Life in the FAST Lane

So what have I been up to? Where have I been? In what far corners of the internet have I been lurking?

First, I've been doing design like none other. I'm working on an upcoming project involving a international publication that tends to prefer yellow borders and photography. If that doesn't give it away, I can't help you out.

Other projects that I'm working on include the website design for the RTVJ reunion. I can't really take credit for the actual layout either, as it was originally created by another student that was released from his contract at the end of July: enter me and my interaction with it. My job for the last three months has been to keep it updated and keep in touch with alumni from SJSU's broadcast journalism program.

Which brings me to my current project this week, producing a video "newscast" mockup to be presented during the RTVJ (Radio Television Video Journalism) 50th anniversary dinner this Friday. The special guest speaker will be legendary journalist/anchor, Sam Donaldson.

So that's keeping me busy...

Plus I've been doing poster design, and talking up a storm for the upcoming photojournalism trip to Mexico. (Btw, go Blogger for letting me get info up online in a day. The hardest thing was simply unlocking my domain name and switching my DNS address to a Google server. But I digress...)

This past week I just the chance to meet Vanity Fair's David Friend, a man responsible for much change in society's perception of the war in Iraq. A very smart, and friendly man, Friend was on SJSU campus last week to promote his new book and meet with members of the SJSU magazine community.

Oh, and here's a teaser for upcoming events. After traveling to Mexico this spring break with the journalism department here, I'll be traveling to South Africa and Ghana to help produce two more multimedia packages for SJSU and certain newspaper and magazine publications.

AND after that... there's a whole lot more stuff coming down the turnpike for me. I'm starting to get as busy as Kyle Hansen. Ha!

Lastly, I did CampusMovieFest last week, and got jipped if you ask me. Not to brag, but our movie was the Cat's ME-OW (pardon the flash quality).

:)

Dilemma Resolved

Ryan Sholin knocked me back to reality.
Ryan: "You're a journalist, right?"

Scrap PayPerPost; it's not worth the potential loss to my credibility. It's stick to my content. Wherever that leads me is fine.

Andrew Venegas , San Jose , SJSU , Soapbox Prophet ,Tech , blog , Pay Per Post,Ryan Sholin ,business , viral marketing,

Crisis of Online Conscience

Here's the dilemma I am facing. Two days ago, I submitted this blog for approval at PayPerPost. For those of you that do not know what it is, PayPerPost pays bloggers to write posts (essentially advertisements and critiques) for advertisings, and post them to their blog. The main idea is to reach audiences through viral marketing.

Today, my blog was accepted into the program. And right about when I was scouting for articles from advertisers that were of interest to me, my conscience hit. Is it selling out my readership to post advertisements?

While I do already advertise products and services on my blog through Google AdSense, none of my content has ever been shaded by it. This might change that, as I would be reviewing products and plugging websites in my posts.

Before I wrote any articles with PayPerPost, I wanted to see how some of my readers felt about it. Feel free to leave a comment about it on this post, or email me at baskinmyglory@gmail.com .

Andrew Venegas , San Jose , SJSU , Soapbox Prophet ,Tech , blog , Pay Per Post,Google Adsense ,business , viral marketing,

Scoble Writes on JMC163

Robert did this piece today on Steve Sloan's announcement that the University may dismantle what is now JMC163. He wrote:

Sigh.

You can learn InDesign from a book. You can’t have a small group interaction with speakers like Steve Sergeant, host of Wildebeat, David Weinberger, author of Cluetrain Manifesto, Aaron Uhrmacher, Second Life expert, Phil Wolff, SkypeJournal author, or students talking about their own podcasts. I spoke to the class as well. Notice how all those link to podcasts of the actual class sessions!

It’s a shame, because San Jose State University needs more innovative classes like these, not fewer.

Amen. The post has gotten quite a few comments from people that visit his site, most of them supportive of the current class.



I said it once and I'll say it again, the University needs to revamp its curriculum and consider making New Media a concentration unto itself. What's happening now is essentially like having all Nursing and Biology students in the same major because it might increase costs to the school to have both.

That's a backward way of thinking; new programs that entice students to use specialty skills to broaden markets and generate revenue (or God help us, further free-speech) are a DRAW TO THE UNIVER$ITY.
But like Ryan Sholin commented yesterday, "...it won't happen until they [the University] completely revamp[s] the curriculum. And good luck on that one."

Sigh.

Andrew Venegas , San Jose , SJSU , Soapbox Prophet ,Tech , Invisible Inkling , JMC163,blog ,journalism , Ryan Sholin,Steve Sloan ,Robert Scoble,Scobleizer

Bloggers are Journalists, Courts Rule

Kyle Hansen brought an interesting article to my attention today. Last Friday a Canadian judge said that a blogger IS a journalist. To quote Keanu Reeves, "Woah!"

Obviously, this has no immediate bearing on American journalists, but it does signal a clear shift from the traditional international perception that a journalist is part of an organized, structured business or organization to an independent, theoretical creation. Ergo, the citizen journalist is gaining credibility.



Not only does this immediately shift the focus from high revenue large market based news-gathering to low budget, niche-market-high-impact reporting from individuals, but it also CREATES A NEED for greater individual participation in politics and their communities.

Intersting.

Andrew Venegas , San Jose , SJSU , Soapbox Prophet ,Tech , New York Times , Kyle Hansen,blog ,journalism ,

Blogger Beta Blues

Well, I've finally gone and done it. There's no turning back now - I've gone to Blogger Beta.


For all of you out there that have known the deep pang of havings your post destroyed by the "publishing dial monster" (see picture above), you'll appreciate the beauty of instant publishing.
It is by far the best feature to be added to the site.

Here's another kicker; you can customize your RSS feeds in beta, so that you receive feeds on individual sections, posts, anything!

Also, beta put out a plethera of new templates, including new functionality and html code. This isn't as impressive as instant publishing or custom RSS, hence the reason I'm sticking to my old code.

If it ain't broke...

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
Soapbox Prophet
Blogger Beta
RSS