and major label recording artists more money than the combined gross domestic product of some African countries. Still, I can be sympathetic to those who take issue with those who want to get paid for the products they make. Keep in mind that these words are coming from a former journalist who has worked at several newspapers who give away free content online.

Musicians and other artists say they want their music—their art—to touch as many people as possible. For some, this might be true. For those artists who have managed to land a major record deal, giving their music away for free is not going to put new rims on their Bentley.

In the film, Liang says the following: “It’s terrorism of the mind that actually sustains intellectual property.”

That’s a bit harsh. I’d say it’s the fundamental concept of capitalism or the fact that talent causes the differentiations in one piece of property from another. As a  professional writer/content maker would I like to share my intellectual property, my work, with the world in order to add my two cents to the human experience and thereby enrich the lives of those who may view or read that work? Sure, but I’d also like to make sure I was paid something for my effort. Because I’d also like to eat.

Both sides of this matter has a valid point, which is why this debate is so interesting.

The Web site I am working on with my partner, Blogging as a Second Language, provides users information on the ways to create a “greener” lifestyle without requiring a tremendous amount of effort or financial burden. The site appeals to users in the 18-30 demographic who want to get involved in the green movement at a state level, placing an emphasis on instant interaction and, therefore, community activities spearheaded through the site.

The following are three personae of the site’s power users. My partner will present the profiles of those users further down the archetype, those who may only visit who visit the site less frequently or may have stumbled upon it.

Profile No. 1

Name: Jillian Loretto
Age: 19
Residence: Hamden, Conn.
Occupation: sophomore at Quinnipiac, education major
Hometown: Cherry Hill, N.J.
Marital status: Long-distance relationship with her high school sweetheart
Average times a day online: 9
Average length of online session: 8 minutes
Means of going online: SmartPhone, laptop
Most visited Web sites: MTV, TMZ
Favorite musical artists: Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews Band

Extra background: She is a product of the Philadelphia suburbs. Her parents have walked in corporate office parks. Her 24-year-old brother, Mason, inspired her after he joined the Peace Corps following his graduation from Penn State. Her attitude is in the mold of Anne Frank, one of eternal optimism. She used to draw rainbows and suns all over her notebooks in grade school. Her belief that anything can happen was further strengthened last year win Barack Obama won the White House. She uses a recyclable canvas bag has joined several campus environmental groups to meet like-minded people. She received a Toyota Prius upon graduating high school. A child of the Instant Information Age, she is constantly fiddling with her SmartPhone checking her Facebook and Twitter accounts. She has a laptop, which is always with her during school days.

Reason for coming to the site: to help take part in community activities such as tree-planting initiatives and to stay on top of all things pertinent to the green movement in a format that is easily digestible – and applicable to her life.

Profile No. 2

Name: Dan Horton
Age: 24
Residence: Hartford, Conn.
Occupation: entry-level accountant at an insurance company
Hometown: Danbury, Conn.
Marital status: Single but is attracted to girls who share his concern for the environment.
Average times a day online: 4
Average length of online session: 20 minutes
Means of going online: work computer, laptop
Most visited Web sites: Pollstar, Pitchfork
Favorite musical artists: OAR, John Butler Trio, STS9 (live performances only)

Extra background: He went to the University of Connecticut. Given the economy, he is just glad to have landed a job after graduation. His parents are reformed hippies who have always maintained a family garden loaded with vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers depending on the seasons. Although he wanted to graduate he still misses certain aspects of college life. He hangs out with friends who are now upperclassmen and graduate students at UConn and other surrounding schools. After eating high amounts of fast food and not giving too much concern to green efforts, he has undergone a personal Renaissance, something which thrills his parents. He has attempted to grow some plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers through container gardening. He is considered to be a “festie,” having gone to almost every major music festival in the U.S. He has yet to get a device such as an iPhone, but checks his e-mail and Facebook and Twitter accounts with a clockwork regularity.

Reason for coming to the site: To figure out ways to implement more of a green lifestyle into his daily routine now that he is in the throes of adulthood.

Profile No. 3

Name: Ashley McGarrity
Age: 27
Residence: Stamford, Conn.
Occupation: massage therapist
Hometown: Fairfield, Conn.
Marital status: Engaged
Average times a day online: 1
Average length of online session: 30 minutes
Means of going online: laptop
Most visited Web sites: Organic Consumers Association, REI
Favorite musical artists: Shakira, Norah Jones

Extra background: She moved to Stamford to be closer to New York and because of thriving downtown scene. She is engaged to a 29-year-old financier. She enjoys a highly active lifestyle. She has run in several distance races and triathlon events. She loves taking her dog, Victor, on trails. She love to be outdoors and goes on camping trips an average of six times a summer. She believes in holistic/Eastern-based forms of healthcare. She tries to eat only organic food but has to budget these expenses due to their high comparative costs to non-organic food. She enjoys going to local farmers’ markets with her fiancé and dog. She goes on the Web from her laptop at home or at a coffee shop about once daily. She is not a big fan of Facebook or Twitter, but often visits sites that relate to organic food and the outdoors. Her favorite magazines are Women’s Health and Runners’ World.

Reason she comes to the site: To read reviews on farmers markets and to find information on new places to hike and camp.

“Man vs. machine” has made for a nice, trite phrase for years, but in the world of interactive Web design, it’s all about “man + machine.” Although the machines — computers — can perform tasks millions of times faster than humans can, they still need the human touch, especially in a user-centric design framework.

According to a presentation at the TED conference in 2007, David Kelley, the founder of IDEO, the desire to design human behavior into products has created a “broader definition of design.” In turner, “designers are more trusted and more integrated into the business strategy,” Kelley says.

And they should be based on the information provided by Don Norman, a renowned expert on making products appear to emotions as well as to reason. Norman started his 2004 talk at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference with words that perhaps an elementary school art teacher would say before a project: “Make it pretty. Make it fun. Make it enjoyable.”

As Norman pointed out, enjoyment is one of the main factors that can drive all three main levels of emotion found in the brain: visceral (on-the-surface attractiveness), behavioral (usability) and reflective (self-image). If you enjoy a product, you can jump straight to the reflective stage, which is the meta-level that fuels the powers that be on Madison Avenue. “Getting the technology right is only part of the puzzle,” Norman says. “What you really want is to win the hearts and the minds of the people using it, so they enjoy it.”

Whereas Web designers may tend to stick with tried-and-true feedback modalities such as usability testing that appeal mainly to the behavioral element, Norman challenges them to put form and function to the side once in awhile and instead inject a little fabulous — in the eye of the beholder, that is.

If everyone loves a design, the design is mediocre, he says. A truly good design — great design is an impossible feat — he says causes an instant polarity among people. “Good products carry this extreme…. Hate and love.” This sentiment echoes a favorite phrase of mine: “It is better to be hated than ignored.” Hate at least can give someone or something, a product in this case, relevance in any situation for emotions, as Norman says, are a means of socially communicating.

The key is to meld the brain (the computer) with the heart (the human), thereby creating another form of interactive communication internally. The designer can be gain that process by simply asking the potential users to express their thoughts through user sketching, as pointed out in the 2006 report “User Sketches: A Quick, Inexpensive, and Effective way to Elicit More Reflective User Feedback” by Maryam Tohidi and others from the University of Toronto and Microsoft Research. Compared to gathering feedback from oral interviews, sketches allow users perhaps a quicker method of pouring their individual humanity into the possibility of a product.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a sketch is worth at least a couple of new ideas. At least that is the conclusion the researchers have drawn — perhaps sadly, pun intended.

After a few days of being offline, I’m happy to announce this blog is back…. and now in construction.  In a few days,  I hope to have all my photos and other widgets replaced.

Until then, here is my first attempt at a video blog concerning the topic of interactive web design:

It is one thing to say “Go green.” It’s quite another to actually do it. For years, the phrase has been associated with the global efforts to preserve and protect the planet’s environment and other ecological and sustainable matters. But over the years the phrase has become trite and trendy and a reason to wear jeans and a corporate green T-shirt on some designated day. The Web site I plan on proposing with my partner, Blogging as a Second Language, will focus on the promotion of getting a younger demographic (18-30) to adopt a greener lifestyle in Connecticut through outlets that appeal to young people the most – especially music. On a national and state level, we are not alone in our quest of promoting sustainability. We have picked out three Web sites that can be looked as competitors, perhaps some more so than others.

CT Green Scene

The first of such Web sites, CT Green Scene, poses as our biggest foe, so to speak, because it is largely already covering ground we wish to cover as Connecticut-based site aimed at getting people involved in the green movement at a state level. The site tries to appeal to a wide array of people by having content on universal topics that is not specific to age (ex. environmental art displays, a series on vegetarian food). I would surmise, though, that a majority of the site’s traffic is in the 30-50 demographic as suburban homeowners who be so inclined as to install solar-powered hot water systems or might have families to take to the “Made In Connecticut” Fair. The site draws people in with a simple color scheme and catchy logo and slogan (“live green locally”). The site is gentle on the eyes and creates a sense of calmness and tranquility for the visitor. It has an association with a “Green Scene” network of other sites based in Austin, Texas; Houston and Westchester, N.Y. It should be noted that currently the Westchester site links to a GoDaddy.com search site. Those sites that link to the site include the Fairfield County Food Guide. The site provides links to vast amount of helpful resources at a local and national level and for that it should be commended.

Although the site has an expansive amount of content, scrolling through the material is a bit of a chore, thereby hurting the site’s overall usability and functionality. Furthermore the far right navigational bar takes a significantly longer time to download than the rest of the page, creating another knock on its usability. Although the content is produced by a staff whose credibility is strengthened by the background information listed on their biography blurbs, there does not seem to be much of a conversation with the community itself. It’s more “I talk, you listen” instead of fostering a true sense of interaction that a younger audience expects in this day and age. The site has made some noteworthy attempts to increase its interactive element (ex. an online Q and A session with a “green” author and a feature to receive updated posts via e-mail), but more work is needed in this arena to truly cater to the audience we are seeking.

Earth 911

On a national level, Earth 911 could be listed as a competitor as a coalition trying to educate a large audience about all things pertaining to the environment with a particular emphasis in recycling, reusing and reducing of materials. With its wide variety of interactive elements (ex. a search for recycling centers, a downloadable widget) the site has a fresh and hip look to it that would appeal to a younger demographic than a site such as CT Green Scene. Based on content, the site’s target audience could be considered young parents who might take full advantage of “8 Ways to Reuse Your Costume” or “8 Ways to Green Your Trick-or-Treat.”

Using the Earth’s most recognizable colors of green and blue with a wide gamut of colors thrown in as well, the site bombards visitors with content of all shapes and sizes. Instead of the desired effect of being super helpful, the resulting navigation resembles a traffic jam of elements, although the rotating picture for the main articles is a good touch. The visitor’s eye is not sure where to go first due to a clear lack of white space. The site’s content is tailored to be easily digestible but tends to lack substance – like eating a box of Fruity Pebbles for dinner. The lack of in-depth reporting and the tendency to quote a celebrity on various topics (ex. a short quote on Jessica Biel’s thoughts on the recent water crisis) calls into question the experience and background, and therefore the credibility of the authors. There is no bio information and the staff writers look as if they could play high school juniors on the next CW teen drama show. Whereas that “quick snippet” approach does not work for its article, it does work for the lengthy lists of recyclable items found at the navigation bar located at the top of the page. The amount of information included with each selection and the “Quick Vote” interactive tools are well done.  The site is the recipient of major traffic thanks to its partnerships with such organizations as the United States Postal Service and Keep America Beautiful.

Organics Consumer Association

Those who would check out our site would also most likely be interested in a site such as the one run by the Organics Consumer Association, a grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 group “campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability.” The site wallops visitors with a large number of visual elements with no main dominant visual elements. The visitor does not know where to begin. Therefore, the site’s usability and functionality is impaired. The rotating picture element is a good start but needs to be at least five times as large to become the main visual elements. A majority of the elements should be left on other pages. Instead it looks as if the entire site map is located on the home page. The color scheme of tan and green is inviting and germane to the issues at hand. The logo at the top left corner is small and hard to read. The site receives its highest marks in actual content. Although the credibility of the authors is not immediate and upfront, the articles contain more than just short bursts of information, but actual well-formed thoughts and supporting analysis. Given how basic and visually unappealing the pages are, the site is not geared toward a younger demographic but rather an older one.

The site has many links to issues such as genetic engineering and fair trade, but the majority of its traffic is derived from the topic of organic food and other organic products and where consumers can buy them. The site’s “Take Action” site should be commended for “rallying the troops” in a sense, but the page suffers from the same traffic-jam syndrome as the main page. Too much clutter hurts the delivery of the posted messages. Lastly, the site’s “Forum” section does a great job of getting people from all over interacting with each other on a bevy of eco issues.

Another one bites the dust?

After ending my days as a full-time journalist, I thought one of my possible next steps would be into the land of public relations — a path that many other members of the news media have taken. Based on the two required readings for this week, though, it seems as if you could put the term “PR professional” on the endangered species list as well.

In his short but informative offering on TechCrunch, “The Secret Strategies Behind Many ‘Viral’ Videos,” Dan Ackerman Greenberg ends his article with an interesting piece of advice when it comes to make your viral video a shining star on YouTube: “fire your PR firm and do it yourself.” This practically contradicts what Greenberg’s company, The Commotion Group, does. By using a number of tactics, some of which could be labeled as clandestine, Greenberg’s company might just be the next wave of PR, one that operates not with a sterile suit and a press release, but a few tricks up its sleeve online to get your video to the apex of its popularity.

A good example of this is his reference toward the end about “Related Videos,” in which Greenberg’s company chooses a couple of unique tags to monopolize the content selection. “Done correctly, this will allow us to have full control over the videos that show up as ‘Related Videos,’” Greenberg writes. This is a branch of PR. To take terms from the previous reading by Axel Bruns about Wikinews, this approach advocates a “gatekeeper” tactic instead of the “gatewatcher” tactic, which has allowed YouTube and similar come-one, come-all sites to thrive.

Continue Reading »

My plan is to build a Web site that promotes a green lifestyle in Connecticut in a more user-friendly format than CT Green Scene. Instead of simply posting articles and links to eco-related issues, the Web site would foster a sense of community and action within that community by helping its members interact with one another by using a platform similar to that of ning.com.

My partner for this project will be the person who runs Blogging as a Second Language. More details to come…