WSJ: Moguls of New Media Have nearly a million friends on MySpace and you get $5000 endorsements. Make a comedy podcast with cocktail recipes and you get endorsed by Steve Jobs and get interest from advertisers. Post seemingly impossible self-potraits on Flickr and you get hired by Toyota. The Wall Street Journal looks at these and many more "whos' who of new media". from BlogHer
posted by divabat on Aug 1, 2006 - 22 comments

Culture by the people, for the people. We all know that there are a gazillion blogs out there, with people talking about anything and everything, frequently to an audience of one. Those same text based blogs are incorporating video as well. People are beginning to organize their internet not through search engine algorithims, but by their own tags. There's also a dedicated cadrey of partisan and non-partisan "amateur journalism" sites. Then you have full fledged communities focused to specific subjects, holding an unbelievable depth of knowledge and opinions. With entire encyclopedias available online, and with smaller topic-centric wiki's available, can the creation and dissemination of audience authored content be far behind? Witness the growth of Flickr, the probable success of Vimeo, people programming their own radio stations and/or shows, the increasing awareness and use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by plain ol' citizens, the courting of TiVo by Google and Yahoo (to share homemovies and pictures, perhaps?), open source news sites like Take Bake the News, NowPublic (for royalty free images to accompany content), Downhill Battle, Our Media ( a place to store your content), and open-source sounds and sights. Could there eventually be enough worthwhile content to break us free of a corporate-delivered culture?
posted by rzklkng on Apr 25, 2005 - 35 comments

"Movies: They're worth it!" In a move to educate those darn thieving kids and their evil P2P file-sharing networks which are used to trade ripped movies, the MPAA has launched a public service campaign to explain, in layman's terms, why violating their copyrights is wrong. …Yes, these are the same people who have just brought us an entire summer of bloated sequels, shameless celebrity vehicles and uninspired hack-work. Respect!
posted by Down10 on Aug 3, 2003 - 81 comments

The CBS News American Idol Power Hour. Viacom, owner of networks CBS and MTV among many others, is aggresively pushing lucrative bribes offers for Private Jessica Lynch to get her on CBS News, including the possibility of her own video-hosting program on MTV and special editions of TRL. Corporate consolidation the way it is, are we in an era where synergy allows news-media-owning companies to offer not just material profit but flat-out media iconization in exchange for a good story? To put it another way: have we gone beyond using the news to promote entertainment owned by the same company to using entertainment as the currency to flat-out buy the news?
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Jun 16, 2003 - 12 comments

VHS on its last legs? According to source, Circuit City is already phasing out sales of VHS tapes and players in favor of DVDs. Sure, it's an ancient format, but again, not everyone has a TiVo (yet)...
posted by betobeto on Jun 21, 2002 - 16 comments

Sure, we've all heard the classic old time radio dramas, but what about more recent classics, like the wonderful Jack Flanders series from ZBS Media? And what is being produced today? Bonus points if it's broadcast free online.
posted by rushmc on Jun 21, 2002 - 6 comments

When I was a newspaper-slinger back as a youngster, I became acquainted with that odd funnypages subgenre-the soap opera comic strip(i.e. Winnie Winkle,Rex Morgan, M.D. and the pinnacle of the genre Gasoline Alley). Moving at the brisk pace of 4 panels a day, these entertainments must have seemed quaint even in their early radio days infancy, yet they gained devoted followings and Dr. Rex and Skeezix and the Gang are actually still active. While the strips are published on the web, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a whole-hog revival of the genre. Heck, Brenda Starr could be truly funky hip modern woman if the right person retooled her a bit and I imagine many web community administrators could relate to Mary Worth at times.
posted by jonmc on Apr 28, 2002 - 25 comments

'Is media bias real?', part two: Left-leaning media criticism folks FAIR have produced a report detailing some examples of of publishers, advertisers, and government officials killing stories they don't like and placing stories they do. What about the Chinese Wall between the business of news and the actual newsgathering? To quote a CBS news producer on the distinction between entertainment and news, "That line was over a long, long time ago....That line is long gone."
posted by snarkout on Feb 25, 2001 - 18 comments

USA Network complies with Tylenol's request to halt production of a drug-tampering movie.
posted by gluechunk on Dec 6, 2000 - 11 comments