Collaboration tools is going to soon become a misnomer. The more mainstream, standard office applications and productivity tools start adding collaboration facilities to their apps the more collaboration will become part of what is expected by any digital work tool. Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication - Graph credit: Ramius This Sharewood Picnic contains a new collection of selected collaboration tools that I, and Nico Canali De Rossi have uncovered during our weekly searches for Kolabora. It includes tools to send large files to anyone, instant messenger gateways allowing you to connect simultaneously to all your favorite instant messaging networks and a couple of interesting tool to draw, annotate and share web page markups. Here the list:

1. PipeBytes: Send files of any dimensions with no upload process
2. Globe7:VoIP software allows you to text-chat, video conference and transfer files
3. DrawHere: Draw on web-pages and share your annotated page via email
4. JKN: Online annotation tool allows you to add notes to web-pages and share them with people
5. TeamWork Live: Manage projects, share documents and collaborate with people online
6. IM History: Save your instant messaging conversation history online
7. Messenger FX: Web-based instant messenger lets you access MSN IM network
8. BigFileBox: Web-based file hosting service allows you to share files with others

Here the details: Photo credit: Alastor

1. PipeBytes PipeBytes in a web-based tool that anyone can use to share files, with no size limitation. If you want to send a file, just click the "Send" button, browse for you file, and click "Upload". You will be provided with a pick-up code, or simply with a pick-up URL, that will connect your and your friend's computer to send the file directly, with no uploading process. Free to use, no registration needed. http://www.pipebytes.com/


2. Globe7 Globe7 is a free downloadable VoIP application that allows you to chat and talk with people. After you download it and register to the service, you can start adding other people to your contact list: you can chat, have video and audio calls, share pictures, transfer files, save the chat history, and also call landline phones at really cheap rates. Completely free to use, it is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux herehttp://www.globe7.com/downloadg7.php. http://www.globe7.com/


3. DrawHere DrawHere takes a slightly different twist on the website annotation paradigm by allowing users to literally draw directly onto a website that they are visiting. Clicking on the bookmarklet opens up an image editing palette to the side of the screen. This palette features layers, opacity, brush size and a color spectrum. Annotated pages can be saved and shared by email or embedded into your blog. Different users annotations can be browsed through from a separate window. DrawHere can be activated via a bookmarklet, from the DrawHere website by entering the URL you want to draw on, and can even be included as a button on your web-page. Free http://drawhere.com/


4. JKN JKN is a web-site that allows you to add notes on a web-page and to share them with anyone. After you insert the URL you want to annotate, you can decide how you want to share your notes with others (link, email or blog), and start typing on the selected page as it was a normal blank page. Then, depending on the sharing method you chose, you will be given a URL to share or you will be asked for your contacts' emails. It is free to use and requires no registration. Beta. http://info.jkn.com/


5. TeamWork Live TeamWork Live is a web-based project management and project collaboration tool that helps you run your projects more efficiently. All you need to get started is a web browser and an internet connection: you can manage projects, track tasks, share documents and files, collaborate with clients and remote teams. Completely free to use, requires registration. https://www.teamworklive.com/
   
6. IM History IM History is a downloadable program that allows you to store all of your instant messaging conversations online, supporting AIM, MSN, Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and Miranda networks. All conversations will be saved and uploaded on a web-server that can be accessed through any web-browser. Free to download and use. http://www.im-history.com/


7. Messenger FX Messenger FX is a web-based service that lets you access the MSN instant messaging network without having to install anything on your computer. The access is protected through encryption and the interface is available in multiple languages. There is no possibility to talk to contacts that are on other IM networks. Free to use. http://www.messengerfx.com


8. BigFileBox BibFileBox is a web-based file hosting service that you can use to upload and share your files with other people. After you choose whether you want to upload a file using the Java drag-and-drop facility or the click-to-upload interface, you can upload as many files as you want and, when done, you can create "tokens" to give people permission to browse/edit your files. You can also choose the duration of the token. Free for up to 50 MB or see plan comparison. http://www.bigfilebox.com/

Last night I tried to catch some of the action going on at Seesmic, one of the most innovative and promising new web services out there. Labelled as a "Twitter with video", Seesmic hasn't yet defined a strong application personality for itself yet, but, and that may be as valuable as having defined one, has been listening with true open ears to everything its first few hundred users have been telling it. By using a true bottom up approach Seesmic has created a true conversational platform to help, refine and steer the very direction of the company that makes the same platform available. But is that enough to dive a web company to success? Is it enough to have enough money, visibility and technical resources to put together a Twitter-like tool with video and then try to get as big as possible to then see where money can be made, or would it be better to have a vision before everything else and then shape it with the help of your community? Hard to say, as your audience could be driving you a thousand different directions at the same time, unless you have already well figured out where you want to go. That is also what one of the digerati of the web thinks, when providing his own view on the success potential of the bottom-up drive-approach of the Seesmic community.

Bottom-Up Driven Social Media - Always A Winning Strategy?

Listen and watch to what Cluetrain Manifesto's author and blogger David Weinberger had to say on the effective potential of the Seesmic bottom-up driven strategy: David Weinberger duration: 2':15" Yes, you have got it right. The cool thing about Seesmic is that it allows you to shoot out short video messages to the community while generating a wide, always in-flux, extended party-like visual conversation, where topics and people move in and out almost just like in the real world. I find the Seesmic conversations truly genuine, often engaging, sometimes dull and superficial, just like in real life. And it is this genuinity, this final rise of the personal voice in all of its splendor, uncensored and unpackaged for delivery, that makes this content so incredibly compelling. Compelling for those participating in it because it is very real and extends significantly the number and quality of discussion mates you can have. Compelling for those watching it only because there is often a great deal of personal learning and insight that is normally shared inside these conversations. Compelling for the publisher hosting this community because it creates a true virtual space in which to support the interests and passions of your readers. Bye bye forums, Seesmic is here. Compelling for advertiser and marketers which could find in the very community members some of the best endorsers and promoters of their own tools and products. Without needing to become all shills. But Seesmic has still a long way to go even in developing some of what should be its basic features, such as the lack of more powerful threading capabilities. These would allow one to follow and engage in specific conversations at her own time while providing a wealth of valuable content that could be re-sued elsewhere. Not only. Seesmic requires still too much of a compulsive, redundant interaction reduced to its very minimum terms. Clicking on the next video to see what the next person said. And next. That gets tiring. An "autoplay" feature which would allow you to follow your favorite friends or conversation threads is all I am hoping for.

Why Distributed Social Media Is Better Than Centralized Social Media

So, let aside the excitement for what Seesmic could be, what appears to me still enigmatic is the apparent focus, a-la Facebook on having another centralized community, which as a consequence requires everyone to go to Seesmic to have a conversation with the people they like. Is this really needed? Aren't we in the age of distributed (social) media? Why should I go to engage in a conversation at Seesmic when I have already built a community of friends at my own site or elsewhere? I love to have conversations and I love to meet new and interesting people, but I don't think I need to throw myself into a super-busy party where everyone has a micro-span of attention for me and where topic changes every moment? My friends are not at Seesmic. My friends are where I have met and invited them before. At my place. Not at some downtown disco where all of our group intimacy and "feel" is lot or where I need to be forced out of any conversation simply because we are a million and one. Virtual space is infinite, let's use it. A month ago I posted this short video comment to Loic on Seesmic. Robin Good on Seesmic duration: 40" "MySeesmic" is in fact my own idea Seesmic. I want to have Seesmic on my site, for my readers, with my own lokk and feel. That's what I want: a distributable version of Seesmic that any site can embed and integrate in its pages. Just as Ning and many of the other Open Social partners, I would love to see Seesmic adopt this new standard and leverage the best from both the distribution potential as well as from aggregating and providing access to all these communities from a centralized space. To my surprise, last night, Loic LeMeur posted a fresh new clip he has just recorded with Patrick Chanezon of the Google Open Social team, and where Patrick provides some interesting suggestions and ideas to get Seesmic into the Open Social game. If you haven't yet read about Open Social, this is a new standard that allows easy distribution and integration of social media services into other sites. Loic LeMeur and Patrick Chanezon duration: 15':05"

Advertising on Seesmic?

But outside of the core implementation strategy Seesmic will use, one of the fascinating aspects of these new innovative social media tools is how they will survive. What will be Seesmic business model? Advertising on Seesmic? Well, the bottom-up video conversational approach worked greatly here as well with Seesmic users spontaneously brainstorming alternative advertising strategies and providing free creative input to Loic and his (and others) future investors. Check out this great video compilation from Seesmic where not only you get a sense of what it is like to be inside this video conversational platform but where you can also hear some interesting ideas about the possible alternative potential advertising opportunities ramping up for Seesmic and for similar social media destinations. Seesmic compilation a) conversational style b) brainstorming on advertising opportunities (from 3:05") c) community spirit, tradition and peer pressure at work on Seesmic - you gotta dance! (from 5:51") duration: 7':41" Just watching those few video clips gave me in turn a bunch of ideas and as social media wants, I shared back: Robin Good duration: 1':51"

Conclusions - What I see Ahead for Seesmic

Seesmic has great potential. Of this I am sure as I saw firsthand by using it the power that this new format, conversational video can have in terms of supporting and energizing online communities, while providing them with an excellent tool to brainstorm, discuss and develop new ideas. From my own viewpoint, as an online publisher, Seesmic does not have yet any of the key features that would make it a killer app in my eyes. These are: a) Threading - find easily specific conversation threads o any topic or author you select b) Autoplay - watch it like TV by selecting the conversation themes or authors or time periods you are interested in most c) Distribution - allow Seesmic to be built around communities that already exist by making it highly distributable and easy to integrate into any existing web site (like Ning does). Seesmic bottom-up approach in transparently leveraging user ideas and comments is something rare to be seen and should be great matter of research and study for media students. Loic, its CEO, is, whether you like him or not, a man larger than life, positive, optimistic, and very determined (and aware) of the role he has chosen to play for himself. He seems to be able attract lots of attention and press coverage but he has definitely an interesting story to tell. Overall this is a hot mix to keep watching close for a while. It may be pan out to become nothing I would waste any time on, as much as becoming the next truly social media marketing platform I would really bet my best cards on. One thing appears now sure. Even if it ain't Seesmic doing it, the time is ripe for the real, uncensored conversations to start. What do you think?
Written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on Thursday January 3rd 2008 as "Social Media And Conversational Marketing: Seesmic Bottom-Up Approach And Advertising Opportunity Insights"

Where would you like to see Master New Media going next? It is the start of a new year and nonetheless I have started making new editorial plans since this past 2007 summer, it is only now that some of them will start to see the light of the day. Among them is first of all a greater focus on cultivating an open and direct dialogue with each one of you. This is why today I open Master New Media to you, my reader to openly suggest, criticize, push through your own ideas to make Master New Media more of the site you have always wanted. For a long time, the content and the editorial style I have chosen to use have left little or no space to the open conversation with which so much of the good web is made up today. Unless I can learn something from you, there is little hope I can go in the right direction next. So, whether you are a fan or long time supporter of this site or someone that has only recently discovered Master New Media, I gently invite you to start this new year by telling me straight and openly what you like and don't like about this site. Don't hold any shot, say everything you feel and more than everything contribute something that can help me see things you think I haven't realized so far and should pay more attention to. Here is some guiding questions if you feel overwhelmed by your own ideas: a) What is the feature or the trait that do you like the most about MNM (MasterNewMedia) ? b) Which is the one that you like the least? c) If you were to add a feature or editorial component what would it be? d) What bothers you the most on this site? e) What is something you would like to see more of? I am fully listening! Peruse the "Readers Comments" link here below and let me hear what you have to say.

As 2008 will bring greater focus on professional online publishing for Master New Media, here is the second part of my anticipations and predictions for this new year that has just started. In this second part:

• Online Collaboration Tools
• Mobile
• Mobile Live Video
• Online Marketing
• P2P
• Conversational Tools - Microblogging
• Widgets
• OpenID
• Off-line Web-based Applications
• X-Events

Here the details:

2008 Media Predictions - Part 2

If you haven't seen Part 1 yet, check it out here: New Media Predictions 2008: What Online Independent Publishers Should Expect From The Future - Part 1

Online Collaboration Tools

2007 has been in many ways a record year for online collaboration tools with literally dozens of new tools having joined these fast growing group. Screen-sharing, video-conferencing solutions based on Flash as well as new innovative solutions have been all over the news thrughout 2007. Will it stop? Absolutely not. You are going to see more real-time and asynchronous collaboration tools entering the space as well as notable innovation from many of the existing players. Screen-sharing will become a standard integrated OS or application integrated feature in an increasing number of cases. Adobe is one of the key companies now setting the benchmarks in this space nonetheless the broad installation base of WebEx and other enterprise conferencing systems still own the numbers. But Adobe has set a long term strategy for the development of its next line of collaboration tools and characterized by a light footprint, cross-platform compatibility, easy to use and feature-rich approach. Connect and Brio are two brilliant examples of this successful strategy. Adobe is not my sponsor, but when a company does well over and over again, one should have no shame of saying it. What to expect? I think that if Brio and the last iterations of Connect are any indication, you are in for some serious good surprises from these guys which means easier to use and more effective collaboration tools at your disposal.

Mobile

For online independent publishers, mobile is the next frontier, as more and more people log, search and read news while on the move on their mobile phones and PDAs. Better integration of monetization and advertising opportunities, as well as more sophisticated tools to easily convert your standard web site in one that can be accessed by any mobile device will show up during 2008. Cooler than cool a new mobile application will allow you to post to your site or blog using your voice and the images / video you capture on the move. The great thing is that your voice is converted into text and published as written content along your mp3 downloadable podcast. In 2008 you will also be able to access remotely all of your tools, music, data and multimedia content, while being able to play it back on any television set or computer you will find available. Thanks to tools like Mojopac, Orb, Slingbox and TakeTV you will be able to access all of your tools and music / video content from just about anyhwere.

Mobile Live Video

Yes, I have already written about web tv yesterday in my first part of new media predictions, but live video will be a technological innovation that will affect not only web television channels but a much broader set of application and uses. While accessible and cost-free live video streaming has been here for a good year now, the ability to stream live video from anywhere you may be without having to open your whole notebook is the new video-casting frontier. Two companies (Wwigo and QIK) have already introduced tools and services that allow anyone to broadcast real-time video from their Nokia cellular phones and in 2008 you should see a breakthrough announcements in this field from some top international brand names.

Online Marketing

SEO and SEM are not enough anymore to do a good, comprehensive job of promoting your content or specific products online. The online marketing mix now requires a great deal more understanding of how Google expects you to publish and architect your content, plus it helps a great deal if you are fully active in using social media destinations and in leveraging the power of social networks. In 2008, I expect a new wave of services and tools that can help you simplify and manage more efficiently all of these chores. From pushing your new content to the best most relevant social media destinations for your target audience (Digg, Reddit, Sphinxx, Delicious, etc.), to creating your own mini network of supporters and fans that will proactively help you give visibility to it. It is likely that you may see also the expansion and diversification of borderline services like Subvert and Profit which have aggregated a large team of individuals to push, for a price, selected content on major social media destinations like Digg and YouTube. As you may have learned recently from Techcrunch, getting video clips to get viral is not really a matter of having a particular talent at shooting video but rather the consequence of a very well orchestrated operation borderline marketing in which ethics and rules get easily subverted to achieve phenomenal popularity in the arc of a few days. APML is coming and with it a possible wonderful and pretty scary innovations. As advertising is here to stay on the web, wouldn't be better if the ads you saw were tailor-made to your interests? Think of this as the next step forward from the AdSense contextual advertising you can see appearing in this article. Contextual advertising services such as Google Adsense attempt to serve relevant advertising based on the content of the article that they appear in. As such, you have a greater chance of seeing ads that will appeal to your tastes than you might through mainstream, mass media advertising, which simply sends out the same message almost regardless of context, and hopes that some small percentage of viewers will be interested. If the APML standard takes hold, however, content providers and advertisers will have a much better chance to serve you with relevant information, so that ads become useful rather than something that interrupts what you came to see in the first place.

P2P

2008 is going to be the year for P2P to take the front stage for publishing and sharing contents in ways that need not be underground or illegal in any way. Radio, film and video distribution, and to a large degree live television can so greatly benefit from P2P distribution approaches that further delaying the understanding of the key benefits P2P can bring must the highest priority for any commercial television. Beyond Joost, Babelgum and Hulu there is a yet uncovered world of classic mainstream television channels which haven't seen yet the light of the day on the Internet. Why? There is no good reason for this. Only ignorance. Zattoo and Livestation seem among the few ones so far to have sniffed the meal asvia what should be called P2PTV major broadcasters and TV networks can not only reach a much broader public without needing extra expensive broadcasting hardware and without needing to give up any of their advertising or sponsorship components, but they can also track and monitor with much greater accuracy what viewers are really watching. P2P has many things going in its favour, but more than other innovative new media technologies it may best represent the tip of iceberg of a deep paradigm change we are not ready to dive into just yet. I invite you to look at the fascinating ideas of P2P as a way of living that Michel Bauwens and his network have been bringing forward. This is the stuff we should be looking into, and if you want to be really innovative while helping others tangibly to create a vision for the future Michel Bauwens may be the best lecturer to invite at your next media related conference.

Conversational Tools - Microblogging

If you haven't yet given yourself the treat of using a microblogging tool, now is the time. Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and many others offers the simplest interface and command set for any online publishing tool you may have encountered so far, while providing you with a truly effective way of shooting out rapid fire news, information, call for action, updates and even personal stuff for your friends, if that's all you care about communicating. In 2008, some microblogging tools will start to integrate audio and video functionalities using an approach similar to Seesmic, the new still in Beta service which allows individuals to shoot out short video messages while forming their own personalized social network. On this front there is still a lot to go, but it appears evident to me that these tools are absolutely powerful and hugely powerful radars to allow you to stay in touch with hundreds of unique sources at once as well as providing a great publishing assets for any serious online blogger, trainer or independent reporter. Microblogging tools have moved the online conversation paradigm a step further beyond blog comments. They are still a bit rough around the corners, offering little control over "grading" the incoming sources and news in different ways, while being able to better categorize and group them according to your needs. The conversational aspect will also need to be refined a lot more before we can gain a true conversational experience even when using these asynchronous tools. But the above should likely be the innovative areas in which these tools will be making their next steps during 2008.

Widgets

This is the dream of any online publisher. Write once and publish your content to multiple media outlets at once. And thanks to RSS, the steady growth of widget use, the recent introduction of Open Social and of cross-media publishing tools the original dream has been actually surpassed by the reality we have been able to create so far. Publishing all of your content via one or multiple RSS feeds is one of the strategic keys that allows you to get highly enhanced distribution. But widgets, who are built on RSS, are increasingly a more effective strategy to get extra exposure, visibility and traction while possibly being able also to extract some monetization opportunities from them. In 2008, look for further innovation and new content publishing tools that allow you and your readers to package and distribute your content in multiple ways. If you want then to make the best of such opportunities, follow these great recommendations from Fred Wilson:

"1 - Microchunk it - Reduce the content to its simplest form. 2 - Free it - Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it. 3 - Syndicate it - Let anyone take it and run with it. 4 - Monetize it - Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk. Widgets are a syndication tool and a tracking tool. And hopefully they’ll become a monetization tool as well."

Open ID

How do you love having a tens of different usernames and credentials to log into the different services you have signed up to? OpenID comes to the rescue and in 2008 you should see larger adoption of this new identification standard which is free, non-proprietary and which can be integrated in most any web-based service out there. While OpenID is largely still in the adoption phase it is becoming increasingly more popular, as big organizations like Microsoft, AOL, Sun and Novell are starting to adopt and support the use of OpenIDs on their web-based services. This is why if you are an online publisher looking to expand your membership-only services you may want to consider learning more about OpenID and the unique benefits it may bring to your customers and readers

"For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins. As Brad Fitzpatrick (the father of OpenID) said, “Nobody should own this. Nobody’s planning on making any money from this. The goal is to release every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so there’s no money or licensing or registering required to play. It benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and we’re all a part of the community.” (Source: OpenID)

Off-line Web-based Applications

Offline web-based applications were in my new media predictions for 2007 as well, but nonetheless the interesting progress made by Socialtext, Zoho and Google Gears on this front, major advances that would allow mainstream adoption of this functionality are yet to come. Offline web apps represent a new capability for traditional online-only web services which now allow you to go offline and be able keep working until you re-connect next. In 2008 you will see off-line web apps going mainstream and leveraging this unique feature as a critical competitive selling point to significantly increase their user base.

X-Events

This is an idea whose time may not have come yet but it remains firmly on my radar for what you should start preparing for. X-Events are events which are planned and carried out in a continuous experience that merges offline physical events and online activities. The best way to explain this is a physical conference for which a community site is built before hand and in which participants, lecturers and sponsors start interacting and actively engaging with each other way before the physical event starts. Nonetheless the core event takes place in physical space it is also re-broadcast and made accessible in multiple ways, while numerous forums and post event showcases are set-up after the physical event is over. A truly eXtended event in these terms would guarantee much greater success to the physical venue, extended exposure and visibility for all commercial partners, much greater opportunities for engagement and social networking for participants as well as an infinitely more capable platform for including presentations and shows from a greater number of people. Even though most of the tools that would be needed to set-up an effective X-event have been out there for a while now, the true challenge is not only in integrating these into a coherent whole but having individuals who can see this vision and bring it to a plan that is certainly more challenging and complex than the typical tech conference. But so would be the success and rewards, I believe. Whether X-events will become more of a reality in 2008 it is hard to say, but given the popularity and revenue streams that these conferences can carry I think it is only a matter of time before we see someone starting to properly ride this valuable horse.
end of Part 2 Part 1 : New Media Predictions 2008: What Online Independent Publishers Should Expect From The Future - Part 1
Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on January 1st 2008 as New Media Predictions 2008: What Online Independent Publishers Should Expect From The Future - Part 1

Online professional independent publishers rejoyce! 2008 promises to be a year of great innovation for everyone publishing online as opportunities to expand or start your own micro publishing company will only increase. New powerful publishing and content distribution tools will make their debut in 2008 while some of the existing technologies and services will greatly refine, consolidate and expand their present offerings. Change is the name of the game, meaning that in as much as you can't follow, participate and understand fully the logic of today's web, the changes search engines are going through, the rise of social media, it is going to be increasingly hard for new publishers to successfully enter and survive in this extended marketplace. As opportunities and tools to do better as an online publisher will dramatically increase, also the number of independent web publishers failing will skyrocket due to many having come late to the game and not having really understood fully how things are changing. This is why as we progress it becomes increasingly critical to leverage pivotal business opportunities situated not exclusively in the creation and re-distribution of fresh news and information but rather more in the direction of aggregating, contextualizing, explaining and "making-sense" of all this information effectively. For however this may appear simple and obvious to the non-expert mind, these are truly the crucial innovation areas in which I expect to see major innovations and changes coming next: Making sense of things in new highly effective, interactive, just-in-time, informal and entertaining formats. Isn't that promise of the Semantic web anyhow? So, what has 2008 in store for you? Here's in a two-part summary report, check out at a glance, what I see ahead:

2008 Media Predictions - Part 1

Here below the areas that I believe you should pay most attention to in the upcoming 12 months. I expect these areas to be very live with announcements and useful innovation. Since there are over twenty personal publishing-related areas I personally follow I am structuring these predictions in two parts. Eleven areas today and the rest tomorrow, January 1st inside my Part 2 of these New Media Predictions 2008.

• Social Networks

  The number of social networks will keep increasing though only few will consolidate as key social hubs worth investing serious time into. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know the names, though new ones will keep showing up. For many of you, joining these networks will mean maintaining one profile on a major social network among those above along with a presence in one specialized niche social/business network in the specific areas / industries you are most interested into. Especially for those just starting up or wanting to gain an extra visibility edge in a reduced time, social networks may indeed offer a viable short-term solution. One of the key revolutionary advances in social networking tools of 2008 will be the ability for you to update all of your multiple social profiles across different networks from one interface (lifestreaming).This is something many have been waiting for as the implications, efficiencies and opportunities this creates are rather impressive. See the next point for more detail.




• Lifestreaming

  Lifestreaming offers you a single solution for gathering and publishing to all of your various online identities from a single social media space. Let's say you use Twitter for short messages to friends, Flickr for photo-sharing, YouTube for uploading video, Google Reader for your RSS feeds, del.icio.us for social bookmarking, and on and on. Sooner or later you might start suffering from social networking fatigue, dreading the prospect of signing into these various accounts to check up on or produce content. Add to this the ability to create various profiles for friends, work, and even lovers, depending on what you want to share with each of them, and you have not only a powerful aggregation and authoring tool but also an excellent way to control what you share with your different online social media contacts.




• Search

  Search will continue to be one of the critical pivot points around which we find, discover and access specific information online. But search engines are changing and deeply so. Starting with Google all of the major search engines will continue to adopt new algorithms and technical solutions that take into larger account user views and preferences especially when these come from a trusted group of selected friends. Greater availability of simple to use solutions that will allow you to create and customize your own public search engine(s) will further grow while becoming more integrated with advertising and sponsorship tools. Widget-based search will also gain more traction as online publishers will start to create mini-custom-search boxes focused to specific issues as an integrated content inside their most valuable articles. PageRank: if you haven't yet realized does not have any more significant value and your level of visibility inside Google search engine result pages is not connected to it anymore.




• Live Blogging

  Live blogging is a fast-growing trend as more and more web reporters cover live events and demand specialized tools to support them in this challenging task. In 2008 I expect to see more tools and services appearing in this space and a stronger adoption of dedicated live reporting tools versus "adapted" live blogging solutions like chat rooms, blogs and social conversation tools like twitter and jaiku.




• Web video - Net TV

  Web television channels, net tv and other independent web-based television offerings will keep growing in number and quality also during 2008 with interesting innovations and changes to be expected. On the front of content production you should expect to see lots of failures and super-hyped shows that will last only a limited time before folding. Watch out for the unique traits that pioneer web tv producers will use in creating some of the first successful net tv shows. On the front of web-casting platforms some of the few existing players will consolidate their position or get bought up while some others will fold. There will also be some unexpected big new entries in this space that will solidly redefine the profile of an independent web television channel. The best of Mogulus and Ustream will come together in a package that offers greater ease of use, better quality, and much greater reliability.




• Newsmastering

  What's this Robin? I know most of you haven't heard this word before but this is definitely something you have seen the results of in front of your eyes without realizing it. Newsmastering, at least in my own definition, is the art of aggregating and splicing together a large number of source news feeds, persistent searches and other information sources from which one manually selects, edits and publishes a curated digest with a specific editorial style or focus. With the continuous increase in the amount of news sources and content being published daily there is no escape from having to rely on some intermediary and trusted news filterers or to succumb in an ocean of feeds that take hours to skim through. This is where newsmastering plays a key vital role among the online news publishers of all kinds as well as among those that are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to provide a greater service to the readers while creating a new effective opportunity for sponsorship/ monetization. Since there are still very few tools covering this area I do expect new entries in this arena and a positive growth for the few players that will innovate and market themselves intelligently in the coming months.




• Online Advertising

  As in most of the areas I analyze here, while I am not an insider in any, my position of online publisher and external observer allows me at times to notice things that may not be so obvious and evident to those working in my same direction. As a web publisher I see an increase in advertising and monetization opportunities becoming available. New solutions will offer more controls and features to test and optimize, sometimes in real-time, your ad selections. Services acting as intermediaries for major advertising networks will increase in number and quality of service and are going to be ready for adoption by many small and medium-sized online publishers.




• Google AdSense

  Google AdSense will likely gain further in quality and revenue while losing many online publishers discouraged by its lack of transparency and open policies when it comes to penalizing sites, or establishing ethical rules that Google itself does not respect, or having to deal with a rapidly losing value of the dollar which significantly impacts non-US based AdSense publishers. In fact I expect many small online publishers to move away from AdSense and to invest larger amounts of time and resources in alternative monetization and advertising solutions. This may likely be a win-win evolutionary step for both sides, as Google AdSense may be able to strengthen its weak points while relying on a more selective network of sites and small publishers may find unexpected monetization nirvana in directions they had not even considered until now.




• Entertainment Meets Education

  Sounds like something I have heard before. The news here is that just-in-time, informal learning and connectivism are all getting together and providing smart online independent publishers with a first killer set of tools that will allow many to gain much greater success and revenue than contextual advertising ever did. What do I mean? Awareness and some rare examples are appearing showcasing the huge value and vast demand that there is from professionals wanting to learn and keeping themselves updated in new, enticing ways. No-body wants to read another 220-page book to learn something. On the other hand many enjoy watching short video tutorials, listening to interesting podcasts, reading through link-rich and well-illustrated article-guides or better yet by discussing the matter with other interested individuals, as all these approaches offer multiple and redundant ways to understand something from a number of different perspectives and learning styles. It is in this direction that talented communicators, established online publishers and niche experts will move next to further capitalize their knowledge assets.




• Google and SEO

  Whether you like it or not Google has given a very strong shake to the minimum requirements necessary to independently host a web site without incurring in any of its severe penalizations. This makes it next to impossible for non-expert webmasters to maintain control of their web sites reach and visibility within Google search results as the amount of know-how and technical expertise required is not anymore in anyone's reach as it used to be until mid-2007. This will force online publishers to become more knowledgeable and aware of lots of things ethical, editorial and technical they have been ignoring until now. There will be an evident increase in those seeking to publish their content via "trusted" platforms which are already integrated within a larger system. Content publishing networks such as Mochila or Blogburst, Squidoo, Google Knol and similar solutions may provide to be initial solutions to this trend. The overall result should be a general and sharp increase in the overall quality level of content and information web sites that will leave behind the neophyte phase of hippy blogging to those who are indeed there exclusively for the sheer passion of sharing their personal stories, to extend and broaden the personal publishing panorama with a more varied spectrum of highly focused and well-planned online content publishing solutions.




• Presentation Tools

  After one explosive year of new web-based presentation tools and services you have seen nothing yet of what it is to come in this direction. The metaphor adopted is so far is the one of replicating while simplifying the existing PowerPoint presentation paradigm. Unfortunately the PowerPoint approach loses water from all sides and it is also a bad foundation approach for those needing to develop better visual communication skills. But a small army of new cross-media presentation tools is coming to serve you in 2008. Not only will you be able to easily sync and match your selected slides to music and narration in an online slideshow, but you will start to get better tools to put together truly engaging visual presentations. For those who have seen Animoto or Splashcast and have already gotten very excited, let me tell you you haven't seen anything yet.

end of Part 1 - Part 2 tomorrow
Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on December 31st 2007 as "New Media Predictions 2008: What Online Independent Publishers Should Expect From The Future - Part 1"
Photo credits: Kirsty Pargeter Marcin Balcerzak Emsago

If you are on the lookout for some new useful tools that can help you better manage your distributed virtual room or your vacationing class of students, here is Master New Media new weekly set of cool online collaboration tools that you may have recently missed on their launch date and that Nico Canali De Rossi has carefully hand-picked and summary-reviewed for you. Photo credit: Daniel Gilbey - edited by Robin Good This week online collaboration technologies selection includes these eight tools:

1. Beam It Up: Compress your music, pictures or videos, and share them with a text message
2. ScreenStream: Free downloadable software allows you to show your screen to other people
3. Ulteo: Run OpenOffice online, and share your editing sessions in real time with anyone
4. Centericq: Text mode multi-protocol instant messenger connects you to major IM services through a simple interface
5. Easy Message: Smallest downloadable multi-protocol IM client allows you to connect to the major IM networks
6. Mindomo: Online mind-mapping tool lets you create and share mind-maps with your team
7. SmartSheet: Online task manager and spreadsheet editor allows you to collaborate with your colleagues
8. Wippien: Multi-protocol instant messenger with VPN enables you to chat and collaborate with your friends

Here the details:

1. Beam It Up Beam It Up is a free online service that you can use to compress files and send them on any mobile phone. It is really fast and easy to use: just select a file to upload(music, pictures, videos or docs), choose the compression settings, type the mobile number, and a download link will be automatically sent to that number via SMS text message so that your friend can pick the file up. Free to use, no registration needed. http://beam-it-up-scotty.com/


2. ScreenStream ScreenStream is a free downloadable software that lets others 'watch' your screen on their computers. After you have downloaded the small application and started the sharing session, you just have to give people a link that they will have to paste into their browser without installing anything. They can continue to watch your screen until turn off screen sharing. Free to use. http://www.nchsoftware.com/screen/index.html


3. Ulteo Ulteo is a web-based tool that lets you run OpenOffice 2.3 online. You can manage all of your documents online in various formats(OpenDocument, Microsoft, and PDF...), up to 1GB per account, and collaborate with people: all you need is a web-browser with Javascript and Sun Java Runtime 1.4+. OpenOffice sessions can be shared with anyone. Free to use, registration needed. http://www.ulteo.com/


4. Centericq Centericq is a text mode multi-protocol IM client that supports the ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, IRC, MSN, Gadu-Gadu and Jabber protocols. Despite its old-style light interface, it fully supports all of the other clients' features, such as text-chat, file transfer, contact list groups, group chats, invisible mode, and more. Completely free, it is available for download and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. http://thekonst.net/en/centericq


5. Easy Message Easy Message is the smallest downloadable instant messenger, just 240 kb, that allows users to chat on multiple instant messaging networks from one place, supporting MSN, AOL, ICQ and Yahoo. Its main features are file transfer, group chat and mail notification. It is completely free and you can download it here. http://www.easymessage.net/


6. Mindomo Mindomo is an online mind-mapping tool that you can use to create and share mind-maps with any PC and browser. Mindomo free version lets you store up to 7 maps and invite as many people as you want to see and edit them. You can also check out other versions. http://www.mindomo.com/


7. SmartSheet SmartSheet is a web-based spreadsheet editor that lets you create and share spreadsheets with your team mates. With the free plan you can create and share up to five spreadsheets, with an unlimited number of people. You can use it for free or check the advanced plans. http://www.smartsheet.com/


8. Wippien Wippien is a full featured instant messaging client that supports the major chat protocols, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, Jabber, and ICQ. The unique feature of Wippien is that it has a VPN (Virtual Private Network) baked right in and can be used to manipulate your online buddies' network shares, printers, desktop, and more. Free to download http://wippien.com

Originally written and prepared by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media

Originallly printed at FilmStew.com
They cast their extras via MySpace, found locations and props through CraigsList and raised part of their $8,000 filmmaking budget by buying and reselling used horror film DVDs. They also relied upon MySpace to recruit their film’s soundtrack composer, a member of the Church of Satan, and for the critical role of babies, enlisted the services of a newborn nephew and niece.

Now, Baltimore pals Chris LaMartina and Jimmy George have a Best Feature Award from Shockerfest 2007 and a screening at the Charles Theater on October 23rd to show for Book of Lore, their indirect homage to the horror films of the 1980’s. Blending together the intrigue of a string of 1985 murders, a contemporary killing spree and a found book urban legends, Lamartina’s follow-up to his horror anthology film Dead Teenagers has been garnering solid reviews.

Given the fact that Teenagers was made for $300, it may well have the capability to cause brain damage, which happens to be the name of company distributing it on DVD via the Internet - Brain Damage Films. But say what you will, going from a budget of $300 to one of $8,000 is an exponential leap; at this rate, LaMartina and George may well be playing with a couple hundred thousand in a few years. In the meantime, there’s another small budget to raise for their next film, Dismember the Dolls.

“It’s an anthology, a sardonic splatter flick,” LaMartina tells the City Paper of Baltimore, where he works as a videographer for the office of Mayor Sheila Dixon. “It’s this guy who has to go around on Valentine’s Day and get all the body parts of the women he used to date. I’m thinking of it as Phone Booth meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.”

I have to put my Film School by Phone Calls on hold for a few weeks. I've gone and gotten myself booked on a series of jobs and can't make the schedule for these calls work. What I will do though, is get the past calls up online in the next couple of days in a format that works. . .

Have you seen the new and improved AssistantDirectors.com? If not, you should check it out. I've made a lot of upgrades. Lot's of good stuff there too.

On another note, I am looking for contributors to the news section on AssistantDirectors.com. I will give you a byline and a link back to your site with each article. What I am looking for are filmmaking tips, experiences, industry news (from your area) and movie reviews. Interested? Email me here.