The Bowerbird Mongo

Comments with a conscience

How anonymous should reader comments on news websites be?  As Arianna Huffington points out in the recent NY Times article Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments

” people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments”.

This disturbs polite readers and discourages them from joining the conversation.  With out these subtler voices it becomes the mime version of Fox news hour full of silent slurs.  I remember another group cloaked and anonymous that took courage from their hooded disguise.

Of course the temptation is there to air all your backed up frustration and vent until the cows come home making full use of your entire vocabulary especially dusting of those lesser used words.  I would argue in favor of doing away with anonymity to restore civility to our  pages.

“There is a younger generation that doesn’t feel the same need for privacy”

added Huffington.  And here I agree entirely.  As a regular reader of a local community blog by Mark Maynard that welcomes comments that are moderated before appearing I was shocked to discover that many commenter’s (who I either know or suspect to be in their mid twenties) choose to use their real names then say very opinionated controversial things which are “moderated” and found to be acceptable by the blogger.

I think in general this generation cares a lot less about keeping up appearances.  There is kind of “Like me or scram” attitude built in to our socialization.  Mother may have taught me not to talk religion or politics at the dinner table but somehow my class mates reprogrammed me to jump on my soap box at random and unapologetically defend what I think.  The key word here is unapologetically.

Ypsilanti Gardener Gives First Interview

Is the still photo becoming obsolete

resident Barack Obama greets doctors and nurses following his remarks about health care reform in the East Room of the White House, March 3, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Barack Obama reacts to a BlackBerry message in the Treaty Room office in the private residence of the White House, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

New York Times writer Hank Klibinoff explores the effect of modern technology on photojournalism in his recent piece  “What The Still Photo Does Best”

Hank highlights how common it has become for a nonprofessional photograph to get attention.

I really liked the point made towards the end of the piece that a photojournalist’s mission includes documenting injustice.  To me this is case and point why citizen photojournalism will never replace professional photojournalism.   The motivation is different and there are some photographs you must set out to get.  It seems unlikely that anyone would accidentally take photos of tortured prisoners or crooked politicians.

Although I don’t believe that photojournalist are being replaced I can’t help feeling excited about the possibility of being able to capture a great moment using the video frames technique demonstrated in our in class video by David Leeson.

Simple though it may seem I have a suspicion that not everyone could pull this off either.  You still need a lot of expensive equipment, software, and most importantly an eye for what looks good.   In fact you need the same good aesthetic sense that a photographer would need to pick the right angle, lighting, and moment.  The photographer is simply at greater risk of missing the moment.

Today, everyone with a cellphone is a photographer/videographer and streaming video has become a national obsession. But has the proliferation of images devalued photojournalism and dulled its influence?

How Concentrate Media Uses Links

From the homepage of Concentrate Media the only links that lead away from the site are at the very bottom.  They are sponsorship links that lead to the sponsors homepages:

These link to sites other than Concentrate's Sites

All the links that lead away from the Concentrate website open in a new window or tab.  All of the other links that keep you within the website open in the same window or tab.

The photo changes each week

This is the shell used by Concentrate media the only thing that changes here is the Date and the Photograph.  As you click around using their links you can feel safe that this will follow you.

After clicking around for a long time I finally found a link oopsie….

Pretty sure those were all supposed to be links

The above list is likely supposed to be links to the websites in the list but it is plain text……..oppsie

The below is a link that I thought could have been better because its really hard to tell that this is linking to a story about a costume shop. This link is both the link to the story and the headline.  I think given what we learned in class about the importance of full disclosure headlines that this one is a failure.

It should have said: Local Costume Shop Branches Out

Notice that Concentrate uses the all caps headlines just like the New York Times does.

WCC Student Volunteers His Break

Dustin Rust, 30, of Ypsilanti, is a post Graduate student with a degree in biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  He is now on the path to becoming a Doctor of Osteopathy and hopes his classes at Washtenaw Community College and Eastern Michigan University will lead to Medical School at Michigan State.

“I love spring break because everyone else takes off and the town gets quiet”, said Rust who spent his spring break logging volunteer hours for his med school app.  “I started volunteering at Hope Clinic in Ypsi for the first time over break” he said.

According to Rust Hope clinic is a non-profit doctors office that sees patients with no health insurance and issues prescriptions for free meds, usually from Kmart.  “I trained to help the walk in patients fill out the paperwork on Saturday mornings, a long line starts forming outside at 6am but the clinic doesn’t open until 8”.

Dustin also volunteered at Holy Trinity Church at EMU as a lector, sacristan, altar boy, usher, and Eucharistic minster.   “It was crazy I felt like a pin ball trying to do all those tasks at once” said Rust “I was only supposed to read but none of the other volunteers showed up so I had to do everything”.

Rust didn’t spend his entire break working he recalls having to drink all the wine left over after Mass and later that night, full of the spirit he beat his parents at euchre.

“The weather was nice so I rode my bicycle to the Ypsilanti Food Co-op to pick up some stuff and cooked for my girlfriend.” Rust likes the co-op because its right around the corner from his house and they sell healthy foods.

On Saturday he attended the Ann Arbor farmers market to try to find some lamb “but the lamb lady had left”. Said Rust who likes to eat locally raised food when he can.  “That’s really all I just hung out and enjoyed having the town to myself.”

Concentrate Media a Well Oiled Machine

The Concentrate Media website always features an enormous mast clear across the top with their logo and a page wide photograph.  These photographs are usually artful and feature local scenes this most recent one was taken inside the Domino’s Farm’s lobby by David Lewinski

The navigation panel is Kermit Green and also spans the width of the page.  It gives the illusion of being layered behind the mast and the Grid style content just peeking out from behind like so:

Both the Mast and Navigation Panel will follow you all around the site just as they appear on the front page.

On the front page Below mast and navigation is the front page news.  The hierarchy of the page reads from left to right with a silo in the middle.  The largest and most important column on the left “Current Online Magazine”  previews feature stories and includes small photos with each.The Center Silo is slightly narrower and is composed of 3 boxes full of links to other less featurable stories and the right most column is the narrowest and displays ads, a search box, and options to follow the feed.

The font throughout is sanserif and there is no use of any fonts that would cause incompatibility with  a browser.  I believe their logo is an image file not a font.  All fonts are black on white with the exception of links which are blue on white.  Paragraphs are left justified and the site has an overall clean look that is consistent throughout giving a sense of unity.

Concentrate makes good use of color with the mast photo and the green navigation panel and then a more conservative clean look in the body of the page.  I like that the ads are grouped off to one side instead of here there and everywhere as in some sites.

One of the greatest features of this particular news site  is the job postings and event listings which they call filterD.

I think the site is very professional looking and well executed.  I love the way they tie in well written blogs of locals as a fresh way of accepting the work of contributors.  I do think they could improve the look and appeal of the blog section of their site by including pictures, the current long paragraph format is intimidating and I know from clicking around that the blogs themselves are much more visually entertaining then the Concentrate site lets on.

I would like to see the blog section be more of a visual teaser like the first column of the front page with a small photo and an intriguing snip-it from each blog being featured.

That said I look forward to reading Concentrate because of their focus on local businesses, non profits, and individuals.  It is hard for me to decide what to read first.

Branding a Worthwhile Chore

After hours of fussing I am proud to say I have created a brand for Twitter and Facebook.  The Brand is related to my floral design business and blog Sweet Pea Floral Design.

The social media strategy is to provide photos, videos, links, and discussions related to all Ann Arbor wedding venues and vendors.  Obviously I wont be promoting other florists but I plan to review and recommend halls, jewelers, beauty salons, dress boutiques, caterers, bands and many more local vendors.

I believe that drawing all of this useful information together into one Facebook Page will attract many curious brides who will begin discussing their successes and concerns as they plan or review their wedding.  In the process the Sweet Pea name will become more and more familiar and photos of our work will start circulating in the community.

I will be creating a facebook photo album for each of the categories of vendors.  The captions beneath each photo will include the web address for the vendor, and the web address for the photographer who shot the photo when applicable.  Unfortunately Facebook does not allow these captions to include hyperlinks.

To get the conversation rolling I have posted a discussion topic and I have linked the facebook page to the twitter feed so that it automatically updates twitter when I post on facebook.

the thing that intimidates me the most about these social media fan  and twitter pages is the commitment required to remain professional looking.  I will have to schedule time at least every other day update and respond to posts from followers.  Right now I am looking forward to it there is certainly no shortage of information to share with everyone.

Serendipity and Curators of Content

“Curator of Content” Nick Bilton, Makes the excellent point that we have all become sifters, collectors and sharers of information online.  I relate the attraction to this behavior to the enjoyment we ladies get out of gossiping or you fella’s get out of telling a great story or joke that no one has heard yet.  It is cool to be in the know, to have a reputation for sharing the latest news, gossip, and knowing where the party is at.

Count me among the many aggregators happy to play hide and go seek with the greatest new ideas, events, and then pass the results of my treasure hunt on to friends proudly as the pioneer of our circle claiming new intellectual territory for my peeps.

Twitterless

Concentrate Media Site has many terrific features, not among them twitter.  Concentrate identifies itself as

The new story of Washtenaw County — a narrative of creative people and businesses, new development, cool places to live, and the best places to work and play.

It includes news, feature Stories, well written blogs by locals like Mark Maynard, videos, innovation and job news, classifieds, and a special section on new developments in Washtenaw County but no twitter.

A search for “twitter” in Concentrate’s site revealed an in depth article written about how some influential locals use the social media.