Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 8.31.09 Tweetlater changes name to Social Oomph

Tweetlater changes name to SocialOomph -service remain the same!

One tool that I find really useful in managing my Twitter account is located on a site I’ve talked about before (previously) called Tweetlater.com. (check out my blog entry from Positano on 7.3.09).

Tweetlater.com (now called now called Social Oomph [socialoomph.com]) is a service I use for myself and Mutt Media Clients that provides statistics and automation of your Twitter account, while still enabling you to keep it personal. You can use this free service to track and vet your potential followers and you can set up automated personal responses to push at the appropriate time. Other great features? You can set your account to automatically follow anyone you approve to follow you, or you can not follow, block or even report an potential follower as spam – all at a time you find convenient. All you have to do is login and go to manage your account(s). You can maintain and manage several and instead of getting inundated with notifications, you can set aside time as desired to go through and vet.

It’s a great service that you can administer yourself and it’s also a service we provide to our clients at no additional charge if we already have you on our roster. Send us an email or post your questions right here.

Social O

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 8.22.09 Interesting article on the "Debate" over Media Studies Programs. Did you know there was one?

Article Reprint discusses Media Studies in Education

The following is an article I came across that I found of interest.

This article discusses an ongoing debate as to the validity of Media Studies in University environments. As someone who is currently immersed in a course of Media Studies at the New School (NYC), I can assure you that my classes are not only engaging, but deal in the most current, relevant and revolutionary of subject matter and instruction. My curriculum is focused on balancing the history and evolution of Media and it’s various theorists and theories as well as a great infusion of the most cutting edge advances in the industries that have grown from those.

Of course, teaching institutions vary greatly but my program has been around a long while and the courses are taught by learned professionals in their fields.

Enjoy and as always, your comments are welcome! Thanks to Social Media Mind on Twitter for leading me to this….

In defence of media studies

How do we judge if a subject is easy or difficult? Condemnation of media studies reflects a fundamental confusion about its aims

David Buckingham
Saturday August 22 2009
guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/22/media-studies

It’s unfortunate for teachers and students that the exam results always come out in the midsummer silly season. It seems to guarantee a flurry of tiresome political rhetoric, in which their hard work, and the realities of contemporary education, are entirely ignored.

This summer’s great education debate has seen frequent mention of media studies ? a subject that is now a byword for dumbing down. Media studies, we are told, is one of those soft options now being offered to the deluded students of our state schools; while the privately educated elite are being stretched by real, hard subjects like physics and maths. Admissions tutors at a few elite universities apparently look down on such soft options. And shadow education secretary Michael Gove has even proposed that schools be allocated more points in the league tables for hard subjects than easy ones.

If anything is a symptom of dumbing down, it is the willingness of politicians and pundits to pronounce on things they know nothing about. But why would they bother to find out? It is so much more convenient for them to represent media studies as just a matter of ignorant chavs sitting around watching telly.

Much of the discussion of media studies reflects a fundamental confusion about its aims. On the one hand, it is chided for being not vocational enough: after all, media studies GCSE isn’t going to get you a job in the BBC. Yet on the other, it is condemned for not being academic enough: it is, quite hilariously, a Mickey Mouse subject.

But how might these arguments apply to other subjects? Do we judge the value of English degrees on whether they equip students to become professional literary critics? In fact, the employment rate of media studies graduates is higher than in most other humanities and social science subjects; and most of them are getting jobs in media-related professions, however precarious they may be.

The charge of being insufficiently academic is one that media studies students ? who routinely struggle with the complexities of social and cultural theory ? would find quite ridiculous. The academic study of the media dates back more than 80 years, and there is a vast body of scholarship on the sociological, psychological, cultural and economic dimensions of the media.

Indeed, there are many academics researching and teaching about the media at Oxford and Cambridge, and at most leading “old” universities. Meanwhile, competition for places on media studies degrees is intense, with required grades often much higher than for other subjects.

How do we judge whether a subject is easy or difficult? Is art difficult? For some it is as easy as breathing, but for others it is something they will always struggle to master. For some, maths must seem like a soft option, while for others it will forever remain a closed book.

The suspicion of media studies is very similar to that which greeted sociology in the 1960s, or English literature in the 1920s. Then, the suggestion that young people might study books in their native language rather than just in ancient Greek and Latin was little short of scandalous.

Now, the idea that young people might study the media of modern communication seems equally scandalous. Newspapers have been around for more than 250 years, the cinema for more than 100 and television for more than 60. Perish the thought that schools should recognise, and interrogate, their existence.

This suspicion is fuelled by some who work in the media, but who seem to regard what they do as somehow unworthy of serious critical attention. Or perhaps they find such attention threatening?

By all means let’s have a serious debate about how we teach media studies, and what it can achieve. But that debate needs to be based on more than ignorance and narrow-minded prejudices about modern culture.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009
Registered in England and Wales No. 908396
Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 8.20.09 kamouya1@yahoo.com is the "anonymous" insulting, defaming blogger

kamouya1@yahoo.com is the "anonymous" insulting, defaming blogger

Yesterday Liskula Cohen won her court battle to unveil the identity of the offensive Blogger responsible for the “Skanks in NYC” blog in which Cohen was the sole subject.

I, for one, applaud this ruling as I feel strongly that people should not be allowed to hide behind a cloak of anonymity to make negative, offensive and hurtful statements – about anything. Whether you are ranting about an Obama policy, your unfair boss or the hit your stock portfolio just took, I say stand up and, if you can’t (or won’t) take on the responsibility that comes along with your rant – then sit down and shut up.

This may seem like a harsh viewpoint (and maybe it is) but I am not a believer in stirring up the pot and leaving a big old mess for others to deal with. If you feel that you have a valid viewpoint that is worth sharing and you can take the time to say it, then sign your name to it.

It is completely irresponsible and cowardly to throw out your opinions without taking on the fallout they may create. I believe we should all be able to broadcast our opinions – that is what free speech is all about but hiding behind a cloak of anonymity absolutely removes the validity of your viewpoint.

Ok. So preachy portion of today’s blog behind us, I can now comment about what little we know about kamouya1@yahoo.com. She is a woman who was, according to Cohen, nothing more than a passing acquaintence. What then, did the model do to so offend?

Cohen appeared on Good Morning America. So she now knows the identity and claims that she forgives her but will, nevertheless, be filing a civil defamation suit.

I, for one was shocked to find out that this blogger was another woman who would resort to attacking her “friend” by claiming that she was dirty, skanky and sexually promiscuous. Disgusting!

Mutt Media will be following this story as it progresses so stay tuned to see how and if this lawsuit materializes and the eventual outcome.

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 8.18.09 Judge rules Google must give up identity of "anonymous" blogger

Google must give up identity of blogger who posted defamatory remarks about model Liskula Cohen

Once upon a (recent) time, there was a blog site on Blogger.com (Google-owned) called “Skanks in NYC”. Isn’t that charming?

According to Timesonline.com, the blogger posted remarks such as the following:

“I would have to say the first-place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen,” the blogger “Anonymous” wrote in one posting. The blog, since removed, ridiculed the former Australian Vogue covergirl as a “40-something” who “may have been hot 10 years ago”, when she was actually 36.

Justice Joan Madden rejected the blogger’s claim that the blogs “serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting”, and should not be treated as factual assertions.

The model was looking forward last night to discovering the identity of the alleged acquaintance who insulted her. “Everybody is waiting to see who this coward is,” Steven Wagner, her lawyer, said.

Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said: “We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyberbullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order.” (author: James Bone)

This is not the first time Cohen has been in the news for something conflict-related. A couple of years back while at the Hudson Hotel, she got into an argument with a guy who took a drink off of her table. After throwing a drink at him, he hit her in the face with a bottle of vodka, causing her to get over 40 stitches and, according to her account at the time, effectively end her modeling career.

How do these scrapes with others keep ending up in the newspaper and why does trouble seem to find her? I haven’t a clue. But I do know this: there is no guarantee of anonymity on the internet!!!!

Very soon this blogger will be forced out from the shadows and his/her identity will be known. Soon after that, no doubt Cohen will file a defamation lawsuit and will hopefully prevail, sending a strong message to anyone who seeks to publicly defame another.

I applaud this ruling, how about you? Post your thoughts!

Mutt Media | The Daily Bone 8.4.09 Schmidt & Apple are no more

Google CEO Eric Schmidt steps down from Apple's Board

A FOLLOW-UP!

You may recall a recent blog I did about Apple, Google and conflicts of interest (click here for that blog entry). Back in mid-July there was already much speculation about the Google CEO (Eric Schmidt) who sat on Apple’s Board of Directors.

All along as concerns regarding Anti-Trust laws arose, both entities provided explanations and denied there was any cross-over between them; they claimed that Schmidt would recuse himself from certain segments of meetings to adhere to the guidelines but still, this became problematic as more and more, the two companies share common interests in business.

“Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple‘s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board Member will be significantly diminished, since he will hav eto recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest.” (Steve Jobs)

You read here that Google is now rolling out a mobile phone operating system called Android that will compete with the iPhone. Google is also developing Chrome OS, an new operating system for smaller computers that will directly compete with both Apple as well as Microsoft.

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 8.1.09 The best things in life are not necessarily free – music downloader pays hefty price

Joel Tannenbaum ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading 30 songs

This is the second post I’ve done recently about court cases involving illegally downloaded music.

My first blog on the subject was on June 19th when we talked about the Minnesota woman who was ordered to pay $80,000 per song ($1.92 million) for her illegal downloads.

Today we talk about a guy named Joel Tannenbaum, a Boston University student whose penalty was not quite as steep – he only has to pony up $30,000 per song or a total of $675,000.

One question – isn’t it simpler and cheaper to just pay for your downloads?

I get it. Some people think listening to music is their G-d-Given right. Well, that’s a nice thought. But here’s another….what about the artists? I can get on board with the philosphy that the record companies are making out like the real bandits – they do. But when you download your music on the sly, you are short-changing a lot of people who worked on the record, including not only the celebrity artists, but many musicians whose names you do not know.

This is how they make their money! Back in olden times when I was a kid, we had to go out and actually buy the whole album just to hear that one song we liked. And, we could only play that album on a turntable or on a low-quality cassette tape or later, a CD.

Digital music is fantabulous…it goes with you everywhere and you can select your preferred artist, genre and create your playlists to accompany any activity you can think of.

Pay the .99 cents! They really mean it.