Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition Video!

Just saw this from someone elses blog. It's coming, and I'm quite, quite excited.

What? You mean what I'm consuming isn't mainstream (media)?

There was a bit of interesting banter on Episode 139 of This Week in Tech revolving journalists who do shows on the internet (like on TWIT or Cnet or Tech TV in the old days) jumping over to "mainstream" media to make it big.

But would folks like Veronica Belmont necessarily need to get a job as a CNN anchor to make it big? I thought CNet and Revision 3 was as big as they come!

Though this has been discussed much, it still struck me that these were the shows I am listening to or watching more and more of, to the detriment of the more "mainstream" TV3 or newspapers. An oxymoron perhaps? Or is "mainstream" changing?

Not too long ago, it was widely considered by marketers that your average working class adult would consume media on a daily basis at routine intervals. The morning paper. 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. prime time TV. The breakfast show on the way to work. Sticking an ad into any of these slots would cost more simply because the stats show more viewers were consuming media at these time-slots.

Personally, for me, this has changed. Yes, I still read the papers every morning (to keep up with current trends, for job's-sake) but that's about it. I hardly watch TV anymore. Instead, my morning drives to work are dominated by catching up with the latest tech news, miniature gaming news or world news via podcasts. When i'm bored, I surf the internet with RSSed links to sites like Soccernet. More and more, I'm building an echo chamber of the news that I'm interested in and filtering out everything else.

I wonder how many people out there are like me? I'm guessing few, but growing.

Here's why:

1. Content Syndication technology (RSS)
Thanks to RSS, content delivery can now be automated, giving rise tonew forms of media like podcasting (sticking an Audio file to an RSS feed) that give people access to timely information that can be consumed at their own time. It's like choosing the channels you want to watch, and then watching them at your own time. The bad thing is, you'll be limiting yourself only to the type of news you want to hear.

2. More personal media players and multifunction devices.
All the best content in the world isn't going to do you much good if you're going to be stuck at home on the computer to consume it. The good thing is, more and more people are now carrying portable devices that are capable of playing media. It could be your phone, your MP3 player, your PDA. The option is now there for you to sync your favourite RSS-delivered content and consume it wherever you are.

3. Mobile internet getting better and better.
People a long time ago predicted the death of the newspaper thanks to the internet. As it turned out, those predictions were unfounded mainly because people didn't want to be stuck at home reading the newspaper on their computers. They rather prefer to read it in their toilets.

However, if you take my two points above and mesh it with the fact that now you can get a decent 3G / WiFi connection in the toilet and your mobile phone / device is most likely with you. Heh. You can easily see how a small device can replace that paper you used to hold in the toilet.

So, how much do you consume "mainstream" media?

Ever wondered what Homer Simpson looks in real life?

Okay, this unToon has been going around for sometime and the bloke that does this over at http://pixeloo.blogspot.com does some really fine work.

The latest Jessica Rabbit unToon brings back fond memories. Still, my favourite is Homer:

So I've decided to buy an Eee PC 900...

Yup, you're reading the post right. I was really going to wait until Intel Atom UMPCs started appearing, but I guess the itch couldn't wait to be scratched fast enough, so I've actually gone placed an order on a Black Eee. Mmmm....


Couldn't find a press picture of the black Eee, so the white one'll have to do.

Not that my Thinkpad's going to get any less love now, but I really see the Eee as an alternative carry-around computer for those computing needs that fit somewhere between my Nokia N95 and Thinkpad.

Web-browsing, RSS-reading, the occasional document editing, and possibly loading Baldur's Gate for another run through.

Right now, I'm still mulling over which operating system I should slap onto it. I have an old copy of Windows XP lying around which is no longer installed on my desktop (since I upgraded to Vista). I could possibly slap that on.

Or I could keep the Xandros (Linux) installation intact and work from that.

But what's really piqued my interest at this point is the thought of putting the Mac OS X onto an Eee.

Ah, choices, choices.

Blogging: it's really social

Firstly - I'm back from Kuching! Really missed MSN and felt much much disconnected.

Well, surfed onto Innit today and wham!



Notice that all the top 10 posts on Innit share the same name (almost)? So I investigated by talking to David and Nigel.

In the abridged and summarised words of David Cheong (Not me, so if I got this wrong, don't blame me):

Basically, it started with this blogger pamsong blogging about a movie meetup for bloggers and everyone could self-invite. People started commenting and RSVPing to meet up and then the day came, they had 17 bloggers all come together to watch the movie Definitely. Maybe. Coming off the movie, this blogger Yatz (you know, we've met) came up with an idea that these seventeen bloggers go online, post about the meetup with small variables in the name of each post. Come today, the whole (innit) world knew they had gone out to have a quick meetup and this Definitely Gang, Maybe Bang has become sort of a little tighter group. About over 400 emails exchanged already on mass email chat.

What really piqued my interest was just how much social interaction is generated by this exchange that culminated in a real world physical outing. Being the social media freak that I am, I spent a while trying to figure these things out, but sometimes, the most important lessons are the most obvious ones.

The blogosphere (s) is social. And publicly social. What I mean by public in this last phrase is that virtually anyone and everyone can join in the conversation. The social part means you're stuck on the same rules like IRL when dealing with people. Different interests, different goals, different views, different personalities - and always that little potential for a little human chemistry.

Not to over-analyse a little get-together, but I'm just quite excited about the potential of communications here. Good job guys, you people are all inspirations.