The first video I produced as the University of Pennsylvania’s video producer rose to become Penn’s most viewed video of all time, in the span of one week. It is currently the second most popular video on YouTube’s Education Category: http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400.

The clip is a simple piece I produced for Penn’s GRASP Lab in the Engineering Department, showcasing an innovative haptic vest being developed by several student’s in the lab. The vest is intended to simulate a human’s sense of touch, with applications in medicine such as remote surgery, and many types of training. The students are experimenting with the haptic vest as an addition to computer games as well, which is what the video shows.

I have recently taken a full-time position as a videographer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I will be independently producing videos about Penn’s community outreach opportunities and programs as well as research and development happening at Penn in various fields such as science, anthropology, mathematics and the arts.

I produced this video, about a Penn student’s discovery of a rare, unlooted tomb from the early Bronze Age in Syria. I actually produced this piece before I was hired, in order to show them the types of videos I would produce.

Frome the New York Times: F.C.C. Plan to Widen Internet Access in U.S. Sets Up Battle

Many new media folks, including myself, have been promoting the idea that communications will eventually broadcast through a huge data “pipeline” and the different technologies for telephone, television, radio, Internet, etc. will soon merge into this pipeline. These recent steps by the F.C.C. would help move make this a reality, which would be great for citizens. Telecommunications companies will be fine. The US lags behind other developed countries in Internet adoption and speed, and this would also help close that important gap.

From Informitv: http://informitv.com/news/2010/03/05/youtubeapproachesbillion/

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this, considering YouTube has been losing millions for the last few years due to massive server costs. Now some folks are predicting $1 billion revenue for the online video company. If this indeed does prove true, it will be a milestone in the evolution of web video, which has struggled painfully to find a model for monetization. Now, if they could only get targeted advertising right, their revenue will skyrocket. More on that later.

This is the Introduction from an academic paper I wrote in May 2009 about how journalism may best serve society in the age of the internet. I will continue to post excepts from this paper in a series on this topic.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibits Congress from making laws that infringe on the freedom of press. The importance of journalism has been recognized by democracies around the world, including the United States. Journalism is now facing some of the most disruptive changes in the history of the industry, due to the Internet. Exciting new possibilities have been discovered with this new technology, but it has also ushered in an age of falling profits and decreased sustainability for traditional news organizations. Across the board, these organizations have had to cut their services and many have closed down altogether. This brings into question whether journalism will survive if there is no money for it. The Internet offers new and improved ways of fulfilling the normative functions of journalism, but many people are beginning to wonder if it may also cause its demise, if answers to the question of economic sustainability are not discovered. There are some promising possibilities, however, that may reverse the downward trend in news organization revenue.

This paper will address the normative functions of journalism in a democratic society, and how the Internet and other emerging technologies may affect these functions. It will also look at the changing economics of journalism, and address the possibility of journalism that does not make money, and look at new economic methods that can be used to help news organizations survive.