Lisa Padilla on Media and Culture

At Netscape in 1999, I recall entering into the office one morning and being approached by reporters asking if I knew about the email scandal between the company and its competitor Microsoft. Having been briefed by a diligent human resources group, I had no comment but was well aware of its happening and the wave of damage control, present and future, it created through our organization. I think I can say that, generally speaking, can't I? Perhaps more important than the legislation which followed that event was a lesson far greater. The Web offers vast opportunities, really, it's quite fantastic. But it's rapid growth and non-standardized services are more akin to a pool of pirahnas than the relatively slow-moving frontiers we previously conquered in print, radio or TV. Regulations are enforced by priority of the greatest threat, not based on wrongdoing. The whole Internet is a unsupervised free-for-all, where the bullies and the thiefs experience virtual nirvana. There ar...

Many years ago I worked for a small multimedia company and one of our clients was Macromedia. We wrote documentation for Director 1.0, built interactive help and held trainings around the Bay Area. In my spare time, I used the software to put together a multimedia story for a family member celebrated an 80th birthday, splicing together music, pictures and narration. Sixty people gathered in a local restaurant and watched, it was very sweet. Today, most podcasters, videobloggers, journalists turned new media (and vice versa) are keen on organizations that are supporting participatory media even though there seems to be a good deal of negative press scrutinizing the business model, quality and even safety. But that's not stopping people who have to tell stories, news to share, and feelings and creativity to express. Here are three examples of people putting in the time, helping to make media higher quality and even getting paid. 1) Dan Gillmor, who I wrote about in my last post, and ...