humor | contentious.com

April 7, 2011 friends, fun stuff, video humor, Mashup, movies, vampires, zombies Leave a comment

And now for some first-class genre-bending

I’ve been working really hard lately and not sleeping well. I needed a good belly laugh. So a friend sent me this. It totally worked. Watch it all the way to the end…

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

March 8, 2010 mainstream media, media evolution, newspapers, problems, psychology crazy, humor, newspapers, Onion, video Leave a comment

The Onion: How will the end of print journalism affect old loons who hoard newspapers?

Pretty much says it all. It may be the only market they have left:

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

April 17, 2009 Arranging Ideas, business, critical thinking, culture, fun stuff, journalism, language, mainstream media, media evolution, skills, social media, twitter, video Broadcast, David Cohn, distribution, humor, journalism, Media, multimedia, new media, newspaper, online media, print, television, video 1 Comment

What’s “Media?” Time to Update Default Assumptions

Yesterday it occurred to me — as I heard about yet another “multimedia workshop” for journalists — how dated and useless the term “multimedia” has become. It’s now normal for media content types to be mixed. It’s also normal for anyone working in media to be expected to create and integrate various types of content (text, audio, photos, video, mapping/locative) as well as delivery channels (print, Web, radio, TV, podcast, social media, e-mail, SMS, embeddable, mobile applications, widgets, e-readers, etc.).

Ditto for the terms “new media” and even “online media”, which imply that channels other than print and broadcast are somehow separate or niche.

The best take on why it’s important to update and integrate assumptions about the nature of media (and how that affects news) is shown in this hilarious skit from Landline.TV:

Here’s where media is at today: In the current integrated media ecosystem, every print and broadcast organization has an Internet and mobile presence — and most of these now go beyond bare “shovelware”. Also, more and more of these organizations are distributing their content online first, making print and broadcast secondary channels (if not secondary markets). In contrast, most media outlets and public discussion venues that began life on the Internet do not have a print or broadcast presence. These vastly outnumber print and broadcast media outlets.

Consequently, when you consider the number and diversity of media outlets, print and broadcast media have become the exception — not the rule…

Continue reading →

March 21, 2009 fun stuff, social media, twitter, video animation, cartoon, humor, social media, supernews, twitter Leave a comment

SuperNews! Twouble with Twitters (Current)

Found this gem via Barbara Iverson on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits:

March 6, 2009 art, culture, e-readers, fun stuff, innovation comics, culture, Geek, HHG, humor, Kindle Leave a comment

Why geeks love the Kindle 2

Dan Sawyer spotted this gem recently on XKCD:

The truth about the Kindle 2

By the way… XKCD is a brilliant and poignant webcomic, one of my favorites. It’s also CC-licensed. Go check it out.

January 29, 2009 civic, emotions, fun stuff, government, PR & marketing, skills Austin Texas, government, hackers, humor, Neatorama, PR, Public safety, Signage, Strategy, Traffic sign, vandalism 2 Comments

Zombie signs & how public officials can act human

Run for your lives!Â Zombies want to eat your brain!

…Gotta admit, I was tickled to hear on MSNBC and elsewhere about this bit of creative hackery:

TX DOT was not amused... But I was... (Photo courtesy Lucas Cobb)

In Austin, KXAN reported:

“[Austin Public Works spokesperson] Sara Hartley said though it was a locked sign, the padlock for it was cut. Signs such as these have a computer inside that is password-protected. ‘And so they had to break in and hack into the computer to do it, so they were pretty determined.'”

OK, yeah, I know there’s a serious potential public safety issue here. Apparently the Austin police are trying to catch the sign hackers, who may face a class C misdemeanor charge.

But I think Queer Cincinnati nailed the opportunity here for public officials to turn this to their advantage by responding with a sense of humor:

“Does anyone else think, perhaps, the PD should have just taken it as the joke it was, and posted ‘Zombie Threat Eliminated, Road Construction Ahead’? I think that would have shown a great, human side to the government. And we wouldn’t have these silly threats to go after college pranksters.”

Amen! After all, as Queer Cincinnati also noted, instructions on how to hack road signs have been posted on Neatorama and elsewhere. This is definitely going to keep happening. Probably responding with humor — while improving security of road signs — would generate the most public goodwill.