Tumblr Verses Posterous

So I have created an account with several different social networking sites. As mentioned in my previous post, I have a Tumblr blog. However, after spending time on Tumblr I decided to create a Posterous account. From my experience, Posterous is quite similar to Tumblr, except it seems to be quicker to blog. Both Tumblr and Posterous allow you to share anything from any page by clicking “Share on Tumblr“, an interface appears, which allows you to input information regarding the post, and it also allows you to add tags to the post. Both the blogs allow you to link up your blog with other social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, however, Posterous allows you to link up with everything, from your WordPress blog to your Youtube account. One major problem I found with this was: Whenever I posted on Posterous, the post would also be sent to my Twitter page, Facebook page, and Tumblr page. But the new Twitter Tweet would be sent to my Facebook page, and so would the Tumblr post, so my Facebook account feed received 3 posts regarding the same thing, this looked messy and increases the risk of friends deleting me of Facebook due to spamming. This resulted in removing all the feed links of Posterous, however, I kept the link from my Tumblr to my Twitter feed. Out of the 2, I prefer Tumblr because it seems to have a lot more going on, I have seen plenty of artistic posts that I like, leading me to following the user, and the user following me (much like Twitter). I found Posterous to be very blasé and messy, and I also found it annoying having to log into my hotmail account to share something on my blog. I’m sure after time it would become easier to maintain Posterous, to get it looking more professional, however, Tumblr is much more easier, and it also has a widget for my Macbook Pro’s dashboard so I can make a post from my dashboard.
Another site I have been using a lot recently is Flickr, this is because I am attempting to setup my brothers photography business. Richard wants to be a freelance photographer, and the only way to do that is to get out there, and get exposed. My aim is to use social media to get him exposed. This has involved maintaining his Flickr account with regular uploads, joining relevant groups to post the photographs to, posting blogs on WordPress regarding his interest in photography, featuring links to his latest work, and also Tweeting on Twitter to get the public over to his Flickr and check out his work. So far it does seem to be working, however, it is a rather slow process, but hopefully it will all pay off!
Album of the Week:

Goodbye 20th Century… Time Must Go On!

It’s been a few weeks since anything new was published on this page, it’s time to do something about that! First of all I’ll start with discussing some new social networking sites I have come across. One of them is Tumblr. After registering I began to witness the benefits of this site, and how it is unique. Firstly, the site allows you to post blogs, and also to import all of your feeds onto your page, so it is likely this blog will end up on there. The site also sends your latest posts to Twitter so your followers can read your latest post. You can find my blog page here: Sunset Margin.
Another website I have been experimenting with recently is Flickr. I’m sure most people have heard of it, but for those who haven’t, the website allows one to upload photos and videos. The file can then be tagged so it appears in a categorical search, if somebody comes across your image/video, they can favourite it, comment on it, and use it themselves if you allow them to use it (this is where Creative Commons comes in use). I’m yet to experience something that will hook me to this site, but I’m sure it will come in use as part of my project, well, it definitely will be playing a large part for one area of it.
One thing I have learned this week is how much technology is constantly changing, after reviewing the media industry over the past 50 years it is shocking to see how far we have come, how much technology has changed in such a small amount of time. It was only 41 years ago that Television brought the world closer together with the broadcast of the moon landing.
At one point I became a little bit obsessed with how MTV changed a lot of things in the 1980s. It changed the way music is consumed, no longer would a song only be a sound, it became an image too. If a music video was on heavy rotation on the play list it would most likely go to number 1 in the charts. The 80s also brought us the Compact Disc (CD) that would be the dominant format throughout the 90s, followed by MP3, the iPod dominates the MP3 market.
Yes a lot has changed over the past half a century, and a lot of different technology has been introduced. But introduction of a new technology does not necessarily wave goodbye to an older format, take the vinyl for example, any audiophile would much rather prefer to listen to an analogue vinyl than a digital CD or MP3, because the sound is so much warmer and richer. Although I think we can all happily say goodbye to the obsolete VHS. I recall wanting rid of this video format a few years before the introduction of DVD, simply for the pure annoyance of rewinding and fast forwarding the tape, damaging it in the meantime.
The Internet has been a blessing, in many ways. I can not imagine how I would waste my time without it! I would much prefer to aimlessly surf the net, than sit down on a games console for 3 to 4 hours. I just love checking Twitter for new tweats and Facebook for new status updates, and constantly keeping up to date with the latest celebrity news…
Check out this hilarious clip taken from French & Saunders, hopefully it’ll have you lolling as much as me…

Album of the Week:

Accessing Media In the 21st Century

This weeks topic: File sharing, Creative Commons, and generally the music industry…
Okay, so let’s begin with my journey and experience with file-sharing, it all started back in the year 2000 when I was informed about a new piece of software named Naptster, with this software I was blown away by the fact I could access music for free, and burn the songs to CD. I downloaded the software, and naturally started taking advantage. I wasn’t able to download a lot though because my internet connection was 56kbps, it would take 15 minutes to download 1 song (it now takes that long to download a movie!) I would never download albums on Napster, and I’m not even sure if full albums were available on Naptster. Anyway, it wasn’t like I was downloading tonnes of music for free and not giving anything back to the music industry, if I liked a band I would go buy their album. Napster allowed me to discover new music… When I went through my Mosher days I would watch MTV2 and Kerrang repeatedly searching for songs to download, and it was through MTV and Napster that I discovered one of my favourite bands, Placebo, I had seen a few music videos on MTV and downloaded the songs, it was one particular song (Special K) that I became obsessed with and pushed me into buying their latest album (Black Market Music), I fell in love with the album and the band and went out to buy the rest of their albums, a long with all their singles. was not a commercial single because 1.) The song is referencing love to ketermine 2.) The single includes 7 tracks which is too many tracks to be considered a single, therefore, unable to enter the UK Top 40 charts. I personally hold Napster responsible for helping me find my favourite band.
Anyway, since Napster closed down I used Kazaa and Limewire from around 2001 to 2004, however, I grew tired of the rubbish audio quality of the majority of the songs and the looped tracks (the chorus being repeated over and over throughout the entire song) so I moved onto torrents, and then Rapidshare. I have bought every album that I have downloaded and enjoyed, because I believe in giving back to the artist.
I embrace iTunes, I spend a lot of money on the online store, but I go through phases where I question what I’m actually spending my money on, I’m not getting anything physical out of it. Basically I spend £7.99 on an album that downloads onto my hard drive, and mostly never listen to it again once I’ve got bored of it. If I bought the album physically I could sell it on amazon once I’m done with it, but instead I am left with files taking up space on my hard drive which I refuse to delete simply because I’ve payed for them.
Spotify is a great idea in my opinion, although I don’t like the idea of not owning the songs, I use Spotify when I am unsure whether or not I want to buy an album. I refrain from downloading the album of illegal download sites, and instead have a listen on Spotify… I purchased Scritti Politti’s “Cupid & Psychic ’85” after listening to it on Spotify.
Obviously not everybody is like me, many people get into the habit of downloading music for free and would never consider spending a single penny on the song/album they want to put on their iPod.
After reading Jeremy Silver’s blog regarding the music industry, I have learned a lot about the current state of the music industry, it seems the industry is unwilling to change the way they profit of the music, they would rather stick to the same method they’ve been using over the past century. As long as the artists are getting funded fairly, and I can still buy a vinyl version, then I’m not bothered how the recording industry charge for their products…
Creative Commons is a new thing I’ve learned about this week, and I must say I think it is a great idea, mainly because it’s free, and it allows people to use one’s piece of work, as long as they recognise the piece of work was created by somebody else. My brother benefits greatly from Creative Commons, because he is a photographer who uses Flickr to upload and show off his work, so people can use his art, as long as they credit the piece of work belongs to him.

Album of the week:

Jumping Poodle

Jumping Poodle

Originally uploaded by evolness

A short video captured on my Blackberry. The video includes a poodle jumping up to the table, attempting to get the tennis ball. The music is a sample of a song I made last year. The video is a bit dark!

You can watch me on your video phone…

I first became aware of mobile video camera’s around 6 years ago, because my old Nokia phone had a camera on it. The camera allowed me to take photo’s and record video, but I was never really impressed with the quality of the camera so I did not use it much… however, the quality of the camera has improved over the years, and now I feel I can take a moderately good photo on it, and record video footage at a watchable level. I remember when the craze of having a camera on a mobile phone kicked in, everywhere I went people would be taking pictures on their phone. And every concert I went to people would be recording their favourite songs being performed… I have always felt obliged to pull out my phone when at a gig to take some pictures, and film my favourite song (as much of an inconvenience that it is), I felt I should leave the concert with some sort of memorabilia. My latest experience of this was at the Depeche Mode concert I went to a few weeks ago, I was quite happy to stand there and watch one of my favourite bands perform, but I had this urge to film some of the concert on my phone because I thought I would regret it. Anyway, I recorded “World In My Eyes”, and I took pictures of them performing “Policy of Truth”, and I haven’t looked at any of them (maybe one photo), so basically I wasted my time doing this, I took my eyes of the band so I could concentrate on attempting to get a half decent picture of the band.
I can see it is convenient to have a camera on the phone, but is it not a bit extreme to make a full length movie out of mobile phone video footage? I can see it’s an interesting idea, but unfortunately I like the video footage I watch to be pristine, and I like the audio quality to be excellent quality too (I’m a bit of an audiophile). I’ve often gone onto Youtube to watch bands perform live, and if I click on a link and find it was recorded on somebodies mobile phone, with it’s shaky picture and appalling audio quality, I refuse to watch it, just like I refuse to watch a movie somebody has recorded in a cinema on their camcorder… where is the enjoyment in that? I fear the world is forgetting the importance of quality… but I guess with HD picture quality constantly getting better I shouldn’t worry too much about that.
Anyway, I did watch some of Hugh Garry’s “Shoot the Summer”, I did find the concept interesting, and the fact it was all recorded on video camera makes it unique, but after about 10 minutes the novelty wore off and the poor picture quality began to annoy me so I had to turn it off. I think I will give it another watch sometime in the near future to attempt to appreciate it a bit more. Apologies for the rant!
I understand there are plenty of benefits of having camera’s on phone, like capturing something funny or something quite serious, and I have seen a lot of interesting videos on youtube, so I am not against home made video footage, but a lot of trash comes from the source.

Album of the Week:

Tweeting to the point of no return…

So now I have a Twitter profile, and I must say, after a play around with the features, I am becoming slightly addicted. I always avoided Twitter in the past, I’ve never had to urge to use the application. I have visited the site in the past, but I simply could not see the appeal. However, upon following other users, reading their statuses, and have people follow me, makes me want to use the site even more. I have found myself trying to create a status that would appeal to the masses, making them want to follow me. From the creation of my Twitter profile, I have only had my university class follow me, but last night I got my first miscellaneous follower, and i must say it got me fairly excited, is that weird? I have been checking my Twitter updates more so than my Facebook updates, I fear I am becoming completely drawn in by Social Networking!!! But I suppose it doesn’t hurt if I am enjoying myself in the meantime.
One thing about Facebook and Twitter that really appeals to me, is when a user posts a status which includes a link to a video on Youtube (or another video upload site), I find these videos are always the most interesting. I don’t particularly enjoy typing random words in the Youtube search bar, unable to find what I hope to find (I really do think that Youtube’s search field is not as good as it used to be, I barely find what I am looking for anymore). I prefer watching what other people enjoy watching, I guess I am not the non-conformist I used to like to think I was?

The Non-Conformist Goth Kids from South Park incase you are wondering.

I am currently discovering Delicious, I have created a profile on Yahoo and I have been adding links, with brief descriptions of the links, I shall concentrate more on this next week. But in the mean time I have just been thinking about how I thought I knew the A to Z of the Internet, because I have always been able to find what I want, but all these sites (Linkedin, Delicious, Tiny.cc) have opened new doors to me, and I have begun to think about how I could use these sites to benefit the music I am currently working on. My main plan is to focus on Twitter, I am to get as many followers as possible over the next few months, and then when it comes to promote my project, I shall use the status update to make my followers aware of the project. Whether or not they will bother checking it out is another thing to stress about.

Anyway, I shall spend the rest of this week posting useful, maybe useless status updates on Twitter, and I look forward to reading what everybody else has to say about it. I’m sure you will all be seeing a status referring to the Lady GaGa, Depeche Mode, and Owl City gigs I have coming up in the next few days!!!!!!

My album of the week…

Thinking More & More about Social Networking…

This week Charlie Mydlarz was the focus point for the lecture, he spent the class time doing a presentation on his research, which involved using the Internet to gather his research information. This involved using sites like Facebook, Twitter, WordPress to gather his research for his project “Sounds Around You”.
This allowed him to gather information from across the world, rather than locally, Social Networking sites have allowed him to spread his wings, making his research a global investigation.
The most intriguing element to his project (for me) was how his project got recognised because it uses social networking sites. When he first applied for a grant to fund the project, his original pitch was declined, but when he pitched the project again (this time including social networking websites to gather the research) he was given the funding for the project. For me, this suggests that the providers were more interested in the fact he was using these Social Networking sites to gather his research, rather than the actual purpose for the project, the Internet is still new, and people are obviously interested by the idea of using the internet to gather research, and to take full advantage of it. This has got me thinking how I am going to use Social Networking to promote the music I am currently writing and recording.
These classes are making me think more and more about the pro’s and the con’s behind Social Networking, I have been discussing it regularly with friends and acquaintances during my visit to London this weekend. My biggest problem (and other people’s problem) with this sites like Facebook is people have a window to my life. If I update my status to “Daniel Bostock is on the train to London for the weekend”, then everybody on my friends list know I am off to London. I often get paranoid wondering if anybody ever makes any remarks when reading my statuses. I do the same when somebody posts something like “Jane Doe is in love with John and is really happy!” This makes me cringe a lot; I try to keep my status updates to a minimum, usually once or twice a week.
When I first started using Social Networking sites in the early 2000’s (Faceparty and Myspace), the only people who would be on my friends list were actual friends from school and university, but because Facebook has boomed so much, I have people from work adding me (people who I barely talk to) and 40 something year old relatives requesting to be added to my friends list… I do not really want relatives knowing about my drunken nights out, or work finding out that I am not in work because I am too hung over (I have never phoned in sick with a hangover by the way), but a side from this, I do enjoy keeping in contact with people I was once good friends with from my previous degree, and my A-Levels, and I also like bands and celebrities updating their Facebook status to inform fans of latest news and releases. I enjoy Lady GaGa’s Facebook status updates because her posts are usually random and fun to read.
A recent one being:
Lady Gaga: My fans are waiting in the blizzard at 5 am in new york. I love u!

My album of the week:

Week One

My name is Daniel Bostock, and I am currently studying MSc Professional Sound and Visual Technology at The University of Salford. The course includes numerous modules, from 3D Animation, Digital Studio Production and Broadcast Standards and Systems to name a few. For one of my latest modules, I am to build and maintain a blog, this being the Social Media module.

On the first week of the Social Media module, I’ve learnt the meaning of Social Media, it’s not as straightforward as it may seem… my first impressions were the general use of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. Although these websites play a large part in Social Media, there is much more to it… for example, many businesses are now using these social networking sites to advertise products to the consumers. Another example would be discussing how somebody might be signing away their privacy when they register for a Facebook account, because they are inviting people (friends, family and work colleagues) to pry through their lives via status updates, tagged photo’s, etc.

My digital identity is recklessly scattered all over the Internet, I have left ‘digital footprints’ all over the Internet. I use social networking websites such as Facebook to keep in contact with friends, allowing them to view my photo’s from hideous nights out, and read my abysmal status updates featuring lyrics from songs barely anybody I know is familiar with. I also have 2 Myspace profiles; I have a main social profile, and a music profile (for the music I write and record). I no longer use my main social Myspace profile because times have changed and everybody has moved onto Facebook… Although I preferred Myspace at one point for its HTML profile editors and the ability to post bulletins about things nobody cared about, Facebook soon took its place in terms of favourability for the simple reason that it is easy to use.

Way back in 2003, I had a Faceparty profile, which I used to use a lot before Myspace came a long. I have signed up for other social networking sites like Bebo, but I have never used them, mainly because I did not like them. I am a member of Last FM, however, I only use this site to comment on songs which I feel need to have my opinion on how much I love them, I don’t use the site to listen to music because I have all the music I need in my iTunes library. Even though I am a very digital person, I still use music channels and the radio to discover most of my music, although I have found some interesting bands through Myspace music, such as the eccentric electronic Crystal Castles.

A side from social networking sites, I am also members to plenty of forums that represents my favourite bands so I can discuss their music and the members. I am also a member of celebrity gossip forums to keep up to date with the latest happenings in Hollywood.

To finish with, I also upload videos to Youtube, mostly containing homemade movies I have made with friends etc.