Random Culture

Wikipedia On Your iPod

If you've ever wanted to have offline access to Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia software project is for you. Available through Sourceforge, Encyclopedia brings Wikipedia to your iPod. Visit the Sourceforge site to download it.

Of course, since Wikipedia is constantly being updated, how does this software compensate for that? Literally, every minute of every day, someone is modifying or adding content to Wikipedia. But it's an interesting idea.

PBS Citizen Journalism Segment

If you haven't seen it yet, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer did a segment entitled "The Rise of Citizen Journalism" a little over a week ago. The video and transcript are available here.

Link via Fimoculous.

Current TV Call for Content

Current TV, built on consumer generated content, is trolling for submissions. They've created a marketing effort to encourage content creation, which you can find online at: Awaitinginput.com.

I think Current TV has promise, but this marketing campaign clearly misses the mark. It's built around a robot named "ViC", who is essentially the embodiment of consumer generated media. The site actually says the following about "Vic":

"a freak accident unleashed all that imagination and turned ViC into a rogue creation machine. Now he's helping to reveal the real stories in subcultures all over."

Come on, seriously... This copy, and the robot idea is cheesy as hell. Wasn't this supposed to be about a grassroots media revolution?

Link via AdRants.

MINI Podcast

Whiteroofradio.com describes itself as "the #1 podcast for the new MINI Cooper!" But they're in no way associated with the company. Shouldn't MINI be embracing this? Link via Podcasting News.

Current TV Launches

Wired writes today that Current TV launches today. The TV network is founded in part by Al Gore, and the network relies on user submitted content for its programming. They've named the shows "pods", and each lasts for 2 to 7 minutes, according to Wired.

The homepage of the Current TV site has a short list of what's playing currently, as well as what's coming up. In addition, there is a soon to launch section on the site that will allow users to view uploaded videos and determine what gets played on TV. Users can also visit the Current TV blog.

If the programming is good enough to keep people interested, this will be huge. It's an interesting next step in citizen media.

The Apple Crusade

Some new developments in Apple's crusade against online journalists to reveal their sources. Apple's crusade has made the blogosphere pretty irate, but it's also brought many influential people together to show support and fight for the rights of us all. A number of influential folks including Feedster, Gawker Media, Doc Searls, Joi Ito and many others filed an Amicus Brief in the case.

According to the EFF site: The amici urged the court to adopt "a functional test for the newsgatherers' privilege that does not discriminate between reporters, regardless of the medium in which they publish." They urge the court to "adopt a test that will not impede journalists' use of the Internet to report news by limiting their constitutional protections when they publish there."

And that's just the beginning. According to an AP story in the Mercury News, "Eight of California's largest newspapers and The Associated Press submitted a court brief Thursday asking that the online publishers be allowed to keep their sources confidential."

It feels like Apple almost wants to take their reputation down a notch...

Links via BoingBoing and Kottke.

Citizen Journalism

Craig Newmark, of "Craigslist" fame, posts on his blog that he's attending a symposium on citizen journalism being put on by the Media Center and the Neiman Foundation for Journalism. You can check out the Media Center blog for coverage of the event.

Citizen Journalism is picking up steam, and isn't slowing down any time soon.

For those of you interested, conference discussion is supposed to be tracked using this tag: connectedsociety