Posts tagged New Media
DoGooders DoEvil?
Mar 7th
DoGood? Not so much.
DoGood Headquarters recently released a plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari that replaces ads on websites with “green related initiatives, philanthropic calls for action and health and wellness ideas.” Before I get critical of this new service, because I will, I just want to say that I sympathize with part of what they are trying to do. Almost everyone has a favorite cause that they support and that they wish could raise more money. Doing something on the internet to help those causes raise more money or awareness is a good thing. There is no doubt about that. And it is done at the expense of advertising. Heck, most of us don’t enjoy advertising. So, what’s the problem, right? Read the rest of this entry »
New Media: Embracing Mediocrity or Unearthing Excellence?
Jan 6th
Even diamonds are hidden amongst tons of rock.
So, is new media embracing mediocrity or unearthing excellence? This is a question that comes up whenever a form of media is opened up to the masses. It has been discussed with desktop publishing, blogging, audio podcasts and now with video. Every time, people weigh in with their opinions on the occurrence. I’m weighing in as well because I think this is an important topic now for several reasons.
The first reason is that many people feel like the media, (old media, the man, whatever you want to call it) is letting us down. The media is controlled by a small group of corporations, which are easily bought up and controlled by people or corporations that don’t necessarily have our best interests at heart.
The second reason is that the media usually shoots for the middle ground, the safe bet, for content that doesn’t offend too many people and isn’t too unique. Otherwise, people could potentially be discouraged from watching. That results in a lot of good content never being produced, some great content being cut short (like Firefly) and some content that people think is no longer up to its previous high quality, continuing long past its prime.
The third reason is that we will soon have a way to sift through the vast amounts of available content to find the content that we are looking to consume. This is important because it doesn’t matter if there are hundreds of amazing blogs, podcasts or videos that we would be overjoyed to consume, if we never find them. Read the rest of this entry »
