Reflective Meta post & 3 Nominated posts

The purpose of this blog was solely to document my learning, interaction and involvement with Networked Media Production over this semester. As an indicator of how popular my blog has been in the wider context of the world and the blogosphere I have signed up for a stat counter as well as monitoring the ‘Blog Stats’ built into WordPress.  In analyzing the traffic through my blog I have discovered the majority of interest has been displayed by other class members. Obviously they are travelling the same road as I  am and it always seems to help in understanding the context of your work when you have a comparison or two. I admit I have definately kept up to date with multiple other blogs in the Networked Media unit. I follow 4 blogs in my Blogroll, but I mainly keep up to date by reading posts through my Google reader – I have the RSS feed to all 6 NWM classes. I am also very aware that A LOT of my ‘hits’ in  my stats are in fact me! I like to view my own blog after updates and often log into WordPress via my own blog URL. Other than this information, I have found the Blog Stats quite insignificant. I can however, understand that for a more popular blog or for  commercial use the ‘visitor hits’ information would have much more value.

Comments wise; my dad seems to be my biggest fan Haha…I dont have many other comments on my blog – however people has visited it according to my blog stats. Even though my Dads comments have been a small part – I feel they have helped me in learning and developing even further as a part of the Media Network; as he has raised questions and queried me even futher about issues I have have writing about. He has also recommended I look at various other related links – which is a very important part of the concept of Networked Media. This proves that my blog has been a successful vehicle for making me a working part of this Network.

My blog effectivly demonstates my understanding of the Unit content and contains related video, pictures and many links to related articles, sites and added information.

The Three nominated posts are:

Crowdsourcing: Consumers as Creators

Data Visualisation

Mash Ups and API’s

Project B – Geo Narrative

RATIONALE:

I have decided to create a Geo Narrative for my Project B. It follows the exciting story of my best friend and I on our World Trip last year!

Obviously not every breathtaking second could be included! So, although of course we did the ‘tourist thing’ with all the sign seeing and such…this story does not show you the usual ‘tourist’ path – its about the interesting highlights, fun times and quirky bits of our trip!  Take a look…

Marijke and Mel’s FAB World Trip!

This is 100% accurate (non-fiction) account of the first part of our trip. I plan to add the remainder of the year’s events separate to this assignment, it’s a little long! All images and video are my own (unless obviously referenced: there may be one photo)

By combining the use of text and images in geographical context I have networked sources of media so they work together and ultimately serve one purpose – to tell a story. Each one of these components contributes to the network and provides an individual asset. The pictures give the viewer a visual image to look at while reading the text – combined, this creates a picture in the viewers mind which is put into geographical context via the use of Google maps.

Each individual tag on the map contains a short summary of the highlights that occured in that city. This idea is that the story is told through mainly visual elements however the text is there to enhance this. I have also incorporated many links to sites, articles and photos that are relevant and related to the places and events we visted. This is a crtucial part of the Networked Media concept. By linking relevant sources of all media types, the viewer is able to research into the subject themselves and learn more about it – finding out what they please about the place or event that I have initially interested them in through the geo-narrative. I have also included a link to one of my videos in the Geo-narrative; this adds a whole new level of engagement with the viewer as they are able to hear and view one of my experiences. This again being an asset to the Media Network, as the more variety in media that is linked and referenced to my content – the richer the viewer’s experience.

I found Google maps to be an unpleasant media to work in -it is very clunky in the way that you have to enter information. The small windows are extremely inconvenient as you cannot even view an entire thunbnail with out scrolling! It would be a lot more pleasant to use if the windows could be made bigger during the editing process and you could click between consecutive windows with a ‘next’ or ‘previous’ button. This would also benefit the ‘story telling’ effect as the viewer could easily follow the order of events correctly.

Stat Counter

A couple of weeks ago in class I signed up for statcounter.com and added my Networked Media Blog. Here I am able to get information and statistics about people visiting to my blog. I believe this is a handy tool, which would be beneficial if used in the right way – its not such an asset to me at the moment… I think most of my page loads are actually me! However this concept could also be taken too far; some people spend ridiculous amounts of time on the internet and the ability to get  details on the actions of other users could easily be abused.

Google Reader

I cant say I am ever very keen to get out there and spend hours seaching for good blogs and reading them. I am however (probably for exaclty that reason) a big fan of the Google reader. Having the ability to access one point, which has all the lastest and greatest from all the blogs you follow is so convenient. Especially in regards to keeping up to date with this Networked Media course. I only have a few people from my friday classs added to my blog roll, however I follow all 6 class Aggregator’s in my reader so I am immursing myslef in everything that is happening in realtion to this class. However I have noticed some blog posts do not display in full on the Reader…I’m not enitrely sure why this is? Some show full content with photos and everything – others display the headig and one line of text and you have to go to the actual blog to read it. Obviously not a major drama just something I thought I’d point out!

Work in progress: Geo-narrative

Soo the choice has been made – I am planing to create a Geo-narrative for Project B. I have never really explored or known about the capabilities of Google maps before, the ability to customize your own map is an extremely useful tool! It is the perfect way to share and communicate a story, a road trip or any series of different geographically placed events with another person. Whether it is simply giving someone clear directions to a place or tracking a trip step by step with a narrative and embedded photographs. This is what I have chosen to do – I am going to retell my 2008 World Trip by pin pointing major locations on Google maps and embedding photographs with text to give brief descriptions of some trip highlights.

Info Graphics and Data Visualisations

Info Graphics and data visualisations are both ‘making data visual’. They make figures and statistics easier for the human eye and mind to understand. Info graphics involve smaller numbers and more common  things like how many drinks you has this week – data visualisation however is more complex in that it illustrates numbers and statistics of unimaginable size in a way that makes it possible for humans to understand the size of the matter. Comparison is the most effective way to do this. If a person is shown a group of  very large numbers it is difficult for them to understand their relationship to each other: which is bigger and by how much? But if these amounts are translated into different sized shapes related to their size; humans are able to understand the relationship faster simply because there is a comparison. Humans notice difference in shape, colour, size, movement, scale and position very quickly and easily. By utilizing this we are able to create very clear, effective data visualisations. Hans Rosling has done some very impressive work doing exactly this – see Gapminder.

Crowdsourcing: Consumers as Creators

Crowdsourcing – is this the future of design with out professional designers??

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a task usually performed by an employee or paid contractor, and outsourcing it to a large group of people. By leaving this call open to anyone, small tasks (sections of a big project) can be completed by individual volunteers across the globe, collaborating to make larger projects happen with ease. This is usually done via the internet as it is a readily available networked connection of billions of people.

For example SwarmSketch is a form of outsourced design. Each user is allowed to contribute a small amount of line per visit to the site, they are then given an opportunity to vote on the vaue of lines submitted by other users – which determins the opacity of each line (voted less value to the drawing=lighter shade of grey, more valuable=darker/black).

This leads me to the idea of crowdsourcing for commercial product design – as Paul Boutin talks about in his article Crowdsourcing: Consumers as Creators.

“Every business has customers who are sure they could design the products better themselves. So why not let them?

…companies get unpaid or low-paid amateurs to design products, create content, even tackle corporate R&D problems in their spare time

…as design software improves it will only get easier and cheaper for outsiders to create and submit professional-quality product specs that once required expensive in-house work. Look for more and more companies to find ways to tap the creative wisdom of the crowd.”

This idea is taking “user oriented” design to a whole new level…it could well be becoming “user created” design. In some cases, this eliminates the need for companies to hire designers at all. If all product design ideas are contributed by volenteers via internet competitions for example – all the company needs to do is put the product into production. The compay also has a garentee of success to a certain extent, as it thas been genereated through consumer preferences.

Data Visualisation

I think I’d have to say Information Aesthetics and Data Visualisation is the topic that has interested me the most since beginning this course. I don’t know much about creating them it as yet, but the work have seen so far is spectacular!

Plain old statistics are boring…majority of them are to me anyway – unless it is something that I am specifically interested in. However; by making a data visualization out of these numbers the majority of statistics  become very interesting to look at! Unlike than regular graphs, you are able to capture and fascinate a much wider audience by presenting information in a visually impressive way. For example; who wants to look at boring numbers about the Blogosphere, when you can look at this!:

Data Visualisations like this one, and many more – give a much more understandable version of the information.  It is far easier to see how the information fits into the big picture with a visual representation than it is reading figures and trying to visualise it in your head.

As I said; by capturing more peoples interest with Information Visualisations your draw more attention to the statistics behind them – which some people may not be aware of at all. I feel this is a major key to making the community aware of important, current issues. For example: child obesity – if a Data Visualisation was made into a TV ad that showed the youth of today the problem that is at hand in a Visual way, they may be much more likely to undersatand its importance and it would therefor have much more impact. This approach could be applied to many issues at hand today, that need to be publicized.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 thrives on user participation. So much so, that it is said that “we are the web”. Today the value of online facilities, products and information is often determined by user generated content. If people are able to comment or give their opinion  on a particular subject – that subject becomes rich with information and ‘value’ that can be assessed by other users; and is therefor extremely valuable. For example: amazon sales increasing  when a book is recommended (user contributed value) This creates a positive feedback loop that just keeps getting bigger and better as users add to it.

The value in having millions of people able to access any one piece of information at a time is priceless.

The video showed in our lecture today is an awersome example of how the way we communicate has evolved. The flexibility and convenience of hyper text and the internet has enabled informaion to be shared, combined, built on, critiqued and linked to; at the click of a finger, anytime, anywhere in ther world.

Semi-Permanent

So the Semi-permanent design conference was held last week in Sydney on the 3rd and 4th of April. I attended this year for the first time… and although i heard from people that have been before, that it was not the best there has been – it was still amazing! I cannot even begin to summarise the amount of talent showcased at this convention – its breathtaking. From Graphic Designers and Photographers, through to film makers and animation specialists…all their work is spectacularly impressive!

Please do watch this video; it is just little snippets of each speaker but it gives you the taste you need… as it is only when you SEE for yourself what I’m talking about, can even begin to appreciate it.

One word: INSPIRATIONAL

Semi-Permanent Sydney 2009 Montage from Semi Permanent on Vimeo.