SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Gerd Leonhard went public with Futerati, a Twitter-API-based site that brings together the eclectic assortment of people that inspire his thinking. Basically, Gerd has curated his extensive personal collection of tweeps into six categories: futurists, thought leaders authors, activists, startups, and others.

A brief comment explains why each person is included, and of course it offers their latest tweets and a link for clicking through to that person’s Twitter profile for more information and ease of following.

“One of the most important realizations that has recently transpired via my Twitter pipeline is how much I am gaining from the ever increasing Sharism i.e. by what others are sharing with me,” Gerd explains, adding that Futerati is a way of paying it forward.

(Title lyric from Jack Johnson.)

Application developers 9astronauts have created Billie Tweets, an art project they refer to as “a Twitter tribute to Michael Jackson.” Basically it plays the incomparable Billie Jean video, featuring Michael Jackson at the height of his powers, accompanied by a waterfall of random tweets that have each word of the lyrics highlighted in order, kinda like Twitter karaoke. The effect is oddly hypnotic.

(Title lyric from Pearl Jam.)

Some pundits, many of them traditional reporters, wrote about Michael Jackson’s death pitted new media against old media. Others said the reporters had a lot to learn from each other. But if they’re going to continue and be successful, I don’t think there should be any clear difference between them. Bloggers, Tweeters and their ilk need to work on improving their credibility. Those in print, radio and TV should improve their understanding of emerging media – not just its tools, but also its culture.

As for the mercifully few curmudgeons who are jumping on the bloggers who got it wrong, as though those errors prove we can’t trust digital media, I suggest they look up how many reputable newspapers reassured readers that all of the Titanic’s passengers were rescued.

(Title lyric from Beautiful South.)

Today’s NY Times has an article about Cast It Systems , a company that securely catalogs, tags, shares and otherwise handles digitized auditions for casting directors and their associates. It includes tools for comments and tracking, as well as obviously making geographical location less of a factor.

The productions pay a fee to access the database, making possible events like the recently launched open casting call for Twilight – which I would assume had more value as a publicity generator than as a practical way of acquiring talent.

That cynicism aside, Cast It Systems counts all the major studios and many production companies among its customers. It has successfully been used for The Proposal, The Hangover, Steven Spielberg’s Munich, Star Trek, HBO’s Hung, and many other projects.

Eric Hayes and Chris Gantos predict their services have potential for use in sports and even placement in mainstream jobs.

(Title lyric by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, via Buck Owens and – later – the Beatles.)

One of the events honoring Michael Jackson provides a test for judging who “gets” Web 2.0. Basically, any entertainment executive who doesn’t understand why the Liverpool Street moonwalk flash mob was wonderful should hire someone who does.

Here’s what happened. The Prince of Pop died Thursday afternoon here in Los Angeles. The brilliant Rob Manuel, 8 hours ahead in London, woke up to the news and Twittered that a tribute flash mob would be fun. By 6 pm London time, Milo Yiannopoulos had  leveraged the power of social networking into having many hundreds of otherwise unaffiliated people gather to dance (or at least happily mill about – see picture) to Billie Jean at one of London’s busiest commuter rail stations.

(Title lyric by Michael Jackson. Image borrowed from here.)

Angel of Death, the web series by Eisner Award-winning writer/cartoonist Ed Brubaker, is morphing from 10 parts on Crackle.com into a 90-minute movie on Spike TV.

The White Rock Lake Production will air July 25 at midnight ET/PT. It stars Zoe Bell (pictured in character as Eve, the assassin of the title), Lucy Lawless, Doug Jones, Ted Raimi, Brian Poth, Justin Huen and Jake Abel. Paul Etheredge directed and John Norris produced.

It’s not the first time Spike TV has picked up a show from the Internet. In April it started running MoCap, LLC, the darkly humorous adventures of a low rent motion capture company trying to get a foothold in the world of video games. Worldwide Biggies produced six half-hour episodes exclusively for Spike TV.

(Title lyric is from Ozzy Osbourne.)

Schematic is showing off its Touchwall, a giant multi-touch video screen, at the 2009 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

The Touchwall measures 12 feet long by five feet high and gives attendees touch access to the complete festival program, 3D maps of the event and surrounding area, and information on local restaurants and bars.

But as an indication of its future capabilities, the Touchwall also enables attendees to schedule meetings with each other and to trade contact information over email.

(Photo is from Minority Report. Title lyric from Soul Asylum.)

A piece in the Economist analyzes the media coverage of the protests in Iran is more nuanced than its headline indicates: Twitter 1, CNN 0.

It notes that when the violence flared on June 13, CNN was showing a repeat of Larry King interviewing the mechanics of Monster Garage.

Meanwhile, Twitter and YouTube were flooded with information and images as they provided an infrastructure for an international exchange.

The article goes on to discuss how the traditional media picked up, and how “desk-bound bloggers” like Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic and Robert Mackey/ of the New York Times brought a journalistic discipline to what had by then become a tsunami of frequently useless or redundant data.

President Obama warned Irani officials that, “The world is watching.” But that was only made possible because of what many people previously dismissed as toys and gadgets.

There are, of course, those who disagree with me.

(Photo is of Neda Soltani. Title lyric by Iggy Pop.)

Nine visions for the future of journalism have been recognized by the 2009 Knight News Challenge, an honor that comes with enough funding to make a practical difference without making anyone wealthy. I think it’s important to notice that these awards are for the future of journalism, not the future of newspapers.

• DocumentCloud, a project by the New York Times and the non-profit ProPublica, is creating an easily searchable, free, public online database of public records.
• Crowdsourcing Crisis Information from Ory Okolloh and Ushahidi is a growing platform designed to strengthen the reporting and understanding of breaking news events by creating a free web map and timeline that combines and plots reports from citizens and journalists using email, texting and other communication technologies.
• Mobile Media Toolkit from Katrin Verclas and MobileActive is expanding their work supporting the use of mobile devices and applications to create and broadcast local news reports.
• MediaBugs by Scott Rosenberg is creating a wiki-style “neutral environment” for reporting, tracking and helping to resolve errors in news coverage.
• Councilpedia from Gail Robinson and the Citizens Union Foundation of the City of New York’s Gotham Gazette wants to make local legislators’ voting records and campaign contributions available to the public – again, wiki-style.
• Data Visualization from Aaron Presnall of the Jefferson Institute is creating a suite of online tools to help people understand the meaning and implications of community news and information.
• The Daily Phoenix from Aleksandra Chojnacka and Adam Klawonn is helping people using the Arizona city’s new light rail system to inform themselves about Phoenix through news, games and social networking.
• Virtual Street Corners is a digital media public art project that uses life-size screen images and AV technology to enable real-time chat between residents of two neighborhoods, providing a window and spurring discussion into others’ lives.
• CMS Upload Utility from Joe Boydston and the McNaughton Newspaper Co. is creating a quick way to convert and load multiple newspaper files to a web site.

(Title lyric by David Johansen

Business analyst Henry Blodget offers his opinion that there is no way to save the traditional television industry. Basically, he suggests that the lower revenues Internet distribution provides are not sufficient to support their existing cost structures.

He details the fundamental realities that TV has relied on since its inception, then lists the Internet-enabled changes underway that are eliminating these realities. It’s a deliberately provocative but thought-provoking essay.

At no point does Blodget say that content will be free. But he does say that content providers should give up on “consumer-unfriendly” and restrictive solutions that do nothing but shore up existing and doomed business models.

(Title lyric from Blur.)