Functional Photography Art Project

Photog JR has been creating a unique project in Kibera, Kenya - on of the largest slums in all of Africa.

Really cool idea and functional in how it helps the community the project is literally on. Check it.

Web 3.0?

Pretty interesting tool under development at Mozilla for better web usage. Should be interesting to see the lines start to blur more and more between web spaces.


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Ira Glass and storytelling

Pretty interesting video of the This American Life producer and host explaining storytelling and the important elements needed for good stories at the Gel Conference.

Too bad it's not embeddable.
Found via Journerdism

Newsprint is REALLY expensive

"...we're trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn't just expensive and inefficient; it's laughably so."

The Kindle retails for $359. A rough estimate for the NYTimes's delivery costs would be $644 million per year. Do the math and selling a Kindle to the 830,000 loyal subscribers would cut delivery costs in HALF.

Cellular Obscura

Love this notion of getting back to making interesting photos and away from the hellbent technical and technological drive to have perfect pretty pictures.

Colbert Report spoofs NPPA and Amtrak

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Amtrak Photographer

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Paul McCartney Appearance

Funny Political Videos
More Funny Videos

Gotta love it when a real issue gets turned into comedy. I guess you can always laugh at it all. Here's the NPPA story with links to the real issue.

Fantastic stop motion video

Serious pre-planning here and attention to detail, but very cool production. Lots of possibilities with these cheaper tools (digital cameras, NLE video suites, etc.) to make content.

Life after newspapers

Pretty lengthy article about a non-scientific survey of former newspaper journalists. Lots of things to pick through in there. Some things are tough to take.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' count for all newspaper jobs -- from reporter to delivery truck driver -- shows the payroll shrinking from 336,000 at the start of last year to 313,600 through October, a drop of 22,400 positions. What happens to all of those laid-off and bought-out journalists?

Some folks are certainly struggling to find new work, even more so in the present economy. But there's also the seemingly consensus that most of those that were forced out of the newsroom, they might miss the idea of what it was to be a journalist at a newspaper, but that there is life after newspapers and it can be pretty rewarding.

Another site of collaboration

Some pretty good journos, including Meghann Ackerman, have compiled a collaborative site "after quitting my job a few weeks back, I got involved with some friends who started a site where we're putting up video, photos and stories that we've decided are worth telling."

Sweet Group Photo Project

Here's a link to A Photo A Day's blog posting about a group photo project on cyclocrossers in Portland by some rockstar photogs. They not only have a fantastic site but they compiled a book out of the sweet images. Just may have to see if there's a way to create such a project here in the 303. Not on psycho-crossers per se, but something with a passionate following.

The funniest Star Wars video ever

A video mashup of the plot and storyline based on a girl that has never seen the original Star Wars trilogy. Gotta watch this if you like Star Wars even just a little.

Exactitudes

Really interesting sociological documentary project using simple photos. Gotta look at the design and visuals of the site as well as the complex yet simple idea of people.

Finally a step in the direction

I get asked all the time what I intend to do when I get done with graduate school at the University of Denver. I really haven't been able to show anyone an example and I struggle to constructively describe the creations in my skull.

Here is one of the few examples I can point someone to when they ask that question again. The Las Vegas Sun has been making some of the most complete and creative multimedia experiential productions that I have seen. Many outlets seem to feel that putting video, text, audio and photo galleries into a page will be effective enough. And while that could be argued, they are all just stand-alone elements in the same coral. Thirst in the Mojave takes all those elements and makes each one act and react from the others.

One of the producers, Zach Wise who is now at the NYTimes, posted on his blog about the production as well. He was the brains behind Soul of Athens as well.

Obama's People

Here's a really interesting multimedia piece done by the NYTimes. As usual right? There's a gallery of the portraits made of the officials that will make up the new administration, but there is also a gallery documenting the creation of the portraits. There's some great photos all around and the premise is pretty fun.

Now if I only had an army the size of the 3rd Regiment to pull something off like this as well.

Front-Row View

Here's a NPR interview with Pete Souza, who has been announced as the the official chief White House photographer, talking about covering Barack Obama during the last several years.

Has a nice photo gallery as well.

Lawrence Lessig vs. Stephen Colbert

Really interesting argument about copyright from a recent show. It's funny as hell.

I see aspects of both sides of the battle. I'm not sure that one side or the other is absolute, the future is most likely a blend of something in the middle. And it will be based on the type of the content and the content producer.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Lawrence Lessig

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Found this via a photography business blog that is hellbent on copyright protections.

One in 8 million

Really nice multimedia player from the interactive gurus at the NYTimes that is set to be updated weekly with a short piece on one of the 8 million people in New York. Everyone has a story and an opinion, it should be interesting to see what characters are found.

Fresh sparks from being a "one-man-band"

A good interview with CNN photojournalist Bethany Swain talking about how she and some colleagues created an outlet for natsound pieces on all the CNN platforms. No "talent" standing up yammering in front of the scene or someone talking over good imagery.

Just good storytelling.

End Times

A really solid story on the eminent tsunami of newspaper deaths to come, probably sooner than we expect.

____

If you’re hearing few howls and seeing little rending of garments over the impending death of institutional, high-quality journalism, it’s because the public at large has been trained to undervalue journalists and journalism. The Internet has done much to encourage lazy news consumption, while virtually eradicating the meaningful distinctions among newspaper brands. The story from Beijing that pops up in my Google alert could have come from anywhere. As news resources are stretched and shared, it can often appear anywhere as well: a Los Angeles Times piece will show up in The Washington Post, or vice versa.

____

Kobré's Top 20 Video Productions of 2008

Haven't had a chance to view them all yet, but I'm sure there are a few that are pretty well done looking at the names of the outlets. 

I'll be curious to see what the average length of all the videos after reading Mindy McAdams' post this morning.