John Furrier speaks about new media journalism

"Content is the new search engine"
John Furrier, Founder and CEO of PodTech.net, spoke today at a get together for Stanford Innovation Journalism Fellows at Podtech's Palo Alto offices. Furrier really impressed me, this is one sharp guy! Furrier who has a solid background in computer science said, "there is a huge demand for content, content is the new search engine." Furrier spoke about RSS, the engine that enables podcasting, comparing it to TCP/IP and HTTP in it's impact on business. He said, "TCP/IP gave people using computers access to the world, HTTP gave them access to information and RSS gave them access to relationships." Furrier mentioned Robert Scoble and talked about how Scoble reads a thousand blogs a day with RSS and Google Reader. Scoble is a graduate of the SJSU Journalism program, an A-List blogger and a PodTech Podcaster. Robert Scoble was out of town. His wife Maryam was there. She is also a blogger and she also works at PodTech.

This was an event focusing on New Media and Journalism and Furrier talked about what he sees as the future of Journalism. He described a new media model where reporter's roles are more and more becoming about igniting and curating conversations. He said reporters of the future will work in more of a software development model, focusing on parts of the big stories and working as a team with others to develop coverage and conversations in a way that collaborates both with their audiences and each other. He described this world as being like the open source software development model.

Furrier also sees a rich future for virtual worlds like Second Life and a growing role for journalists to both cover and work in that space. He also spoke about politics and said one of the great uncovered stories is what he called the blogosphere primary where politicians are courting the blogosphere. He talked about Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Google and about how Clinton is courting the Google Vote. He said the press is not talking about that much, but they sure are talking about it at Google.

Furrier said there are technologies journalists need to learn and he specifically mentioned Java Script and XML, but he also said the story they're telling has to be good. He said, "you need to optimize your behavior because if you don't tell a good story you will be booed."

Technorati Tags: PodTech, John Furrier, Journalism, podcasting, scoble, j-school, sjsu, blogging, ssloansjca

CNBC coverage of market plunge

CNBC coverage of stock market plunge
This video fascinates me. It is like watching a car accident happen right before your eyes. The journalists covering the event are clearly caught up in it too. I recommend this to all journalist students and educators. This piece of journalism history is brought to you by Web 2.0.

Snow on the hills

Snow on the hills
We had one of those rare dustings of snow on the hills around San Jose. I checked the Mount Hamilton Webcam this morning and apparently caught a break in the clouds. This pretty photo was posted.

Train video is done!

Been immersed in trains
Youngest son Kenneth and I have been immersed in this project for awhile. Last night we wrapped it up and the video looks great! It is not just a train geek video, it tells a great story. It is all black and white, it is all still photographs and I plan to show it to my class tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: Steam Railroading, Trains, Southern Pacific, railroads, esspee, Railroading, steam, History, ssloansjca

Winterail Teaser Video

Winterail Teaser Video
This is the second video posted to the Internet featuring photos from the show youngest son Kenneth and I are doing. This video, featuring SP photos by Bill Darrough and from his brother's collection focuses on Southern Pacific Steam Locomotives, mostly 4-6-2's from 1938 to 1940. The high definition version will be shown at a railroad photography convention in two weeks named Winterail. The video shown here is formatted for the Internet and features music by Vonda Shepard.

The photos in this show were taken by Bill Darrough and/or are from the collection of Bill and Jack Darrough. This is an amazing collection of photographs. In a conversation with Bill Darrough's brother Jack in August of 1988 Jack said, "Bill died in 1942, he was 22 years-old. He suffered from severe teenage acne and they had treated it with massive doses of radiation, which at the time was thought harmless. The radiation cleared his acne but Bill died of cancer." According to Jack, he and Bill came from a railroad family. The members of a railroaders family were then given passes and could travel free on the nation's passenger trains. The period that Bill lived in was near the climax of the era of steam railroading in this country. Jack said Bill would pack two suitcases, one with film and the other with sandwiches and the young man would go on trips alone photographing trains. In my opinion had he lived he would have been one of the greatest railroad photographers of the twentieth century. It is an amazing story and so Ken and I are trying to tell it.

There is a lot more in the show, both mainline steam, traction, shortline steam and logging RR's. I do not know where it will be in the days lineup of shows.

Technorati Tags: Steam Railroading, Trains, Southern Pacific, railroads, esspee, Railroading, steam, History, ssloansjca

SJSU Technology & Emerging Media Club

STEM is official, has a blog and everything
Having one kid in who is in his thirties and two in their twenties (yes, we started young) I can assure you that what is written above is true, but that is another post. I am thrilled to be the faculty adviser to the coolest club at SJSU, the SJSU Technology and Emerging Media Club (STEM.) They are meeting weekly in the Incubator Conference Room in Clark Hall and are sharing and teaching themselves and fellow students how to use and create emerging media including blogs, RSS, Podcasts, Video Blogs and virtual worlds. STEM meets Wednesdays at 4:30p in Clark 116.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, JMC163, J-School, jmc, stemclub, STEM, ssloansjca

Friday Funnies: Star Wars Help Desk

A long time ago in a cubicle far, far away...
Life at the Help Desk can be hell!

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, YouTube, Humor, Video, helpdesk, vblogging, Help Desk, Tech Support, ssloansjca

Crime and New Media

Creeps who commit crimes and post them
An unfortunate effect of Web 2.0 technologies is that some creeps commit crimes and then post their criminal acts on the Internet. This is mild compared to some stuff that has been put out there. Murders have been posted many times. The acts posted here got a number of comments to YouTube including this comment:

Thanks to all for your comments & support and everyone who contacted us at Metrolink about the video. Good News: The tagger and his partner who videotaped him tagging our equipment were tracked by our LA County Sheriffs and CHP. They were both arrested for felony vandalism. He had a long history of tagging over 30 freeway overpasses in LA and SB counties and is in state prison. The videographer has also been charged and is facing prison as well.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, YouTube, Crime Video, Video, JMC163, vblogging, Tagging, LA, ssloansjca

Clip From Train Movie We Are Doing

Clip from the show we are doing
This 28 MB 60-second high definition Quick Time video clip is from the show my son, Kenneth Sloan, and I are doing for Winterail 2007. This clip has no music or narration. The clip features photos from California Shortlines in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Railroads like the Bay Point and Clayton as well as McCloud. Enjoy!
~Steve

SJSU Technology and Emerging Media (STEM)

The SJSU Technology and Emerging Media Club
The SJSU Technology and Emerging Media (STEM) Club had its second meeting today in Clark Hall. Students discussed their favorite blogs and talked about new tools. Andrew Venegas discussed how to create a blog and discussed RSS and tagging. STEM now seems to have enough members and has completed all the necessary paperwork to become a student organization at SJSU. The next meeting of STEM is in two weeks.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, JMC163, J-School, jmc, stemclub, ssloansjca

Pro bike race near SJSU

Stage Three Bike Race Finish by SJSU
Stage three of the Tour of California finished a block away from the SJSU campus allowing me to take a late lunch and shoot the end of the race. It was very cool! It is neat seeing a stage of what is perhaps the biggest bike race in the US end so close to where I work.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, TourOfCalifornia, Cycling, ssloansjca

How to reserve Clark Hall Conference Room

Incubator Conference Room

There is a state of the art 16 seat conference room that is available for students to complete and practice presentations as they would in a corporate board room. SJSU student clubs are also encouraged to have their meetings there. Students have priority access to this space. Available technologies in the room include:

• A high resolution projection system
  
• A high resolution document camera
  
• A video conferencing system
  
• An audio conferencing system
  
• DVD and VHS players
  
• High speed wired 100MB Ethernet connections available for presenters
  

Please contact the SJSU Help Desk in Clark Hall 102 to check on availability of this space and to reserve it for your use. Currently there is NOT any calendar available on-line to check, so you have to call or walk in to check. The phone number is (408) 924-2377. Email for the helpdesk is helpdesk@sjsu.edu.

This conference room is part of the Academic Success Center.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, SJSUHelpDesk, ssloansjca

Linux Installfest at SJSU Saturday

On Saturday the 24^th there will be an installfest hosted by the SJSU Linux User's group. This event will be from 11am to 4pm in the Computer Science Club Room in MQH 227 at SJSU. This is an excellent opportunity to get assistance in installing or configuring your Linux system. They will also help you set up dual boot with Windows if you so desire. Their next regular meeting is this coming Thursday at 3pm in the Ohlone Room in the Student Union at SJSU.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, Linux, ssloansjca

Frances is 81 today

My mother-in-law is 81 today
My mother-in-law Frances Graziano is a continuing source of inspiration. Talk about aging gracefully, despite health problems she meets her days with energy and good cheer. She is awesomely outgoing and is on the go often. She makes friends and constantly is finding interesting things to do. Happy 81st Birthday Frances and here is wishing you many more!

Vista and/or Office 2007 + Adobe Creative Suite

PC Users Note
Those contemplating early adoption of Microsoft Vista and/or Office 2007 on systems that also use the Adobe Creative Suite should read this PDF document from Adobe.

As you read this and contemplate deployment keep in mind there are multiple versions of Adobe's Creative Suite "CS2" out there. The most recent version is CS2.3. Adobe Creative Suite CS2.3 installs Acrobat 8 out of the box. This version is more supportive of Vista than is the previous versions. Still, full support of Vista is not planned until Adobe releases Creative Suite "CS3" around mid-year.

Macintosh Users Also
Macintosh users who have Intel equipped Macs are also not slated to receive full support until CS3 ships as well. Since new computers will be shipped with Vista and there will be a new version of Mac OS coming out at about the same time, Adobe's new Creative Suite CS3 will be important for SJSU for OS and hardware support as well as the added capabilities the software will offer. If planning is your job, you may want to plan your budgets accordingly.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, Vista, ssloansjca

It's our Spring

Spring came in February here
This weekend we have had great weather. Saturday was the very best. I went for a bicycle ride and on my way over one of the local hills I saw three deer grazing in a meadow. The hills are green and the blossoms and flowers are out in force. On Sunday Susie and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and saw many trees in blossom. I am very glad I carried my camera.

Technorati Tags: San Jose, ssloansjca

Los Gatos Camera is Closing

Camera Stores are Dying
It seems like one-by-one all of my favorite camera stores are going out of business. Is this really progress? Driven out of business by on-line sales and the loss of photo finishing income, these places are dropping like flies. I really love going to camera stores. Those days may soon be gone.

Technorati Tags: photography, ssloansjca

Friday Funnies: The Todd Sector

I have discovered Vista, and it rocks!

This is the first time I have used Vista and Office 2007 to do something productive. One of the things I really like is the ability to make blog posts directly from Microsoft Word. I am going to use this! I guess that means I have more reasons to boot into Boot Camp on my MacBook. Don't tell anybody I said this, but this rocks!

Uses for Second Life

Business uses of Second Life
It took me awhile to "get" Second Life. Now I see this as being a technology that I think in the long term will dwarf the web (as we now know it) in terms of its potential. I think it is way bigger than anything we have seen yet. In my opinion there are engines that are pushing in this direction, not the least is the spiraling cost of fossil fuel. In my opinion this is what the web will be in ten years. This is web 3.0, or web 3-D. If we can accomplish by virtual presence, what we could only once accomplish by physical presence, imagine the potential in that!

This is another of the wonderful set of short interviews was done by iinnovate, a podcast about innovation and entrepreneurship by students at Stanford. Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO of Second Life, talks about how Second Life, like many new technologies, started out as a toy and how businesses are starting to find really practical uses for Second Life and where this might lead to.

Sunset SJSU

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, ssloansjca

What is Second Life?

Understanding Second Life
Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO of Second Life, talks about the creation of Second Life and how Second Life relates to the real world. This is a key podcast for understanding the thinking behind Second Life. Rosedale refers back to the book Show Crash by Neal Stephenson and the concept of a metaverse. This wonderful set of short interviews was done by iinnovate, a podcast about innovation and entrepreneurship by students at Stanford.

Reuters and Second Life

What companies "get" Second Life
Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO of Second Life, talks about Second Life. A lot of his talk is about Rueters and how their Second Life Bureau reports on happenings in that metaverse.

Vlog: Today's class

About today's class
This short video describes the plan for today's class. Basically, this is today's agenda:

Keystone technologies for the Web
Digital Imaging; Photoshop Introduction. Photo editing and sizing non-destructively.

Guest Speaker(s)
SJSU Technology & Emerging Media Club
President: Jessica Drnek, Vice President: Andrew Venegas, Secretary: Kyle Hansen, Treasurer: Sean Gilpin

Agenda
10 min. Check attendance and new students.
20 min. Guest Speakers discuss new student club
30 min. Presentation on Photoshop
15 min. Break.
40 min. Lab: In class assignment.
20 min. Introduction to Blogging.
10 min. Tour of Academic Success Center

Lab
Non-destructive editing with Photoshop. Tools palettes, layers, filters and masks. There is a related assignment.

Topics
Adobe Photoshop, Layers, Masking, Filters, Palettes, HTML, Markup Languages, Content Management Systems & Web Design.

Book Discussion
We will discuss the reading the class was assigned.

Bird Flu Preview?

How Pandemics Might Spread at SJSU
My wife Sue and I are in a bicycle club of about 1,000 members. Inside that club is a social group of about 30 people, including us. On Saturday the Feb 3rd about 20 of those attended our big annual bike club party and dance. That Saturday night one member of our social group was apparently sick, but she did not know it because she was not yet symptomatic. We all sat together, danced with each other and hugged at the end of the evening. The next day was Super Bowl Sunday this person was not at that party we attended because she was then feeling ill. Monday morning I went to work, but went home sick at 11am. That night my fever was 103. By the middle week a dozen or more of our group were also sick, including Sue and I. I guess if we have a bird flu pandemic this is how it will spread. Imagine if that party had been a big event at the student union on campus and if the next couple days those folks had spread out all over SJSU. The virus would be entrenched before we even knew we had it.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, ssloansjca

The Future: Hybrid Journalism, are we there yet?

Hybrid Journalism and Anna Nicole Smith
Tom Rutten wrote in the latimes.com column "Regarding Media":

The mainstream journalistic coverage of Smith's death is among the first such stories driven, in large part, by an editorial perception of public interest derived mainly from Internet traffic. Throughout the afternoon Thursday, editors across the country watched the number of "hits" recorded for online items about Smith's death. These days, it's the rare newspaper whose meeting to discuss the content of the next day's edition doesn't include a recitation of the most popular stories on the paper's website. It's a safe bet that those numbers helped shove Anna Nicole Smith onto a lot of front pages.

What makes this of more than passing interest is that serious American journalism is in the process of transforming itself into a new, hybrid news medium that combines traditional print and broadcast with a more purposefully articulated online presence. One of the latter's most seductive attributes is its ability to gauge readers' appetites for a particular story on a minute-to-minute basis. What you get is something like the familiar television ratings — though constantly updated, if you choose to treat them that way.

Is "hybrid news medium" the future of American journalism or the path to something else?
Is this just the transitional phase from the old to the new, yet undefined, reality? In other words: is this the phase where traditional "mainstream" media, riding its past momentum in a gently downward slope as its market dies of old age, and new media, propelled upward by an increasingly pervasive Internet, Moore's law and a younger market more comfortable with YouTube coexists? What do you think American journalism will look like when Gen Y takes the reins of financial and political power?

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, JMC163, CSU, California State University, Newspapers, Journalism, j-school, ssloansjca

Friday Funnies: MySpace The Movie

A view of MySpace
I know a lot of folks who have MySpace Pages. This is for them! For those of us who do not MySpace, now we know what we are missing.

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca

Accessibility Session Friday

For Faculty Tomorrow, Accessibility Session
My wife and I have been very sick and I forgot to post this earlier. I sincerely apologize for the oversight and hope you can make it to this important event:

Are your instructional materials accessible to all? Universal Design for Learning is a model pedagogical strategy that empowers faculty to effectively and creatively design and teach courses in a way that makes learning accessible to a wider range of learners. UDL is a proactive approach to designing course instruction, materials, and content to benefit people of all learning styles without adaptation or retrofitting. Thus, UDL provides equal access to learning, not simply equal access to information. This presentation will review the principles of UDL and examine various ways faculty have successfully adopted these strategies across different academic disciplines.

Fri. Feb 9, 2007, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM, IRC 210. More info and contact info to RSVP is here.

Cluetrain: The whole world is watching the classroom

Cluetrain applies to education
The 12th thesis of Cluetrain says:

There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

There is no going back. Customers are plugged in and that connectivity is becoming more and more pervasive and ubiquitous. For example almost all students now have cell phones, cell phones now have cameras that shoot video and they can post those videos to the Internet. A teacher has a bad day and who knows about it? The world does! The whole world.

Who controls the message? The teacher? The school? No, none of these. A school administrator may learn about a problem in the classroom by seeing it on the Internet. It is easy to remix Cluetrain for education and see the classroom will never be the same again. Any of our students at any time may be streaming what we are doing to the Internet. Think this is an isolated incident? Then look here and look here. The walls have come down. Some folks just don't know it yet and those are the dangerous ones. Those are the ones who get in trouble.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, JMC163, CSU, California State University, California State University, Pedagogy, Cluetrain, ssloansjca

Digital Ethnography, Web 2.0

A compelling view of Web 2.0
Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, is launching the Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University to examine the impacts of digital technology on human interaction. According to this Web page, "The first outcome of this work was a short video called "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us." The video was released on YouTube on January 31st 2007 and quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere." The video is fantastic and Wesch is somebody for us to pay attention to.

This video was sent to me by Cynthia McCune, who teaches another of the Journalism 163 sections. She is an excellent educator and is also somebody for us to pay attention to. Her class blog is here.

Vlog: No JMC163 Today

I am home sick
There will be no class tonight.

Extra Credit
Hopefully you can do this outside of class:

• Have a working Email Account
• Register on Wordpress.com
• Get E-mail info to Steve Sloan with address registered under.
• After I repy that you have been added to the blog, you can post about your reading. What is your favorite (or least favorite) thesis and why?

Reading for next week:
Cluetrain, (free on the web), all front matter including "The 95 Theses" and Chapters One and Two.

Vblog: JMC 163 for Tuesday Feb. 6, 2007

Feb. 6, 2007, JMC163 Class Preparation
This short video discusses the Tuesday edition of Journalism 163.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, JMC163, CSU, California State University, California State University, ssloansjca

New student new media club

Students forming SJSU Technology & Emerging Media Club
This is really cool! Students interested in blogging, podcasting, video blogging and other media are forming a new student club at SJSU. Most of these students are from last semester's JMC163 class. Andrew writes more on his blog!

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, California State University, ssloansjca

Friday Funnies: Wozniak Commercial

Friday Fun Stuff: Wozniak's Datsun Commercial
You might have t be a codger, or almost one, to remember this commercial by Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple Inc. This is one of the many fun commercials at funny-commercials.net.

Technorati Tags: Steve Wozniak, Woz, Apple, Macintosh, ssloansjca

2007 is a big year for Microsoft

This is a big year for Microsoft
I went to a Microsoft rollout event in Santa Clara today and was very impressed. Microsoft is almost simultaneously releasing new versions of their operating systems and office suites. Also, they are increasing their focus on workflow and collaboration through new versions of Exchange and Sharepoint. The Microsoft folks there were proud and excited and they deserve to be.

Microsoft compared to Apple
While it is fun to poke fun at Microsoft the truth is that Apple is much further behind Microsoft in reaching Microsoft's Enterprise business market than Microsoft is behind Apple in reaching Apple's entertainment, and creative markets. Apple is still strong in some parts of education, but mostly in the same creative and entertainment sectors. The interface of the Tiger version of Mac OS X is still ahead of Windows, but gap has narrowed. Vista is cool!

Microsoft owns the Enterprise Market!
Active Directory, Group Policy Integration and the NTFS file system built into Windows are core technologies for the Enterprise Market that Apple has nothing to match. Apple's Open Directory built into Mac OS X Server is great for small to medium businesses, but it is not Enterprise class. It does not need or try to be an Enterprise class directory service; and, that is the point. These are very different companies with very different customers and very different business models. In reality, comparing Apple to Microsoft, in my opinion, is a very apples to oranges comparison.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Vista, Apple, Macintosh, ssloansjca

First SJSU New Media Club Meeting Friday

SJSU new media club meeting Friday
A message from Andrew Venegas:

Friday, February 2nd, there will be a meeting to discuss the proposed New Media & Tech club at Pizza My Heart, right across the street from La Vic’s and Jack N’the Box at 5:00PM. I hope to see everyone there.

Note - If this time doesn’t work for anyone, let Andrew know today. Andrew said he is flexible, and he really wants as much participation as possible.
Thanks!