Audacity tips:

• The “time shift” tool is what allows you to change relative position of tracks (so that they can “stairstep”). See this toolbar description page and this one-minute podcast tutorial.
• To reduce sound or increase sound, select the track (or parts of a track) — Effect -> Amplify
• Audacity support from Gov’t of Oz
• Audacity 1.2 online manual
• Audacity tutorials

• Media (info)
• Noodles (website)
• Outside-Inside (info)

These blogs needs to have categories enabled in navigation (Presentation). Grades to-date.

• Barrie
• Kevin
• Kristina
• Luke
• Vaun

Individual projects of note: Kristina (mpg), Vaun (mpg) Chloe (videos)

Review deliverables for Monday 4 June at 6 pm; Tuesday schedule.

• COM586 “page” should have links to all three stories
• COM586 “page” should have info about your discussion leader presentation
  • Abstract (tag “discussion leader”)
    • PPT should be in abstract or on COM586 page
    • Any other media used (such as YouTube clips) should be linked as well
  • Followup post (tag “discussion leader”)
• COM586 page should have link to your group project
• Complete peer evaluation by Tuesday 5 June at 6 pm
  • ExtraLocal (website)
  • Media (website)
  • Noodles (website)

• Guest Speaker, Lee LeFever of CommonCraft
  • “Companies of the future will rely on their community of customers to remain competitive.”
  • Difference between message boards and blogs (2004)
  • Notes on lecture:
    
    • 1999 – Blogger
    • Flickr growth chart
    • YouTube growth chart (10% of all net traffic)
    • Alexa stats (mySpace is now #3)
    • “relate, discover and share”
    • BringTheLoveBack.com
    • examples: channel9 (msft), fastlane (gm), sw airlines blogs
    • twitter – delta now has an account
    • dell – idea storm (make a suggestion)
    • where it didn’t work:
      • wal-marting across america (v lonelygirl)
      • constant conact (ip address reveals all!)
    • where it worked
      • share your story – march of dines
      • threadless – making community a core part of the biz
      • jpeg magazine
    • twinf
    • barrie – it’s almost like living in a small town all over again
    • part 2: planning/community as party
      • 43things
      • daily strength (health care)
      • twitter
      • member profiles (identity, reputation, etc)
• Next week
  • We’ll have a wrap up lecture and lab (final projects for any group that is ready)
  • June 5 we’ll have any remaining final projects
• Reading Discussion (your questions)
  • Barrie
  • Kevin
  • Kristina: “If employees are using social media it is because they see a use for it in the work that they are doing.”
  • Stephanie
• Script
  • See Luke’s for great example of verbal texture.
  • See Vaun’s for great example of word pictures.
• Multimedia Photo Gallery – my flash files
  • All files need to be in the same web folder:
    • Your photos
      • Max 400 wide x 300 tall for auto run
      • Slightly wider & taller OK for manual run
    • captions.txt (right-click & save)
    • slideshow_manual.swf or slideshow_auto.swf (right-click & save)
    • slideshow_manual.html or slideshow_auto.html (right click & save)
  • You must edit the TEXT file (captions.txt – manual, automatic) and use the correct naming convention. Edit the number of slides in the first line of the text file. Name your photos exactly like they are in the text file! Replace the sound file name with your sound file name.
• See more in Mindy’s book, Flash Journalism
• Other options:
  • Code Jam (PC, $50)
  • jalbum (free, x-platform, learning curve)
  • monoslide show ($20, x-platform, manual)
  • Slideshare (no sound, hosted, free – embed in WordPress page & add sound link)
  • SlideShowPro ($25 – attach a hyperlink to a photo, add music; requires Flash, manual-pdf)
  • Straight HTML photo gallery (export fromPhotoshop, for example)

Per last week:

This VW commercial for its “econocar Golf” features Richard Burton reading the Dylan Thomas poem “Under Milk Wood.” Agency is DDB, London; director Noam Murro. (via Fireball and AdRants)

Will this even be run as a TV commercial? (Not likely in the US, at 90 seconds!) Sidenote: in 2005, VW was the victim of a spoof ad that equated its cars with suicide bombers.

• Will blogs and wikis replace traditional print, electronic and related media as the principal vehicle for employee communications in 5 years?
• Does the flattening of an organization via technology impose a greater responsibility on each employee to participate and take ownership of projects and ‘official’ communication about them?
• Does the adoption of social media tools change the business organization model itself?
• How to use social media in a efficient way?
• What disadvantages does the social media have?
• What kind of the company is suitable to use the social media?
• How can smaller companies use social media?
• Are there drawbacks of using social media tools such as wikis and RSS?
• Should social media be monitored? If so, who should monitor it?
• We all want a lot more information than we used to. Is there a balance between wanting information from “regular folks” and wanting information from experts?
• And how do companies put some structure around public information, and how do they distance themselves from misinformation/disinformation?
• Social media are a powerful tool, and employees can be extremely credible and influential when they voice their opinion, but just because they can does it mean it should be encouraged? What makes it ok and how do you determine that?
• What if the employee says something completely positive and heck even stocks rise because of that, yet it was still against policy and a misrepresentation or even accurate but wasn’t supposed to be said by that employee. Blogging is cool… but are we letting it get out of control?
• What if someone simply says the wrong thing in second life, or maybe I tell somebody about where I work while playing a video game with voice chat like gears of war… is that a social media too?
• When you blog as a representative of a company what is to prevent that from taking over your identity? Are we what we blog?
• In what ways do you see companies utilizing social networking technology (real examples or projection)?
• How do you practice safe blogging?
• Does social networking provide more negative or positive aspects for the work world?
• How to effectively manage the internal communication channel?
• Accepting the risks mentioned in article, are there any other disadvantages to using social media for internal communication?

• Step by step (step player)
  • MSNBC: a linear animation explaining the concept of extra-solar planets
  • NYT: Virginia Tech shooting
• Galleries that can be filtered:
  • “Celebrity Universe” – MSNBC: Shrek
  • NYT: Va Tech casualties (includes UGC)
• What makes a great interactive?
  • Timelines – Jerry Falwell
• Challenge of one-offs
  • Carbon trading
  • NYT – casualties of war (data-rich application)
  • MSNBC: population (data-rich application)
    
• Video
  • The Fight In Iraq
    • Maybe a story on Darfur using this template
  • The journey of a diamond
• BBC (kathy): Mapping the violence in Baghdad
• Why do people gravitate towards video? (passive)

Blog posts (reading reflection) of note:

• Kevin
• Vaun

Student led-discussion (group 1)

• Barrie
  • relationship between interactivity and credibility?
• Kristina
  • where to put corrections?
• Tony
  • trust != truth
  • online link: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/365024.365037

Last Week’s Assignment
Review the final “text + pictures” story of your peer group partner/s. Send an e-mail with feedback by end of day Thursday — cc Kathy. Rec’d cc’s from

• Chloe on Luke, Vaun
• Kaichen on Magnus
• Kristina on Tony
• Tony on Kristina
• Vaun on Chloe, Luke

Students who didn’t have anything linked on com586 page that could be peer reviewed:

• Barrie
• Kevin
• Luke
• Stephanie

Status of first story (text/pix) and second story (audio script) draft
The com586 page should contain a LINK to two things — the FINAL version of the first iteration of the story and the DRAFT script.
NOTE: I will no longer search your blog for the links to your work — and please don’t expect your fellow students to do so in order to provide you with peer feedback.

• Barrie (missing both)
• Chloe (1st story, no draft script)
• Kaichen (1st story, no script)
• Kevin (the com586 page should contain LINKS to the first final story and the draft script. the com300 page should not be your draft script. )
• Kristina (1st story, draft script)
• Luke (missing both here – draft script)
• Magnus (the com586 page should contain LINKS to the first final story and the draft script. the com586 page should not be the first page of your multi-page first story. )
• Stephanie (missing both)
• Tony (1st story, draft script)
• Vaun (1st story, draft script)

Discussion Questions:

• What exactly is “dynamism,” and why does it affect perceived credibility?
• What role does search engine optimization play – if any – in creating website credibility?
• Are trust antecedents the primary measuring stick for risk?
• Can ease of use make up for other deficiencies in a website, including its underlying credibility?
• lots here!
• How do we determine credibility of online information if it’s being provided by a sole author?
• What is the advantage of ‘non-traditional’ sources of information (i.e. sources that can’t verify their authenticity)?
• The more online-active we are, do we become less trusting or more trusting of visited sites?
• What site do you trust?
• Are there certain designs or elements that elicit trust?
• Do brand names influence trust regardless of site design?
• Parenthetical: what is the real value of this research? Will my findings help make this a better world, or just help people mess it up some more?

LAB:

• Editing with Audacity
• Convert audio files with Zamzar

NEXT WEEK:

• Bring four-five photos that you want to use in your final project. We’ll “insert” them into a Flash slideshow template in lab.

Reading posted.

Some sites that might be new to you:

• 37signals – I would have put this in the services camp. Time called the company a “rising star.” Their online (Web 2.0) services: Basecamp (project management); Backpack (information manager), Campfire (real-time group chat), Highrise (a simple CRM tool). Unlike many Web 2.0 technologies, these are free only for a trial (30 day) period — except for Campfire, which is free for four simultaneous connections.
• memeorandum  – My personal favorite for finding out what the political blogosphere is talking about right now. Recently added an achieve feature. Maybe they were thinking about academics, researchers?
• reddit.com – IA’s “clear winner” in link lists trumped digg as well as de.licio.us (but not by much).
• subtraction – A blog written by the (35 yo) creative director at the NYT online.

Note, I found IA because of their Web Trend Map.  I no longer remember how I found out about it, though!

• Barrie
  
• Kristina
• Luke
• Magnus

Housekeeping – your COM586 page!

• Kristina (please change the “slug” to com586 — no spaces or dashes)
• Discussion leader blog post with abstract + citation should be LINKED
• Discussion leader PPT should be LINKED
• Discussion leader reflective post (after you present) should be LINKED
• Story Version 1 (text + images) should be LINKED
• Story Version 2 (audio script) should be LINKED
• Story Version 3 (multi-media) should be LINKED

Student led-discussion (group 4)

• Kevin
• Stephanie

Multimedia storytelling – part 1

• Questions:
  • What does it mean to be an “information economy”?
  • Why is the US “behind” the rest of the developed world re high speed connectivity? (symmetrical v assymetrical connections)
  • When should you use Flash and when should you use “plain”HTML?
  • What is the digital divide?
  • Is universal access a reasonable goal?
• Flash Journalism article

Peer Review

• Featured story:
  • Vaun
• Review the final “text + pictures” story of your partner (groups are 2′s)
  • Story link should be accessible on student com586 page
• Send an e-mail with feedback by end of day Thursday — cc Kathy
• Draft audio script was due Monday
  • Needs to be a blog post or page — link to com586 please so Meg and I can find them

Resources:

• Writing for the Ear
• Where To Find Free Music For Podcasts
• How to capture, edit, compress and convert audio online
• Royalty Free Music
• ccMixter
• Magnatune
• Podcasting 101 from About.com
• Podcasting 101 from cNet Video

Assignments:

• Reading (remember questions!)
• Group Storyboards Due: Monday 14 May, 6 pm
• Final audio story due : Monday 14 May 21 May, 6 pm
• Draft final multimedia story to be presented in class: Tuesday 29 May
• Discussion Leaders:

• Think Progress (data presentation)
• The Daily Show (video then, video now)

Pathos – arousal of emotions

• Negative connotation (fear, tearjerker)
• Aristotle (puts the audience in the right frame of mind)
• Mother Theresa: when I think of the mass I can do nothing; when I think of the individual, I can act.
• Example: story about a person in Africa v facts-and-data. Story gave more than 2x as much.
• Arguing for increased regulations on anesthesiologist (an appeal to fear)
• Save Darfur (kind of like that study)
• Daisy (pbs, youtube)

Ethos – trust the messenger/source; Aristotle says this seems to be the most compelling

• This is a “performed” category
• Greg Nickels
• Huffington Post & Crooks and Liars

You need a combination of all three. Either one from an uncredible source is weak.

Persuasion Through Identification (20th century movement)

• We identify with each other through common goals, beliefs, interests and enemies
• We persuade by creating an “us” and a “them”
• Freshmen Interest Groups
• The nine things I’ve learned from stock photos (about the corporate worklife)

Persuasion Through Framing

• What is the dominant metaphor or concept you want the audience to use when thinking about –fill-in-the-blank–
• Framing is a metaphor itself
  • Estate tax v Death tax
  • Clearing cutting v healthy forests
  • Global warming v climate change
  • Sportsmanship v Honoring the game
• It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear (new book)
• Time v Newsweek (OJ Simpson)
• Arc d’Triumphe v Vietnam War Memorial

Narrative Framing

• Kenneth Burke – we are able to persuade thru stories.
• Not all stories are alike – focus on one of these five:
  • Agent: who did what?
  • Act: what was done?
  • Agency: how was it done?
  • Purpose: why was it done?
  • Scene: in which context was it done?
• what do you privilege as the dominate idea in a narrative?
  • i bought a new car
  • i invested in a brand new volvo
  • the dealer persuaded me to buy a volvo
  • my new job as a lawyer demanded that i buy a new car
• newspaper headlines
  • bush to suspend oil reserve deposits (ap)
  • bush tries to ease soaring gas prices (iht)
  • bush brings in measures to tackle oil price crisis (irish times)
  • fighting gas prices, bush halts filling of emergency oil reserve, urges waiver of clean air rules (ap)
  • souring oil prices put bush under pressure (afp)
  • feeling political heat, president halts new oil reserve deposit (iht)
  • oil prices retreat as US stops increasing strategic oil reserve (Xinhua News Agency)

Blog posts (reading reflection) of note:

• Chloe (good for next week, too)
• Kaichen (ditto!)
• Luke (a hard lesson to accept)
• Tony (major tip, at the end)
• Vaun (how to deconstruct – must read)

Reports on group projects

Student led-discussion (group 3)

• Kaichen (article, PPT)
• Magnus (article, PPT)

Student led-discussion (group 2) – last week

• Chloe materials are complete and include “discussion leader” tag (yeah!)
• Missing both links from Luke
• Missing article link from Vaun

Note: If you have not yet done so, in lab tonight, create a com586 (no spaces) “page” (use the “slug” for the name if you want to call the page something else). This is the page that will contain the links to your final stories as well as your discussion leader post and PPT.

Note: If you are not tagging your reading reflection and in-class assignments (some of you are not) — that’s going to be points off after tonight. Fix them in lab tonight, please.

Discussion questions (only from Stephanie – kudos!)

• What is/are the best and favorite story/ies you’ve ever hear/read/seen?
• What is your preference of order e.g. do you prefer flashbacks and anachronous of chronological timeline?
• Does digital storytelling change any of the elements?

Technical Matters:

• Color in Photoshop
• Manipulating Images (change dpi, image size)

Next week:

• Due Dates: First story due Monday 7 May at 6 pm and Group Storyboards Due: Monday 14 May, 6 pm
• We’ll start at 6.15 for the rest of the quarter (guest speakers)
• Reminder of class policy on use of computers/net connections during class:

Students may use laptops or other portable devices for taking notes. However, these portable devices should not be used to engage in non-classroom activities, such as surfing the Net, checking e-mail, playing games or listening to music. These activities would certainly divert your attention away from class and could distract other students as well, thus corrupting the learning environment. I reserve the right to end your use of a portable device, ask you to move, or revoke the privilege of using wireless devices in the classroom.

• Discussion Group 4 (see assignments page!)
• Remember reading assignment includes development of discussion questions

“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” —Paul Rand, 1997 (tip)

• Discussion Leaders – Group 2
  • Chloe (article, ppt, youtube)
  • Luke (article, ppt)
  • Vaun (article, ppt)
• Lecture/Workshop
• Your Drafts
• Feedback on story drafts
• Group work
• NEXT WEEK: WE START AT 6 PM! (our guest speaker has to catch a 6.50 bus)
• Group 3 leads discussion next week – remember reading assignments&questions

An infographical movie about Google’s “Master Plan.” See website for textual presentation of information; credits. (tip)

Workshop

Visual Design Examples

• From Cow to Cone (text version), Ben & Jerry’s
• LivesConnected (flash, linear, multi-media)
• MSNBC MultiMedia
• MSNBC Interactive (FactFile1)
• MSNBC Interactive (FactFile2)
• MSNBC Interactive (Flu)
• MSNBC Interactive (Katrina)
• Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
• Patagonia – Environmental Activism
• Riot Breaks Out In Indiana Prison
• Two Marketing/Web Consultancies: Erickson v Cyberwoven
• Unstuck (book promo site)
• WSJ Promo (flash – very linear)

Student Draft Stories
Tonight we’re reviewing the “three above you” (from Z to A, not from A to Z)

• Barrie – (proposal) Group 1
• Chloe – Group 2
  
• Kaichen- Group 3
  
• Kevin – Group 4
  
• Kristina – Group 1
  
• Luke – (proposal) Group 2
  
• Magnus – Group 3
  
• Stephanie – Group 4
  
• Tony – Group 1
  
• Vaun- Group 2

Resources

• AIGA Design Archives
• AIGA Journal of Interactive Design Education
• Avoid Metaphors (a generalization)
• Design Interact
• Finding Information on the Web: Does Whitespace Matter?
• Foundations of Design & Typography
• Getty Images Stock Photography
• Information Aesthetics
• Interface and Interaction Design, Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience, Ch 5
• International Design Magazine
• iStock Photo
• Notes on Visual and Interaction Design
• Reading Online Text: A Comparison of Four WhiteSpace Layouts
• SimpleBits
• UX Matters
• Where Visual Design Meets Usability