The Internet is Everything.

The other day I was blogging for work for Everyday Communications, an educational communications company, and came across a response from one of our twitter followers. This follower is not a teacher, student, or parent, so I was about to delete them from all of our contacts so as to stay relevant. Luckily I did not, because I later realized that they were bringing new followers just for the sake of being interested in Education and the school system in general. Not only did this woman mention us in her blog and twitter but she created many Follow Fridays for us. After racking my brain to figure out why this was occurring I realized there are people out there that just sit at home and look for topics that interest them and research them, interact with them. It leads me to wonder if this is the new library. Twenty years ago, would this same person be going to the library and looking up educational communications company's? Would they be referring us to their friends with Word of Mouth or through letters? Would my advertising and marketing for us cover enough reach with just a newspaper or magazine? Its media and culture questions like these that interest me. The fact that the internet has become such a vital way of communication is insane. Everything is online now, and with society's 'get it now' mentality, there's less people fiddling around in the library checking out books for their information. If they want academic journals they will go online through an accredited academic source via search engine. Really, the question is, will this escalate, and what will this mean for libraries in general?

The Conglomeration of EVERYthing

The current state of the sports world mirrors many of the issues facing popular media in general. There has been a recent gravitation towards super teams (see: Miami Heat, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Knicks), in which many superstar athletes have accepted their lack of ability to carry a full load by themselves, instead surrendering to the newly found concept of unfairly stacked teams controlling the upper portion of most league's standings. From a spectator's perspective this is both glorious and disgusting, as it makes the average game a chance for the ultimate highlight reel, while decrease any sense of parity amongst the two dozen or so teams in the leagues. This is similar to the world we live in, in which many large corporations have bought out others in an effort to dominate a particular portion of society's desires. This exists in the food market, for example McDonald's purchase of the booming Chipotle, along with Clear Channel's control over nearly every possible wavelength available on the radio. Within the music industry this happens daily as the small market independent labels are constantly being bought out (and buying into) the destructive powers of the powers that be. In some ways this has lead to a lack of individuality within these markets, as even our athletes, once portrayed as national heroes, are know acknowledging their own shortcomings in a sell out fashion. We live in a world where the exploits of these corporations are unavoidable, wherever you go there is something impacted by the Coca-Cola Corporation, or Sony, or any of the multibillion dollar companies that are able to essentially monopolize their fields. Take Google for exmaple, what started out as a search engine has blossomed into an enterprise that owns the formerly powerful AOL network along with YouTube, perhaps the most prominent website there is. The true question is what the direction will be for the future, whether or not this trend will continue until a select handful of corporations own everything possible, where the entire all star teams are derived from four teams, and what this means for individuality in general. Has our generation, evidently more focused on insane proportions of money than integrity, lost touch with the desire for the Mom n Pop? - Craig Shepherd

Just Don't Be Stupid - New Media, Bad Behavior, and Child Endangerment

Dude, I'm consistently fascinated by the lack of awareness that folks have about the power and pitfalls that come along with the power we now have to create, post, and widely circulate media.  This news story chronicles a recent tale of a college guy who used creative editing and online media to land himself in prison.  Evan Emory gained access to a 1st grade class, sang a nice little song to them, and then reedited the video to make it appear as if he was singing a lude tune to them.  Emory eventually received a 2 month prison sentence and evaded the child pornography charge (and consequent mandatory sex offender registration).  I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this situation.  On the one hand, it falls firmly under the same category as the Asians in the Library video and politicians who send out racially offensive emails as jokes, and folks who lose jobs (or nearly do so) for things they posted on facebook.  Use your head!!!  Anything you post or email takes on a life of its own.  You no longer have control of how your material or your name is used at that point. You never know who will receive it, change it, or bury you with it.  On the other hand, this isn't in fact child pornography or child endangerment.  He never exposed the students to any of the racy material depicted in the video.  He was just skillful with his computer.  One article compares him being punished for this crime as the same as charging Anthony Hopkins for the killing of Janet Leigh in Psycho (fyi, those are the actors who played the characters).  Where do we draw the line when the issue seems to be one of poor judgment and individual idiocy rather than actual criminal behavior.  I wonder if folks' good sense will catch up with their new media options.