Lisa Padilla on Media and Culture

Ed Leonard, CTO of DreamWorks, is on stage talking about making CG animated films, stating that generally over 200 people work on a film like this. The 1500 scenes in Over the Hedge took the equivalent of 15 million man hours. If I tried to convince my 10-year old that I'm "at work" this evening, I'd have a hard time selling it. We're watching clips from the cartoon, listening to the process of story telling and creation of characters. She'll benefit from those 15 million hours like many of us, for much of her life to come. She might pay for it, but she'll only pay for it once. The summary of those companies who were granted the AO100 status was made with one word: Consumer. That sounds like the result of what investors have been saying to those running such companies, "Where's the revenue?" Enterprise targets, even prosumers are ok, but they need to be 'sumers of some sort. The money must change hands. Up and coming companies are rightf...

A few pictures from the OhmyNews forum to keep you busy while I'm editing video and notes from the conference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisap/sets/72157594202449442/ What a great experience.

2nd Annual OhmyNews International Citizen Journalism Forum 2006 Beautiful live webcast, by the way. In this 20-country representated conference, Craig Newmark is currently speaking following up Dan Gillmor's opening keynote. Mr. Gillmor talked about citizen journalism and how it's not just blogs, not just technology. “Technology is the least important aspect” He says it’s about journalism (i.e. thoroughness, accuracy, independence and transparency), those components are more important. What's coming? Gillmor says "The Daily Me." My news the way I want it assembled. The wisdom of crowds . Getting together and producing results that teach everyone. Not just hardware, he adds. It’s the software too. The alphabet soup...RSS, OPML, API, etc. Technologys enabling mashups and so on. He also suggests a journalism project using maps where he suggests that we ask people in the communities to put on these maps the problems that exist with the community or city infrastruct...

The story continues, as net neutrality legislation moves through the Senate. I'm not sure the ease of offering subscription TV is a win for most in the long run. However, this is just a stepping stone I believe to the inevitable release the big companies have on the rest of the media generators. From the article: Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, tried to add further protections by barring discrimination of content or service based on origin, destination or ownership, but it failed to get a majority vote. The final tally was 11 to 11. "That means for the first time we are going to have a two-tiered Internet," said Snowe, who bucked her party. "Broadband operators will be able to pick winners and losers, they will be able to choose the Web sites of their choice." 11 to 11. That says to me that maybe 1/2 of the people understand the future impact of laws like these, which designate the mouthpieces that will teach o...