Hastings Rock MySpace blog post.

For those who may be interested, here is the link to a blog post that i recently posted onto the MySpace page of Hastings Rock:

Hastings Rock - MySpace blog

It concerns the "Not The End Of The Pier" CD, which i have been involved with compiling and co-producing.

Not The End Of The Pier CD.

Below, is a blog post that i recently wrote for the Hastings Rock MySpace page. I realise that it might not be of interest to all you may visit this blog. But, it does help to explain something that i've been heavily involved with recently.

"As some of you may already be aware, i have recently been helping to put together a CD of local bands and musicians, in aid of HPWRT (Hastings Pier and White Rock Trust).
Well, that CD has now been compiled & mastered & is now in the process of being produced, ready for release.

For some more details about this project, you might be interested in this article from our local newspaper, the Hastings Observer:
http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local-news/not_the_end_of_the_pier_cd_showcases_local_talent_1_1665410

We are hoping to get the physical CD's back within two weeks and will then be able to start selling them and helping to raise some much needed money for the restoration of Hastings Pier.

Further details about where the CD's will be available for sale locally will be given nearer the time. But, i can tell you that the CD will have 15 tracks and will sell for £8.

For those of you who live futher afield, we are planning to sell this CD by mail order. We are currently looking at the costs of postage and packing. There will be a dedidcated CD website for PayPal payments etc and the information about this will also be given at a later date.

But, in the meantime i thought i'd give you a rundown of the track listing for the CD, to whet your appetite.
1: Keith Foster - On The Pier
2: The Vindickers - I Wanna Be Geek
3: King Bathmat - Warrior Square
4: Logan Wilson Band - All The Losers
5: Ian Edwards - True
6: Claire Hamill - Oregon Inlet
7: The Possessed - Beautiful White Moon
8: Dr Fonda - Son
9: Arivmia - Sinners Myth
10: O'Donnell & Bell - Deck Chair
11: Rich Lown - Starting From Now
12: Mick Mepham - Driftwood
13: Soul Sanctuary - Gone Away
14: The Cajun Dawgs - Flammes d'Enfer
15: Red Diesel - Rise

For anyone who knows about music from the Hastings area, you can see that this a nice eclectic mix of styles, genres and ages. This is exactly what i wanted to see when i started to compile the CD.
All of the 15 tracks are original compositions, apart from one traditional song. The CD even includes 2 brand new tracks.

Here is a sneak preview of the CD's front cover:

I will be writing a further blog post when the CD is finally available.
So, hold off buying your Christmas presents for just a little bit longer.

Thanks and keep on rockin'

Andy Gunton"

Putting The "Social" Back Into Social Media.

My personal history with Social Media is a fairly short one. By some peoples standards anyway.

My first experiences probably started off on MySpace and maybe the odd message board. All that was around the 2005/2006 period. It wasn't until the summer of 2006, when i discovered YouTube and started making videos, that i really started to get involved with other people online.

As i said in a recent blog post. I realise that not many people actually regard YouTube as a Social network at all. But, for me, it most certainly is and it is the site that i have used more than any other over the past four years. I have also made more friends there than on any other Internet site.
Please see that previous blog post for more information about my experiences on YouTube.

But, i don't expect i am alone in saying, that i didn't consider what i was doing ,back in those early days, to be Social Networking.
I can't honestly remember when i first heard that term. But, i suspect it was sometime after my first hesitant steps into that world.
For me back then, it was all about having fun and it still is. It was only after a while (early 2007?) that i realised that i was meeting like minded people and was enjoying their company online. That was when the more social side of my online life started to take off. But, i still didn't really think of it as networking.

I think it was around that time, although i could well be wrong, that i first started to hear about Social Networking and Social Media. But, without many exceptions, those terms were always used in a busniess context and that is where i have a problem with all of this.
Yes, we hear on the tv news. or read in our newspapers about "The Social Networking site Facebook", or similar. But, just about anything else you read about Social Media and Social Networking is all about the business aspect of it, or the money making opportunities that can be had.

I follow several Social Media blogs and websites. Mashable and TechCrunch being two of the most well known and i do find them very interesting. But, i can also find them very frustrating. Because the vast majority of their posts are all about the business and money making angle and not the social side.

As you might have guessed, this is a topic that i am very interested in and i have read several books about the whole world of Social Media.
I fully realise that there is money to be made out there and that Social Media is the new kid on the block. Therefore, many people are looking for that gap in the market to make their own dotcom fortune.
But, for me at least. The use of the word "Social" is there for a reason. This isn't just all about business and money making. It is also all about people and i do believe that that is often forgotten.

Maybe, i am being unrealistic, expecting things to be any other way?
Maybe, the vast majority of Internet and Social Media users don't care about this in the same way that i do?
Maybe, i am actually being a little hypocritical? After all, i am a YouTube partner and do allow advertising on my videos and blog posts.
Maybe, i'm just plain wrong?

Maybe, that's for somebody else to say?
I just can't help feeling though, that the "Social" side of all of this has been hijacked a little.

Whatever the truth is, i do know know that during my time using Social Networking sites and using Social Media generally, i have met, whether online, or even in real life, some of the best people i have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Now that's the sort of Social aspect we should be concentrating on.

YouTube Is a Social Network.

Social networking has been in the news once again this week, with the news that Facebook has passed the 500 million users mark. As i mentioned in a blog post the other day, the reporting of this story is not unusual these days.

One thought i did have about this story was, that  i wondered what some people will make of the fact that a jeans and t.shirt wearing 26 year old, runs a website, that if it were a country, would be the worlds third largest? I'm sure that's pretty scary stuff in some quarters.

In the light of the Facebook story, the BBC reported on a recent survey, which compared all of the main social networking sites. It was called "The ups and downs of social networks". All of the usual suspects and major players were there. Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter, Bebo, etc etc. Some faring well and others not so.
But, in my opinion at least, there was one major website missing from that survey. YouTube.

For most people, YouTube is perceived as a video sharing website and this it undoubtably is. It has become the number one site for online video viewing. The place where the vast majority of Internet users will go to first if they want to find a silly viral video,  a clip from their favourite tv show, or the latest music video by their favourite artist.
But, for many other people, YouTube is also a social networking site. So, why isn't it ever viewed as such?
Maybe, it is because of YouTube's perceived association with the sillier and less serious side of the Internet?

Whatever the reason, for me at least, YouTube was my first foray into what i would now call social networking.
It was on YouTube that i first started to interact with fellow Internet users, from across the world, in a meaningful way.
It was on YouTube that i first "met" other like minded Internet users, of all ages & backgrounds.
It was because of YouTube that i first met, in real life, fellow Internet users and felt confident in doing so.
It was because of YouTube that i have travelled to the USA on two occasions, exclusively to meet and travel with fellow video makers and have a great holiday into the bargain.
It was on YouTube that i first discovered a shared sense of there being an online Community.
Now, that's what i call social networking.

Maybe, i feel this way because YouTube was the first site of this kind that i stumbled onto?
Although i knew of and visited sites like MySpace when i first started to explore the social side of the Internet. It was YouTube that drew me in and made me dig beneath the surface and explore that little bit more than before.
For me, it was the way that i could see, through their videos, the people that i was interacting with. I could see their faces and look into their eyes. Something that you just don't get on many other, so called, social networking sites. Surely, it is far safer if you can actually see who you are intereacting with? Yes, i'm sure that this can be falsified. But, not nearly as easily as on a mainly text based site.

Since i created my YouTube channel in August 2006 and started making videos there, i have made some great friends. Some i have met in real life and this have often led to real and genuine friendships. Some i have yet to meet. Some, i may well never meet. But, i would still consider them to be friends.

I do wonder that if i was now a newcomer to the world of social networking, whether i might feel differently? After all, sites such as Facebook and Twitter, both of which i now use, were not really on the Internet radar back in 2006.
That question, of course, can never be answered.
All i do know, is that i am more than happy that my first experiences in the world of social networking were through YouTube.
I consider YouTube to be as real a social networking site as any of the others mentioned in this blog post.
I just wish that the rest of the world would view it in the same way. Maybe some day they will?

It's The Internet. But, Not As We Know It.

Just when you thought the future of the Internet was safe, along comes yet another worrying problem.
The whole issue of net neutrality & possible threats to the future of the Internet as it is now, seemed to be reducing. From what i could see anyway. I could well have been wrong though. You just can't believe anything you read on the Internet these days, can you? ;)

Now though, comes an even bigger threat.
The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being written & some of the proposals contained in the USA chapter of the agreement, would change the way the Internet operates in a very radical way. Although these are proposals from the USA, they would still end up affecting us all, wherever we are.
Thankfully, some of these highly secret proposals have been leaked. Probably by somebody who can see the writing on the wall. Apparently, only 42 people were given access to these documents. That shows you how secret these whole negotiations are. It also shows how worried one of these people is about the proposals. This must be a high ranking person who leaked this, after all there are only 42 of them.

Anyway, what are the proposals?
Well, the proposals, which were heavily influenced by the U.S entertainment industry, call for Internet providers (ISPs) to basically police the Internet for copyright infringements. They are proposing a "three strikes & you're out" rule. Whereby, anyone accused of infringing copyright, in any way, would have their Internet connection terminated. And if an ISP terminates your Internet connection, that affects the whole house!
Note the word "accused. This does not mean convicted, it just means being accused & anyone involved in video sharing websites like YouTube can probably think of occasions when people have been wrongly accused of infringing copyright in some way.
This obviously sets a very dangerous precedent. Whatever happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

Now, there are similar "three strikes" policies already in place, or at least being discussed, in many countries. But, none of them are as draconian as these proposals.

But, bad as all this sounds. It is the other implications of this "agreement" that are, possibly, even more worrying. To me at least.
An ISP would have to ensure that anything uploaded to any Internet site complies fully with copyright law & does not infringe anything. They would be obliged to do this.
Now, obviously, no ISP can ever guarantee this. And even if they could, it would be very expensive & would price most people out of the market.
So, ultimately, they would have to stop people uploading files to the Internet. That means that sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Flikr etc etc would cease to exist.
Worrying isn't it?

Now, like most sensible people. I realise that copyright infringement is an important issue & needs to be addressed. But, this is a great example of a sledgehammer being used to crack a nut.
Not only that. But, i fear this is all being done to try & protect the interests of the entertainment industry. The same entertainment industry that is already trying to sue various Internet sites for copyright infringement & threatening to put them out of business.

What they seem to want the Internet to be is one huge TV network. One that they can control, as they have previouly controlled the TV & movie industry.

The entertainment industry generally has been very slow to wake up to the huge potential of the Internet. We have seen how long it has taken the music business to realise what's going on & now the movie business is gradually being awoken from its slumber.
They have been left behind & are not happy about it. Other people have realised the huge potential & have already exploited it.
Why should they all be made to stop because of the lack of awareness & the smug attitude of the so called entertainment industry?

What these people need to realise, as many others have already done. Is that the Internet provides an enormous money making opportunity for them. They need to embrace it, not try to change it.
Just think of all of that great, fresh, new talent that has already been discovered because of the Internet & file sharing websites. If these people are in future unable to upload their content to the Internet. Where will the stars of the future come from?

The Internet will not go away. The genie is now out of the bottle & cannot be put back.
Yes, some things may need to change. But, let's do it sensibly.

So, what can be done about this?
Firstly, spread the word about these proposals. The more people that know what is being planned, the better chance there is of it being stopped, or at least watered down.

Get involved. Your Internet needs you.

This is not the whole story. there is more to it than what i have written here.
Read more here:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archiv/copyright_treaty_leaked_trouble_for_isps_and_in.php