This is a project of Claudia & mine, for our Web Skills class. We enjoyed planning and making it, but had some technical disputes, more with the actual equipment than each other.

Because of some issues we had with converting the file to AVI so as to upload it on Vimeo, we had to choose the first thing that worked. Which, unfortunately, came with a logo that is not only unattractive on its own, but it blocks out a chunk of our words and quotes in the video. Had I been able to find an application that did not end in .exe, as my computer does not support it, we could have solved this problem sooner.
I am hoping we don’t have to redo anything, because it has been somewhat an emotional schlep. Also, we had some difficulties with looping, and the original video is not 2.13 minutes but 1.40.

Other than that, Claudia and i are very proud of our video and our story,

and we hope you like it.

-Gina, DO5

By stating it is a hype, we are saying that it is big right now and will eventually go out of style, but what people seem to be missing is that even though not everyone uses it, everyone who uses the web  or watches the news, knows about it; it is already integrated in the way newscasters report the news, how pr agents think about getting products under public attention and how celebrities connect with their fans. It’s also a great way to communicate a thought with everyone in your “following”, your contact list.

CNN newscasters and presenters like Larry King use their twitter page as a tool to gain information from new and usually unavailable sources, say in the form of “citizen news writing”. They also use it to get people to react to the news as it happens, as a form to show where the focus lies and what they might be missing, and a broad variety of opinions from viewers on various actual topics.

More and more people are finding Twitter to be a handy and entertaining way to stay ahead of the curve. The trick is to weed out the useless information, like the hypochondriac updating their latest health problems, or the negative reactions and swearing to a badly phrased statement by some celebrity. As long as people were to use it wisely and safely, and do not get too personal (it takes a lot of previous self exposure before you can ‘invade someones private life’ on the web), it could be a great tool for direct interaction with wide group of people for a greater cause.

Check Out;

www.be-a-magpie.com, a Twitter advertising campaign for young people to promote and test products via control groups on the site. Login required.

www.twitcause.com, an online community focused on sharing your experiences with charity work with others, mainly through Twitter and blogs.

“The Net Generation” is technically a mix of generation Y (late 1980s to late 1990s) and of Z (mid 1990s to late 2000s). It stands for the generation born directly into the information age, as well as the first “global generation.”

This term implies that everyone under 20 years of age today, has never seen a day without the world wide web in their lives, and that they would be least likely to function in a world suddenly without the web.

Many young Americans and Europeans are used to living in a high-tech world, but their peers in developing countries are not. The World Bank states that 40% of the world’s population have never made a phone call, and 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day. For teenagers abroad, ‘technology’ is relatively outdated in comparison.

Of course there are many benefits of developing countries being linked to the larger world, such ass better medical knowledge among households, more information about politics that the government might be withholding. According to Africa ONE, an organization committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, citizens go through great means to get to the internet, as it is just the best way to spread news fast.

The man who christened the ‘Net Generation’ in his 1997 bestseller, “Growing Up Digital”, is named Don Tapscott. He states;

“As the first global generation ever, the ‘Net Geners’ are smarter, quicker and more tolerant of diversity than their predecessors. They care strongly about justice, and are actively trying to improve society.”

Read more about the characteristics of the Net Generation in this interview with Don Tapscott, as well as this Business Week article.

Blogger Geoffrey  Greene wrote a piece called Generation Distraction, about the down side of being born into the era of information.

Barack Obama’s election campaign was described as the best ever led campaign for presidential candidacy, even by people who voted for Clinton or McCain.

A big part of that has to do with the new role that social media has taken in our way of spreading the word, and how Obama’s PR team made use of that knowledge. He had a Facebook and MySpace page, used Twitter and managed to spread his thoughts, ideas and plans for his presidency through his own blog.

The use of social networking for political use is not a new concept, but has been revamped and exploited since the success of now President Obama’s campaign, and campaign leaders feel that social media gives political parties a freedom to reach audiences in a way they never could before.

It seems we hear more about ‘Democrats’ incorporating social media tools in their agenda than ‘Republicans.’ Peter Leyden, the director of the think-tank called New Politics Institute, has his own theory that he shared during an interview about politics & social media;

“The party that is out of power usually adopts the new tools to get into power quicker.”

Click here to see the rest of the interview.

We can not measure in numbers how many people were influenced by social media to vote, but we can know from the vast amount of information coming from all angles, that people know more about who is running for Leader of the Free World than ever before.

By those standards, there is no longer any excuse for making ill-informed choices in the voting booth.

Check Out;

Interviews with various US state representatives on how they use social media.

The Online Journalism Review’s interview with TechPresident.com founder, Andrew Rasiej.

http://www.epolitics.com/, online advocacy tools & tactics blog.

GiVi. Also goes by “ElleDuce”. Yes, this is refference to the italian term for “Natural Leader.” Don’t know why i got the nickname, but i assure you i have no Mussolini type hangups.

I love the sentiment of traditional (so, jamaican-british) Skinhead subculture, especially the music. i love subculture as a rule actualy, but i’ve never really belonged anywhere. Somedays this is a hastle, like when i want to write about it and i feel like a sham because, well, what authority do i have?

I’m half Dutch, have Burundian, and grew up in Cherry Hill, Kingston, Jamaica. I currently study International Comminications & Media in The Netherlands. I plan to combine this study with more culture studies & styling.

I’ve few true skills to speak of, its more my interests that make people assume that i’m talented, when really my main skill in life is that i’m good at promoting the skills and hard labour of others. it’s not a bad skill to have really, and a big part of why i’m doing this course.

I enjoy live music, museums, arthouse and vintage films, blogs & columns, South of Nowhere, Papermag and other online newssites, makeup artistry, Afropunk, street fashion,  the odd contemporary dance class and a twisted sense humor. Enter stage left, freaky freds of the world.

I hold great spiritual ties to the Bahai and Catholic faith, but am not religious.

I am a pretty candid person.

My ultimate rolemodel would be a mix between Josephine Baker, Daniel Clowes and John Waters.

That’s me in a nutshell. Care to see the nut?