We create the stories of the connected society

The average age of the We Media audience dropped significantly when “The Content Creatives’ took the stage for the first panel discussion on Friday.  The discussion was supposed to pick up where Thursday night’s video presentation (outside under the stars) left off, helping the collective media brain trust in the audience understand what kinds of [...]

I’m not sure that the third major discussion of the We Media conference was appropriately titled, but it sure was interesting.  Yes, the concept of ‘soft power’ implies that there are sources of influence that are not tied explicitly to military or financial might… and that influence is quite regularly demonstrated by the media, and [...]

There were numerous references to the ‘elephant in the room’ at the second session of We Media’s on Thursday.  What is the elephant?  Money. Of course. No matter what role you play in the media space – head of a newspaper conglomerate trying to figure out how to integrate citizen media into your operation, individual [...]

Everyone’s out on the grove, drinking mojitos and chatting away. Night has finally fallen, which means it’s dark enough for us to see the screen clearly. We’ll be watching some videos created for the web, and it’s a great end to a long, productive, thought-provoking day.

some other ideas from the panel that seemed of some importance:
-If you don’t have a revenue model yet, there is no need to worry about it now as long as you manage to create a community around a theme or an issue

Carlos Garcia and Omar Ramos presented and did a live demo of Scrapblog:
“Scrapblog is a free web service that allows everyone to create multimedia scrapblogs.”

The “pitch this!” session is unlike any other. The tension is palatable, as people are sitting around the table, as if in a boardroom, ready to pitch their project in 3 minutes or less to professional investors and strategists.
Images and Voices of Hope goes first. The initial pitch is a little fuzzy (by contrast with [...]

After a Random Act of Media, the WeMedia Forum Miami dove into its Investment forum, which asked “Who will pay for new ways to understand news and act on it?”
The panel included a mixture of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs; Scott Rafer, MyBlogLog; Chris Ahearn, Reuters; Jeff Taylor, Monster and Eons; Chris Versace, Agile Equity; Brian [...]

How communities real and virtual are changing through media. What are the new ways for people to use information, news, and journalism to imagine their collective possibilities as communities and to set and reach common community goals. Can community be virtual? Let’s find out what some of the web thinkers and tinkers think.

Some highlighed blog posts from the We Media Launch and this morning’s session.  If I’ve missed any, please add in the comments
 Media Literacy as a Family Value  and We Media Community Forum(Andy Carvin)
We Media LiveBlogging Intro+Community Forum (Publictivity.comBlog)
We Media Kicks Off (Down the Avenue)
We Media Conference, Miami (Media Guardian/Organ Grinder)
We Media 2007 Community Forum (Hyku)
We Media Forum: “online communities are [...]

The first session degenerated (is that the right word?) into a discussion about who should control the conversation in our society: ”little m” media (bloggers and community contributors) or “Big M” media (i.e. media companies and professional journalists).  We have had that conversation – several times (at We Media alone) – and very little new ground was broken.  Why is [...]

Last night at a Miami/We Media bloggers dinner (hosted by Alex deCarvalho of Scrapblog)  Andy Carvin and I got into a discussion about how we got blogging…which got us thinking:  how do bloggers get to be bloggers?  Why do we take up self-publishing?  Where did the passion for media–that’s evident in so many of us–come from?

Those of you who’ve visited the Global Voices web site are probably familiar with our core mission, and the ways in which we’ve been trying to fulfill it thus far. The central feature of Global Voices has been our international blog aggregator, which is driven today by a team comprising nine regional editors, six language [...]

Communities exist in many forms, from chatter on a forum or bulletin board through to multi-player 3D virtual worlds. But what engagement models work and how can media companies nurture communities without alienating them as devices of corporate interests?
In our open discussion on Thursday at 12.30pm at the WeMedia conference in Miami we hope to [...]

Companies and individuals are invited to join and participate in the We Media community.
iFOCOS today announced a series of action and educational programs to spur global innovation in media. The media action tank also announced key leadership and advisory appointments as well as support from partners and foundations across a a variety of sectors.