Putting Smart Women in New Media

March 25, 2010

Yelp is a great tool for stalkers

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Lisa Schaefer @ 1:07 pm

Jill Foster invited me, along with five other people, to help out with DC Media Makers. We had a little pre-meeting before the DC Media Makers talk at NPR headquarters tonight. It seems like a pretty good group, so I think it would be a good idea to get more involved.

Dave Saunders gave a talk about Samurai. He is an engaging speaker. He was involved in developing the internet in 1990 and worked with the people who invented the 56k modem. But he doesn’t care about connecting computers. It’s about connecting people.

A few people talked about their experiences at the South by Southwest conference last week. One person said it used to be a great creative atmosphere, but this year it had become too corporate. Someone else noted that Yelp is a great tool for stalking someone.

January 27, 2010

NPR and Fox News harassed for taking pictures in public

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Lisa Schaefer @ 10:00 pm

I went to the monthly Media Makers meetup at NPR headquarters, and tweeted a few responses to the conversation at #dcmm. Jen Consalvo, a photographer, talked about her upcoming book, but mostly about digital photography techniques.
Jen asked us what we disliked most about our pictures. Me, well, my husband likes to take pictures much more than I do. This results in my ownership of multiple pictures of traffic signs. I do not want pictures of traffic signs. I want pictures of people. People I know. And not these posed fabrications with fake smiles. I want real people doing real things in real settings.
My favorite story of the meeting was from Andy Carvin, NPR’s Social Media guy, who was threatened to be arrested by private security guards at Union Station for taking pictures, in spite of his press pass. http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2008/05/almost_arrested_for_taking_photos_at_uni.html
Fox News got a hold of Andy’s real-time tweets and went to Union Station themselves. Camera rolling, they interviewed management about their policy on people taking photographs. They insisted they were totally OK with it. Until security came in and harassed Fox News on camera, insisting they leave or get arrested. This resulted in a congressional hearing on first amendment rights http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/06/union-station-p.html

December 9, 2009

Dead with Livestream

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — Lisa Schaefer @ 5:18 pm

I tried playing around with Livestream last night. I used to use Stickam for live broadcasts. They have a nice feature which allows up to six viewers to participate with video. Except that sometimes turns out to be not so nice. Some people think it’s appropriate to show up naked in those screens.

I had heard at one of the DC Media Makers events that Livestream is better than UStream, so I though I’d try it out. I asked what criteria were used to determine which was “better,” however I don’t remember exactly what those criteria were. I think reliability was the main criterion.

After a little struggle getting things going, I finally broadcast something live on Livestream last night. Unfortunately, nobody dropped in. I used to get several people viewing my Stickam broadcast, and a couple of people stumbled across UStream when I tried that out, but with Livestream, I got nothing. Maybe it was because it was my first time trying it out and I didn’t have much to say.

October 29, 2009

DC Media Makers at NPR

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Lisa Schaefer @ 12:47 pm

Last night I went to the monthly DC Media Maker at NPR headquarters. Aram Zucker-Scharff, a very nice young man whom I met at a previous DC Media Makers event and works in George Mason University’s Social Media Center, gave one of the most useful presentations I’ve heard lately. He talked about all the free tools GMU’s Social Media Center uses to make good quality media.

The best tip I walked away with was that LiveStream.com is more reliable and has better quality than UStream.tv. I have had trouble with UStream not saving the first several minutes of footage that I webcasted live. I’ll have to try LiveStream to find out if I have better luck with it.

We had a surprise guest tonight. Jay Allison, from the “This I Believe” NPR show, was there to listen as an audience member, however Jill Foster asked him to say a few words about his program The Moth. The Moth is a live storytelling show where a random audience member is selected to tell his or her story. Allison wants to create a bigger web presence for The Moth. He says, “Radio/sound is the one story medium you can pay attention to AND do something else. We don’t have earlids.”

October 22, 2009

Bloggers Hang Out In Person

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Lisa Schaefer @ 9:07 pm

I went to a blogger happy hour tonight put on by DC Media Makers and Blog Potomac. It’s in conjunction with a conference going on tomorrow that I am not attending. I said hi to several people, including Jill Foster, founder of DC Media Makers, and Geoff Livingston, founder of Blog Potomac.
After I left that party, I went to Women In Film and Video’s monthly documentary round table. John Z. Wetmore, producer of Perils for Pedestrians, was there, along with Matt Radcliff, who was in charge of the roundtable. This month’s topic was documentaries for internet distribution. I only caught the very end. We talked about Fans, Friends, and Followers, by Scott Kirsner. The book is based on Kirsner’s experience selling his history book through the web.

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