connecting*the*dots

If you’re a blogger that watches TV not only for it’s unbelievably passive entertainment and programmed misinformation (heh), but to find video clips that just might reinforce your thesis in your next post, I’ve found a service that you need to keep on your radar.

My good friend, Jonathan Daniel, has been working diligently for the past few years as the VP of Product Development at Critical Mention. A few weeks ago he gave me a tour of their services, and a beta account to play with. Let me tell you, as a blogger, the functionality they’ve developed to date (and in the wings) completely blew me away.

From their web site:

Broadcast media is the number one force shaping public opinion and driving consumer decisions every day. Every company and organization with public relations, crisis management, investor relations, competitive intelligence and brand management initiatives must track critical mentions on broadcast TV in order to monitor public perception, respond to events and crises, and gather market intelligence.

In contrast to traditional broadcast monitoring services, Critical Mention employs technology to monitor broadcast television in real-time. Using Critical Mention’s CriticalTVSM search platform, customers can view their broadcast clips and transcripts within seconds of airing.

Yeah, you read that correctly: Instantaneous transcripts AND broadcast clips. Drooling yet?

CM’s service uses the practically ubiquitous implementation of closed-captioned satellite feeds as a source for full-text searches. The instant digitizing of each broadcast to their servers allows for instantaneous clipping of video surrounding the term or phrase being searched.

While the interface design is somewhat clunky, the functionality is superb. The above image shows the result of a search for the term “blogging.” As you roll over the results on the right, a vid-cap puppets on the left with the transcript of the one minute clip and the highlighted search query. Found a broadcast that you’d like to use? Simply click on the expand button to expand the clip to display up to seven, one-minute clips that surround the queried term.

Once expanded, the current version allows the user to save the selected clips to a working library, send an email of the video and transcript or order hard copies — very smart and useful services for CM’s current business model.

CM gained financing and grew over the last few years by partnering with broadcasters to enable partnered companies to track mentions of products, services, employees, intellectual property, etc. across the airwaves.

To a number of bloggers, this concept might sound very familiar.

Back in November, Daniel Lyons (Forbes.com) espoused a similar position on media monitoring, except Lyons’ position was steeped in venom, advising corporations to explicitly track posts from bloggers. Once published, he immediately drew the ire of bloggers for his ridiculous and stereotypical assertions of blogging in general and for his positioning of such monitoring as Fighting Back.

The customer conversation isn’t one to fight, it’s one to join.

So how can this proprietary service add to the richness of blogging? The advent of YouTube — with their free, unlimited storage of video and automatic generation of code that enables bloggers to present in-line video — has prepped the web publishing market for Critical Mention to open up their service model outside the walls of partnered corporations.

A few examples of how a professional / public version of CM might be used:

• An analyst site, such as TheStreet.com (disclosure: I’m consulting on the current redesign), could present inline media coverage of companies and news events to fortify the context of their assertions
• Media Matters, a conservative misinformation analyst site, would be able to greatly reduce their investment in tracking staff and hardware
• Blogumentaries, such as The War Tapes and The Echo Chamber Project could gather and post media clips as research and/or extensions to their narrative thesis
• Bloggers in general would go gonzo for such access to media clippings, as the service would replace the time consuming tasks of manually recording programs or scouring the internet for the chance of discovering a timely, linkable/postable file.

The usefulness of the service is practically endless and the various business models are just waiting to be developed.

In the realm of unbundled content, each re-post of video content is actually a form of advertising for both the original broadcast and the broadcasting network. Once a value proposition has been quantified by CM, I’d imagine that forward-thinking broadcasting ownership would be gung-ho to participate in such a far-reaching, viral broadcast model.

CM could then serve as the middle man, establishing both a professional fee-based service level and a free public blogging service level.

This service could truly “2.0″ media in one swooping move.

Jimmy Carter is now a blogger:

There is a desperate need in America to block and reverse the radical departures from the moral and ethical principles that have made ours a great nation.

This is not a conflict between liberals and conservatives or even between Democrats and Republicans. The unprecedented changes in policy are from those of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, and also, of course, from those of Democratic presidents.

These changes involve the most basic aspects of America’s moral values: peace, human rights, justice, the environment, fiscal responsibility, respects for the civil rights of Americans, the honoring of international commitments, separation of church and state, and the control of nuclear weapons.

[…]

The man may not have been the best politician, but he’s an extraordinary human being.

Blogger gal vs. Newspaper guy!

Well, not quite, but it makes a great lede, eh?

Sue, Lex and I met over lunch yesterday to discuss potential strategies for evolving the News & Record’s citizen journalism efforts. And no, we didn’t have a stare off.

Man… Lex is in a tough position; he’s completely open to forward-thinking ideas (I mean, his title is Citizen Journalism Coordinator), but he also seems to be up against a bottom line business that’s very adverse to risk. Apparently, changing the approach to meeting a historically profitable bottom line is a tough sell, even within an industry that’s on shaky ground.

It’s amazing how palpable sand can become to the heads of industry during innovative times.

That’s not to say that the N&R hasn’t been progressive with their citizen journalism efforts to date — they have — but Lex knows that in just a few years the N&R (both print and online) will have to directly compete with new forms of dynamic, community-based, participatory, online news applications (e.g. Newsvine), which will be free of legacy organizational overhead and be able to react with agility.

And you can’t forget those pesky bloggers.

The N&R needs to step up their game.

So we chatted. And ate. And chatted some more. And by the time our conversation came to a close, we had a number of interesting ideas on the table:

• Personal Relationships - Lex is looking to develop relationships with members of the Greensboro community, offering them the opportunity to use N&R resources (legal, photography, journalist feedback, etc.) to craft substantive citizen journalism. To me, this approach perfectly fits the future of print newspapers, as time-based news is dead on paper. They’ll have to compete as daily magazines (more depth, less coverage).

• Real-time Blogging Input - I suggested promoting a tagging schema that matched the classification structure of both the paper and the site:

  For example, identify and promote a unique set of “greensboro[xxxx]” tags, for anyone to use on blog posts, flickr images, etc. when generating Greensboro specific news, events, opinions, etc.

  Internally, the N&R editorial staff would then set up RSS aggregators with subscriptions of each tag search result.

  The real-time input of potential stories and assets would increase exponentially, while the N&R would continue to have editorial control, as the aggregator would serve as the queue into the publishing process

• Representation Across The Community - Sue focused on the concept of encouraging participation along the lines of community diversity (her connections with Uplifter is right along the lines of my focus with The People, Yes!). We talked about ideas ranging from developing blogging 101 material to share with a non-computer literate demographic to grass roots representation within sub-communities (e.g. school board meetings) to encourage live-blogging with the unique tag identifiers

An interesting start, but there’s still one major component that we’re skirting: Revenue incentives.

Lex made it clear that creating a participatory revenue model doesn’t fall under his charge, but the N&R is open to ideas. My perspective is that without incentive, participation will be lighter, with less quality and dedication. Any revenue generated out of these relationships should be viewed as found money, so share and share alike:

• To tap into the wisdom of the blogosphere by republishing the original post or an edited version, a buisness needs to develop a revenue model that fairly represents such a relationship.
• To partner with individuals from the community to generate community-based journalism, a business needs to develop a revenue model to encourage such a partnership.

It comes down to this: Pony up or we, the citizens, will simply get together and form collaborative blogs, creating relevant identities, gain a better footprint in Google over a 3 month period of time and, eventually, sign up with BlogAds to support our own voice.

That’s not a threat. ;-) I’m looking forward to our next conversation, folks.

UPDATE: Six months after the fact, in the NORG session at ConvergeSouth, Ed Cone backs up my philosophy regarding partnering with local bloggers/writers in a revenue share program.

Yesterday, Andy and I had the opportunity to rap with a handful of UNCG film students, as his former professor (Matt Barr) invited him to present his documentary, reveal his creative process and expose the realities of the distribution game. I tagged along to introduce the possibilities of the web; how it can be used as both a creative channel and a viral mechanism for distribution.

Andy dove right in and introduced the story behind his documentary (Greensboro’s Child) to the students — the ties between the 1979 KKK shootings of five worker’s rights protesters and the unjust sentencing of a civil rights activist’s child to two life sentences for unarmed burglary just 7 years later.

The entire time I sat listening intently to my brother’s passionate presentation, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of times he mentioned his desire to not only go back into the film and improve upon his student-level production techniques (he began the documentary back in 1996), but to continue to document the unfolding story by re-editing the film and updating it with the findings of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

While I completely understand his intent and agree with the desired results, I just don’t agree with the approach — not in this day and age.

As a blogger and an enthusiast of web/documentary projects like the Echo Chamber Project and The War Tapes, my perspective of an evolving narrative is completely different than Andy’s.

When I think about Greensboro’s Child, I view it as a foundation of knowledge; an element that can be built upon with new elements of video, images and text to create an even broader and more reputable narrative thesis. It’s an impossible goal to continuously include the numerous, ever-evolving tentacles of the story (the Greensboro police department, the community attitude, etc.) within a single 1.5 hour long documentary.

So once the lights came back on and the students finished their Q&A, I introduced myself, a bit of my career history and proceeded to find my zone… Somewhere in the midst of my presentation, I introduced:

• myself as an activist, rather than a designer (a first)
• the possibilities of using cutting edge video distribution channels to introduce their voices to the world, such as youtube, currentTV, democracy
• how a mixture of blogging and video can have a more lasting reach than both tv and film (Rocketboom for example)

By the time my diatribe subsided, I found myself engaged in a conversation surrounding The People, Yes. Once we moved beyond the concept of the collaborative blog for the homeless of Greensboro, we evolved into a conversation about weekly trips into the community to capture the various stories of the underprivileged, on camera, and turning it back around as weekly shorts in a vlog. Heads were nodding left and right as the film students seemed eager to participate in such a project.

So I now have a new angle to TPY… and quite possibly a pool of energetic, dedicated, creative filmmakers to participate in the cause.

While walking off the UNCG campus, I turned around to take in a final glimpse… something, I don’t know what, just seemed different…

The making of…

Artist: T-K.A.S.H.
Song: Made In America

==========

[The Last Poets - updated by Ethan]

I love niggas, because niggas are me. And I should only love that which is me. I love that you niggas go through changes, love that you niggas act, love that you niggas make some plays and shoot the shit. But there’s one thing about niggas that I don’t love. Niggas are scared of revolution.

[T-K.A.S.H.]

There’s a war going on at home
It’s like Baghdad
In American cities where all the blacks at
Little kids that pack straps and backpacks
Who clap cats for scratch snacks and gas masks
Hard times
Niggas are on the grind
All of the time
Faith in Allah small as a dime
A cup of noodles for breakfast
A cup of noodles for lunch and
A cup of noodles for dinner
Every day is the Winter
Every day is December
Cause evin in the middle of Summer
The streets shudder from the poverty blizzard
Rocket propelled grenades
Landmines and letterbombs
Open up your envelops
With thoughts of them shuttin off
Your water and your lights
And your foods and your rights
All you got in your life
Is little dude and your wife
So you move in the white
With the crew in the night
But you’re nervous:
The block drafted you into the service
The curse

You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga

Wakin’ up is the beginning of a day that’s fucked
Spoons and forks and napkins and plates and cups
Everything but a meal
I bang with my steel
And feel hunger pains in me still
I hit the front line with my ammo and my canteen
Basketball and tennis shoes as a sand screen
Shootin’ jumpers as the boys in blue pass me
Casually
I pass cream to the crack fiends
The other day a first Lieutenant was moded
Started up the car and it exploded
But didn’t nobody notice
I’m knowin’ how it goes
When if the the nigga with the purple heart of courage ain’t the oldest
It’s cold shit
But if I let little man push
Little man could go and create a plan to ambush
Double jeopardy
Brothers reppin’ me
And tellin’ me they lovin’ and respectin’ me
Could be the death of me

You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
God in heaven could you tell me why you never chose me
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
Times I asked you to provide or we wasn’t goin’ to eat
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
Why was everything that you was supposed to do on me
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
Since I’m not in heaven it’s only one other place I can be

Now shit’s hard, when you’re up in rank this far
I hit bars and I mix and mingle with stars
You flip cars with overtime you get scarred
And with your broad you begin to whisper “discharge”
Traumatized by the lies of the turncoats
Who walk enemy ground to go and burn smoke
Five dead single shot glock nine to the head
And you like, “Fuck em’”
Them niggas have to learn though
But things deepen
Your enemy’s peepin’
The rate you’re gain’ weight got your thinergies creepin’
They see you’re not sleepin’
So they got reason
To send a soldier in your circle
And manipulate the treason
A psychological Hurricane Katrina
And ain’t nobody comin’ to help
Fuck FEMA
I slowly turn the gun to myself and squeeze it
And Mohhamed Era Su Allayet (?)
I couldn’t see it
The grievous

I didn’t create this shit, I was born into it. Like I didn’t create the projects, I didn’t create homelessness, I didn’t create poverty, I didn’t create unemployment, I didn’t create this poor educational system, I was pushed into it, and now you want to blame me for not rising above it? Shit, I may not be that strong!

You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga
You ain’t a made nigga, you just afraid nigga

(via Navaho Gunleg)

Let’s play a game that I call, “Guess Who’s Masturbating.” Read the following quote and try to guess who wrote it (and don’t cheat).

Quoted three years ago, a week into the invasion of Iraq:

The people of Eastern Europe stared into the abyss of tyrannical evil for decades, and recognizing the Iraqi regime for what it is, they stand with us today. Some people may mock the fact that Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and other minor countries are part of this coalition — but they remember what life was like without freedom. They remember what it took to climb up from the rubble.

They remember what it was like to hear the words of Vaclav Havel (who would go on to make more than 100 official speeches, with no speechwriters), on his New Years address as first President of the free Czech Republic:

“My people, your government has returned to you.”

Soon, the Iraqi people will hear those words. The sound you hear, Saddam, is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your doom.

So what’s your guess? Dick Cheney? Someone else from the PNAC gang? Not even close.

Give up?

I’d like to introduce you to Ben Domenich, the 24 year-old founding father of the RedState blog and freshly hired blogger at the Washington Post.

Only someone this young and naive could actually believe the bullshit he espouses as fact. In this particular case, Eastern Europe does what they’re told, or maybe he missed the memo on the New World Order?

While I’m a huge proponent of citizen media, and completely support young Ben’s right to publish his perspective, his track record is obviously partisan, and at times, skirting an extreme position. What is WaPo thinking? Are they trying to create a loose cannon, ideological microcosm of the political blogosphere within their walled garden?

Media Matters’ David Brock seems to think so.

The thing that WaPo doesn’t get is that by hiring Ben Domenich, they’ve taken away his blogging ID; both his credentials and his independence. In their haste to capitalize on his partisan readership in this 2.0 world, they haven’t just lowered the bar — they’ve replaced it with a hula-hoop.

Aloha, WaPo.

< --->
No connection, eh?

Neo-Nazis threaten to massacre Muslims at World Cup

ROME (AFP) - The World Cup in Germany is set to become a battleground between fascists and Muslims, an Italian member of a new European neo-Nazi movement warned.

In a statement published by Italian daily Repubblica, the member of AS Roma’s notorious ultras hooligan group claims neo-Nazis across Europe met in Braunau in Austria to plan attacks against supporters from Islamic countries during the World Cup in Germany from June 9 to July 9.

“We are united. For the first time we are talking and planning together, with the English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, everyone with the same objective. At the World Cup there will be a massacre,” said the Italian ultra.

“We will all be in Germany and there will be Turks, Algerians and Tunisians. The Turks, we can’t stand them. In our country (Italy) there are not many, but in Germany, there are many of those guys there. They are Islamic terrorists.

“We will attack them. They are all enemies that need to be eliminated, just like the police. If we make the Roman greeting (the fascist salute) they put us in prison. We will be tens of thousands. Nothing but the English are feared.”

With the tone and accent of Daniel Carver on Howard Stern back in the day:

“Wake up, white people!”

(via The Black Iris of Jordan)

Tara Hunt (aka MissRogue) has created the Pinko Marketing Manifesto; a pointed conversation centered around how business, products, services and marketing in this 2.0 world should operate, but through the lens of the desires of the people, not the elite. (Shel, Doc, this world really does need a 2.0 upgrade of numerous features)

I love it.

Unfortunately, in this country any “ism” without capital attached to it becomes a target, so I figured I’d testify to Tara’s message by reducing it to its bare essentials through the Word of George:

The Word of George (5:22-86)

George: It’s not working, Jerry. It’s just not working.

Jerry: What is it that isn’t working?

George: Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but… I was perceptive. I always know when someone’s uncomfortable at a party. It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s all been wrong.

(A waitress comes up to G)

Waitress: Tuna on toast, coleslaw, cup of coffee.

George: Yeah. No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing’s ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of tuna on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted … and a cup of tea.

Elaine: Well, there’s no telling what can happen from this.

Jerry: You know chicken salad is not the opposite of tuna, salmon is the opposite of tuna, ‘cos salmon swim against the current, and the tuna swim with it.

George: Good for the tuna.

(A blonde looks at George)

Elaine: Ah, George, you know, that woman just looked at you.

George: So what? What am I supposed to do?

Elaine: Go talk to her.

George: Elaine, bald men, with no jobs, and no money, who live with their parents, don’t approach strange women.

Jerry: Well here’s your chance to try the opposite. Instead of tuna salad and being intimidated by women, chicken salad and going right up to them.

George: Yeah, I should do the opposite, I should.

Jerry: If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

George: Yes, I will do the opposite. I used to sit here and do nothing, and regret it for the rest of the day, so now I will do the opposite, and I will do something!

(He goes over to the woman)

George: Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice that you were looking in my direction.

Victoria: Oh, yes I was, you just ordered the same exact lunch as me.

(G takes a deep breath)

George: My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.

Victoria: I’m Victoria. Hi.

See how simple it is? Go the opposite route of participating in the realm of old school, big business corporate marketing and product development and you’ll get the blonde and a gig with the Yankees.

I should become a life coach.

It’s amazing how much you can learn about yourself and someone else over a “coffee cup” of coffee.

Cara Michele and I agreed to meet over at The Green Bean yesterday to discuss how we can get moving on our new joint project. Well, after 4 hours of caffeine and an intense conversation ranging from the project at hand to religion to the MPAA, I realized that while we’re very different, amazingly enough, we’re so very much the same.

She’s a devout Christian, living and serving humanity through the love of Christ, and tends to look for absolutes to help guide her through life.

I’ve found my higher power, yet I don’t call it anything particular, believing instead that “it” is woven throughout our actions and surroundings. I’m wary of anything claiming to be an absolute, instead looking for natural patterns to clue me onward to my next experience.

We’re completely different, right? Wrong.

We both share a strong desire to empower the men and women who are left on the periphery of society; Cara Michele has been walking that walk for years, while I’ve been going all city since ‘91. So while I strongly believe in the power of information and she strongly believes in the power of Christ, our common desire is upliftment.

It’s all good.

Now if I can only get her to be comfortable with the fact that there are endless ways to describe a “coffee cup”… ;-)

Photo by birdcage

We’re now exactly three years into this debacle of a war.

More than 2,300 American men and women have lost their lives and upwards of 30,000 more are now physically and mentally handicapped. We’re consistently told that the mission is just, as democracy must be spread. We’re told that we need to fight the terrorists over there instead of fighting them over here.

The truth is that we’re knee deep in a mission to fight an “ism” that we don’t even understand.

Why should that stop us?

Photo by Rod Graves

We’re rooting our perception around the world as the global strong-armed thug. When our president casually mentions an Iraqi civilian body count to be upwards of 30,000, more or less — as if he’s guessing the amount of gumballs in a swimming pool — that should send shivers down our collective spines, yet for some reason, it doesn’t.

9/11 was a horrible moment in American history, but all we’ve done is respond by killing an even greater number of people. How does that quell a radical response to our status quo?

Photo by The Original Mozzy

Yeah, we all need to do some soul searching.

Andy sent me an email requesting this song as a Lyricist Wednesday post, and while the message of the lyrics absolutely fits the vibe of c*t*d, the artist is, well, a bit too folksy to land between GZA and T-K.A.S.H. (that’s a hint for next week). So, I figured I’d go the extra yard and post the video he shot at Guilford College a bit ago.

Imaginary Foundation: A site full of brilliant t-shirt designs.

(via Yahoo!)

Preface (pg. xvi)

[…]
However, just as the Christian Reformation opened the door to multiple, often conflicting, and sometimes baffling interpretations of Christianity, so has the reformation of Islam created a number of wildly divergent and competing ideologies. Perhaps it is inevitable that, as religious authority passes from institutions to individuals, there will be men and women whose radical reinterpretations of religion will be fueled by their extreme social and political agendas. In this sense, jihadists like Osama bin Laden must be understood as products of, not counters to, the Islamic Reformation. Indeed, bin Laden joins a long and unsavory list of militant puritans — whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu — who consider themselves and their individual followers to be the only true believers, and all others to be hypocrites, imposters, and apostates who must be convinced of their folly or abandoned to their horrible fates.

Like puritans of other faiths — militaristic or not — the jihadists’ principal goals is the “purifying” of their religious communities. In other words, their first target is not the West, or Jews, or Christians, or Zionists, or Crusaders, or any other outsiders (what the jihadists term “the far enemy”), but those hundreds of millions of Muslims who do not share their puritanical worldview (”the near enemy”). Their agenda can most clearly be observed in the civil war they have launched in Iraq. For whatever else may be fueling the violence in that country, there can be little doubt that the primary aim of the jihadists who have infiltrated Iraq and who represent the most ruthless segment of the insurgency is the massacre of all those Muslims (particularly the Shi’ah majority) whom they regard as rawafida or apostates.

Of course, that is not to say that the far enemy is not a target of jihadism, as New York, Madrid, and London can testify. But it is mainly as a means to galvanize other Muslims to the jihadist cause that most of these attacks against the West should be understood. The attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, were by bin Laden’s own admission specifically designed to goad the United States into an exaggerated retaliation against the Islamic world so as to mobalize Muslims to, in the words of George W. Bush, “choose sides.”

Now, four years removed from that tragic day, perhaps the most hopeful development in this internal battle to define the faith and practice of over a billion people is that Muslims themselves are becoming increasingly aware that they are as much endangered by the extremist agenda as are the so called infidels. Thus, the day before the London bombings, one hundred seventy of the world’s leading clerics and scholars, representing every major sect and school of law in Islam, gathered in Amman, Jordan, where, in an unprecendented display of intersectarian collaboration, they issues a joint fatwa, or legal ruling, denouncing all acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam. The Amman declaration was not only a tacit (if belated) acknowledgement of the civil war raging within Islam, it was an attempt by the clerical institutions to re-exert some measure of authority over those who have hijacked Islam for their own murderous causes.

It didn’t work. The next day, and almost as if in response to the Amman fatwa, London was attacked. Two weeks later, a bomb demolished aa hotel in the resort town of Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, killing nearly a hundred people — many of them poor, many of them Muslim. Two weeks after that, three hundred fifty bombs tore through Bangladesh, one after the other, in a violent attempt to dislodge the country’s fledgling democratic government. After each of these attacks, a new wave of fatwas was issued, again denouncing the use of violence and terrorism in the name of Islam. And after each fatwa, the jihadists struck again. And the war goes on. Reformations, as we know from Christian history, are bloody events. And though the end is near, the Islamic Reformation has some way to go before it is resolved.