Canucks Organization Embraces Bloggers and Podcasters - nowpublic.com
Actually, I'm still waiting for my hug, but it's good to hear that my favourite hockey team tends to be bucking the league trend.
The Canucks hockey team are featuring bloggers, podcasters and Facebook application creators in their promotional posters and on their website. Now, if only the Canucks' players could play more consistently in their new up-tempo, high scoring style...
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus
This essay by Clay Shirkyon has been making the rounds in the last few days.
In short, he argues that people will continue to spend less time watching sitcoms and more time creating and sharing information. A "cognitive surplus" that was wasted on passively watching television, is being used to generate gains for all of society.
I'm not sure I agree, but an interesting article nonetheless.
30 Days of DRM: 30 Things You Can Do
Educate yourself about the proposed Canadian Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which looks to be even more restrictive than the current American counterpart. While the current legislation is widely seen as being fair and appropriate, Michael Geist has a list of 30 ways that you can make your opinions known about the draconian changes to the Canadian DMCA that tilt control toward the biggest corporate media companies.
Michael Geist is the best Canadian journalist covering digital media issues, such as copyright, DRM and the Internet. He is also not afraid of calling things as they are.
http://www11.alluc.org/alluc/tv-shows/
http://tv-links.co.uk (taken down Oct 19, 2007)
My friend Rhianfa recommended these excellent sites as the best ones for
complete seasons of a huge variety of tv shows. Brilliant!
Exclaim Magazine
Exclaim is Canada's authoritative music rag, with profiles of the coolest up-and-coming artists, playlist charts from Canada's college radio stations, and have indie pop culture news (not to be confused with the trashy mainstream news).
They do feature a lot of new Canadian music, but have also profiled exciting global scenes as well. If you know anything about Canadian music these days, you'll know it's doing okay. The reviews are extensive, featuring films, DVDs, concerts, and music from every genre, including: heavy metal, electronic, hip hop, alt-country, pop and rock (though not mainstream), punk, funk, experimental and avant garde, soul and world.
It's the magazine that people WISH that Rolling Stone and Spin were.
When I lived in Japan, Exclaim was the music magazine that I chose to subscribe to because of their excellent pop culture coverage. The low international rates were a bonus. In Canada, the hardcopy version is certainly worth more than the free cover price.
Today's Link source: I have no clue
Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Gallactica beat broadcast TV
Want to know where broadcast TV is heading?
This hour-long talk by Mark Pesce in Australia discusses tons and tons of opportunities for advertisers; TV, film and video producers and media companies created because of the explosion of Bit Torrent (peer-to-peer) video downloads. There are just so many new opportunites for marketing companies, advertisers, media producers, broadcasters, and new ways to distribute video (not just Youtube, either).
Once again, it looks like the huge media companies have it all backwards. Instead of trying to reinforce and tightly control the current system with increasingly strict copyright restrictions; they could be trying out all these new opportunities.
Oh yeah, did I mention that VideoSift is a pretty good online video aggregator?
The Tyee
It's tough to get different opinions in the news in Vancouver, as the 2 local daily newspapers, one of the national papers, and the most popular TV newscast are all owned by the same company. As documented elsewhere, there are problems that come with the concentration of media ownership.
Thank goodness for The Tyee. The Tyee is an online-only newspaper that brings well-written, solid journalism to British Columbia. They do local, provincial, national and international news, as well as Editorials, Art and Culture, and the occasional sports column. Their most famous columnist is ex-politician and ex-talk show host, Rafe Mair (thank you Vancouver Radio Museum), who exhibits a surprising amount of non-partisan common sense despite his credentials.
They have RSS feeds and a weekly email newsletter to keep you up to date.
