Chocophone or Vanillaphone?
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So, I did it. I connected up to the multiverse of mobile. This happened after the long-awaited, proverbial leap that AT&T has made to supporting the Android operating system (Google phone). Being newly immersed in the mobile world of constantly-updated reminders, messages, comments, posts, videos, tweets, and shout-outs calls gives me this previously unknown insight into another digital divide previously unseen: Platform. The corporate marriage (and divorce) party has caused this divide, and the ‘big two’ (Apple & Google) seem to stack up on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their app development procedures.
The big white fruit has chosen total software & hardware integration, which has essentially caused a vertical monopoly whereby Apple controls all of the soft and hardware development across the board. What does this mean? It means total compatibility for users, at the high cost of total monopoly. What’s the alternative? The mobile community would tend to see the Android platform as the opposite, embodying the open-development model- the underdog of the three major platforms out there (the third, and still most widely used in the states being Blackberry).
However – amidst this clouded debate over which is the ‘better’ platform, I propose an alternative model of thinking- that the choice one makes in mobile platform is almost irrelevant to the more pressing necessity of BOTH in the market simultaneously. Blasphemy, you say? Perhaps- but I think that in order for mobile tech platforms to progress, we actually need the attributes brought about by both in order to push each other into higher capacity. Apple offers stability, scalability, and a highly-supported system – at a higher financial cost; Google offers a more economically-friendly, open-ended platform that isn’t as standardized (much in the way Linux isn’t standardized). The Underdog pushes the Big Guy to offer more features (like flash support?) and a more open app market, while the Big Guy pushes back with their monolithic marketing power, forcing more progress on the Android platform. The same goes for blackberry; and this seems one of the only pro’s of this extreme form of capitalism in which we live: any time you’ve got multiple competitors its going to force them to fight for the customer’s dollar, while the market democratically ‘decides’ by ‘voting’ (buying) certain technologies.
All in all, I see the two (or three) models of mobile tech companies as encouraging digital democracy in the fast-paced age of handheld portable devices. May the best men tie.
Tags: Apple, Digital Democracy, Google, Mobile
Rube Goldberg, Meet Vimeo.
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The band ‘Okay, Go’ created a viral video based on something called a Rube Goldberg Machine, a gient contraption whose simple goal is dwarfed by its complex process of accomplishing that goal. What’s the point? See for yourself.
View on Vimeo.
Also, there’s a great TED Talk on ‘the making of’ for you gearheads interested in how they actually pulled this sucker off. Enjoy!
The Death of Advertising
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View on Vimeo.
Here is a short docu-style narrative I produced for local agency Brand Narrative to spread the word about content-based marketing.
Sound, 2.0
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We now live in an era saturated with Web 2.0 applications, where it seems nothing simply resides on our lonely little hard drives at home sitting in dusty towers.
If you haven’t checked it out, Soundcloud is an amazing way to solve the music/mix sharing conundrum. Before its launch, people have had few attractive options short of hiring a programmer for the purposes of putting together something that would work in only one form, in one place. Fast-forward to 2010:
Techstep Live by codasound
Enjoy a Coda DJ Mix, courtesy of Soundcloud 
Digital Storytelling – The Media Grab
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We no longer live in a time and place where media is innocent. (wait…have we ever?) When you press record and that red light begins to blink, you objectify the moment- and immediately create friends- and enemies! Where you aim a camera or a microphone is a decision, an opinion- and many a person will take issue with your choice, depending on what you decide to show & how you’re showing it.
About a month ago when I had the opportunity to be on A/V crew for the recent MAPS 2010 Conference. Shooting with three cams in the mainroom of 800+ people, we were responsible for reliably recording all the presenters onstage, from Alex & Allison Grey to Alex ‘Sasha’ Shulgin; both for the projected screens up front & for archival purposes as well. Things were running smoothly as we began filming a packed Friday schedule.
Not long into the conference, however, people began swarming the camera operators & media technicians for access to the footage – not that I blame them (man were there some cooool talks!) After awhile, we got tired of telling all the media inquisitors to go check with our higher-ups for permission! after all, the privacy and security of both the presenters and MAPS as an organization is highly at stake- should any footage be released and used for purposes other than by MAPS-designated productions, opinions start to fly- which can certainly undermine the credibility of a movement dealing with such a (still) volatile set of issues in our stubborn Western culture. The conference certainly showed me the potential positive and negative weight any piece of media can carry- if a clip of video on the news could make or break something, such as a movement or institution or idea, then why isn’t it used that way? Oh, wait a minute….!
So what’s different about the power of media today than 30 years ago? The microchip has collapsed thousands of miles of roads into nanosecond pulses of light over a single strand of glass fiber – in layman’s terms – THE NEWS HAPPENS ALOT QUICKER.
The instantaneous nature of digital audio and video recording (recently dubbed “digital storytelling” by a new client) is now such that a video clip of illegal whaling taken on a boat off the coast of Australia can be beamed to CNN faster than you can say “gigabit wireless,” and an iPhone video taken in downtown Santa Cruz during the riots can make the public news on TV the next morning. Brilliant.
Welcome to digital storytelling in 2010, where you can walk around a party with your iPad while controlling the VJ projections from anywhere in the room…secretly…muahaha.
Is this terrible or great? I think it’s all about application…
p.s. here’s the opening speeches:
http://vimeo.com/11447375
Tags: documentary, media permissions, tactical media, video
Entrance into the information superhighway, at last.
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JesseClark.org has been archived and replaced with a gateway to multiple sites now, one of which is this new little corner of the internet…this will now be my digital hub for everything audio, video, and generally creative… it’s my first time self-hosting any sort of WordPress or the like, so bear with me folks! It’s all terrifyingly exciting.
With the new homepage layout you can get to all the media hub sites including the music of Coda, the Cinematic Syndicate, and the newfangled VJKITCHEN.COM, a new outlet for projection, animation, and video art in the Santa Cruz area. This VJ Kitchen is a joint venture with projection-goddess-gone-fashionista Marina Fini & R2 the Specialist, and we would like you to know that we highly endorse projecting pixels all over everything in sight. Especially pets and silverware.
What’s the blog for? First and foremost, I realized my old site lacked an easy way to freshen it up every week with fresh projects, video, music, etc. Beyond an outlet for content, though, this will hopefully contribute to peoples’ ability to network with projects of the media sort. Expect a photo and video gallery soon, interspersed with rants about the freedom of information in 2010 and the fate of holographic filmmaking to come.
Coda, over and out.
Tags: media hub news, video
