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thePuckWrites

New Media Guides, News, and Reviews


For Your Benefit: The New Media Resources PageJune 16

I cover a lot of different sites here where people interested in new media can show off their work, promote themselves, or sell their services. I decided to start collecting all of these different sites in a single place. Right now it’s limited to online portfolios and places to sell your work, but I will soon be adding more resources as well.

New Media Resources Page

I hope you find it useful. Enjoy!

If you provide a new media resource of any type, please contact me for a review and (if favorable) a listing.

New Media News: Guitar Solo Contest on TalentTrove, Wordpress 2.8 Pops, and MoreJune 11

Hiya, folks! I am a busy nerd at the moment and knee-deep in that wonderful blend of right and left brain activity I love so much, but I didn’t want you to think I forgot about you! Here is some news from the world of new media!

TalentTrove wants you to shred.

I like TT and apparently so do you, from the comments I get whenever I mention them. They have a neat contest for you new media musicians that guitarists should check out. From the press release:

TalentTrove Launches Best Guitar Solo Contest Sponsored by Michael Kelly Guitars

WOODBRIDGE, N.J., June 8, 2009- Can you Shred the guitar like Slash or play blues like Eric Clapton? Guitarists will have their chance to be a star with global Internet talent Web site, TalentTrove.com’s Best Guitar Solo Contest sponsored by Michael Kelly Guitar Company. Submissions will begin being accepted June 15 at 1 p.m. and last until July 22 at midnight.

“Having a sponsor like Michael Kelly Guitar will not only give the winners quality instruments to make their music, but will take all of the participants one step closer to their dream of discovery and that’s what we’re all about at TalentTrove,” said Jaime McGee, Director of Marketing at TalentTrove.com

Contestants will go directly to the contest page where they will be prompted to upload their audio or video files for submission.

A grand prizewinner will receive a Michael Kelly Patriot Custom electric guit

Liveblogging #Wordcamp SF 2009, Part 4May 30

Closing up the day:

Had a lecture on user-generated content from Scott Porad of ICanHazCheezburger.com which was a good introduction to the theories of UGC and viral content. It was a bit too general for me, but for those who are new to the notions of the “Wisdom of Crowds” or “SmartMobs”, it was a good little presentation. The main points:

  1. User-generated content is not new. Academic journals and other classical forms of media have used it.
  2. By using the crowd, you are more likely to hit. He used the example of guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar. If one person guesses, they are probably not going to be right, even when using their best judgment. However, if many people make a guess using their best judgment and you roll the guesses into a averaging function, you are going to get closer and closer to the right answer with each guess. This is how the user-generated voting systems work to bring us content we want to see.

I wish he would have talked more about their voting algorithms and how they avoid the gaming so prevalent on sites like Digg and so on.

Right now on the stage is John Lilly, the CEO of

Liveblogging #Wordcamp SF 2009, Part 3May 30

Philip Greenspun spoke on writing and blogging, and is making some great points on new media. While he is a bit of a rambler (bad for making spoken presentations) he made some short points:

  1. Prior to the blog, there were two primary forms of publication: the book and the periodical. Because of this, important content would not be publishable because it would be either too short or too long.
  2. Marcus Aurelius was the first blogger. Flame wars were apparently much more bloody then. One must also wonder as to their commenting system.

He also got confronted on some of his humor, which included racial jokes, by a young woman in the audience. His response when asked why he included the material, he responded with the old story about when Chuck Jones was asked about why he included all the violence in his cartoons, to which he explained that they “put in the violence because they thought it was funny”. While I don’t like the PC police who seem to increasingly police our words and thoughts, I thought he dealt with it well.

Next, the Lockergnome himself, Chris Pirillo, is on the stage, talking about community. His primary points:

  1. We are all walking
Liveblogging #Wordcamp SF 2009, Part 2May 30

Matt Mullenweg is giving the state of the word and has told us about upcoming features:

  1. A completely redone widget backend, complete with an API for development.
  2. A theme browser just like the plugin browser, which allows you to search, preview, and install themes from Wordpress.org right from your install.
  3. Backend features and improvements out the wazoo! He skipped through the frames really quickly, but it looks like we will be getting better plugin support, user registration features, and security.

He also says that Wordpress is now one of the highly wanted skills on Elance and Odesk, so work on your chops and get a job!

More to come…

UPDATE:

Wordpress.org and WordpressMU are merging code-bases!

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