ITube, YouTube, WeAllTube

A couple of weeks ago I posted a short piece on my Interactive Media blog about the purchase of YouTube by Google. YouTube is one of this year's rags-to-riches stories...or at least for its founders. However, the rise of YouTube has led to speculation about the future of internet video and the demise of traditional television program delivery. Some have questioned the future of Consumer Generated Media, such as YouTube, because of concern about Digital Rights Management and current abuses of copyrighted material. Others have expressed concern over a possible shift from authentically consumer-generated videos to corporate messages, network promos, and even political ads (e.g., this one by Michael J. Fox). One question is whether consumers will continue to "tune in" if and when the content appears to be manipulated by commercial or political interest groups. Would you believe that some colleges and universities are using YouTube to promote themselves? (e.g., this clip). Hah, bet you weren't expecting that were you? :-) But did you listen to the first couple of sentences of the video? That script was written a couple of years ago, and yet it remains amazingly accurate in terms of the changes that we're currently experiencing. You gotta love this business...never a boring moment!

Happy National Freedom of Speech Week

This year, National Freedom of Speech Week takes place Oct. 16-22. (See http://www.freespeechweek.org/). One way to celebrate is to reflect on what freedom of speech means to each of us.

To me, freedom of speech means the ability to find -- whether in books, on TV, in newspapers, on the radio, on the Web -- messages that can make me feel angry, courageous, cowardly, creative, encouraged, happy, inspired, shocked, sad, uneasy. It means being both amazed and bewildered by the brilliance and the stupidity of the human mind. Freedom of speech means creating learning opportunities from messages my 7-year-old daughter sees or reads that don’t make sense to her.

What does freedom of speech mean to you?

What's the future of MySpace.com?

MySpace.com is the hottest social networking site, if not the most visited Internet site, overall, these days. The site has millions of users/visitors who enjoy posting their personal profiles and using the site to visit with old friends and meet new ones.
Users talk of almost being addicted to the site, needing to visit it many times each day to see who has posted to them. Users talk of the power it brings them to express themselves in such a public way.
Is this something our high school and college aged users will eventually grow out of? Will MySpace.com grow old at some point for these users as their life experiences change?
Or will this generation of MySpace.com users continue with this level of social networking throughout their Internet life, creating a new generation of Internet users who use social networking sites to create their own special worlds?
What do you think? Why do you like or not like MySpace.com? Do you think you'll continue to visit the site as extensively after college? Are we going to have millions of senior citizens in 50 years, still networking on MySpace.com?? (you better agree to change your photo as you age...in the interest of honest communication!)
-Jen Mullen

Click Fraud: The Latest Ad Sleaze?

Well, here we go again. The advertising industry is under seige for yet another potential boondoggle--and one that Business Week (Oct 2) claims may present "the single biggest threat to the Internet's advertising gold mine." Yikes! Although this scam concern has floated around the advertising industry for the last couple of years--often focusing on the big guns like Google and Yahoo who are most vulnerable--BW has one of the best discussions of this internet plague written thus far. Read and weep, budget directors.

BW defines click fraud as "clicking on internet advertising solely to generate illegitimate revenue for the web site carrying the ads; those doing the clicking typically also get paid." Professional revenue thieves have been around for centuries, but there are few merry men looking after these Robin Hoods. Advertisers and marketers, who pay per click for their use of these webnets, are losing millions report both BW and Advertising Age.

Okay, the robbery system has it's legal, financial and pragmatic impacts, but there is the sociopolitical issue of advertising's industrywide problem of controlling the bad apples in their barrel too. How do we stop the bleeding? Do we need more laws? More passwords? Fewer entry points to the system? Better fraud detecting software that can't be breached by every 12-year-old hacker in the country? And why do we want to demonize both advertising and the internet delivery system anyway?

I guess because we can.

Citizen journalism comes to Southern Colorado

The Colorado Springs Gazette has joined the Your Hub network of Web sites, allowing local citizens to report and post news stories from the area on the Colorado Springs Your Hub site (ColoradoSprings.com). The Southern Newspaper Publishers Association reports that Your Hub at Colorado Springs will begin publishing three zoned, weekly tabloid newspapers on Oct. 26, featuring the best stories and photos from the Web site as well as some staff-generated content. Eventually, the SNPA reports, six Your Hub papers, covering different parts of the Gazette's circulation area, will be published.

Citizen journalism is a definite departure from the traditional style of journalism, but, as Gazette publisher Freedom Communications reports, citizen journalism "is journalism for the people, by the people, our freedom of speech in pure form."

Your Hub sites and zoned publications are already doing well in the Denver metro area, pulling in much-sought-after revenue for the newspaper industry. Is citizen journalism really the face of journalism's future? Do you think more readers prefer this rather unfiltered type of reporting over the traditional news gathering process? Should traditionalists (like me, I suppose) get out of the way and let journalism take this new direction?