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What Communication Experts Need To Know - Breaking News About Ideas, Digital Tools, Methods And Skills To Communicate And Learn More Effectively With New Media Technologies (daily)

Visual Communication And Video Publishing - Selected Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Picnic May12 08 Here\'s the visual communication and video publishing tools weekly bazaar. Today, I have selected for you tools and services to create slideshows with your Flickr images, to extract color schemes from any picture, and also to download and auto-convert videos directly from YouTube. Check it out! Photo credit: Argus456 Here my favorite visual communication and video publishing for this week: Slideoo: Create an animated embeddable slideshow with Flickr pictures in a matter of seconds SnapaShop: Small Windows software lets you capture regions of your screen in five different formats Flickriver: Make a research through Flickr, and get the results on an infinite page that grows while you scroll Color Palette Generator: Past an image URL and extract a color scheme from any picture Super Screenshot: Take screenshots of any website, choose size and quality, and download it to your machine Polaroid-o-Nizer: Provide an image URL and add a Polaroid look to it automatically LogoEase: Create logos with no image editing skills and export your creation in various formats TubeSucker: Watch, save for further watching, download and convert YouTube videos Visual Communication Tools Slideoo Slideoo is a web-based tool that you can use to create simple slideshows with Flick pictures. To create a slideshow simply enter a Flickr username, pick the whole photostream or select the image set you wish to use, customize the width, image size, and number of pictures: Slideoo will then provide you with an embedding code for your blog or website. Free to use with no registration needed. http://www.slideoo.com/ SnapaShop SnapaShop is the smallest free screen capturing system out there on the web. In fact, this small application can be downloaded for free and, just by running the 68kb .exe file, you can run the application and take screenshots of any part of your screen by resizing the window and clicking save. You can then export the picture in five different formats. Free to download and use. http://www.nicekit.com/... Flickriver Flickriver is a Flickr images search engine, that enables you to look for images inside Flicks, and browse them easily. After you search for a word, basing onusername, group, tags, or keywords, Flickriver generates an infinite-growing page that avoids the need of clicking "next" to browse pictures: the more you scroll, the more images will appear. Free to use. http://www.flickriver.com/ Color Palette Generator Color Palette Generator is an online color scheme generator, that lets you get the color scheme out of any image. After you paste an image\'s URL and click a button, it automatically displays the image and provides you with 2 color combinations (dull and vibrant),extracted from the image itself. Plus, it also shows the HTML color values for an easier exporting operation. Free. http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/ Super Screenshot Super Screenshot is an online service that takes screenshots of any website. All you need to do is paste the URL into the box and click a button: you can then refresh the screenshot, decide dimensions and size of the picture, and also set the format between JPG and PNG before right clicking the image and saving it locally. The service is completely free to use. http://www.superscreenshot.com/ LogoEase LogoEase is a web service that allows you to create logos for free. It lets you create logos easily with no image editing skills and, if you are totally out of ideas, you can start editing logos that other people had come out with. When you are satisfied, you can export your logo in high resolution image format - EPS, PNG, JPG and TIFF. LogoEase is free to use, registration required. http://www.logoease.com/ Polaroid-o-Nizer Polaroid-o-Nizer is a free web-based application that allows you to add a Polaroid-look to your images. It is really easy to use: you just have to pick a background color, provide an image URL, decide the position and angle of the image, and you\'re done. Your new Polaroid-looking picture will appear, ready for download. Free to use. No registration needed. http://polaroid.cuteness.ws/ Video Publishing Tools TubeSucker TubeSucker is a free YouTube player and video downloader that runs on Windows machines. After you install the software, you can search videos right from within the program, save them for further watching, and also download them with a single click: you can download all of the videos that you find, with the possibility of batch converting them in MP4, AVI ,MOV, MP3, and WAV formats. The software if free to download and use. http://www.newrad.com/software/tubesucker/ Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media and first published on May 11th 2008 as "Visual Communication And Video Publishing - Selected Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Picnic May11 08" ... Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media: An Opinionated Digest by George Siemens - May. 11 08 From social media to personal networks, all new media and technologies play an increasingly important role in how we understand and handle our increasingly complex lives. Media, news, video games, communication theory, philosophy, and other areas contribute to my understanding of the role of technology for learning. But learning is not confined to colleges and universities. For those in the forefront, the ability to form networks has now become nearly vital for achieving personal and career goals. Photo credit: http://www.nelshael.com/ophelia">Lars Christensen Nonetheless we often say that we do not have the time required to invest in social media and their related activities our ability to share and to form social networks will be increasingly vital to achieve your personal and career goals. E-learning technologies scholar, researcher and guru, George Siemens, takes you into this weekly exploration of stories, resources and research data to better understand how media and technologies influence, expand and revolutionize the way we work, learn and evolve new ways of co-operating intelligently. eLearning Strategy On Monday (May 12), we will begin our online conference: Shaping our future: Toward a Pan-Canadian elearning research agenda. Terry Anderson is the first presenter and will be presenting on The value, form, and function of a large scale research agenda. All sessions can be accessed here. Discussion during the conference (and more information on schedule, themes, etc) will be held here. If you\'re interested in attending our Monday presentation, please review how the scheduled time translates into your time zone. Networking for Your Career I spend most of my time looking at networks from the perspective of learners and educators. I find my own personal network for learning far exceeds any other information source (including Google). As I begin to follow/read different practitioners and theorists, I begin to develop in my own understanding - especially if they represent a related, but not overly similar field. Media, news, video games, communication theory, philosophy, and other areas contribute to my understanding of the role of technology for learning. But learning is not confined to colleges and universities. As this article states, the ability to form networks is vital for achieving personal and career goals. When I suggest how important personal learning networks are, I often encounter the statement "I don\'t have time". As this author, Herminia Ibarra, states: "If you want to succeed you need to make the time". She then goes on to suggest that we need to schedule time for forming networks so that it becomes habitual. I wonder how many educators regularly set aside time to consider the quality and diversity of their networks... Twitter A short exploration of Twitter as a tool for reporting, filtering information, and consuming (much) time. A particular focus in the article is the use of twitter for finding information. I frequently see educators posting requests on Twitter...and the network replying with a great list of resources, often within minutes. Email lists no longer exhibit this spirit of sharing. It might be due to email fatigue and the fact that most of us see email as a burden, not an opportunity for helping others. With Twitter, the spirit of sharing and assistance remains strong. At least until network fatigue kicks in... Walking Uncertain Paths: Technologies and Models of Learning for Tomorrow During this last week, at MADLaT, Peter Tittenberger and I presented several sessions. The first was a workshop addressing approaches educators need to consider as they move content online. The second session - Walking Uncertain Paths: Technologies and models of learning for tomorrow - was focus on where we are heading with educational technology, as technology both influences and reflects existing mindsets within society. I enjoyed both sessions as most of the time was spent in conversation rather than presentation. At one point, as a group of educators were addressing some of the change pressures they face, I asked about the key question guiding their technology plan: Is the question one of should we use technology or one of how should we use technology? Everyone in attendance stated technology use was a foregone conclusion. The only question they were grappling with was how to make it work. Not sure how I feel about that. A few good cynics are always nice to have around :). Social Networks Around the World This is a bit dated (from last year, which is a condition of obsolescence in online tools and applications) but still useful to consider how social network sites are positioned around the world. I\'m interested in how countries not yet dominant in social networking, but possessing large populations, will influence maps like this. Will sites like Facebook and Myspace be able to successfully internationalize? Or will companies such as South Korea\'s Cyworld serve their own markets more effectively? What Do We Do with Computers? RescueTime is a tool that tracks what a user does with her/his computer. I tried it for a while. It was depressing, so I stopped using it. They\'ve now publicized some aggregate information on computing habits of early adopters. The results are not surprising - most people still spend the bulk of their time in Microsoft-based applications. Google is coming on strong, however, with their email service approaching Outlook in terms of usage time. Google Reader rated quite highly as well for early adopters, almost on par with time spent in Google search. Facebook Identity is challenging in a distributed environment. When dealing with educators, I often mention that if they are not involved in networked conversation, their voice essentially doesn\'t exist (which raises the prospect that learners will receive information from less than ideal sources). Well, in reality, if you\'re not online, it\'s not only that you don\'t exist. Instead, the challenge arises that others may form your identity for you. For example, in a neighboring city of Brandon, Manitoba, a teenager has been charged with impersonating a teacher for creating a Facebook account using the teachers name and identity. While I see the parallel with impersonating a person in a physical space (and therefore the basis of the arrest), these types of things are almost impossible to control. The onus of confirming identity - much like email spam - should rest on the people interacting with the Facebook profile. I have become cynical over the last few years about people offering me huge sums of money if I will only provide my personal banking information. In a similar sense, when I encounter an individual online, I need to question/be wary. As astonishing as it may appear, not everything we encounter online is completely accurate. Leading Learning I presented at the Leading Learning conference this morning...presentation slides are here: On Becoming: cognitive and social impact of technology. My focus was on retaining the needed elements of education - transforming learner and society, deep understanding, cultivating capacity for ethical thought, and emphasizing "what it means to be human" - while fostering greater innovation in teaching and learning through the opportunities of technology. It\'s a tough balance to get right. Originally written by George Siemens and published as weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News. First published on May 10th 2008.To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge". ... Ego Searching: What Is It? How To Do It - Video How do you find out rapidly which blogs are mentioning you or linking back to your recent article? If you are new to the world of online publishing you may still be trying to figure out how to search and be alerted when other sites out there are going to link or mention you or your web site. How do you track and monitor citations and link backs to you? Ego searching is the answer. Ego searching is all about setting up a small set of blog search engines to search both for your name as well as for your main domain URL. Here is my video on how to do it: Robin Good explains how to do Ego Searching to discover who is talking or linking back to your site / blog Ego-Searching - What Is It? + How To Do It Fill English Text Video Transcription Hi guys, here is Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and I am going to explain to you today how you can do ego searching. Ego searching? Yeah. Ego searching is all about searching for yourself and finding out who is talking about you, or your website, or your content on other websites. Because, as soon as you start blogging and publishing your content online, sooner or later somebody, because they like you and sometimes because they want to duplicate your content, are going to pick up your name, the name of your website, or making actually a link back to your site which is the greatest thing that normally can happen to you. So how do you do it?Let\'s go check it out: you take your browser, and you go to www.technorati.com, OK? 1) Press enter, let\'s go. 2) And this is what you\'re going to see when you\'re there. 3) Then in the search box right here you\'re going to type your name in between quotes, just like this. 4) Then you will see here in the results that two hours ago on this blog there was a mention of Robin Good! And then on this other one there was another mention. And then another one here, that was one hour ago, and another one 19 hours ago, and so on. So that\'s the first way to find out who\'s talking, or mentioning, or siting, or linking back to your site. The other way to do it is actually to go and type the URL, the main one of your site, and that will also show you what is the total number of mentions, of links coming back to your site as well as, in chronological reverse order, the sites linking back to you: one hour ago this site linked back to MasterNewMedia, and then this other one, and then this other one we saw when we searched for Robin Good, and so on. Where else can you you do this?I advise you strongly you do this in Technorati, and you also do it in Bloglines where there is a special feature up here called "Search for citations". There you can do exactly the same stuff as we did just a second ago in Technorati, and get all the people mentioning Robin Good, all the links you have coming back, or you can use the URL. And you can also use Google Blog Search, this one here, and again utilize the same approach: type your name or type your URL there and see all the mentions that you\'re getting back to your site. That\'s all for Robin Good for MasterNewMedia. Talk to you soon, ciao! ... Context Rights: Why Content Publishers Need To Abandon The Copyright Licensing Paradigm Traditional content publishers, those who have yet to embrace and understand fully the logic of the web, have been utilizing their legal arms and small army of lawyers to fight, discourage and destroy anything that appeared as a slightly moving object in their trajectory toward total control of their distribution channels. But is this working for them, or against them? Photo credit: Bouzou Jean-Louis John Blossom, analyst and writer on media content strategies, takes his stand on these sensitive issues and explains, in quite simple words, why traditional content publishers need to stop utilizing copyright laws and the legal system to defend their territory. "Providing value in context is the true value of publishing, a concept that is conflicting more and more with the mass manufacturing model that drives the production of much of today\'s copyrighted content." The value and reasoning of copyright are being defeated by a new marketplace and distribution ecosystem which is built on premises and interactions that are radically opposite to those on which copyright took its roots. Today, content finds its value most easily when it can freely move along its natural, spontaneous, self-emerging distribution channels. And so, although difficult to predict, it is only "once content has been distributed" that "it finds its value most easily." It is context that today determines content value, leading naturally toward a possible new style of automated content licensing, which could leverage a number of existing licensing models to pay back authors and content creators for their work. Here is his view: The Future of Copyright is Here by John Blossom ...Corporate librarians bemoan publishers doing little to address many key issues regarding their business models, especially how they related to copyright. The publishing industry has enormous vested interests in managing copyright through traditional legal and business channels, preferring the intricacies of case-by-case deal-making to the risk of distributing content to the wrong people under the wrong terms. This emphasis on legal departments as key elements of publishers\' fundamental revenue models and opportunistic lawsuits that argue for copyright enforcement on increasingly arbitrary grounds has created an utterly balkanized landscape of kludgey deals and half-considered rulings in dozens of courts that in essence has dismantled much of the value of the once common and simple concept of copyright. The New Panorama In the meantime the online economy has prospered, not by corrupting copyright but by creating value out of content in legitimate derivative works and in new sources of original authorship which in sum dwarfs the output of traditional publishing outlets. Many new services are facilitating the ability of people to apply copyright effectively online in a far more automated fashion for specific items of content. Value in Context Providing value in context is the true value of publishing, a concept that is conflicting more and more with the mass manufacturing model that drives the production of much of today\'s copyrighted content. Much of the value of online content for a given audience where infinite supply reigns is fleeting, highly contextual and oriented more towards executing business deals or building relationships. The fundamental concept of copyright - that creating a temporary monopoly for a publisher based on the premise that control of distribution will sustain publishers - is becoming far more limited in its effectiveness to deliver value. The question is not whether someone should have a right to license their content for use under copyright but rather how they should license it. This is why I have suggested for several years that publishers focus on the concept of context rights rather than copyright. In other words, once content has been distributed, it finds its value most easily. The fleeting moments and contexts in which it becomes valuable are difficult to predict in advance in an online environment and the relationships that will result in those moments harder yet to predict. The Cure for the Copyright Industry What the copyright industry needs to adapt to is a different view of what technology will help rights holders to make the most of content that benefits most from unfettered distribution. I believe that this will lead towards is a new style of licensing that is more fully automated and which uses a variety of predefined models to compensate content creators for their works. The rewards may be smaller overall in many instances in terms of money exchanged, but offering more exploitable brand value over time as people discover not only the value of a particular work but the value of a relationship with the creator of the work. Originally written by John Blossom for Shore and first published on May 1st 2008 as "OnCopyright 2008: The Future of Copyright is Here" ... Content Strategy: Key Elements To Grab Online Readers Attention Writing blog posts that get the maximum attention, is not an easy task. Sometimes it gets even to be counterintuitive, as, more often than not, I have realized that posts I wouldn\'t have bet a dime on, got incredible exposure, visibility, links and traffic against all of my own presupposed expectations. How is that then, that what you value most sometimes is appreciated least and what you consider easy or low-level stuff gets raving fans around the Web faster than lightning? Various authors mashed up by Robin Good - see credits at the end of the article Good question indeed. Attention grabbing articles are very difficult to pull off, as the amount of other sources and the continuous increase of news content makes it all the more difficult to not only stand out from the crowd, but even to be barely seen. If I had to name three things that can stop people in their tracks when browsing or searching for new content, these would be my three key items: Key Elements To Grab Online Readers Attention 1) Title You can\'t escape this one. This is the visual and cognitive handle to information, so you HAVE to see a title, before you can make a more definitive choice about whether to fully engage with it or not. Titles can be done in a million different ways and there are some very different schools of thought around which is the best way to approach this. I take it a little philosophically and prefer to look at the actual numbers and only after at what I feel is most appropriate from an information publishing / gathering viewpoint. And my numbers seem to say quite clearly that unless you spell out clearly, the topic of what your article is about, you can be as ironic and clever as you want but very few readers will be attracted to read right into your content when your title will be in competition with other titles next to it. 2) First Paragraph How you start an article is the second most important factor, in my opinion, that influences readers in deciding whether to click for more or to jump to the next one. First paragraphs are also very important because they frequently appear in newsletters, search engine results, and below titles inside RSS readers and aggregators. Therefore your potential readers do get a glimpse of what you have written about that can significantly clarify your focus, goals and whatever other important things you may reveal in your blog post. This is one of the reasons why the first sentence in that paragraph and your specific wording inside it can really make a strong impact on your potential reader\'s final decision. The more you hit something dear to them or something specific that they want to know more about, you have got their attention. The more you tell them clearly and immediately the value (or lack of it) of a certain story, the more opportunities for the reader to find a matching feeling or interest. 3) Visual Clues If your article is associated with an image, icon or any other visual clue that conveys more to the reader than the first text paragraph can, your content stands much higher probabilities of being read. Problem is, not every visual clue works toward obtaining this goal. Yes, utilizing images, visuals and videos significantly increases the probability of your reader spending more time on your content, but this is particularly true especially when the visual element create a strong cognitive, identification match in the mind of the reader. This is why, is not extremely important to place images for the sake of making your content more "visual". Actually poorly selected and prepared images can easily discredit or diminish the perceived value and credibility of just any content. But this is just my point of view. Here also the viewpoint of guest contributor Sharon Housley, who looks more in depth at the same issue. To make my contribution both more enjoyable for me and more interesting for you as well, I first wrote my three points and only then looked at the ones Sharon had herself selected. Then I went onto adding a small, short comment on each one of her suggestions, as my strategy and tactics are sometimes radically opposite to the more traditional ones, she kindly recommends. Blog Posts That Get Attention by Sharon Housley a) Draw Attention Usetitlesto attract the reader\'s attention to the blog post. The title should mimic newspaper headlines and generate interest in the blog post. The title can be controversial, but not to the extent of being misleading. Use action words in the title. Bloggers will often come up with a handful of potential titles for blog posts, and then settle on the title that is best suited to a particular blog post. Robin Good comment: In my view, on the web, Titles should almost NEVER mimic newspaper headlines. This is a recipe for little success and no long term sustainability. The Web works on a different set of principles and the very reasons that make catchy newspaper titles effective in the physical world (space scarcity) can\'t be so easily applied to the web reality. b) Deliver Having a catchy title, but following it with content that fails to deliver, will not endear you to your readers. The blog content must deliver what is promised in the blog title, or readers will unsubscribe and stop reading. When deciding on a blog title, do not stray too far from the content, as the two are intricately related -- the title will attract the reader\'s attention, but the content must then live up to expectations... or the blogger\'s reputation will suffer. Robin Good comment: Couldn\'t agree more on this one. c) Accurate Nothing stains a blogger\'s reputation like inaccurate information, so be sure that your blog posts contain accurate information. Intentionally posting inaccurate or false information will significantly damage a blogger\'s reputation. But if an error unintentionally or inadvertently occurs in a blog post, be sure to quickly post a retraction or correction, along with an explanation and an apology in order to salvage your good reputation. Robin Good comment: Yes, this is the way to go. d) Relevant & Timely Blog posts should always be relevant and timely. Hearing about something long after it has occurred will not captivate readers. Blog about information that is occurring in the here and now. If you are going to write something that is no longer timely, be sure to add some sort of twist, or include new or updated information to make it relevant. Robin Good comment: Relevant is NOT the same as timely. Relevant is relative to the reader\'s interest at any given time while "timely" is generally connected to events, news and product information that is highly time-sensitive (product launches, events, breaking news, and so on). My experience and data say that you can have posts and articles that have nothing to do with the mainstream news and are not connected to any specific individual event but which grab and hold attention for your readers more than the more sensationalist of your breaking news. So, my advice is more toward advising publishers to provide highly interesting and valuable content to their readers rather than focusing on trying to break the news better than the others do. (This article is a living example of this and if you look at Sharon\'s original published article, it doesn\'t even carry a date.) e) On Topic All blogs should have a general theme that connects all the posts on the blog. Readers will expect posts that are related, so stay true to the blog\'s theme and topic. Robin Good comment: Couldn\'t agree more. The way to go. f) Use Keywords Use keywords liberally in blog posts. Search engines will attempt to categorize the content of a blog post and discern its general topic. By including related keywords or keyword phrases, search engines will have an easier time classifying the blog\'s contents. Additionally, a blog that uses keywords will have a better chance of ranking well for those keywords or keyword phrases in organic search listings. Robin Good comment: I think that if you are not copying, scraping or copying and pasting content from other sites, consistency of terminology will come by itself and with it search engines ability to more easily classify and give relevance to your content. I am not too comfortable with advising people in using keywords, because I have seen over and over than when you tell them so, they go overboard, they stop writing valuable content and become SEO-obsessed content patchers who have nothing to do with professional web publishers like the ones I want to be talking to now. What you want to do is rather to write on a clear, well framed topic, while writing in the more legible and understandable way. Avoiding content that is too informal, implicit expressions or subjects gives you an easy way to communicate more effectively while naturally defining the topic of your writing. g) Evaluate Web Logs Review web logs to determine what blog posts have been popular with readers. Then figure out how to provide similar or related content that might also be of interest to those readers. Robin Good comment: Yes! Treasure trove. h) Original Blog posts should always contain original and unique content. If you are simply re-posting information from others, include editorial content or a different spin to the information. Readers do not want to constantly rehash the same information -- they are interested in reading new material. Robin Good comment: Hmmm... opportunity. How you combine, bring together, illustrate and connect the information you have available can make a huge difference in how people perceive it. So, while I agree with advising web publishers in avoiding a content strategy based on just re-posting other people\'s content, I have long realized that one of the most valuable things a web publisher can do is actually to edit, bring together and extend in valuable ways the work done by others. j) Chunky Content Break content into smaller, readable chunks. Most website visitors will just scan paragraphs for information, and very few will take the time to read all the words contained in a post. Use bulleted lists, or break web copy into paragraphs with bolded sub-topics that appear before the paragraphs. Robin Good comment: Right on. These are important points and the more you learn about them and the logic behind it, the better you can control the effects they can produce. And You? What else would you add to the above items, as critical components that could significantly improve the possibility of an article to effectively grab the readers attention? Photo credit: Draw Attention - cre8tive88Deliver - jamesgroupAccurate - devonRelevant & Timely - nrubocOn Topic - scopsUse Keywords - fstutzmanEvaluate Web Logs - robynmacOriginal - mipanChunky Content - scol22 Originally written by Robin Good - MasterNewMedia and Sharon Housley for rss-specifications and first published as "Blog Posts that Attract Attention". Edited, formatted and extended with personal comments by Robin Good. ...

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