Bergermj’s Weblog

CNN, never one to allow itself to be too far behind in the trends, has decided to tap into the citizen journalism realm with a posting site called “iReport.”  (BTW, Mac should sew for the name–we all know that they have the market cornered on “i”-franchises).

Anyways, the site–as defined by this recent update–will allow users to post videos, photos, and audio files.  I guess it’s a sign of the times.  These news businesses have to be very sensitive to the public trends in news gathering–or else, they might get left behind (as newspapers are).  It will be interesting to see how iReport ends up.  I wonder how serious users will be when posting  to the site.

Some videos on youtube are pretty sweet; some are not. Some vids are well-done, some are honestly a waste of time. The good ones can become mildly popular, as can bad ones–if there absolutely horrid–but the vids that reach viral status like spanish love song or the dancing one in this article become successful because they are just out there or ludicrous or a completely hilarious repackaging of some piece of pop culture. Here’s a local something I just heard of–it was so awkward to watch, it hurt.

All this web 2.0 is all about giving a chance to the unprofessional, the little guy, the odd ones. A whole cultural revolution (OMG, I sound like a political scientist. cue exaggerated arm movement), is occuring with these unprofessional streaming vid. It’s changing what we talk about, what we spend our time doing. I can’t begin to imagine how many times I’ve asked people what they’ve been up to all day, only to have them reply that they aren’t sure-they were youtubing random stuff and suddenly it was night, they were hungry, and they were ready to go to bed.

If you’ve read this entire post, here’s a little added treat. This guy was apparently some sort of famous jingle musician. You gotta love it when the celebrities of the past try to break out again on youtube.