Podcasting & Vidcasting

The first podcast I listened to was by a movie review site called spill.com. Spill is a crew of 4 movie critics who do comedic reviews of theatrical films (as they are released). I already knew about spill podcasts before this assignment, and have been listening to them for at least a year now. I choose one of my favourite episodes to listen to, the Max Payne review. This review is particularly funny to me because I actually saw the movie and agree on most of the points that they make. Next I listened to IGN strategize, a podcast that deals with video games. Strategize basically lays out tips and tricks to completing various feats in games across all platforms. The edition I listened to gave tips on how to earn more gold in Assassin’s creed 2.

My overall experience with podcasting was a positive one. I personally like podcasts due to its ease and portability, not to mention the quick acquisition of the content as well. I also like the fact that I can gather my information while doing other activities (I can listen to a podcast while driving). Only downsides to podcasts compared to, let’s say magazines, are that skimming to find the information you want is harder then looking at a physical media form or text.

Audio books are like the text of a novel converted into audio form. Audio books are good for people who ether don’t like reading or don’t have time to read (always on the go). A negative to audio books is that they would suffer the same fate most digital media faces, piracy. With an entire novel converted into a single .mp3, there is an immensely increased ease of duplication. Now what would take a pirate possibly months to convert a book online would just take him a day.

For vidcasts, I used spill again due to the fact that they have video podcasts that are shorter versions of the audio stuff, but with animation for the video component. The vidcast I listened to was the video review of Twilight New Moon (which I unfortunately got dragged to). It was one of the funnier reviews from them I have listened to in a while and will be linked at the end of this post. The next podcast I listened to is the digg real on revision3.com. The digg real is a vidcast that highlights all of the best videos and stories seen on digg for the week. It is particularly good for fans of digg that may not always have the time to check and find the best/funniest stories. Youtube has grown due to its ease of use and vidcast friendly environment. Now vidcasters don’t have to even start a site to create content and share content.

My views on vidcasting are similar to those with podcasting, with the only addition being the visual component adds to the wealth of the information presented.

Google Reader Impressions

So for the past week now I have been using Google reader to browse my entire list of favourite websites, all through the use of one site. What Google reader does is take all the updates from your subscribed websites and place them in a blog-ish looking format, all in one frame, granting the user the ability to check new content without ever having to even go to the site. It is quite handy actually, the ease and accessibility of reader makes it simple to browse new content quicker, also making it easier to find that content as well. Adding sites to your track list is easy; one way of doing it is to simply click “add subscription” under the Google reader logo on the main page, or use Google’s directory to find a feed. Lastly you can find your own feeds, though making sure the site you wish to add is using RSS. This will be clear in Firefox, whereas it displays the RSS logo to the right of the address bar.

Personally I find this technology fascinating. It is a really neat and easy way to find the new content you want without wasting time searching through the host site. The only thing I miss is going to the actual site to see the work the web design team has created, within that, Reader can also take “hits” away from the site. Let’s say you don’t find any content amusing on ign.com for the week while using Reader. Or you feel that the condensed feed Reader gives you is good enough compared to actually visiting the site. It may not seem like much harm but if millions of people were to do this regularly, some websites just wouldn’t be able to keep themselves running, meaning no new content. Reader is good yes, but I still like to visit the actual host site, call me old fashioned.

My first venture into the blogging world.

I have searched the net, trying to find cool blogs that I would find interesting or funny. One blog that i stumbled upon was failblog.com, a blog hosting user submitted pictures and videos that showed people failing in one way or another. Failblog particularity caught my eye due to it's format. It has a rating system above every submission, giving the community the ability to decide what it finds interesting or funny. Another neat feature is the ability for visitors to leave comments (much like this blog) which can be rated themselves. Failblog is apart of a greater network, the cheez burger network, which has other related picture/video blogs.
I also looked at elbert945gm.blogspot.com, a blog showing what games run on the intel 945gm graphics chip (a laptop device). The blog is informative to people with the graphics chip that are wondering what games will and will not run on the intel 945gm. He also shows tips and tricks to get certain games to run on the processor, and lists the games that absolutely will not run on the processor.
The last blog I checked out was the official team fortress 2 blog, created and managed by valve software. It outlines the major and minor changes that will be made to the game and also serves as a way for the community to give feedback on what issues they want changed or corrected. It gives the developers a chance to give the community an early look at what they will be implementing into the game in the future.
Blogging is a great way for individuals to voice their opinions and inform the world about issues and topics that they are passionate about. Blogger is an excellent tool for new bloggers to start and create their own personal blog. It is easy and simple to use, yet complex enough to give the user the power to do what they want with their blog. The main difference between blogging and tweeting is the the 144 character limit twitter imposes on the user. With blogging, the user can write whatever they desire without limitations. Twitter is defiantly better for status updates, and notifying people about small changes in your life