Do we really need to teach digital skills?

Every where I turn there seems to be a foundation, organization or center developing curriculum to teach kids how to develop their digital skills. I confess I’m very skeptical of whether we really need this, though I’m recognize that there are tremendous divides among the different social, economical and mental abilities among young people and perhaps this is the main reason why we need to develops new educational standards that include digital skills. Not everyone can pick up a computer and figure out how to blog…

The future of Advertising

I found this presentation on Slideshare and found it to be right on the money and provocative.

**UPDATE**

Make me laugh

Lately I’ve been wondering why is entertainment so successful on the web. It seems to be the magic formula to making something viral or getting a lot of hits (that or pure controversy). You wouldn’t be sending your friends product recommendations (lame) but you sure will send them a little funny video like this:

Four Elements Rant

This week we had to do a video using the Four elements. I had some issues with the Flip camera so I ended up using my iMac iSight camera. Music is licensed under cc. I only used one video transition at the end.

Footnotes

As part of multimedia produciton class, I’m producing short videos every week using low-end consumer technology. This video uses B&W filter, color correction in final cut and a bed-side lamp to create the shadow. All music is licensed under CC.

Manga does UGC

“We don’t employ translators as each and every user is a translator.”

John Maeda announced in his blog this new website for Manga (Japanese comics) where users can create their own translations of the books (after buying them) and then sell them on manganovel.com –although you get paid in points, which you can only use to buy more Manga.

Interesting use of ’social media/user generated content’ by appealing to manga fans. The site says this is to help ‘everyone’ enjoy Manga, but it sure look like a strategic attempt to help break into new markets or increase Manga’s market share (in Japan Manga is a + $400B industry).

Can UGC change production models of goods?

Last year, as I was researching UGC (user generated content) I starting to observe that some physical goods manufacturers are adopting a form of user-generated content. They allow consumers to create (at least to some extent) the goods they purchase. Instead of having factories produce mass articles determined by a few producers, could factories become on-demand production houses based on the individual designs of their customers?

Trendwatching.com calls this trend MIY “make it yourself”, where users can design their own furniture, jewelry, and other goods, while the business serves as the production center, converting the digital information to actual products. An interesting example of this is Ponoko.com , an online factory in New Zealand, where you can design your own furniture among other goods. This one goes beyond the standard t-shirt and mug design shops like cafepress.com

Media Transformation

We (my MCDM classmates) been having a discussion in flipthtemedia.com on what we understand of the concept of media, and what is ‘flip’ the media. Although the discussion quickly turned to the practical application of the blog scope and it’s organization, there were a few reactions from my classmates worthy of note, in particular John Liston really hit it in his comment:

“That being said I see “flip the media” as a new way of thinking. I cringe at using the cliché of “democratizing the media” but it seems as if that is the whole idea. The ability of the common person to share the news without the gatekeeper seems to be at the very heart of what we are doing. I don’t think we should be hung up on certain technology but rather the phenomenon that each and every person has access to news from everywhere and is able to contribute to the conversation. Technology is just a tool, the idea that is becoming affordable to all is the revolution.

Law & Order II: Mobile Marketing SPAM

Recently I’ve heard more and more complaints of mobile spam, including NY Times David Pogue’s complaint about Verizon’s spam, and it got me thinking how ineffective CAN SPAM law has been –it is ILLEGAL to spam mobile devices without explicit customer consent (OPT-IN). I have not seen much evidence of decline in email Spam since the law was enacted. My experience tells me that only companies that were big or famous enough to attract a lawsuit and risk paying the CAN SPAM hefty fines (and the negative brand impact) made an effort to comply with the CAN SPAM law for email. So the only somewhat effective measure of SPAM control are ISPs/email filters. Hence, the FTC and FCC are pressuring mobile industry leaders to come up with some filter controls that put back the control on the consumer, specially because we PAY for the ‘unwanted commercial messages’ (aka SMS SPAM).

Simplicity

NY Times David Pogue’s review of the Flip continues to attract a lot of reaction. See the follow up post ‘Why There Aren’t more Flips“. Funny how this little thing can create some much reaction. It’s premise is SIMPLICITY (even though sometimes it fails to deliver on that). This principle simplicity seems to the key to success when it come to technology and it’s most iconic example: the iPod.