Keeping up with the times

I have to admit that I have felt humbled since starting the Media Frontier class. Not too long ago, I considered myself pretty hip to what's happening on the WWW today; I had my MySpace page, my Facebook and LiveJournal, I chatted to friends through my gmail account, watched YouTube vids and delved into online journalism's multimedia packages for fun. But now I know that I've only skimmed the tip of the iceberg. This whole "Web 2.0" thing is moving even faster than I thought.

Last class, we had the opportunity to browse through some of the latest innovations. I've decided to pick out a few of them, and discuss why they might have staying power with tomorrow's generation of Internet users.

• LinkedIn: The networking profile you want your boss to see.

It's only a matter of time before the vast majority of job searching migrates to the Web. So rather than acclimate this new generation to job search engines like monster.com, why not make it easier? The thing about social networking is that it can reach out and link everyone in. (I hope I don't get sued for that last sentence!) Now you don't only have a place to post a profile for potential employers; you also have an ongoing link to your colleagues.

• Minggl: The "meta" revolution for MySpacers and Facebookies.

First it was Dogpile for search engines like Google and Yahoo. Then Meebo and Trillian came along so that you could talk to all your AIM, Yahoo!Messenger and ICQ buddies in one place. Isn't it about time that the social netwoking sites are extended the same courtesy? It's still one of the boomiest businesses on the World Wide Web, after all. And people are drawn to what simplifies their lives.

• Your Truman Show: Because everyone's a celebrity online.

OK, so this site is mostly a spinoff from YouTube. But I think their mission might have potential; everyone jumped at the idea of penning his or her own personal blog, after all. Why not continue that trend into more multimedia? Your Truman Show users are encouraged to submit video blogs detailing their lives. Perhaps this will prove a way for amateur videographers to gain recognition, smiliar to musicians on MySpace. And there's less chance of copyright infringement with this venue than there is with certain competition.

A largely biased ode to blogging by a temporarily disabled person

Some of you know that last week, I fell in the hall of the journalism building and fractured my kneecap. Three days later I had surgery but I'm still recovering and still can't walk properly on my right leg. Most of my days are spent on the couch and trying to bear weight on my right leg while taking short walks.

So when it comes to my favorite type of journalism right now, online certainly takes the cake. With the exclusion of programs like CNN, broadcast journalism comes on at prescribed times- during the evening, when my leg starts to sting and a mild fever sets in. Newspapers are cumbersome to deal with when most of my attention is on propping up my leg. The nice thing about computers and the Internet at my parents' house, however, is that we have both wireless and a nice computer stand for the laptop, which I am utilizing right now. :)

Speaking of blogs, I think a distinction must be drawn between those, which strive to be journalistic (and therefore must be held to appropriate standards of neutrality,) and those, which are personal in nature. I know that when most people in my parents' generation think of personal blogs, they're trained to believe that the vast majority of them are written by "tweens" whose main concern is to complain about social cliques and divulge too much personal information on a public forum. However, personal blogs can be much bigger than that.

I'm a very shy person; my strength lies in my writing and I've met several friends through my blog. When I broke my knee last week, the easiest way to get the word out to my friends was to make a voice post to my Livejournal. I didn't even need a computer or Internet connection in that instance. But it was important to me to let my friends know.

On the same tack, in reading this week's class lecture, I was happy to learn about the Webbog awards; most of this year's winners seem to be personal blogs from across the world. Though highly subjective, I believe this medium is an important one. As a 24-year-old female whose spent most of her life in Maryland, it's beneficial to learn about other life experiences.

Video on the Web- the way of the future?

Last week, Chet Rhodes of washingtonpost.com came to speak to the online bureau about taking video. We spoke about different "tiers" of video and we print-oriented people learned about b-roll. Afterwards, we watched a few video journalism peices and it started to hit me that this could be a venerable marketing tool. YouTube has made it possible for the everyday person to become an international filmographer but few people actually embrace the idea of video editing. Though we're not experts in any capacity, we learn to hold our cameras steady and to get however many seconds of b-roll per one interview. We learned about uploading our avi files and using Microsoft Movie Maker to lay sound over different clips or seamlessly cutting out extraneous details.

But what if someone was to take this idea and apply it to promotional marketing? What if the Web site for a national youth group, for example, used these same tactics to advertise their activities? I really think that online video is a way of the future- for more than just the media.