Post Secret

PostSecret is a community mail art project.  Started by Frank Warren, people mail their secrets in anonymously on a homemade postcard and the secrets are selected and posted on the blog.  Each week the secrets chosen have a different theme ranging from confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits or hopes and desires. 

Friday Night Lights Will Stay on the Air

NBC’s highly acclaimed but relatively unknown series, Friday Night Lights, will (thankfully) be sticking around for another two seasons.  Although the series has struggled for ratings since its inception in 2006 it has consistently received good reviews and been nonimated for awards.

Gossip Tabloids Fading Out?

As magazines around the country see a decline in sales, gossip rags are not immune.  In an article published last year in the Huffington Post, Mark Pasetsky writes that the main problem with gossip magazines are that they are too textually based.  Text outweighs photos, turning readers away.  He finds the three main problems with celebrity gossip magazines to be:  Too many staffers doing one job, ignoring the success of celebrity blogs, and too much text.

I tend to agree with what Pasetsky writes.  Celebrity blogs are huge.  Perezhilton.com is hugely successful, gaining major advertisers who occasionally buy out the entire page.  The New York Times recently wrote an article about a new site, Wonderwall.com, with a slightly nicer tone than Perez.   Being an avid reader of Perez, I of course had to check out Wonderwall.com.  I like it.  It reads horizontally instead of vertically which is nice, in case you are an incompetent scroller like I am.  The stories are good (I think Perez might be updated more)  but overall, I missed Perez’ rude analysis of celebrities.  However, that might have to do more with my personality than the blogs themselves.

Either way,  tabloids need to figure out how to convert the success of celebrity blogs into print and make money off of them.

Photo Credit: Topic Fire

YouTube adding TV shows and Movies?

According to an article in The New York Times , YouTube has signed a deal to show TV shows and movies on the website.  This agreement with Hollywood studios comes on the heels of YouTube’s announcement that they may start charging for their premium content.

Stony Brook University Urges Students to take Summer Classes

Three weeks ago, Stony Brook students received on email on their SOLAR accounts, urging them to consider summer classes to fulfill missing requirements. Stony Brook plans to cut available seats and sections for the upcoming fall semester.

This year, the undergraduate student body increased by 695 students, yet the number of seats available per section of classes went down.  Less seats means less options, tighter schedules, and left out, unhappy students.

Rick Gatteau, the director of the Academic and Pre-Professional Advising Center at Stony Brook University said the advising center is working to fix the problem. In order to combat registration problems, the University has bumped up fall semester scheduling by a week–starting right after spring break.    This will help the advising center see what classes need additional sections added or removed.

So we hit the campus streets to find out how students feel about the possibility of needing summer classes and whether they were stressed about graduating on time.

Micro-Billing is a success for Phones–Why not papers?

Each month I notice my phone bill has increased slightly.  I have no idea why and never really questions it due to laziness.  However, this past month it rose more than a few cents or few dollars.  Apparently, my siblings don’t understand that Internet access, ringtones, and games are not free on our phones.  Actually, I know they know that it is not free but they don’t really care.  They are willing to pay for the ringtones or games as long as they get the item immediately and it keeps them occupied.

Is the iPad the new Kindle Killer?

Please for the sake of my new Kindle, I hope not!

According to a few reviews I read, the Kindle is in no danger.  While the iPad is still new to the market, Amazon has a much better selection of books boasting 400,000 to Apple’s 60,000.  Also, the iPad features an LCD screen–like a regular computer screen–that can hurt the eyes after several hours.  Meanwhile, the Kindle employs e-ink, which is literally just like looking at a regular book. 

Last Song-Book Review

I have a feeling Miley Cyrus is really going to make this book turned movie suck.  I’ve already seen coming attractions where Miley still has her little Southern twang, even though in the book the character she is playing is from New York.  I guess doing a NY accent is outside of her acting range.  I’m not sure how Miley always manages to be the only member of her “family” that has an accent.

Overall, the book is a good,easy read.  I couldn’t get into at first but once I really sat down and started focusing on it, I couldn’t put the book down.  It is a typical Nicholas Sparks book–love ruined by something random followed by a death.  It’s his winning formula.  I’m not sure why people, including myself, allow him to get away with rewriting the same book over and over again but so be it.

The movie comes out Wednesday March 31.

Photo Credit: Starving Writers Books

Videos on the Web: Examples

Experimental Video: How Will the End of Print Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Papers?

This video is a satire piece about what the end of newspapers will do to the old people that collect them.

Feature Video: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse– Part 1

Above is a feature video about child abuse and how parents are tying overcome the cycle of abuse.  It is a feature because none of the information in it is particularly new or newsworthy.  It is more of a human interest piece.

Raw Footage:  Three year old crying over Justin Bieber

Video was referred to here

Featured on YouTube was a young girl crying over her love for Justin Bieber.  The video soon became viral and Justin Bieber actually met the girl because of it.

News Story:  Ceiling Collapses on Bronx Toddler

A ceiling fell on a toddler’s head while she was playing with her younger brother.  Despite complaints from the resident’s nothing was done to fix the problem.

Welcome Back ABC!

Who knew that people cared about the Oscars so much?  Following a heated debate and power struggles between Cablevision and ABC, ABC went blank for 21 hours Saturday night into Sunday.  ABC who originally wanted $1 more per customer, is instead settling for an increase between 27 cents and 65 cents per user.