Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs - June 4-5
This looks like an interesting venue and am glad to see a Minnesota recognition of the shift in media taking place as alternatives-to-traditional media flourish. Complete details are here. Registration and meals is $139.
Online News Community, Editors, Entrepreneurs and
other “Placebloggers” to Convene June 4-5 in Landmark Conference
MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Entrepreneurs, editors and operators of local online news and community websites — placebloggers — will gather June 4-5 in one of the first convenings of its kind, to share the trials and tribulations of a news source growing without paper or printing press. “New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs,” will take place at the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota, immediately before the fourth National Conference on Media Reform, also in Minneapolis on June 6-8.
“America’s new online citizen-journalists are inventing a new business and a new passion — the business of building local, literate, digital domains on the web where community and commerce flourish,” said Bill Densmore, director of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “But efforts — and structure — to share best practices are only just emerging.”
The program will pull together experts for discussions on the business, marketing, legal, advertising, journalistic, technical and fund-raising skills that are needed in order for local online news and community-building websites to approach success. Read more
Emerging Digerati Showcase at U of MN
Today was the Emerging Digerati Showcase at the University of Minnesota, Weisman Art Museum. The focus was a College of Liberal Arts, new media festival featuring digital technology, art and research.
It was inspiring to see the innovation and boundary pushing being done in this market and the passion people are bringing to digital technologies.
- Starting off was artist Lynn Fellman, who merges art and science with her beautiful DNA inspired digital, vector art. Ms. Fellman has been in the interactive space since the early 1990’s.
- Minnov8’s own Garrick Van Buren showcased his creation, Cullect, a collaborative feed reader with amazing capabilities
- Brad Hosack and David Ernst from the Academic & Information Technology, College of Education & Human Development department showed Video ANT, an innovative way of moving video beyond just content delivery through a tool they’ve developed to allow easy annotating of video
- Justin Grammens and Minnov8’s own Phil Wilson showcased Localtone Radio, an innovative site for local bands to showcase their songs and for music lovers to discover (and vote upon favorite) bands and music. Their buzzphrase? Listen, Share, Learn
- Terry Schubring demonstrated an internal UofMN engine called “MediaMill”, which facilitates transcoding of video and its display on to any web page
Accomplishing MPR’s Mission: Innovation at Work.
You’ll see much on this site about the development of new applications, software, products and systems. We’d also like you to see how Minnesota companies are using them to accomplish their goals.
Minnesota Public Radio has always endeavored to be a leader in employing new technology in the daily business of radio broadcasting. One look around their beautiful facility in St. Paul will tell you that. From state of the art broadcast equipment to the video presentations throughout the building it’s apparent that MPR embraces technology and innovation.
However, MPR isn’t just using new technology to make the lobby look great. There is genuine dedication to improving the listener’s experience whether they are music fans, news junkies or would be residents of Lake Wobegon. In fact, according to Michael Bettison, Director, New Media at MPR, “Our audience is where the power of our medium is going.”
Bettison joined MPR in 2001 after stints with a web development company in New York and worked with the likes of Time Magazine and PBS. His first of order of business was to properly position the information MPR was providing on air, what he terms “legacy content”, on line. Additional attention needed to be paid to correctly orienting the staff to use the assets given to them by broadcast to focus the content online. This also led to web getting “a seat at the editorial table” at MPR,” a place that some companies are still trying to sort out in their overall strategy. In fact, some still see web as a competitor to traditional media. Bettison noted no such trepidation at MPR. “The only concern was that of workload. However, we were able to take advantage of the enthusiasm shown by the staff to address those concerns.” Read more
DJ Edna - The Open Source Music and Art Catalog Engine
One of the persistent issues with selling creative works digitally is the need for a middle man to handle the transaction. Engaging with these middle men - whether MySpace, iTunes, SnoCap, or another vendor - often comes at the cost of loss of rights or increase in fees for the artist. DJ Edna, the latest project from Thomas Bohmbach, is an open-source framework designed to make managing and selling digital works easy while allowing the artist to maintain full control over their work.
“Independent artists, who have a geek friend, could install [DJ Edna] on an extra computer in their basement, and run it that way, with no fees. ” - Thomas Bohambach, founder, DJ Edna.
Full control means, DJ Edna will support any licensing or pricing structure the artist wants to release their work under. Plus, like any polite open-source project, DJ Edna is easily customizable for integration into WordPress, Gallery, and other projects.DJ Edna is currently behind The Skullcranes and Spirit of Salt. For those interested in using DJ Edna for their creative catalog, there’s a DJ Edna wiki with installation instructions in addition, Thomas provides set up, consulting, and hosting services.For more on DJ Edna, listen to my podcast interview with Thomas [mp3]
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