Netiquette with Nicole

This is my viral video. I decided to create a cartoon that criticizes online habits that I find stupid or annoying. I chose to do the cartoon style because it gives me more freedom as to what I can show and this is the first time that I have ever done anything like this so I wanted to experiment. If I were to do this again I would have borrowed an actual audio recorder because I used my digital camera to record my voice and no matter what I tried I couldn't get rid of the noise in the background. Also, because of the low file size requirement, the low quality affected the contrast of the colors. I'll put the color pallet into greater consideration next time. But overall, I'm happy with it and I hope everyone else likes it.

Barack Obama's Blog

I regret to say that I do not have much interest in politics. Mainly this is because I believe I lack enough knowledge about the candidates, system, issues and so forth to state an intelligible opinion. However, I decided to take this opportunity to research Barack Obama, a candidate that seems to be pretty popular in the younger demographic. After skimming through his blog, I see that it does state the youth as being a large, supportive group for Obama. It mentions an increasing group on Facebook and encourages others to join. The blog helped me learn about his platform, particularly concerning his views on the war, minority/immigrant/women’s issues, global warming and so forth. I believe educating the audience on his platform is very important when it comes to a candidate’s blog so I believe it does the job. The blog includes video, letters, articles, photos, bulletins so it is very interactive in nature. The different mediums on the internet are touched and handled well in this blog so that part is successful. To reach the blog’s full potential, perhaps Obama can write more blogs himself. This can portray a more personable side and help the audience relate with him as a human being. I believe this is an important characteristic when it comes to candidates running for office. This is why they shake hands and kiss babies. The blog entries seem to be about the people his platform is based on. This is evident in the photos and letters. Again the Facebook group creation targets the youth. I believe the main purpose of the blog is to create an up-to-date log of what Obama is doing, where is is and what he will be doing/where he will be going. Again I wish that there were more personal blog entries from Obama himself to generate a greater difference from other online news sites that merely report. I also believe that Obama looks at the different comments to get a feel for what his supporters are interested in or want from him if elected or to get more support for election. In the entry about college tuition, people comment and respond to other people's comments much like a forum. I'm sure this is a very easy way of getting into the minds of Obama's supporters.

Viacom's Case Against YouTube

In an article in the Washington Post, Viacom tries to explain why they are litigating YouTube and Google for several copyright infringements. This litigation is based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA protects service providers by not holding them responsible for the content that users upload. Viacom explains this exclusion does not apply to YouTube because YouTube has knowledge of the copyrighted material and gains profit from the distribution.

I admit that I search for copyrighted material on YouTube. I do this mainly because of the convenience. If something big happens on television and I miss it, YouTube is the first place I go to rather than searching for it on a news' or network's website. Mainly because I feel their websites are cluttered with other things that I am not interested in. I am reminded of the famous headbutt by France's Zinedine Zidane during the World Cup in 2006. There were several versions of the event displayed on the home page, ready for my viewing. This was what everyone wanted to see and YouTube was the medium that supplied it in an easy and efficient way. It was on the homepage because the users were searching for it, linking to it and so on. However, I understand the concern of broadcasting such media and not compensating the correct people. I believe that YouTube is a wonderful service. I want these videos to appear on YouTube. But YouTube can search their archives for pornographic and hateful material so it would be logical to assume YouTube can also search for copyrighted material. But I believe this task would be more time consuming because YouTube would have to be on top of what is "in" in viral video and what people are searching for. I don't believe it would be a logical task to get rid of all copyrighted material. Perhaps a hit quota can be enforced for material to be viewed by YouTube for copyright infringement. I am not an expert on the language in the DMCA so I really can't say whether I completely agree with it. However, I believe it is important to protect copyrighted material and also the service providers involved. But there will always be a gray area and I can reasonable assume that Viacom's legal battle will not be a quick victory if at all. One thing giants like Viacom should take away from YouTube is that there is a very big market out on the internet for instant gratification viral video. Websites should archive their videos in an easy to search database. YouTube itself has flaws in its search. These corporations should learn and evolve. They would be stupid not to because whether or not they decide to be a part of this market, consumers are going to get what they want one way or another.