Monday, May 25, 2009

Give Credit Where Credit's Due: Duping the Media with Wikis

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

When notable French composer Maurice Jarre died on March 28th, 2009, Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald saw a golden opportunity to test accountability in an age of instantly updated global news --a community that's become more and more reliant on Internet research.

And how did he do this, exactly? Easy: by changing the composer's Wikipedia entry, and in the process, duping journalists all across the world.

After a class studying how information traveled through the public sphere, Fitzpatrick saw the opportunity for a curious social experiment. He simply inserted a quote he'd written himself into the Wiki page-- the entire process, from composition to posting, took less than 15 minutes--and then watched as the quote was used repeatedly not only on blogs, but on official news sites. The quote in question:

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

...was clearly angled to appeal to the average obituary writer working on a deadline. He left it deliberately without any citation--a fact which quickly caught the eye of the thousands of 'voluntary' editors that monitors and edits the public pages of Wikipedia. Administrators promptly removed the unsubstantiated quote, but only after it had begun to circulate in emerging obits and memorials as one new piece cited the older piece.

From MSNBC:

Fitzgerald said one of his University College Dublin classes was exploring how quickly information was transmitted around the globe. His private concern was that, under pressure to produce news instantly, media outlets were increasingly relying on Internet sources — none more ubiquitous than the publicly edited Wikipedia.

When he saw British 24-hour news channels reporting the death of the triple Oscar-winning composer, Fitzgerald sensed what he called "a golden opportunity" for an experiment on media use of Wikipedia.

[...]

If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source — and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries.

Wikipedia spokesman Jay Walsh said he appreciated the Dublin student's point, and said he agreed it was "distressing so see how quickly journalists would descend on that information without double-checking it."


I worked at a university-funded writing centre during my undergrad, and I can't tell you how many times a week I'd have to explain to a student that Wikipedia is an unacceptable source. So a part of me isn't surprised that journalists are still figuring out how to negotiate the cluster of facts we call the Internet. Amid the temptation of so much information, and working against a tight deadline, it can be easy to let something slip and trust that the information is sound.

But it still puts the problem of accountability into glaring perspective, and makes you wonder how often facts like this, no matter how small, go unchecked. My knee jerk reaction is when in doubt, cite it. No one can really fault you for giving TOO much credit.


Source: Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia (MSNBC)

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Degrees of Social Media

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

As of this year, Birmingham City University will be offering a one-year Master's program priced at about £4,400 ($7838.87 in Canadian dollars).

The subject matter? Social Media.

It's no joke. Students will be able to perfect their netiquette in exchange for university credits. Arguably, most students spend a generous portion of time they should be studying on Facebook or YouTube, so it seems like a time-saver to simply surf the web for the sake of academics (ha ha). Students enlisted in the program will be taught the ins and outs of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, as well as how to maintain a blog and produce podcasts and other media projects.

Course convener Jon Hickman calls the courseload "very relevant and very scholarly," exploring "the techniques of social media, consider the development and direction of social media as a creative industry, and will contribute new research and knowledge to the field."Social media will be studied through an intensely academic eye, with a focus on scholarly research and critical analysis. Hickman feels the course holds a great deal of appeal for students, particularly those intent on entering fields like journalism or PR.

While many already in the industry have lauded the course for focusing on the scholarly aspects of social media (without any limited focus on results or metrics), the question remains: is it worth putting in that much time, money and effort for the program, especially when you consider the practical experience you lose by being in school? As Dan Thornton from Way of the Web so succinctly points out:

Certainly anyone already established in a social media role at a managerial level should be able to tick pretty much all the boxes the MA aims to deliver - and are those roles going to be offered to those graduating the course, or people more like myself who spent time in journalism and publishing, gaining additional experience in marketing and social media, before making the switch?

In addition, some students have complained the coursework is too basic, as many of those enrolled have been self-taught for years. Some critics derisively call the programs a "Master's in Facebook." But, I've heard of plenty of new, experimental college courses in my time, and enrolled in even more of them (including one on comic books, one on the philosophy of modern horror films and a course in circus stunts) and more often than not, they get off to a wobbly start. Usually all these wobbly starts levels out and the course either works, or it doesn't. If the course is truly a worthwhile "academic exploration of communication," as Hickman says, then it will surely survive the criticism once it finds its stride.


See It Here: The Birmingham City University MA in Social Media

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

This is truly worth a few minutes out of your day: Wired.com's Gadget Lab has posted some footage from a high-speed camera, along with an article that details the history of a camera that can shoot up to 86,000 frames per second--keep in mind, the average movie reel only needs 30 or so. From the article: 

A hummingbird’s neck is structured like a bucket holding liquids that slosh back and forth to stabilize its head. Because it evolved this way, the bird has an adaptive advantage to find flowers and food that other animals can’t reach.

This accidental discovery was observed not by human eyes, but through the lens of a super high-speed camera. It’s just one example of interesting phenomena revealed when video is played back in extreme slow motion. The hummingbird clip appeared in an episode of Time Warp, a show whose premise is to make the ordinary extraordinary with one trick: slowing it down.

“We’ve evolved for 5 billion years just to do what we needed to do to be alive … and we can see 30 to 50 things a second,” said Jeff Lieberman, co-host of Time Warp. “With high-speed cameras we can see a million things a second, and we’re looking at everyday things and seeing an entire world that exists underneath.”

Typically costing upward of $100,000, high-speed cameras are capable of shooting at amazingly high frame rates, stretching a single second into minutes of super slow-motion playback. In order to achieve this feat, each of these cameras draws its powers from a unique, highly advanced complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) — or, in simpler terms, an extremely beefed-up pixel sensor. The cameras were designed for military testing, scientific research and other industry applications.

The article features some truly amazing footage of a hummingbird, a tattoo, a high dive, and blowing bubbles, all in slow motion. But what I really recommend is checking out the footage of a gigantic 12-foot wave, from the inside out--a BBC promo for their upcoming series South Pacific.  


Monday, May 4, 2009

Our Favourite Type

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

ty·pog·ra·phy noun
Pronunciation:
\tī-ˈpä-grə-fē\
1 : letterpress printing
2 : the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter

One of the things that's become standard for a designer to dote on is typography--whether web-based or traditional. In fact, you could ask most of the people in Applecore's office, design or otherwise, about what things bother them most in bad design -- 'font choice' will almost always be one of them. Bad typography sticks out like a sore thumb, making it hard to read and often just frustrating to look at. This, of course, means that the design has failed in its primary goal: to communicate. 

Good typography, on the other hand, is virtually invisible. You can observe it, especially if you know what you're looking for. But the best typography is something you never have to think about--it reads effortlessly, doesn't set off any inner design alarm bells and most times, never gets the attention it deserves. 

Until now! Here are Applecore's favorite examples of typography, whether it's print, web or graphic design. 

Beginning in the 1960s, when Volkswagen first applied the minimalist principles popular in German design  to their American print campaign, heads definitely turned. The simplistic, no nonsense ads made generous use of white space and straightforward copy (usually 30 words or less). In the process, the success of Volkswagen's approach is largely considered to be the father of the postmodern age of advertising--not to mention convincing America that a small car was also a great buy. 




Hands down, the site for typography fans. Informative, constantly updated, and always inspiring, this blog serves up not only fonts but also the designs they inhabit. 







When Transport for London set out to design the face of its underground subway system, they turned to Edward Johnston. He then designed the distinctive sans-serif typeface in 1916. It's still the font you see today, albeit modified; it was substantially retooled in 1979 by Eiichi Kono and renamed "New Johnston."



A great tool when you have a general idea of what you want--say, an elegant script typeface for a romantic logo, or a bold sans-serif for an eye-catching header.




Founder Allen Lane had a simple goal when Penguin Books began in 1936: to remove the stigma from cheap paperback novels and make reading readily available for anyone. Design took on an essential role in what would become the "Penguin" brand. The basic design was simple: three horizontal bands in colors assigned by genre (orange and white for fiction, green and white for crime fiction, etc)-- with none of the gaudy, lurid photography that gave paperbacks a bad reputation in the first place. In the 1940s, under Swiss typographer Jan Tschichold, a set of rules and design principles was compiled as the Penguin Composition Rules, a four page booklet of typographic instructions for editors and compositors. Maybe that's why the brand is still easily recognizable, even today, and retains a classic, clean look that most designers envy. 


More favourite typography links: 

Beautiful Blackletter and Script (via retinart)
From modernist magazine spreads to book art from the 1920s and 1930s, this blog can always be counted on to provide beautiful examples of typography that are motivated by passion but chosen by skill. 

A somewhat technical but still very useful guide to modifying your typography mindset for display on the web. 

From the conventional to the truly unusual, this list of new fonts in the past year or so show that the art of the typeface is in no danger of slowing down. 


And just for fun: 

JOKE! Comic Sans walks into a bar. The bartender eyes him suspiously, and when the font tries to order a drink, the bartender points to the door and says, "We don't serve your type in here." 

ALSO! Check out College Humor's video on what happens when the fonts get together for their annual convention....


Or play the Deep Font Challenge, where you put you knowledge of the in and outs of fonts to the test!

Google Takes Green to a Whole New Level

While recycling and watching your company's energy intake is all fine and good, the fine folks at Google decided to take 'going green' to a whole new level. When their Mountain View base in California noticed its grounds needed a trim, instead of hiring a mower, Google has rented goats to keep its lawns tidy. From the Google blog
A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.

Talk about an alternative energy source!