Ball State iMedia 2008-2009

This is an interesting view of design. Tom Peter's has written about design (among other things) for a long time. You all might find this interesting given the discussions we've had in class.


http://www.tompeters.com/dispatches/011215.php

I happened upon a group of people at the Living Lightly Fair held at the Minetrista Cultural Center on Saturday, 9/19. The group consists of architecture faculty and students who are creating an Arts and Cultural bike trail that will run through the city and the campus and connect to the greenway and white river trails. They have agreement from the city who says they will particiapte (don't know what this really means) and they are in the process of designing the trail and activities that might happen along the trail. We need to link up with this group and include in the MyMuncie City application! This has great potential.

So this week no one has content to work on. We're just sitting and waiting to see how the users liked/disliked our interface. Their feedback will allow the next round of iMedia students to develop even further and create a product that is even closer to what our viewer is looking for.

I think the semester has gone grea; we got all of our content up and I think everything looks great. I think it was a great idea that we split the course up into two semesters. Having the time to develop a great looking interface and then having the next semester to put it to work was really beneficial.

Being involved in research has been quite the eye opener. Having the ability to create something and then get immediate feedback is something I'm glad I experienced. It allowed me to pay attention to what I'm creating. Most importantly, it taught me to create as if I was a user and how I would react to such content.

I hope the next group of iMedia students create something even better and allow the project to develop and advance.

I'm thinking that maybe my career should just be sports graphics. I've learned to really love illustrating athletic activities. I learn a lot and the turn out has always been great.

This week I'm working on a timeline about Greg Beals, the baseball coach. I'm getting photos from the media relations specialist working with Ball State Sports, so hopefully I can get some great photos to add with the content.

It's going to be a simple piece, but I think it will really add to the package.

I'm having trouble believing that we're already in week three with one more to go. Our stories are going up on time and are all looking great, so I think we're in awesome shape.

Hopefully the students and faculty using the news give us feedback that will help the next semester of iMedia students.

This week is the first week we have live content pushing to the iPhone Web application. Earlier in the week I checked out the app to see how it looked; since then I've been showing it off to friends. So far everyone I've showed it to love the way it looks and how you can interact with it.

For this week I have a narrative graphic about how motion capture works. It's a very complicated process that was difficult to put into a relatively short narrative graphic. I figured it out and I think the end product turned out well.

For this week I've been working with Stephanie Cope figuring out what kind of graphics we can do about a company that's moving into Muncie. The company makes different types of industrial equipment, some of which is used in green energy applications like wind power. I think we're going to end up doing a graphic about how some of the technology works and how it can be used.

We're off working on our first week of REAL content! I'm excited to see everything pull together in just one week and be successful. I think all of our stories are going to be finished on time without any problems (or I'm hoping!!).

I'm working on an illustration of the "perfect" golf swing with audio of Coach Fleck describing each movement. Along with my sports package will be a video and another illustration explaining the motion tools used to calculate physical activities.

I think we're all starting to work like a team and use our skills together. With our difference backgrounds, I think we can turn out some awesome news pieces. I'm looking forward to checking out the user testing in a few weeks.

This is the first week that my classmates and I have content due that's going to be published for testing. We've already created evergreen content that can be put on the phone whenever we need it. Now we're down to more timely topics that are going to be completed on deadline.

For the first week I have to complete a graphic about motion capture technology and how the golf team here is using it. I'm going to be working with someone from the Human Performance Lab to find out the particulars about how the technology works. After that I'll be creating a narrative graphic based on how the technology works.

I love technology in all forms so I'm very excited to get the information for this graphic and put it all together. It should be very cool to show users of our iPhone application how motion capture technology is used right here at Ball State. I've seen this same technology used for video games and in other areas, but I never would have imagined it would be used on campus. I'm sure that's the same for most students on campus as well.

It should be interesting to see how people react to the phone application when they're using it every day. I can't wait until all the data is collected so we can see how our work is being consumed and what we did well or might need to change.

Now that we're back from spring break I'm ready to get rocking, get rolling, and get I-phonin'. 

This week Cameron Andry and I took a visit to the Salvation Army for a piece about how places that donate stuff are hurting in this economy. And there was no better example than the place's power being out when we showed up!

But I believe that Cameron got a pretty good interview, and for what we had the chance to shoot, this package may turn out pretty decent. Looking forward to seeing this stuff on my Ipod touch!

I'm having some serious problems putting things on the server. Is that even the right word? I think so. Anyway, for my last story, Suzy was able to access the server from her office computer, and we didn't have any trouble. But now, I could put anything up from the iMedia/SportsLink room. In Via2, the computer told me "Dave" didn't have permission to access it. Uhh, Dave? Ok. Is that some clever little reference to Dave Letterman? Or was I really trying to hack into some guy named Dave's account? I have no idea. So this week, I'm just bringing my hard drive Frances to class, and I'll hope that someone a little more tech-smart can help me upload my video package and written piece.

Logan and I worked with Vinayak on Friday and really worked through the design and the changes we wanted to make.
It really looks cool if you get a chance to look over it, I would really suggest it because it is beautiful.
Now I am working on Flash templates for possible graphic requests so communication on deadline will be easier. I need to talk more to the graphics people about are more options of what we will need, or think we will want.

We're working on last week of evergreen stories before Spring Break, so it's down to crunch time. With midterms and projects we're all trying to get the rest of the content in by Friday.

I'm working on an illustration of the 3 point shot for a woman on the basketball team, as well as a photo slideshow...it's going to be a busy couple of days!

I'm glad we made some headway with these stories, just in case something goes wrong. It's good to be prepared when we've got iPhone users waiting on our content.

Hope everyone gets everything completed on time and enjoys the break!

I'm glad we've decided to work on some evergreen stories. It will definitely save us after Spring Break when we're on a deadline and are having trouble finding content.

I'm working on the Salvation Army story with Cameron. Our work got pushed back a little bit because we had difficulty scheduling an interview with the person in charge. By Friday we plan to have all of our content loaded onto the server and ready for use.

The graphic will be a fever chart focuses on the decreased donations and increased need for donated items. I think it's going to be interesting to see the significance of the economic struggle that our country and Indiana are dealing with.

Up next week: Graphic showing how to shoot a three-pointer!

Working on my most intricate animation to date. Hoping it turns out as well as I've imagined it.

This week I've been working on taking a graphic I did for the Daily News and animating it into a narrative graphic in Flash. The graphic is to go along with a swimming and diving story we have on a girl on the team who has a disease called Myasthenia Gravis which is a neuromuscular disease which weakens her muscles. The graphic explains the disease through comparing how a normal nerve works to how a nerve affected by Myasthenia Gravis works.
In addition to this I am researching Urban Blight with Kyle. We're going to try and make some type of map of Muncie showing where homes are that are being blighted.
That's really all that I'm working on right now. I'm also really excited about the logos Shelby created!!

This week started out with helping the computer science members of the class with some technical content issues. It wasn't anything big, just editing sound so it would play correctly on the interactive television for testing.

I've also been working with Jeff Kew to get in touch with the owner of the old Roberts Hotel. We've tried a few calls but we just found his e-mail address so that's a last resort if we don't hear back soon. I'm sure it won't be a problem to get the information we need once we get in contact. The only thing I'm worried about is the complexity of the blueprints or plans for the illustrations I'm planning on doing. They'll either be much too simple or very complex. Hopefully there's a middle ground so the illustrations and graphics work out well.

I'm excited to see the logos and content we have for today, I already got a preview with Shelby's post. Class starts soon, signing off for now.

This week for imedia class it was my job to put a former Sports Link package up on our server to be used for the future, but I also found out there's a twist to the story. It turns out Kosh Jasmin, a swimmer who has myoscineasgravis, will be diving at the MAC championships this week. So I'm hoping if there's time in the future, we can possibly even add on to the piece...

Also I'm helping out Cameron and Stephanie when they go to the Salvation Army today. It should be fun, I'm glad I'm able to help out my fellow Imedia peers.

I have worked on the logo for iMedia to look like the design that we have already.
I have a lot of different logos for iMedia that I think could work or inspire something new. Other than that I have been working on getting well.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just getting through all of this one day at a time. Like now, for example. Which is why I have to change the way I think in the iMedia class. In the other classes I'm taking right now, I think, "Ok, what do I NEED to do for tomorrow?" But in iMedia, we have to focus weeks into the future. That can make it hard to balance my responsibilities for this class with my other obligations, which often feel much more urgent.

On Monday, I headed to downtown Muncie to film the package on the medieval fighting group. It was fun-- they really take what they're doing seriously. I like the video footage I shot, and I think I got some decent interviews. I'm a little worried about the pictures for the slideshow, though. My camera isn't the greatest, and I'm definitely not a skilled photographer. Poor Tasha... we'll see what she can do with what I have. The package will be good, though, I promise.

For the past week I've been working on a design for the Weather portion of the iPhone application. Here is what I've been able to come up with.

This is a little rough, and is definitely subject to change. I'm not sure how the map will work, so I just put in a filler map for now.

I've checked out how we can feed the weather conditions to the application, and it looks like it's possible. I've found different RSS feeds on the NOAA website that we can use, and hopefully those won't be hard to use.

I've spent the week working on an animated lower third and as of yesterday animating a possible logo. It's gone fairly well, other than a problem with my Illustrator files rasterizing in After Effects.

Meet with CS people. Tweak the interface. Email. Meet later. Tweak the interface. Email. Hope we can coordinate schedules to meet again.

That's pretty much what I've been doing the past few weeks. The advertising folks had some great ideas last week, and Stephanie and I are talking with Amitesh to see if it's feasible. Stephanie also came up with great layout idea for the television interface, and it's pretty exciting. Hopefully we can talk about that and see if we could maybe integrate it.

So far, I'm really enjoying the iMedia class. (And the iMedia name, which you're all changing anyway. :) ) I think I'll like it even more once we're actually able to see the application and the work we've done. Mostly, I'm glad that I'm keeping in "package-making" strength. I think developing reporting skills are a little like exercising. If I take a semester off, I'm afraid I'll get out of shape. And if I'm planning to get a job in reporting in a few months, I need to keep up my skills.

This semester, I handled most of the story on the animal shelter. I did interviews with the people at the Muncie Animal Shelter and PetSmart, and I shot VO. I put them together into a package and wrote the story. I'm doing the iMedia class as a part of my thesis, too, so I'm going to make a video blog. Now, I'm working on a story about medieval fighters in Muncie. This group gets together every week, and they wear authentic costumes and use real weapons. Apparently, though, jousting is too dangerous. Who knew? I also shot the Tha Paper Boiz story, though we haven't used it yet. I did at least four interviews as a part of that.

I'm a little nervous about the name change. I voted for Scoop in the "top three" vote, but when I told my friend about it, she said, "That's kinda sounds like a tabloid." Umm, it kind of does. I hope we can talk about it a little more in class today.

Sunday I worked on a story about a group of Ball State students who are training for a mini marathon. As I spoke to these people I realized that they have an attitude about running that I simply can not relate to. I enjoy excersizing (or the way I feel when I'm finished excersizing) but this people really love running. Endless running! They talked about how relaxing it was to be out a nice leasiurely run. They claimed that running relaxed them. Not me! I would rather stick my finger in an electrical socket! Anyway, this realization at how different people can be made me think of the testing we'll be doing in the coming weeks with the interactive tv and iphone application. Some things we do may get mixed reactions similar to the way the runners and I react differently to the thought of running. Ultimately though, I believe we have and will continue to move in a direction of extreme personalization so that people won't be forced to live with a feature they don't like they'll just change it. Enough with my rambling...just some observations about crazy runners!

They say "sleep is for the weak", and I can't remember the last time I made it to the gym... so where's mine?

This week myself, Cameron Andry, and Jeff Kew ventured to the Ball State running club to put together a short piece about the a runner training for the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. Some problems we ran into:

- The runner in which we interviewed was rather shy and didn't neccessarily emphasize on many of the important questions we were hoping he would answer. The three of us tried our best to get more out of him, which we eventually did, but it was almost like pulling teeth.

- Catching b-roll for running is hard. They run towards you... and then away from you... and then they are gone on a 13-mile run.

But overall I think we came out with a piece that got the job done. Could be better, could be worse, but at least it's technically sound.

This week is one of the busiest of the semester so far, and iMedia has something to do with it. Earlier in the week I worked to get content done for the television application so computer science students can upload it to the template in time for user testing. Since then, I've been brainstorming the best ways to create interactive graphics for the iPhone. I've also been working with Shelby Murphy to figure out what changes to the old iPhone interface we absolutely need to make before user testing begins.

Creating graphics for the television screen involves a lot of thought and planning. I have to keep in mind the size of the television, the distance people are going to be from the television and how navigation is going to work. It was much more of a challenge to create interactive graphics for the television than I thought it would be.

My work on the television is going to be different than my work for the iPhone application. The iPhone's navigation is much more versatile than the televisions. Instead of four simple directional buttons, the iPhone offers a full touchscreen for users to interact with. As an iPhone user, I enjoy interacting with the touchscreen. At first I thought it was just because of the novelty of the thing, but after a semester of use I think it's just because the touchscreen enriches the online experience. I want to keep that in mind when we're deciding on content for the iPhone testing.

I've also spent this week thinking about the complexity of this class. It brings together multiple disciplines to create a product that has literally thousands of variables. Late last week we discussed changing the name of the application and there were variables brought up that I hadn't even considered. The best solution is a synthesis of the best ideas from each area, I think. Hopefully we'll be testing multiple names in the future so we can see which one people respond to.

Communication is another important aspect of this class. The complex situation outlined above is just one of many we're going to have to solve throughout the semester. Without the proper communication about these topics it's unlikely anything will be solved. Communication is interesting, and sometimes frustrating, for me. I'm constantly connected via my iPhone and other means. Almost literally every second of the day I'm able to respond to phone calls, text messages, e-mails, online chats, Tweets and other forms of communication. If you try to contact me I'll get back with you almost instantaneously the vast majority of the time. Everyone isn't this connected, however, so the instant communication I'm used to doesn't happen at times. I think it's necessary for all of us to be connected; after all, we are designing an iPhone app and most iPhone users are extremely connected.

We have class in a bit, so this post needs to end. I can't wait to see what the next few weeks bring.

Last week some of the advertising group proposed the idea of incorporating more advertising in the applications possibly by skinning them. We talked about getting rid of the bottom news ticker to make more room for the ad skin. Kyle and I met to discuss the possibility of doing this. We were both really interested in maybe trying something with this idea. We were having difficulty anyways coming up with a way to make the ticker interactive that would not just be clicking on it and going to a screen with only text. 

This week was pretty quiet for me with iMedia. I'm excited to see all the content we've worked on get put into the TV. It takes so much collaborating from the graphics, t-comm, advertising and cs kids to get everything into place.

I worked on a slideshow for our animal shelter story...hopefully it's at least a little entertaining for viewers. The more I've thought about it, the more I believe people aren't very happy with the idea of being "too" interactive with their television. Minimal is good, but too much, is well - too much.

I'm looking forward to get started updating the content and iVillage on the iPhone. I find that part of the project to be the most challenging and exciting because wireless is where our world is headed.

Class tomorrow - let's hope we make some headway!

Coming up with a name for a project like this is something that's much more difficult than first thought... So... here's my horrible stab at it...



iCardinal

--or--

INstories

... or how about we just keep it at iMedia...

Ummm...I like something with 360. I agree that it conveys everything we're trying to do. Maybe....something...like...oh...I don't know...iMedia360. Ok...this is hard. I give up.

Ugh... I can't even remember the names of new people I meet.  I can hardly remember my email address.  I understand that the project needs a good name, but I doubt I'll be the creator.  Regardless, I tried:

For a while I was trying to come up with a phrase that incorporated news and interactive and local and cross platform storytelling. 

I was the original person that came up with the idea that "IMedia" was a bad name for this class.

I'm going to echo everyone else that has posted already and say that coming up with a new name for iMedia was difficult. A name that has the essence of what we're trying to do all in 10 characters or less is elusive.

Basically what I'm saying is this: I don't have any decent ideas.

I do think that we need to keep "local" in mind. Tasha mentioned that we should stick to local news; nobody is going to go to our application for national news. That's what CNN is for.

Here are the two (lame) ideas I came up with: LocalLink, keeping with the NewsLink idea, and Now/Local, which gives the sense that users can get the news they want immediately and locally.

Trying to come up with a short name for a very complicated project is difficult. If there was only one element to the class, the interactive television or the iPhone application, there would be more options. As it is, the name has to be less specific to cover both bases.

My first thoughts went immediately to news, since it's the central focus of what the class is all about. On that front, I came up with the idea of NewsSource (or NewSource, but I think we need both full words). I also thought about the interactive nature of what we're doing and came up with iNews. I don't like the 'i' prefix because it seems to be taking over the world so that one isn't my favorite. I also came up with YourNews (or URnews, depending on the demographics we're trying to hit with this thing), AnywhereNews and AllNews.

Aside from thinking of new names for the project, I've also been hard at work on mini marathon graphics. I finally got the files from a previous project, only to find out that many of the parts were either missing or extremely small. As a result, I'm in the process of recreating many of the illustrations for the project. It's going to be more work than I thought, but I should have everything done by next week when content is due.

Designing for the interactive television is difficult because of the restrictions on navigation and the large size of the screen. I learned a lot from what I did last semester so I'm trying to apply that to the mini marathon graphics I'm working on now.

I was trying to think of a word that would sum up the concepts. Interactive multimedia news on demand wherever you are, when you want it. A word that was short, and I came up with 'GOOGLE'

Aside from that NewsNet, which though is plain it conveys a goo deal of information. As someone who sits with his friends and pokes fun at T.V. commercials and ads, a name will make or break everything. If the product just absorbs people you can have an outrageous or silly name and it wont matter, but if not your name will be how people see you. You don't want to be too technical with the name if you want to grab a wide spread audience.

Other things to consider, the name needs to make the user feel good about using the product. They should feel proud to be using it not ashamed.

Since the name iMedia is being abandon iNews is probably out as well, I also wouldn't use something that would date the product or tie it to a specific class of people like myNews.

Some other possible ideas: NewsSense or SenseNet

We've evolved from iTV to iMedia to iHaveNoClueWhatWeShouldCallThis.

I feel that we have to use the word "news" in our name. Some may disagree because they think its too obvious or its not as modern, etc. Users need to understand what the application they're opening involves.

News360 or 360News - This describes that we are pulling together all areas of news (graphics, video, text, etc.)

NEXTnews - This describes a new generation of interactive, fresh, local news.

I will agree with Tasha: coming up with a new name has been no easy task. I really think the name should emphasize "interact" because I think that's what makes what we are doing unique. It's news that people can interact with and make their own. As I'm learning in my media editing class, in today's world, it's no longer the editors choosing what's news. The people, or the audience, chooses their 'news.' They decide what is important to them and can, if they want, choose to only be informed of news they are interested in learning about. And with the interfaces we are creating, consumers of media have so many options to exploring the news.

Originality is a rare breed in the age of the Internet. Twenty years ago, your original idea could stay original in your community even if it already existed somewhere in the world.
Now, just google your "original" idea and discover twenty other people have already had it.
The moral of the story: Coming up with a new name for our project was harder than I thought.

I came up with Localage: a combination of local and package because we are presenting multimedia packages on a local level. I realize it comes across as Local and Age as well. But, really isn't that where we are in media? The Local Age. Newspapers and T.V. stations are localizing content to give their audience a sense of ownership. Why run a national story that another big outlet can do better?

The other idea is ImmerseYou: I think President Gora would love me for this one. Enough said.

I realized late yesterday afternoon that the number of details required to get this project on track is almost unmanageable. This week I have had meetings with all the instructors, my GAs who are helping on the project, the ICS660 group working on the testing and the CMD folks who are helping to keep consistency in the focus groups. And this doesn't even count the emails that fly around between times.

And, none of what I am doing has anything to do with the actual creation of interfaces and content - Yikes!

Blog Assignment for February 11, 2009:

1). Come up with at least two different external titles for the iMedia project.

2). Titles must be short (no more than eleven characters).

3). Graphics folks: suggest a color palette (RGB - so it can be consistent with NTSC/ATSC Video and web graphics).

4). Any other good ideas (in the general sense) that can be used for graphics to pull together the iPhone/iTouch, Web, and TV graphics together in one unified theme are welcome - should be discussed in your post.

5). Anyone having problems with blogger can email me - caflook@bsu.edu.

Adapting cell phones, media players for interactive applications is aim of project (3/6/2008)

By simply touching the screen of an Apple iPhone or iTouch, consumers will soon be able to access newscasts, interact with a local car dealer or order dinner from a nearby restaurant because of a project developed at Ball State University. The university's faculty and students are taking interactive television (iTV) to the next level this semester, will work on developing an interface system promising to expand the capabilities of handheld communication devices. (read more here...)