So, this is my last (required) blog. I put required in parentheses because I am honestly not sure that I will blog again. While I did do some posts that were not required, I feel that once this class comes to an end, so will my blogging. I didn’t really enjoy it because the topics were chosen for me. I feel that I would like to do an entertainment/arts blogging rather than academic blogging. I’m not saying I’m striving to be the next Perez Hilton but entertainment and the arts are more of what I am interested in. I also love Twitter. It’s nice to be able to say what’s on your mind but have it be a short tidbit.
My perception of who blogs definitely changed as time went on. I still imagine a scholarly person in thick framed glasses with a Starbucks latte sitting next to their computer, however, now I also see young students. I really enjoyed reading my classmates blog posts. I feel like I know people better by reading what they have to say and how they say it. I am definitely more open in my blog posts then I am in class and I noticed that a lot of my classmates are the same way. People express themselves differently on paper, or in this case on a computer, than they do in person.
When I got my first macbook freshman year of high school, I thought GarageBand was the coolest program ever. I immediately started creating songs with my friends. I wasn’t quite sure how to use the program but it’s really easy to just play around. If you spend only a few minutes clicking through all the features, you can figure out how to make music. I never made music with singing since I am the worst singer ever, but they still came out really cool. There are countless sounds ranging from African tribal music to electric techno that you can mash-up.
While I thought I knew how to navigate my way through GarageBand, when it comes to podcasts, I’m quite lost. I know that practice will make perfect and all I will need to do is create multiple versions of my podcast. I found it interesting that voices are compressed differently depending on if you record as a male or female. GarageBand also tries to make the program as easy as possible to use. If you put a beat or song behind the voices, it automatically fades it for you like a real radio show. Below is an Apple podcast tutorial
I found This American Life by Ira Glass to be so entertaining. He had my attention the entire time. It was unlike any other podcast that I have listened to (not that I have listened to many). He included clips from real life, for example, in the Jose Cuervo segment, there were actual recordings of the Cuervo man doing his thing in a bar.
In the segment entitled, Why Talk?, a woman Starlee Kine becomes friends with a woman who makes a tape telling Starlee about her life. I thought it was really cool how Starlee told a brief summary of something that occurred in the tape and then an excerpt was played. I found this to be very effective for story telling because it kept me engaged and helped me to visualize what was going on. I actually pictured Starlee’s friend, Robin, walking down the street and going up to the guy that said in a thick italian voice, “happy birthday Staaaalee”.
It was really interesting to listen to each segment because they were so different yet similar. Every segment had the same theme, someone turning to plan B- the backup plan. Glass gave little descriptions of each segment in the beginning of the podcast to make you want to hear more, and it definitely worked.
I felt the most engaged throughout the whole podcast when the clips were played from past events or when a story is told play by play. Glass even said that was one of his story telling tactics, “no matter how boring the story is if it is in a story form and there is an anecdote happening” it makes it have some suspense and becomes less boring. Glass also stresses having a balance of narration and conversation. You can tell that he practices what he preaches in Plan B. The listener gets the feeling that Glass and the person he is interviewing are friends because of the way that he presents himself and conducts the interview. Due to listening to the podcast and hearing what Glass had to say about storytelling got me more excited to do my own podcast and I learned a lot about how to approach starting it. I feel like I especially have a better understanding about how to speak into the microphone. Glass puts emphasis on words which takes away the monotonous tone that I assume I will have when I do my first recording!
Podcasting has allowed us to now have radio in the palm of our hands. I think of podcasting as a talk show or radio show. However, when a radio station such as z100 has people talking for more than a couple of minutes, I will immediately change the station. This is because z100 is supposed to be playing music. I weirdly stay engaged in some podcasts because they are supposed to only contain talking. I like how podcasts have “the reach of a network and the intimacy of an instant message” (Steven Levy) since you can listen to it on your iPod, computer or car radio, to name a few.
I have been exposed to podcasts for a while now. Sophomore year of high school, my European history teacher had us listen to weekly British podcasts and Junior year, my AP chemistry teacher made daily “vodcasts” for us to watch and listen to. More recently, when I created a Twitter I chose to follow one of my favorite celebrities, Hunter Parrish. When receiving his updates on my Twitter, I noticed that he would post when he was live on “Two Guys and a Girl“, a podcast available on iTunes, as well. I enjoy this podcast because it is like a gossip and entertainment magazine or blog but transformed into audio. This podcast can be listened to live or at a time of one’s choosing, which is called “time-shifting” according to the Economist.
My sister once worked for Teen People. When she was let go and moved on to Entertainment Weekly, I asked her, what happened to Teen People magazine? She always said that magazines were constantly folding due to the internet. Now I finally understand why. New media is constantly evolving and new outlets of entertainment, such as podcasts, are taking over. Especially in this economy, who would want to buy a magazine when they can get the same information for free from iTunes?
According to Manovich, the term interactive is “the most basic fact about computers”, “once an object is represented in a computer, it automatically becomes interactive”. Interactivity is a concept of new media, the work is manipulated according to the person controlling it. On the other hand, the work or “order of presentation” is fixed in old media.
I looked at the Pomegranate Phone interactive ad. This is an extremely interactive ad. There are various options of the “phone” to click on to see how it works. Not only is it just clickable but it shows you a video of a person using the device, like the one below.
This was the key factor in making me believe that this phone actually existed. (Sorry to spoil it for people who thought they would be able to go out and buy it… you cant). As Manovich said, you are “externalizing the mind”. This form of interactivity is simply perceived as real because it is not really going to happen in real life. It doesn’t even highlight the product being sold. The Barbarian Group stated that you should “spread word about the brand”. But that is the exact opposite of this campaign. They are not trying to sell you the Pomegranate Phone, even though it would be pretty cool if they did. They are actually trying to sell you, Nova Scotia– The province of Canada being that “all in one device”, meaning that it contains everything that you would ever want in one place. I believe that the whole idea of the Pomegranate Phone is it being a viral advertisement. Before anyone reaches the point where they are told about Nova Scotia, everyone wonders if it is a real phone to purchase. When the ad first came out, my friends immediately posted on their Twitter’s and Facebook’s a link to the phone and a statement exclaiming “IS THIS REAL!?”. As I stated already, further exploration into this interactive ad will tell you that it is not. I feel that it was a highly successful campaign. Everyone was so interested in this so called phone. There weren’t any age limits which is probably why Nova Scotia picked a phone and not a gaming system as their advertising tool. All ages and both males and females can relate to the Pomegranate Phone. At first I was so mesmerized by what the phone could do and the interactivity of the ad I didn’t even care about the potential release date of the phone. I just had the best time playing with all of the features. However, when I found out that “someday you’ll be able to get everything you want in one device, but today you can get everything in one place”, I was pretty frustrated!
As the Barbarian Group says, “interactive advertising is not human” and the Pomegranate Phone certainly is not.
It’s interesting to see what grabs people’s attention. Everyone’s interests are unique from person to person. Males and females are attracted to different ads, for example, a man would not go out and buy the Venus razor for himself, no matter how catchy the commercial or print ad might be. People also look at ads which portray the type of person that they want to be; like wearing that specific article of clothing will make you look or act like the model that is wearing it. For instance, if you wear Diesel jeans you will have “pleasure, innocence, lust, fun, romance and denim”.
I have noticed that the famous Super Bowl commercials, each commercial attracts all different people, from gender to sexual orientation. The whole point of this is to gain a wide audience to try to attract many potential buyers.
When I attend the US Open, there are ads everywhere to try and sell tennis clothing. Many are plain and boring but each Lacoste ad catches my eye. Not only is Andy Roddick their model but it each ad is pleasing to the eye and shows that the clothing is easy to move in. Even the regular, non-tennis ads are the same.
Above is a regular ad for Lacoste’s clothing.
Above is a Lacoste tennis clothing ad with Andy Roddick.
Description, comparison, point of view and emphasis are all aspects of visual and verbal texts that apply to images and words. However, I think that the most important is communication; how the image or texts communicates with the audience. The creator of an advertisement wants the reader to remember their ad and the message that it is trying to convey. There was one ad titled “It’s Not a Game Anymore”
I really like the concept behind this ad. It shows a game that is played by mostly everyone, therefore it can apply to a large audience. At first I didn’t understand what the ad was really about but once you realize that the “bricks” are whales, you see that the whales are disappearing. It is a creative way to tell a very serious issue to the public.
Nobody can write a perfect paper right off the bat. Clutter takes over brains and makes writing a clear sentence very hard. No matter what teachers drill into your brains, good writing doesn’t just happen. Many of us write a complex sentence using a thesaurus because we think it looks better on paper, makes you look smarter and/or to take up space in the required 5 page essay, when in reality, the sentence is probably filled with unnecessary words. I know that I am guilty of this because if “the sentence is too simple– there must be something wrong with it”.
While clutter affects me in most of my writing, since I find it difficult to write with a clear head, revision is so important. As Murray says, “when a draft is completed, the job of writing can begin”. I found that peer reviews helped me to begin to revise my paper since it is always difficult to tare apart your own essay that you worked so hard on to complete. I find that “the writer must learn to read critically but constructively, to cut what is bad, to reveal what is good” because if the writer finds everything to be bad and starts over, he or she is just running in circles because the actual revision is never finished.
So, this is my last (required) blog. I put required in parentheses because I am honestly not sure that I will blog again. While I did do some posts that were not required, I feel that once this class comes to an end, so will my blogging. I didn’t really enjoy it because the topics were chosen for me. I feel that I would like to do an entertainment/arts blogging rather than academic blogging. I’m not saying I’m striving to be the next Perez Hilton but entertainment and the arts are more of what I am interested in. I also love Twitter. It’s nice to be able to say what’s on your mind but have it be a short tidbit.
leads you to….
©
© Bill Watterson
