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Afternoon everyone,

Before I get to my original topic for the day, I just wanted to let you all know that the Fall semester starts tomorrow, so many of my posts for the next few months may be school directed. I am going to try to keep posting and updating with topics on technology, comics, film, and music, as always, but my education comes first. Shame, I know. To make it easier, I’m going to work out some kind of signal so that at first glance you’ll know if it’s regular posting or school posting, so you can decide easier if you want to skip it or not.

In the realm of school news, I’m taking Public Relations in the Digital Age of Influence, and it sounds really interesting. Here’s the official course description:

Marketing and communications are changing. The levers that we have pulled for years to sell products and services, change behaviors, advocate for causes no longer work the way they did. As trust in media and marketing plummets, trust in our peers, friends, family, and colleagues rises. Today the public does most of the relating and we recognize new influencers in the people sitting next to us. Now, creating a conversation is just as important as driving media, forming partnerships and crafting messages. Call it influencer marketing. Call it brand stewardship in the network age. It’s all public relations. This class will cover how to create comprehensive digital influence strategy and ultimately how to be effective public relations professional in this new digital age.

I’m hoping we really look into the impact of social media – viral, ARG, digital distribution – since more and more communication marketing seems to be headed that way.

Anyway, just wanted you all to know. I’m still hoping to get Tomblin back for the non-school posts, but we’ll just have to wait and see. If any of you out there have heard from him, poke him and tell him to call me.

MP3 Culture

Since I decided to share my paper examing the meaning of images and their relation, and use, in a digital medium, I figured what the hell – I’ll share with ya’ll my paper from my MP3 Culture course.

Rebirth of Aura: Communal Recording in the Digital Age

It’s an examination of cultural theorist Walter Benjamin‘s belief in the destruction of the aura of art through mechanical reproduction. The concept being that all art is a representation of an object so what you see or hear is not the object itself, but the artist’s rendering of that artist. Even photography is merely a representation of the viewpoint of the photographer on the object being photographed.

My assuration is in an age of digital distribution, the aura of music may not only be preserved, but revived. Artists such as Fort Minor and Nine Inch Nails have allowed, at one time or another, fans access to multi-tracks of their respective songs allowing new creations, or new renderings of the artists work. So in this case, the art (music) isn’t losing its aura, so much as its identity is being recreated.

I’m hoping to take the concepts within and expand them into my thesis, so any thoughts would be appreciated.

Enjoy!

Podcast the Third – New Media Music Distribution

Podcast the Third – 4.28.08

Tomblin and I had batted around a number of topics for discussion – possible election fraud, China/Tibet relations, Chinese control of the internet over its citizens, even Bjork – but we thought, in light of the recent activity on the musical front and this being our last formal podcast, we’d discuss the future of the music distribution and promotion.

From the seemingly newly converted(Metallica) to the always been there(Hot Bitch Arsenal), music is growing on the internet. It is an easy way to get your work to the largest number of people at very little cost with the potential for a lot of gain(see Nine Inch Nails).

It’s been fun the last few weeks, and I hope you’ll come back and see us in a few weeks after my semester ends and I learn to breathe again.

It’s a shame that our round table experiment didn’t work because in a discussion on the distribution of music via the internet, a round table would have been fun. In any case, take care and enjoy the show!

Digital Music & Subculture: Sharing Files, Sharing Styles by Sean Ebare (ARTICLE)

Recording Industry Association of American
riaa-2007-year-end-statistics (2006 data unavailable for upload currently)
Lower CD shipments, Digital revenue up – Digital Media Wire Article
The next two following links contain photos NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK
Hot Bitch Arsenal Blog
OFFICIAL WEBSITE for HBA
The HBA Skypecast on thesixtyone

Nine Inch Nails
Remix.NIN

Metallica
Live Metallica – The Vault
Rolling Stone interview with Lars Ulrich
Metallica embraces file-sharing? – Zeropaid article

Coldplay
Coldplay offers new single for free – Yahoo!

Coheed & Cambria
The Second Stage Turbine Blade(album)/The Second Stage Turbine Blade(comic)
In Keeping Secret Of Silent Earth:3
Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol 1: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness
Vignettes 1-6

Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol 2: No World For Tomorrow
Viral Videos
The Willing Well – Part 1

The Willing Well – Part 2

The Willing Well – Part 3

The Willing Well – Part 4

The Willing Well – Part 5


Characters from both the albums and as seen in Good Apollo, Vol 1 – courtest of Evil Ink Comics

Attribution:
The music in the intro and exit of the show was Leader of the Flea World provided by Hot Bitch Arsenal, under a Creative Commons license.

Wanna be on the radio?

Tomblin and I would like to invite our audience to participate in a round table discussion on New Media Music Distribution. This program is about discussing all things media, including but not limited too, how technology impacts our lives and helps us to tell stories.

If you have Skype, and want to play along, call me (Sprzzatura) and join in.

Hope to hear from you soon….otherwise, egg on our face.

~~
Please keep in mind that we will be using your voice, thoughts, and ideas for our own personal gain and you relinquish all rights to your identity(face), uniqueness, and by extension, soul, by participating.

Actual soul removal not included.

FREEDOM (got to give what you take)

Once again BIG THANKS to the mighty brain of Micah Tomblin.

No more Torrent sites. No more Podomatic.

Here is the Elements of Madness maiden broadcast in all of its glory!!!

Elements of Madness – 3.23.08 – Podcast the First

(all we had to do was drop it to Mono and it dropped WAY under the 75M cap.)

Enjoy!

DON’T PANIC (doesn’t get more friendly than that….)

Morning folks -

It seems there was a glitch in our planning and WordPress does not support uploaded files larger than 75M…Podcast the First is just a shy bit over 90M. Our bad.

Tomblin has been wonderful and supplied a torrent to get to the podcast, and I have also gotten us an account over at Podomatic which gives us a shiny, brand spankin; new RSS feed – which you can find on the right. I have also removed the link for the podcast from WordPress, so if you keep looking for a link and wonder why – it’s not there anymore. But again, please feel free to use the torrent or the RSS feed on the right.

We do apologize for the inconvenience, and we promise to do better. Or at least, to attempt to do better. Promises should only be made by those who can deliver 100% of the time. We promise to try.

Podcast the second should be up at some point today if all goes well and the tubes don’t clog or something weird like that. Also, we’ve noticed that a lot of people have been coming to the site and checking out the podcast, so don’t be shy. Let your voices be heard!!!

Later!

Elements of Madness – PODCAST THE 1ST

GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME – THIS IS ELEMENTS OF MADNESS: THE PODCAST

We’re very excited to present you with Elements of Madness: Podcast the First, and we promise to deliver them in a more timely manner….particularly as we work out the kinks. Below is every picture, video and link that we discussed during the podcast, so that you are able to see what we are looking at and better understand our perspective. Please feel free to comment and let us know where you agree/disagree on any subject and also, please let us know if there are topics you are interested in hearing us discuss or investigate.

Podcast the Second has been recorded and will be posted in the next few days, but for now please enjoy Podcast the First!

Elements of Madness – 3.23.03 Podcast (if you’re getting 503 errors, you can try this torrent)

In This Week’s Podcast:

Rolling Stone’s Endorsement of Barack Obama: a comparison of magazine cover photography & representation
Picture1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4

Hillary Clinton 3AM Ad (2008)

Lydon Johnson Flower Girl Ad (1964)

Hillary Campaign re-enacts OJ Simpson debacle, while everyone rests during Easter.

Anonymous vs the Church of Scientology
The Results of Anonymity as demonstrated by Penny Arcade:

Fox News Coverage

Church of Scientology describes alleged attacks by Anonymous

Message from Anon regarding Operation: Reconnect

Net Neutrality
MPAA: Net Neutrality an Assault on Creativity

The excerpt read on-air:

Net neutrality laws, he said, “would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks today.”

“Technology,” Glickman continued, “is handing us the opportunity to deal the first real body blow to online piracy, to begin to reach toward the day when we might be able to take it off the table and debug the system.”

But Glickman is mistaken to equate peer-to-peer services with copyright infringement. Obviously some content shared on peer-to-peer services is pirated. But an increasing amount is not. Companies like Qtrax, Joost and Vuze, to name just a few, rely on peer-to-peer technology to lawfully distribute music or video.

Comcast loves to flout the incredibly high speeds the service can maintain….
yet they just can’t help themselves by getting involved in monitoring how their service is used….

As promised – Stephen Colbert’s explanation of the AT&T Monopoly

Attribution:
The soundtrack for this podcast was provided by Nine Inch Nails under a Creative Commons license. The opening track was 21 off of Ghosts III, the closing track was 26 off of Ghosts III. Please go get the album Ghosts I-IV and support NIN.

Delay In Production

Just wanted you all to know that the first official podcast may be a little later coming than we original anticipated.

Why?(a reasonable question)

Because I’m sitting in a Chick-Fil-A using Wifi. This is normally not a problem, but unfortunately this is the first sign that I am without internet access at home which means no ability to record as planned.

Oh, if I failed to mention before, Tomblin is in South Carolina and I’m in Maryland so we are at the mercy of Comcast…..g-d help us all.

Saturday the internet will hopefully be restored and after some good eattin’, we’ll be ready to resume production.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the demo, thus far. More to come.

Later!

Elements of Madness Preview Podcast

Good Afternoon All!

Below is a brief introduction to the Elements of Madness podcast in development. This demonstration features Micah Tomblin and myself giving a brief description of what you can expect from future podcasts. We’re hoping to have our first podcast up and running later in the week.

Unfortunately, Crystal Rattazzi, who was originally slated to be involved has been relegated to guest status due to prior engagements that will make her less regularly accessible.

Future Topics to Come:

*Rolling Stone predicts the Second Coming of Obama?
*RIAA vs the World
*MPAA & RIAA vs Net Neutrality
*Anon vs Scientology(see below)

Stayed tuned for more, but for now – a taste of things to come:
Elements of Madness Podcast Introduction

Elements of Madness (V.2.0)

So my blog, like so many other things before it(the earth, religion, modes of sharing music), is a changin’. I’d prefer to think of it as evolving, but I’ve already got ten fingers and ten toes(opposable thumbs included) so assuming some form of higher evolution may be a little far reaching, so I’ll just go with updating. This blog originally started for my Introduction to Digital Age course through Johns Hopkins Advanced Academics Communications in Contemporary Society program, but now, for my Essential Skills In Digital Media Literacy course, I will be attempting to develop and broadcast a podcast.

“Of what?” you might ask.

And that would be a good question – The intent is to examine the media and discuss why things are told the way they are. For instance, why does the Washington Post cover a story one way when the Baltimore Sun may cover the same story another? Why did Nine Inch Nails release their new 4 album set Ghosts I-IV online and why did they do it using a Creative Commmons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 USA copyright? Though Nine Inch Nails was still signed with a record deal, why release the 2007 album Year Zero with an alternate reality game whereas Ghost I-IV was released with little to no fanfare at all? (for anyone seeking a copy of the album, please see my friend Micah Tomblin’s blog for a link…..or check BitTorret.)

“More examples!” you say – alright:

THIS is the cover to a November issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. For my Digital Media Literacy course, I was to redo the cover and the headline. Here is what it looks like:. Sends a different message doesn’t it? Or is it just the same thing? What does it say, if anything at all? What does it suggest?

Elements of Madness(V.2.0) is intended to bring up all of these thoughts and more. What are you reading/watching/listening to and what do you get from it? In our Digital Age information is everywhere, but not all of it is good for you. Perhaps we can help you sort it out. Stay tuned – more to come.

For more on Elements of Madness, please download the powerpoint presentation located in the sidebar.

See you next time!!!