New Media

I’m honored that this blog has been nominated in the category of Best Canadian Political Blog for 2009.

If you like what you read here, please rank this website in the top spot. Note that due to the recent name change for this blog, you’ll be voting for “Currents by Jonathon Narvey”.

Please vote at the DemoChoice Web Poll.

Voting only takes a moment. With your help, New Media will become known as the leading political blog in the land. Thank you for your support.

Longtime readers will notice a not-so subtle re-branding of this blog. The generic “Currents” is finished. New Media is where it’s at.

I’ve been a part of the “new media” scene since it became relatively easy for terminal late adopters like myself to start publishing and promoting stuff online. We’re all still trying to figure out precisely what new media means and how “old media” is going to survive in the Information Age. And I’ve written before that I really do think both new and old media are actually just flip sides of the same coin.

In future, knowledge transfer will take place in a symbiotic relationship between syndication on Web 2.0 platforms and essential raw investigative data from the traditional media sources. So, new media isn’t precisely new. It is something different than what we’ve had, but mostly it just builds on what we’ve already had. A vintage Model-T Ford and a brand new Ferrari may look different, but they’re both basically cars, if you get my meaning.

I’ve operated in both traditional media and communications and this new media world for a while and this is where I want to continue to be be. This site will continue to be mainly a central platform for collecting my own essays and opinions. It’s still a personal site and as such, I will be keeping my name-based URL. However, I will also be linking and highlighting more the voices of those with whom I’ve built relationships in this new media scene.

So stay a while. Leave a comment. Feel free to get in touch with me on my other social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Looking forward to re-connecting.

New Media Douchebags Explained

I’m honored to be profiled today on the Normblog (Norman Geras), who conducts a weekly profile feature on bloggers of note. Norman is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester and a founder of the Euston Manifesto Group and one of the principal authors of the manifesto.

There you go: I’m notable. Mom, it’s official!

For those interested in the influences and philosophy of the Currents author, feel free to visit the Normblog profile of Jonathon Narvey. Here’s a taste of my survey:

Who are your intellectual heroes? George Orwell, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, to name a few.

What is the best novel you’ve ever read? 1984. As relevant as ever.

In 2008 Currents has garnered a steadily-growing readership for its coverage of a range of topics, from current events and politics to the environment social media and tech trends — all things that I have a deep interest in, even if I don’t always have the time to give each topic the attention it deserves every week. I’m grateful for all of your comments and looking forward to an even better 2009

Here’s are some of the highlights of the year gone by:

January. For no particular reason, I set out to become the most searchable Vancouver blogger and come pretty close to achieving it before setting off the Vancouver Blogger Nerd Fight, in which I choose not to run.

February: At Vancouver’s premier blogging conference, Northern Voice, I meet the guy who makes this blog possible.

March. One Thousand Stories, a documentary about my friend and gifted Vancouver-based writer Kevin Spenst’s literary adventure wins the Paul and Ben Film Festival for best short film. Here’s an interview I did with Kevin after his victory.

April. On the political front, the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee starts enjoying some success in its goal of helping Canadians understand why we need to be involved in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, on the social media scene, Hummingbird604 (then known at the time as a Student of the Environment) provides a blog-inspiring mantra and social media consultant Monica Hamburg gives me a lesson in crowdsourcing.

May. I wander around the world-class UBC Museum of Anthropology and make a video. Also, some people do actually pay me to write for them, and I finally cobbled together some tips for copywriters on my WRITEIMAGE blog.

June. I write about the Great Firewall of China and ponder Vancouver’s success in creating a more environmentally sustainable transportation model.

July. I explore whether us bloggers can and should attempt to provide better web security for our readers when large corporations and public organizations are falling down on that job. Also, Omar Khadr gives me an ethical conundrum and a very bad headache.

August. My preference for more discrete breast-feeding habits for mothers in public spaces makes me a bit of a caveman. On the plus side, I’m told I can now pick my nose and scratch my scrotum in public with no social consequences. I have yet to test out this theory.

September. Dedicated and hard-hitting journalist and author Terry Glavin reminds us again why we must stick to the mission in Afghanistan and ignore the heckles of so-called “peaceniks” who would abandon millions of Afghans to the predations of murderous thugs.

October. A little teaser for the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out on video outside a Vancouver liquor store. Also, I celebrate that it’s time for change in Obama’s adopted hometown (well, before he moved into the White House).

November. Vancouver’s new mayor Gregor Robertson takes on homelessness, just in time, before the cold weather really hits. I have a Super Cool Weekend in Vancouver. Jihadi terrorists bring tragedy to Mumbai, though getting a certain local blogger to express solidarity with the victims against the barbarians is a little like pulling teeth.

December. Currents wins a runner-up award for Best Politics Site or Blog from Miss604’s Best of 604 Awards after a hard, bare-knuckles blogging campaign. A cold winter snap descends on Vancouver. Meanwhile, there’s a political crisis in Ottawa. Vancouver’s indie media tries to work with the Olympics, sparked by Dave Olson and Raincity Studios’ open letter to VANOC, with some excellent commentary on the situation by the OlyBLOG. And just as the year is about to end, I protest for democracy and peace for the Israelis and Palestinians against a bunch of Canadians who don’t seem to really understand what it’s going to take for both sides to get there.

Those are the highlights. Looking forward to a great 2009.

As a blogger and writer who spans both sides of the media divide, I enjoy thinking and talking with others about what Web 2.0 means, since it’s one of those nebulous expressions that means different things to different people. Fortunately for me, Vancouver is chock full of social media mavens to mull this phenomenon and I’ve been a grateful beneficiary of their wisdom. Web 2.0 enables humankind to communicate and interact in entirely new and meaningful ways. As I wrote in a BIV article earlier this year (Web 2.0 vs. the Great Firewall of China):

Web 2.0 in a word? Freedom.

…If the old Internet was a city filled with brilliant but unresponsive giant billboards built by individuals with 100 per cent control of their message, Web 2.0 is a collection of giant town hall meetings involving hundreds of millions of people, where the message is what most people say it is.

Web 2.0 basically means free (as in “democratic”) Internet.

I just came upon a fantastic gem of an article on the topic of what Web 2.0 means by social media consultant Joe Solomon on his Notes From A Red Nose blog, Clown and Web 2.0. It’s actually from last year, before I ever met him, but relevant and interesting as all hell. An excerpt:

Then I went on to explain that Web 2.0 is all about helping people connect. Sue Morrison had always defined moments of clown as being those where audience and performer truly connect. In that ether between audience and performer – in that space – in that moment of true eye contact. You could say clowns don’t exist, they exist between.

With Web 2.0, it’s the same thing. We exist where we connect with others. Web 2.0 has given birth to an explosion of social networks – most innovative among them is Facebook. Facebook is famous for having almost obliterated static profiles and instead having replaced these with dynamic ever-changing “News Feeds.” Your Facebook News Feed is a series of public announcements of how you’ve interacted with others on the network. Your News Feed constantly changes as your write on your friend’s wall or attend an event with other Facebook users. So on Facebook, as represented through your Facebook News Feed, your entire existence is defined by these moments of connecting with others.

Fascinating stuff.

Here’s Joe, attempting to define his existence in the spaces in between.