Always talking. Always moving

The younger generation now has the ability to text message while eating and at the same time watch a movie while listening to music in the background. With all of the fast paced and multi-tasking the younger audience loves, internet sites have tried to “keep ahead of the times” through various means.

Sites are now becoming colorful, flashy, congested and full of bright images and now with added videos . The newer sites cannot help but grab my attention. I sometimes feel like I am in a ‘trinket and things’ store, where everything glitters and flashes. In these sites, I skim over everything and allow my eyes to wander from the video ads, to the images and finally the text.

The same way a newborn baby will react to the sparkling toy is the same way the younger audience will react to a new hip internet site. I feel like teenagers would love to interact with the clients and give their opinions on things. For example, a radio station Star 102.1 allows users to vote in songs for the nightly countdown. Interaction and audience participation is what the younger audience would love, which is especially important when it comes to news.

News should be presented in a flashy way, full of pictures and video. The news involving high school and community features need to involve sections for blogposts and comments. It would also be fun to upload your picture with your comments to make that part of the site more personable. The younger audience also are known for being complete socialites, and the sites should cater to that fact as well.

There should also be an “e-mail this story to your friend” link so that this social generation can share the newest story. Of course they will obviously text message each other about what they thought and then actually see each other in the next five minutes to talk face to face. But hey, who doesn’t do that?

Tapped in and Logged on

Being connected, in a sense, describes the attachments, knowledge and relationships made outside of just your sphere of influence. There is a little boy in Australia, a hot dog stand in New York and a new feature film out in California being made. In Knoxville, Tennessee, there is no way I should know about any events outside my town. Yet, I am able to read up on the Australian boy’s current affairs of how he just won the Nobel Prize, or how during the filming of Zeesbee, the main actor stormed out of the set claiming that there weren’t enough green M&M’s in his dressing room bowl. From my desk in Knoxville, I can tap on, log in and read about anything and say hello to anyone in the world thanks to internet sites, blog postings, and social network accounts like Myspace.

I click on my Internet icon and everything is different than the last time I logged on. The internet is constantly being revamped and fixed up as a new way into the future. Tim O'Reilly talks about Web 2.O and the changes that have been taking place in the Internet, including the ever popular wikipedia and Napster sites created for the convenience and the mass appeal. Web 1.0 may have focused on the beginning sites of the Internet, but Web 2.0 “embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence.” In other words, seeing what sites work and growing them into a collaborative work on the Internet, like fixing up Google and Ebay as dominant functional sites for users to enjoy.

That’s the thing about the web. It’s everywhere. It’s not just when you open your laptop to check your mail. It’s the cell phone text telling you messages from the web. It’s the web link advertisements on your TV screen and the radio messages encouraging the readers to go on the company’s website.

Going on any site shows the user that any hypertext is linkable anywhere virtual and it’s not just texts. Internet users can view videos, upload pictures and sound bites virtually. The web is no longer linking information; it’s linking us to each other. We are controlling this machine , and the web now belongs to us.

Death of a man? or a God?

The world shook, or maybe just the temple, on the death of Jesus Christ. This event is a historical death of either a prophet in Israel or the Son of God. Of course news cameras would be all over Calvary, interviewing Roman soldiers and the band of followers crying around the feet of the wooden cross. Many stricken Jews as well as skeptics followed the bleeding pulp of a man to the hill.

I would turn my attention on not just the death - - another man being crucified - - but on the condition of the man. Many people, like the two thieves to the right and left of him, were not nearly as limp and fragile as Jesus as he barely hung from the nails on his wrists. I would be investigating the whereabouts of Jesus’ last twenty four hours, trying to get his disciples, John or Peter to talk a little about the past events. I would show an interactive map online that showed the actual flogging that took place before the crucifixion as well as a map of where he was forced to walk with the Roman guards from his flogging to the hill.

My interactive segment of Jesus’ death would revolve around three things: the flogging beforehand, interviews from witnesses, disciples and maybe even Pontius Pilate, and the actual death itself.

The flogging segment would show how the flogging took place; an instructional video of what supposedly happened not only to Jesus but many other villians and miscreants. The video and interactive website would show that the upper and lower back and legs were flogged either by two soldiers or by one who alternated positions. As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim's back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues.

The actual death itself was also a painful process and must to be shown as a video and/or interactive "game"; where the nails go and what it looks like. Tapered iron spikes from 5 to 7 inches long were nailed through Jesus’ wrists, not his palms, and into the cross. The spike was driven between the second and third metatarsal bones of the foot, in such a way that the weight of the body could be supported on the spike. Jesus’ cause of death, like that of other victims of crucifixion, was caused by many things, including the shock of extreme blood loss, exhaustion, suffocation, and heart failure. This segment would show video clips of the death, as well as the people’s insights about the event. Discussion boards and comment posts would open on the website as well.

Whether the viewer hated the sight of Jesus or worshiped the ground he walked on, his death had to be notified and covered in the media. No one can deny the powerful and often unexplainable miracles that took place during his time on Earth. He was known throughout Israel and soon his teaching spread nationally, now referred to as Christianity.

Nick-e-lodeon

Nickelodeon Magazine is a cover to cover booklet of childrens’ interests and appeals. Kids ranging from 6-14 years of age all enjoy fun entertainment, including family movies. Therefore, I would make the next story for this magazine to be about the new Shrek the Third movie coming out on DVD next month.

Headline: An ogre running a kingdom. Now that’s scary.

Summary/tease: Shrek is back, finding himself with the royal decree now that Fiona’s frog father finally “croaked.” On the search to find Artie, a school nerd and the legitimate heir to the throne, Shrek, Fiona and friends find themselves in the hands of Prince Charming and villains all trying to snatch at the crown. You can grab too, at all the free features, including a Puss in Boots door hanger, a Shrek and Fiona wallpaper and a donkey image screaming “Go Team Dynamite!”

For the multimedia, I would pitch the following:
- Shrek the Third movie trailer to play on the site
- Clips of the behind the scenes making of the movie; perhaps cast interviews
- Online poll: “Which character are you most like?”
- A character image that once clicked says quotes from the movie
- A section to download Shrek the Third wallpaper, screensavers, door hangers, etc.

Social Networking Sites

I don’t have an account on Facebook, Myspace , LinkedIn or any other social network site. I prefer the old fashioned telephone call, or if someone is in the area, the “meeting for lunch.” I do have to admit that it would be great to talk to past friends from the same school, work, etc. but unfortunately I have to sign on to different accounts with passwords and various screen names. I like Myspace where I can get on, search a name I recognize and perhaps see their picture and some comments others have posted. Also Myspace opens it so that I can watch any movies that are posted or some entries that the person allowed me access to.

To get any more personal pictures, posts or greater access and I would have to make an account. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter requires an account before I can look at anything, which frustrates me. I wish in Facebook I could look at other people’s sites that are not in my University. As an outsider, I personally feel like these sites could do a little more for me. If all I want is to see a person, allow me to.

By preventing me from seeing a person I want to see, which is the whole point of getting on one of these sites, then I feel like I am unable to be a part of the online world of social networking. I would like for sites to allow me to look around without necessarily signing up for an account. I won’t poke holes in anything, and I won’t perversely comment on stranger’s sites. I just want to read up on my old buddy and see his or her picture on how they look now. Thanks to internet security, I can’t even look. I am blocked off from that world.

Fall foliage

To teach and to learn

A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplism. ~Louis A. Berman. I would have to dedicate the above quote to Peggy Collins. This woman knew how to relate to me in a personable level and even made analogies concerning some writing issues with other interests of mine. For example, when Peggy was talking to me about adding more transitions into my work, she made an editing reference, comparing a “dissolve edit” to a “writing transition.” This teacher discussed my weaknesses as well as complimenting my strengths in writing, lighting the areas I need work on and inspiring me to become better than I am currently. Peggy made every weak area of my writing seem like a small anthill when I created it to be a mountain, and yet still encouraged me to expand on my strengths.

Peggy, as well as Staci Wolfe, pushed me into the world of the web, an area I was petrified to enter into. Now that I have looked around a little and explored the enormous possibilities with each click of the mouse, I have found one thing to be true. I have left bread crumbs to find my way back, but now, being in this new world, makes me question if I even want to turn back.

Getting lost in the web opens my eyes to the wonders of the internet and I look forward to learning more on how to navigate around this sea of wires, codes and software.