Very few of us enjoy the close-boxed mentality of big media. The whole mindset essentially flies right in the face of how the web works and continues to ignore how society interacts with media. I just ran across an example of how media 2.0 and the internet’s open model has seemed to influence an independent film titled Revoloution.

The premise is quite simple – moviegoers can watch the movie for free and then decide how much they wish to pay after they have finished watching it. We all have gone to movies and have felt quite robbed from the experience. Many people do not frequent theaters as often because it is not worth the gamble to spend a sizable chunk of change on something they may not like. Big-business media will almost assuredly never sign onto something like this for various reasons – one being that their product is, well, bad. Hollywood is already losing money, this would just speed up the process. Nonetheless, this model could be a much more beneficial model for aspiring filmmakers to garner an audience and begin to create buzz on a particular piece of work.

I could see a more hybridized version of this type of payment where less is paid up front and a ‘tip’ is requested after the movie is over. If I only had to pay $4 to $5 to get into a movie, I might just start going to movies again. Additionally, if the movie is decent, I definitely would provide a tip. Of course this model is more risky than the pay-up-front model, but with declining ticket sales, they may want to consider taking a few risks and getting creative. One thing I do know, hiking up the price of tickets is not going to work.

For more details on this experiment, watch the video below:

Much of the media online is free without even the slightest hint of payment. Even for the lucky (and talented) individuals publishing high-quality work exclusively on the web, compensation still is a challenge. However, people are making it and some are doing quite well for themselves. With the rise in popularity of web media with its low overhead and much less profit, big business is going to need to rethink payment models and the content they are willing to spend millions on to produce. (Many) people know crap when they see it – sadly, the majority of all media (internet or not) falls into that category. However, on the web, I do not have to pay $15 or sit through 20 minutes of commercials to see it.

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According to this article, Google is planning on making $11 billion in ad sales – not too shabby. It is not a secret that Adsense is a success from many different standpoints. I would definitely like to see online advertising go even further in its usefulness and site-by-site basis, but I recognize how large of a leap Adsense made to online advertising. Old media advertising could definitely use a shot in the arm at this point – and who better to go it than one of the best success-stories in new media. Still, it will be interesting if new media ideas still work in a different medium. Old media definitely will be eventually making the slow transition to new media – perhaps that evolution will take care of the problem on its own.

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This really begs the question of how much photography is about a perfectly composed scene with vibrant colors and an engaging perspective compared to a compelling scene that speaks for itself. With each passing day, I am greatly leaning towards the latter. Visually interesting photos can pique a person’s interest, but a compelling and powerful scene captured on film can define or encapsulate a generation. In recent months, I have seen myself less interested in the details of composition and much more interested in searching for a captivating scene and then doing my best to capture it in its fullest. I have yet to succeed in this endeavor, but I am trying.

What are your thoughts? Is it all about the composition of a scene, the scene itself or a little of both?

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The topic of how design can make the world a better place is definitely not new – however, more people seem to actually be interested nowadays. For most of its existence, design has been grossly misunderstood. With our generation receiving the torch (whether voluntary or not) from the “Me Generation”, I find it highly hopeful and motivating that topics such as these are gaining more interest.

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I have made very clear my opinion on anti-flash standardistas. That being said, I have a deep respect for web accessibility/standards and feel it is a high priority to make Flash as web-friendly as possible. A lot of work has been done towards this end and FAUST seems to be an attempt to put all the fragmented pieces together in one cohesive package. I really applaud this sort of work as it is all too infrequent but highly important. With media consumption on the web growing, Flash is almost assuredly going to become even more integral a part of the web. These sorts of methods are going to make the process just that much nicer for the end user. Major kudos.

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Semantic code now has a whole new layer of meaning and functionality with microformats that we currently have only scratched the surface of. In addition, those features will theoretically be easier to implement. The elemental microformats are where things get very interesting for me. Social features such as voting, personal connection and tags can be published and parsed through simple semantics. These features give the potential for any site to participate and contribute to socialized information. The next-generation social bookmarking/aggregator sites could be merely a centralized hub of otherwise decentralized information. This theoretically lessens the the need for behemoth all-in-one social sites such as Digg. This gives web publishers another tool to both contribute and tap into a stream of information to make data more rich and connected. Very exciting.

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The person responsible for destroying these two stores is not too happy about the direction the game’s world is moving and came to the conclusion that blowing some things up was a good solution. This same person apparently wants the creators of Second Life to give his army (yes, he had an army) the ability to vote on future changes. Through this little experiment, “citizens” have begun to rebel and ask for more democratic power. I find this all extremely interesting. I am quite curious how these same people will react if they do not get what they want. It could soon be a very unhappy (not to mention radioactive) world in Second Life…

I am not a gamer myself, I myself look forward to seeing how this pans out. This has to be the first case where violent actions in a game’s world impacts they way that world works.

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As can be expected, some eco-minded folks are already changing their bright-color-schemed ways – such as ecoIron with an energy efficient color scheme. Even the slightest glance at this blog’s design shows how energy inefficient it is. White is by far the highest consumer of energy with red not too far behind. All of this is spelled out very clearly from another DOE page. Some Random Dude is the web equivalent to the Hummer. Yeah, this all sounds funny to myself as well.

So what to do? Do we all change our vibrant ways? I would like to scale things back a tad from this site, but I am very cautious of ruining the site’s identity. Either way, this is an interesting topic in the theoretical sense. Does design on the web need to start accounting for energy efficiency for the end user? Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that with every passing day, web design becomes more and more like industrial design.

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A new Nine Inch Nails album is coming out in April. Thanks to our good friend Kellie, and her great link comment, I learned about a series of abstract websites pertaining to the theme and (from the rumors) storyline of the new album. To say the new album is political is like saying the sun is warm – just a warning to those of you that do not enjoy politics. Yes, I know, this has been done before. Yes, I know, this is a form of marketing. Still, the tone and the way it comes off just seems different than other viral marketing campaigns.

A lot of people are not big fans of viral marketing. I, however, see a great beauty to it. Most viral marketing I have been exposed to is quite creative and engages the user’s imagination. On top of it, it is much less money-driven than traditional advertising methods. With viral marketing, success is dependent on the individual to appreciate it enough to want to share it. Traffic and buzz can be artificially generated, but I have noticed that method tends to fizzle out very quickly if there is not a genuine interest from the public. I rather like the idea of marketing that is depends on the public’s interest rather than cash. I see how this project can turn people off. Still, for myself, I find it absolutely fascinating.

UPDATE – New Nine Inch Nails song found on a usb drive in a bathroom in portugal. This is getting cooler and cooler by the minute. In case the URLs hosting the MP3 die, you can download it from Some Random Dude (sorry, this is absolutely killing my bandwidth).

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Sure, I have a bone or two to pick with certain visual design styles, and the lack of visual originality with many sites, most especially blogs. However, many of the root-caused for those very issues have allowed for an unprecedented increase in user-experience design and accessibility. The rise of the blog and the general theory behind Web 2.0 has allowed the user and other sites to have greater access to content – allowing for a richer experience. Usability and web standards have definitely stifled visual creativity at times, but the movement is responsible for a much accessible and compatible internet. A site can be absolutely visually stunning, but if the public cannot easily access the information or interact with it, the design failed.

With information becoming more modular with every passing day, we are going to have to get comfortable with letting go of controlling how our content always looks. We need accept the fact that (many) people prefer to access data from an RSS reader or a web aggregator. While one may be of the opinion that certain content looks more appealing under a certain strict visual style, imposing those beliefs onto the audience is not the job of a designer nor is it responsible. Time would be better spent working with those technologies to make the content look its absolute best under all circumstances. Fighting this is useless, content and information is only going to become more free.

Design, especially on the internet, is a balancing act. Communication and aesthetics can, at times, conflict with each other which forces compromise. At this moment on the web, communication has taken the higher priority – which probably has to do with the fact that it was so neglected in the early years of design on the web. What we are seeing now is a natural return to balance. Honestly, this is a good thing.

So, our ‘beautiful internet’ is still here and thriving, it is just becoming beautiful in an entirely different way.

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I look forward to hearing your thoughts. I will be keeping this post open for a couple weeks to get as many responses as possible. Honestly, I would like to get over 50 people’s responses to this question. Post earlier and post often!

Update: I have posted this discussion again this week in the hope that more folks respond – obviously, I feel far short of the amount of comments I was hoping to get. Please, if you have not yet put in your two cents, take the short time to do so.

So this discussion is all about process. What is your process? What do you consider important? What is all hype to you? What works well in school but just is not feasible in the real world? All genres of design are not only welcome, they are expected. I feel that there is going to be much more in common between different design disciplines than expected. There is no format to this – just communicate your thoughts and do it in the way you feel most comfortable (basic writing, diagrams, rhyme, etc.).

We look forward to hearing from you.