In 2007, critically-acclaimed English rock band Radiohead released "In Rainbows." Fans were given the option to pay whatever amount they wanted, including nothing. Though some detractors felt Radiohead was erring in giving the album away for free, it worked out very well for the band.


Cover art for Radiohead's "In Rainbows"


The principles behind Radiohead's decision to release its album essentially for "free," is an idea that Lawrence Lessig would probably agree with. Lessig, a legal scholar from Standford, argues eloquently in his book "Free Culture" about the nature of cultural production, its history, and how digital technologies have transformed how it is distributed currently. Lessig's arguments, unsurprisingly, center around the legal history of cultural production as he explains how recent copyright laws are anathema to freedom of expression.

Lessig does a brilliant job of introducing the reader to the main issues surrounding copyright laws and how the Web has complicated things. This is not to say the Web is to blame. Quite the contrary. The Web is a great facilitator to sharing ideas and content, Lessig says, and I agree. However, the author is quick to point out that piracy in its conventional sense-- the act of stealing from those who produce or distribute content is wrong-- Lessig explains that file sharing and other methods of sharing information online are not so clear-cut. Lessig points to history to support his claims.

According to the book, copyrights have not always been so clearly defined. While copyright law today encompasses things that written, songs that are recorded, computer programs that are developed, videogames that are designed, and other cultural artifacts, early English copyright law only protected books. But these early copyrights were designed with the aim of protecting the distribution of books, and not the artists.

Lessig connects this argument to today as he explains that artists still reap little of the reward their works produce. Drawing from the work of various artists of various kinds, they are always happy with the way copyright laws work either. Unsurprisingly, it is the MPAA (A body responsible for producing motion pictures) and the RIAA (the lobbyist arm of the recording industry) that are the biggest culprits.

The author's arguments rotate between examples drawn from legal history and philosophical arguments supporting the notion that spreading culture is important. After painting a nuanced, detailed sketch of the problem, Lessig recommends a remedy for the copyright issue: a new way of legislating copyright concerns. Lessig feels that the creative properties of artists should be defended against those who would try to profit wrongfully from other's work, but at the same time, appeals for the importance of sharing work that is culturally significant.

Sometimes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Lessig understands this, and his assessment is thorough and well-reasoned. Coming into the reading, I expected this to be simply an assault on the importance of copyright law, but Lessig's work is much more than that. It is an appeal to all thinking people to reconsider how copyright laws are harming the spread of knowledge and culture and aims rectify the problem. As media outlets become increasingly more powerful, it is important for thinking people to stand up and take notice. Lessig's work caused me to take notice.

It's no secret that I hate my job.  In fact, I've disliked most jobs I've had because of crummy co-workers and awful bosses.  (I've worked on golf cart maintenence, bussed tables, waited tables, and worked at a gym.....all sucked).  But one thing that I've always been wary of has been being online friends with co-workers.

This article from NY Times discusses the pros and cons of accepting friend requests from co-workers and bosses on networks like Facebook and Myspace.  I highly suggest checking this article out; it's got some awesome tips and guidelines for how to handle online relationships with co-workers.

 

I found Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture to be a very interesting book to read.  My real fascination came from the fact that I'm a musician, and am always interested in reading about copyright laws and the history behind them. 

I've found that the laws concerning copyrights are very complicated at times and difficult to get a grasp on, and sometimes it becomes tough to form a solid opinion as to exactly how you feel about certain aspects of the law.

I liked Lessig's section on Music on page 55, as well as his suggestion for creator compensation on page 106.  A lot of my friends download music for free, in fact my one buddy JD regularly tells me about how he "hasn't bought a CD in years" because he downloads entire discographies.  To some, this may seem like a smart move, and a great way to save money.  But let me explain how this looks from the opposing side.

As a musician who is trying to promote myself independently, the whole process rests on my shoulders.  No management team, no record label, no PR group, nothing; just me and the help and support of my family.  Let's do a little math:

- First, we have supplies and tools to do my job (write and perform music.)  Guitars, amplifiers, microphones, mic stands, PA system, cables, extension cords, guitar strings, picks, guitar straps, effects pedals, slides, pickups, and  capos. 

- Now let's add in the instructional DVDs and lessons that I've learned from of over the years.

- I began playing music at the age of 12, so factor in 10 years worth of time spent working on my music (I'm primarily self-taught.)

- Add in the hours of practice each week, as well as time spent working on new material, shaping and crafting songs, and generally working to improve.

- I released an album in October 2008, (yes, a shameless plug, but I have to promote myself, remember??)  I had to pay for the time spent in the studio to record, as well as pay for the album to be printed and sealed, and then shipped out to me.

- Lastly, let's factor in the money spent on gas when I drive around to perform and promote my music.

Now imagine I wake up one day and find my album is up on Limewire, and everyone's downloading it for free because they don't want to pay for it. 

I only tell you this to remind you that a copyright protection, in this case, is there for a reason.  I think a lot of people see copyright protection as almost an inconvenience.  My friend JD doesn't get why you would pay for a CD when you can just dowload it for free?  CDs may be "expensive" in some people's eyes, but you have to remember that you're not paying for the plastic case, or the CD itself, or the lyric book.  You're paying for the time, energy, and money spent by the musicians/songwriters who have dedicated their lives to creating music (or any art form, for that matter) for people's entertainment.  Sure, I want to share my music with the world, but honestly, I don't want to starve in the process.

Now let's look at Lessig's point about building off of previous creations.  He gives the impression throughout the book that if we begin to limit what people are allowed to "add on to" or "springboard" off of, that our free culture will suffer.  I disagree.  Again, let me relate this back to music.

I'm a big John Butler Trio fan.  Now if I ripoff this song, Pickapart, and make some changes, but claim I've only built on what was already there, there's no way you're going to convince me that that's ok.  Instead, I feel that the drive to avoid copyright infringement has pushed me to study JBT's style, mesh it with my other influences, and create something unique to myself.  I have a few songs that are in the same style as JBT, but swiping specific melodies and progressions would be piracy in every sense of the word.  Lessig's assertion that the concept of "property" is detrimental to growth in a free culture is a bit absurd, but again, I may feel this way because of my background in music.  As my classmate Chris said in his post, " His theme is that if this occurs, 'Free Cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less.  Ours was a free culture.  It is becoming less so."  (p. 30)'"  There is plenty to build upon without ripping others off. 

Let me ask you this; if I came to you and said, "Hey a friend of mine approached me and said he wanted to use the melodies and vocal patterns from my song Jet Plane for a documentary he's filming.  He doesn't want to use my song, he just wants to create a song a lot like it and add in some piano parts, maybe a violin, and use a female lead singer."  Would you say that's ok?  Sure, he's adding on to what I did, but is the song not, at its core, still my creation? 

Copyright protection is something I feel passionately about, and this book really made me get really passionate really quick!

I'm sure we all remember back in February when Facebook was about to put into effect a new set of Terms and Conditions that would grant them ownership of users' content, photos, etc, even after an account was deleted.  And I'm sure we also remember the total outrage that ensued.

Well it looks like they listened when we complained.  According to a New York Times article, after the enormous amount of protest and and resistance from users, Facebook has drawn up some new Terms and Conditions, and allowed users to vote on whether or not they should be put into effect (these new Terms and Conditions grant ownership of content to users once again.)

I think this is a great step forward for social networking.  It proves that the users really are the ones in control.  It's easy for changes to be made and it's up to users to simply adapt and get used to it, but the fact is we are the ones who keep these networks running.  If it weren't for us, there would be no Facebook, or Myspace, or Twitter, or Skype, etc.  I was very happy to see this unfold the way it did.

 

 

 

     I have become increasingly interested in the role that technology has in constraining art. But when I became the artist, and had to work within the constraints of an unfamiliar medium, my academic curiosity quickly vanished, and I was left in intermittent fits of frustration. While my response to Fontstruct is probably borne more out of lack of typographical skills than it is with a problem with the program, the fact remains that building a font is a fairly difficult process.

     The first step to designing my font with Fontstruct was to first be a pencil sketch showing what I thought the font should look like. I didn't like this idea because I was afraid that I would be unable to translate something I drew onto the program. So, I just started playing around with Fontstruct.



     I started at the top of the alphabet and began working my way down. I was having trouble getting used to Fontstruct's limitations-- I found making curved lines of any type difficult. So, I tried to work within the framework I was provided with.

    But then, I ran into a problem: a clear lack of consistency. You can notice that the B is smaller than the A and the C and that some of the letters are just not recognizable. So I kept working.



You can see the difference between joefont2 (which was a clone of joefont1-- long story) and joefont3, which is much more similar to final product than was joefont1. The biggest difference was the size of the font. Initially, I was making my fonts around 4 or 5 blocks high, which was much too small. Then I experimented making the uppercase letters eight blocks high and lowercase ones four blocks high, but then I read in Lupton's "Thinking With Type" that the x height should be slightly more than half of the tallest uppercase letters. So, I adjusted the sizes again.
  

   But things weren't so simple. While I was deciding how large to make my fonts on Thursday night, I began having problems with Fontsruct. The page would load, but the Fonstructor would not. I had to remake the font almost entirely from scratch because the fonts were too small. This was frustrating at first because I felt as though I was throwing five hours of work away. It wasn't that bad as I was able to quickly re-assemble my font learning tricks I had learned from trial and error. Though I was no pro, I was getting much better at using Fontstruct.

     After spending so much time with Fonstruct, I thought I was seeing penguins on the page. So, I decided to make my font look like penguins. At the time, it didn't look like a stretch. If you look closely, you will notice that all of my letters have "eyes" that make the letters appear that they are looking at you. That is why I called the font "Vigilance".



This is what my font looked like just before the final pass. Notice how the lowercase "t" looks funny-- I had it dipping below the line. I don't know why I did that, and I fixed it for the last pass. I am also notably missing punctuation marks. Writing a sentence without punctuation marks is difficult, so I added them as well.



     I really like how Fonstruct allow you to type with your font. I think it provides the user with a better sense of whether the font is usable or not. I think my font at this point was usable, though not ideal.

     I spent some more time working on vigilance, polishing out the rough edges, adding punctuation marks, and checking for consistency. I am pretty pleased with the final product. Though a few letters did not turn out quite right, I am happy with the results overall.




     In addition to designing a font, our class was also charged with designing a color palette. I couldn't find a photo I was happy with to use as an inspiration for my palette, so I played around with Adobe's Kuler a bit.

     The application conveniently places a color wheel within easy reach to experiment with colors in real time. I enjoyed moving the points on the wheel around, and seeing which colors seemed to go well together. Then I came away with a palette that I liked. It is pictured below.




     I played with the wheel until I found a combination I was happy with. Why did I stop here? For some reason, these colors all seemed to go together. When you look at the color wheel, it actually makes sense.

   



My base color, as evidenced by the extra ring, which falls in the purplish side of the wheel, is matched almost perfectly by the olive color directly across. Any color that lies directly across from another color is said to be its opposite, and thus complimentary.

The Teal-like color I used is similar, and just a shade or two lighter than the light teal which lies closer to the center of the wheel. The ruddy color lies directly opposite the light teal. My eyes told me these colors go together because they are related, whether opposite or highly similar.

     I will never look at typography the same way again. It is difficult to remain consistent, original, striking, and yet follow good practices. On top of all these factors, it's important to remember that we are also working within a new medium (in this case Fonstruct) which has its own set of limitations.

This is my font, and as you can see, it’s absolutely fontastic.  I’ve always liked fonts that are odd and off the wall, things like Bobcat or X Files, so when I began designing my own font in Fontstruct, I wanted to make letters that were a bit exaggerated and imperfect.  I’d say I’ve definitely succeeded in that. 

 

 

I started by making each of my capital letters eight boxes high and eight boxes wide.  I began with A, and once I finished the letter and had it the way I wanted it, I copied it, and would paste it into the grid of each new letter I was working on.  This was a way for me to ensure that each of my letters was going to be proportional to the previous one.  The same principal went for lowercase letters, which were four high and four wide.  My making the lowercase half the height of the capital letters is a principle that can be seen on page 36 of Lupton’s Thinking With Type.

 

When I started fooling around with Fontstruct, I had a few ideas for my letters, but found that trying to translate what was in my head into the actual program proved to be a more difficult task than I initially anticipated.  I goofed around until I created the A that I now have, which kind of looks like Pac Man, southbound, chasing after some delicious dots.  Honestly, that’s the first thought that came into my head when I finished work on A and it kind of made me laugh, so I decided to make all my letters kind of rounded, bubbly, and thick to go along with the theme.

 

 

 

My font is more in the style of the Roman fonts, as Lupton points out on page 45.  (Side note, I didn’t even think until after I’d already finished and downloaded my font that I would need numbers as well as the letters.  That’s why in my printed-out version of this post that uses my font, I have to spell out all the numbers I write.)  You can also see that my tracking is pretty even, but the space between letters is pretty wide, which would me more in the way of positive tracking, as Lupton points out on page eighty one.  I did this because of the style that I created.  The fat, rounded letters would have been too mushed together to read had I made the tracking any less.  To see my full alphabet in all its glory, just click here.

           

(The early stages of capital G)

 

 

I also used Kuler to create a color palate.  The picture I used is one that a friend of mine snapped on South Street in Philadelphia while we were there walking around in the fall. 

 

 

 

 

Like some of my classmates, Gage’s discussion on the colors of social division was one that interested me.  In my palate, you can see the red, gold, and blue colors, that were talked about in the book (red for freemen, gold for nobility, blue for slaves) but I liked that they weren’t too striking or bright, but rather more along the lines of a pastel.  This also gives the colors a calming effect, which I found interesting because to me, the picture is very vivid and alive with color and is very striking, while the color palate, though based off the picture, looks a bit more subdued and placid.

 

IPhones blow my mind as it is.  One of my buddies has one, and sometimes we'll be out at a bar or bowling, and something will come up in conversation, like the name of a movie character or what a celebrity looks like, and he can break out his IPhone and in seconds find the answers to our questions and then start surfing around the web a bit.  And as my classmate Brandon pointed out in his Twitter review, there are plenty of cool apps that go along with the IPhone that make it even more amazing.  But all you IPhone junkies had better brace yourselves, because it looks like a new Hulu application may be upon us in only a matter of months!

I'm not very familiar with the IPhone and the applications that go along with it, but from what I've heard and read, there was some hype about a Hulu application last year, and that all fell through.  But it seems more believable this time around, especially since there is going to be a new version of the IPhone launched this summer (the IPhone OS 3.0 software update, as I just read.)

If you check out this article from CNN, they admit that nothing has been set in stone just yet, and there are a few factors that still leave the Hulu app rumor up in the air, (like the fact that a Hulu application that would allow IPhone users to watch videos, movies, and listen to music all without leaving the app.  This, of course, would damage ITunes.)  But come on, with all the possible apps that are floating around out there (like this one, which tracks hurricanes, and one for news and updates about gastroenterology......who is using this stuff?), I think a Hulu app has been a long time coming.

 

 

Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star's Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences provides an interesting backdrop for me while I conduct interviews for my Oral History project. Whereas the goals of a medical classification system and a small set of interviews may sound at face value to be very different, I disagree. Both endeavors try to get at the hear of what truth is to  better understand a set of phenomena. The two practices diverge, however, when we look at the ultimate goals. Whereas a classification seeks to find the "Truth" of where medical conditions come from, my project is interested in the "truth" according to a particular person. While Big T truth sounds more trustworthy and worthwhile than small t truth, it is important to understand that both truths are not really absolute; they are highly subjective, constructive, and constrained.

For years, I always trusted official documents- archives, medical records, tax records and the like- because they were sanctioned by a governing body who I had believed was interested solely in the accuracy in the information it reports. But Bowker and Star paint a picture of medical classification, for instance, that is far different than I imagined. The book focuses a chunk of its work on the ICD, the International Classification for Diseases and many of the problems inherent in its structure. The authors point to several conflicts of interested between doctors, statisticians, and bureaucrats which serve to make reliable information impossible to attain. Doctors don't want to fill out forms for people who've passed away; they want to help the living. Statisticians want hyper-reliable information, but always want to limit the number of diseases to keep their numbers easier to work with. Bureaucrats want the process to run efficiently. Mind you, none of the groups here are malicious in their intent (at least I'm not suggesting they are) but it has to be noted that such a vaunted organization as the ICD has a great deal of obstacles in its path to get reliable information out to interested parties.

I think of my Oral History project in relation to the ICD because I initially thought the information I was gleaning in my interviews to be of a lower order of importance than the information groups like the ICD attained. But I no longer feel that way. Information of any type needs to go through filters- technical, social, and the potential of human errors. No type of information is strictly truer than other types, though some can be more reliable. And even this information must be held to high level of scrutiny.




In this picture taken from South Park, former Vice President Al Gore explains "Manbearpig" to South Park students, many of which don't believe in this far-fetched character. Manbearpig is a metaphor for global warming.

Information cannot escape the social grasp of those who wish to use it, manipulate it, or hide it. As long as we remember that, we can look at information critically.

Because "Big T" and "small t" truths are both constructed, I feel I must modify all truth with quotation marks. That's where I got the idea from the title. We should remember that the filters through which information must travel influence the sort of truth that emerges at the end.

BigTweet (BT) is a Twitter bookmarklet that allows users to post Tweets from any site. But lots of Twitter apps allow users to post from any site. What makes BigTweet special? For starters, as its name suggests, users can post big Tweets- up to 240 characters, up from the standard 140. Also, BT has a built-in tinyrl maker, which uses the bit.ly service, making posting from any site even easier- opening up a new tab with a tinyurl maker is no longer necessary.  BT makes posting to Twitter from any webstie quick, easy, and efficient.




Actually, BT can't entirely circumvent Twitter's 140 character limit, it just extends singular Tweets to two Tweets. This works, though, because large BT Tweets will show up at the same time, and will indicate which comes first by calling itself 1/2 or 2/2. This works for the most part, but it does provide problems as it can separate hash tags. If posting a big Tweet, and the hashtag is at the end of the post, it will show up on the second post, but not the first. I haven't found a way to get around the problem. If anyone knows a way around this, do tell. Still, the big post feature for BT is good for when the user has something to say that just cannot fit into 140 limit.

It's easy to change the size of posts from 140 characters to 240 characters.




To make Tweets large, the user must simply click on the "Posting" tab, and check the "240 character mode" option. Then, Tweets larger than 240 chracters will post  as number 1 of 2 and 2 of 2.

Another interesting, though less well-known feature of BT is its ability to let users post using 64 special characters distributed across two different pages at the click of a button. Performing this taks is simple; one must simply click the "Special Characters" button on the left side of the window which is directly under the "Text Control" button. Page 1 of the special characters looks like this:





The second page of BT's special character page looks like this and is equally easy to use:




Also, BT can post to Friendfeed as well, another social networking site.

Dragging the BT button to the top of the most recent version of Firefox was no problem at all. Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer are supported as well, though there seems to have been a small problem with IE (surprise).

Though BT is simple to use, its site added a tutorial page anyway. The tutorial explains the service while using it. The explanation of how to perform various things with the application are spelled out in the application. It's pretty clever.



Aesthetically, BT is Spartan, and not as in Frank Miller's 300 spartan, but as in bland-bordering-on-ugly spartan. But that's okay; the application's main draw is its usability, not its aesthetic design. In a future iteration, I'd be happy to see designer make the application at least a little more nice to look at. I'll take function over form any day, but I'd rather have both. And with many Twitter Apps looking increasingly sophisticated and sharp, it would behoove the makers of the app to make it nice to look at.


BT also has a FAQ page, though it's kind of short because it's such a simple application.



Twitter's prime academic purpose is to transfer interesting information. I know that, sometimes, I see sites, and intend to share them, but never do. BT works so seamlessly that it makes this transference of information easy. There isn't much to say here in terms of discussion, actually. When you find something you like, you can easily link to it. BT, and other Twitter apps like it, can help users add to the Twitter discussion. While the discussion is not a two-way street as it were, users' ability to put links in Twitter make the site an increasingly more important repository of information all the time. The more people use Twitter and the more easily people can put links on the site (thanks to the bit.ly tool), the better the site will be.

Looking at a list of Twitter applications on Squidoo, it's clear that many apps are limited. But practically speaking, BT can only be used sometimes, and in certain instances. While one could use BT all the time if he or she was interested simply in posting to Twitter, I don't believe that enables the full Twitter experience. Twitter, I believe, is much more interesting when I can see what everyone else is saying.

By fixing the one glaring flaw of BT- its lack of full Twitter functionality, this application could have become indispensable. It already has two notable advantages going for it in the form of its post from anywhere and its built-in url shrinker. Enabling users to engage in conversations with friends and see other people's updates would have been icing on the cake.

BigTweet is certainly a good application which does what it claims to do, and does it well. I just wish that it did a little more- that it would integrate full Twitter functionality into the application. Come on, people, make it happen! Still, I can recommend BT for anyone who just needs a little more space, and doesn't want to keep a special tab open to make urls shorter.

Sorting Things Out, by Bowker and Star is an examination of classifications that have become woven into lives without us even realizing it, how these classifications affect us and the way we think about things, and how they were formulated in the first place.

 

That being said, I found this book to be near impossible to get through.  The subject had great potential to be interesting, but the academic jargon and over-the-top writing style not only put me off from the get-go, but it nearly put me to sleep at the same time.  Furthermore, instead of making my way through the readings at a good clip, I had to constantly re-read sections to figure out what the authors were talking about.  I often felt that this whole book as a case of “less is more”; it seemed that they often opted for pompous-type ways of expressing ideas.  For example, on page 158, they say, “Despite a growing body of evidence from sociology and the history of science, distributed artificial intelligence and distributed cognitive science, images of universal policy and encyclopedic knowledge often invoke the ideal imposition of universal standardization schemes.”  I felt that statements like this one were a bit overdone.

 

I did, however, find the subject matter intriguing.  The concept of “torque” was one that interested me, especially in its demonstration in Chapter 6 that dealt with the apartheid in South Africa.  It was amazing to see how a simple classification system became responsible for forcing people to change residences and jobs, follow a set of rules, show proper documentation, etc.  It was also scary to see the kind of power classification can have.

 

I was constantly trying to relate the ideas in the book to real-life examples that I deal with on a regular basis.  The one that worked best for me would be musical classifications.  As a musician, people often ask me, “Well what kind of music do you write?” or “What’s your style?”  This becomes a difficult question to answer.  My influences range from jazz (George Benson and Al Jarreau) to rock (Led Zepplin and Jimi Hendrix) to blues (Joe Bonamassa and Stevie Ray Vaughan) to jam (The John Butler Trio) to acoustic (Ben Harper).  They all become mixed together to create a sound that I feel is unique.  But people want a classification, they want to place it in a box or a filing cabinet because they feel that this makes it organized and easier to understand and pass around.  If I say I’m a blues artist, I’m incorrect.  If I say I’m a rock player, that’s still not quite right.  What happens if I don’t fit into a category?  What happens if I’m categorized incorrectly?

 

Furthermore, I am currently working on an oral history project about the punk rock scene in South Jersey.  While doing a little research, I’ve found at least 12 sub-genres (Glam Punk, Anarcho Punk, Horror Punk, etc) and more than 13 fusion genres (Celtic Punk, Cow Punk, Gypsy Punk, etc).

 

I think that this was one of the points that the authors were trying to make; that no classification system is 100% accurate or complete. We must understand and recognize the classifying structures that surround us, and accept that they sometimes need to evolve and grow.

I feel like I have a knack for picking stuff with weird names.  Either that, or there are some real strange folks naming these online applications and Web 2.0 things.  If it were up to me, I'd be calling stuff "Dragon Fire", or "Steel Blade", or maybe even "Crank 2: High Voltage......" (Well, come on, who's more manly and tough than Jason Statham?)  As if Twitterlicious wasn't odd enough, this week, I'll be talking about LuLu. 

 

LuLu was founded in 2002 as a way for independent publishers to publish their work (as an option other than being published by a mainstream publishing company). The idea is that anyone who wishes to publish a book, CD, etc, can do so for free.  This sounds too good to be true, but surprisingly, LuLu’s process is pretty fair: 

“You set your own price, we print and ship each item as it's ordered, and you collect 80% of the creator revenue on every sale.

Then your book is, if you choose, automatically listed for sale on the Lulu Marketplace - a booming ecommerce destination that attracts more than 900,000 unique visitors every week. Even better, Lulu's #1 ranking among self-publishing websites ensures that your work will show up at the top of the search results in places like Google and Yahoo.

We even make it possible for you to get your own ISBN, so you can make your masterpiece available in retail stores, libraries and schools around the world - online and off.”

 

The trade off for all these benefits, though, is that LuLu deals strictly with publishing, and they do not handle publicity or promotion of any works featured on the site; it’s up to the author to market and sell his or her work.

 

The author retains the full copyright, and work on a POD (print on demand) basis.  This means you only pay for the copies that are purchased.

 

Signing up is a snap, you simply need your name, email address, password, and a "store location", which is the LuLu equivalent to a MySpace-type personalized extension that's tagged onto the end of the LuLu web address.

 

 

            On the “Publish” page, you’re given a slew of options for media to be published including paperback and hardback books, text books, yearbooks, calendars, and even CDs and DVDs.  Once you click on your choice, you are taken to another screen that will help you personalize your work.  Each type of publishing differs depending on what type of media you are using (so comic books, which are an option, are different than paperback books, which are different that wedding albums, etc).  Paperback, for example, begins by asking for the title of your work and your name in the author space.  You then must choose your paper type (standard or publisher grade), size, binding type, and color options.  From there, all that’s left is to choose the file from your computer for upload, so long as they fall into the accepted formats (DOC, RTF, WPS, PDF, PS, Images (jpg, gif, png))

 

 

 

At this point, LuLu will make your file “print-ready.”  This is where I encountered a problem.  Your personalization options are largely determined by the length of your work.  Because I was trying to upload a short 10 page file just as a demonstration, I had to edit some of my options to get past the “print-ready” stage.  Even then, I still couldn’t get it to work, and as of right now, I’m not entirely sure why.

 

 

            But there is more to LuLu than just the publishing end of it.  Your dashboard gives you a great amount of info about your progress thus far, which includes sales and revenue summaries, and recent orders.  But there is also a social networking aspect to it as well.  You can search and add friends, and if you add in your “interests”, LuLu will search its database of members and suggest people you may find interesting.  When I first signed up, and went into the “My Friends” screen, two sentences stared me in the face: “You do not have any friends. How very sad for you.”  Thanks, LuLu.  If I wasn’t depressed enough that no one will publish my book and I have to do it on my own, you’ve made me perk right up by reminding me that I don’t even have friends in the online world.

 

 

            You also have the option of joining groups, which you can sort through by looking at the ones with the most recent activity, or ones with the most members.  You can also search groups by name, or if you find that no one is as cool as you are, you can make your own group, name it something witty and clever (since you are, technically, a published author now), and wait for other LuLu-ites to come begging for you to admit them into your exclusive and prestigious club.  (“I am the Key Master.”  “I am the Gatekeeper.”)

 

            All in all, the site is pretty impressive and is a great concept for up-and-coming authors/artists/musicians who want to get their work out there, but may not have the dough to do it.  As long as you’re cool with self-promotion, then LuLu may be the place for you.

 

 

 

I've always found the concept of advertising to be sort of curious. Why, after all, would I want a company's best pitch-man/woman selling me their wares? That opinion is going to be light on criticism and high on hyperbole. I've always preferred to get my information from "experts" of one kind or another who can give me an educated opinion on what types of products I should buy. By this, I don't mean I have no mind of my own; rather I seek out information about whatever item I wish to buy.





I will take notice of ads if they are executed with the same level of elegance and sophistication of this 1983 commercial for the Atari game Pole Position .

When I (unofficially) graduated from Rowan in 2006, I wanted to buy a new television. So I did research online, and settled on a Sony Bravia. I never saw ads for the set I wanted, but that had little sway over me. I did see Panasonic, Samsung, and even Hitachi ads, however. But the ads didn't mean anything to me because I educated myself about the product I was buying. Considering the dearth of websites that are devoted to educating their audiences, I'm guessing I'm not alone. Lots of other people want to be informed about the products they are buying.

Aside from sites such as US News and World Report, CNET, Wired, and any number of other specialty sites that review and evaluate products, many seek other people's opinions via message boards. Whereas I don't trust ads, some people may not trust "expert" websites, and would opt instead to seek out other "regular" users' opinions.



Ad blockers such as AdsCleaner (pictured above) remove ads from the html, letting browsers decode sites, now ad-free. The growing use of such applications further makes online ads less relevant.

Either way, ads are becoming less relevant. When we look at the growth of enthusiast sites and the speed in which word-of-mouth information can travel online, it's clear that ads can only have so much influence. When we remember that the web audience is no longer captive to any site for content, it would probably signal the death knell of ads. A recent article on Techdirt sums up the situation.
 
While people can always gripe about the relevance of a particular expert's opinion of a product compared to a non-expert, I find this development encouraging because now, companies must be held accountable, and produce good products, or else be blasted on the web. If I have $100 to spend on item X, and there are five versions of item X, but with varying build quality and features, I have the choice. The ball's in my court, and any company that produces and inferior product will be ignored.

I hope companies will spend more money making their products worthwhile and less time selling them to me. If I'm in the market, and their wares are the best value I can get, I'll buy.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.  It was a book that gave a great in-depth analysis of an art (and I know now that it is an art) that is often brushed off as being "for kids."

The first thing that really interested me was McCloud's distinction between "realistic" and "iconic".  I found this point to be especially powerful when, on page 36, he has a side-by-side comparison of the iconic version of himself and the realistic version of himself, stating that if he had illustrated himself in the realistic sense throughout the entire book, "...You would have been far too aware of the messenger to fully receive the message."

Another great portion of the book focused on the concept of "closure", especially between panels (a space called the "gutter").  McCloud really explains the power of the gutter on page 68 where he talks about the duty of reader-participation between panels.  I see his point, and agree that this is a very fun, powerful, and important part of comics.  But I also had a bit of a hard time accepting the concept 100%.  For example, his illustration of the murder scene, as well as his later examples of "Peek-a-boo" and the blinking eye, all made me think that the gutter space may leave a lot of room for error.  For example, if I saw two panels, both with an open eye, I wouldn't assume that it had ever closed or blinked, I would simply be under the impression that the creator drew the same eye twice.  This brings me to my first discussion question:

1)  Does the concept of closure in combination with the presence of gutters create the possibility for readers to make mistakes?  If so, could there be consequences to these mistakes?

I must also mention that I very much appreciated McCloud's distinction between the common styles of the East versus the West.  It was very cool seeing not only the aesthetic differences, but the thought process that is behind them as well.  This brings me to question numero dos:

2)  Japanese comics are cited as being more focused on "being there", and American comics more concerned with "getting there."  With our country now utilizing newer technologies that bring us more information faster and more frequently, would the Japanese style of 1,000 page comics that emphasize the moment-to-moment and aspect-to-aspect transitions have as great a success here?  Do you feel that our fast-paced lifestyles and technology would hinder our ability to appreciate this type of comic?

The discussion on time (Chapter 4) was another thought-provoking section.  I especially enjoyed his thoughts on linear movement from panel to panel, and how we, as readers, assume that as we read, the panels that lie behind us are the past and ahead of us are the future.  He then gave a very interesting example of non-linear possibilities on page 105.  This brought to mind our past discussions about information being displayed in a linear manner.

3)  Are comics (or information in general) better displayed in a linear sense, or would a non-linear approach yield better results?  Would it yield worse results?  Furthermore, what new possibilities may be opened up by going non-linear, and maybe even integrating "viewer choice"?

Another concept that caught my eye was McCloud's thoughts on images and colors conveying emotion to the viewer.  The discussions in Chapter 5 were great, and I liked that he talked about the influence of impressionist painting on the idea of images provoking an emotional and even sensual response.  In Chapter 8 he also talks about the power of color.  My next discussion question has to do with these two ideas:

4)  Would you say that images or colors are more effective at evoking a sensual response?  Would you say a combination of both?  *This question isn't aimed at just the idea of comics, but rather how we get our information, i.e. blog layouts, web pages, etc.

My last question comes from my newfound respect and understanding of comics. 

5)  Knowing now the process and knowledge that goes behind comics, how influential do you think they are in our society?  In addition, after reading Chapter 7 (The Six Steps) do you feel that comics can be a powerful outlet for social commentary, political views, etc?

I ask this last question because of a story I remember hearing in a class last semester.  During World War II, there the character Captain America debuted with this cover:

This, to me, is a great example of a powerful message being displayed through a medium that's, as I stated earlier, often dismissed as being "made for kids."

It looks like there was a Web 2.0 expo held in San Fransisco last week.  This article claims that, at the show, the big claim seemed to be that with the economy in such a slump, now is the time to focus on new innovations and cast out the technologies from the past.

Interesting article, and it also talks about the way the expo was held and how presentations were given, raising the question; is it time to update the way we talk about and discuss new technologies, or should we stick to the conventional way of giving presentations?