Rex Is Excited

I’m writing an undergraduate research paper on the economics of citizen journalism. Or, more specifically, I’m researching and applying for a grant to build an open source platform for Collaborative Citizen Journalism.

I don’t want to waste your time with a really long paper. It’s not good enough yet.

However, I’m very passionate about this. I really think Citizen Journalism can happen, and needs to happen.
I recently explained the idea to a friend in an email, and it went something like this:

I imagine you’re sometimes suspicious of the news we’re told, and probably have a feeling that our government sometimes lies to us. But the extent to which we are controlled by corporate media is largely unnoticed.

Our world today is an a sad state, and in so many different ways. For some reason, I can’t just sit around and watch the world crumble… like everyone around us seems to be doing. Pollution, Erosion, Disease, Human Rights Violations, Hunger and Starvation…

Humanity can do better.

I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place. I hope you do too.

For myself, the way I think I can best make a positive impact is by helping “the people” take back “the media”. Yes, I’m talking about Citizen Journalism and Social Media.

Corporate news and corporate television networks rule our nation… and ever more of the world as our western culture is globalized through our government’s brand of capitalism. Corporate media has us in a reality distortion field.

The average American watches 28 HOURS of television per week.

As nice as watching TV can be, that’s just wayyy too much time to spend doing something so unproductive… that’s time better spent actually enjoying life on this planet. We buy the crap food we see on TV, buy the crap products we see on TV and listen to the crap music we hear on TV et cetera et cetera.

Anyway, I blame corporate media for leading people to live like this…

But now we have the Internet… something so fundamentally different from any form of communication humanity has ever experienced before. (I’m reading a great book called “A History Of News: From the Drum to the Satellite” … it’s an epic story, talking about how every human has been obsessed with news… that it’s a fundamental part of life, and this all leads me to think that everyone today is starved for real, true, important information and that we just stare at the fucking TV hoping to satisfy that desire… our natural desire to be informed is being exploited by corporations.

So what can we do about it?

Fast forward to the 21st century.

Everyone is a reporter now.

You, me, everyone you know.

Anything you do that’s awesome, I’ll write an article about it for the local newspaper.

Your family and friends will read about it. If it’s a really cool story it will spread. Neighbors will hear about it.

This is the promise of citizen journalism. A world where we inform each other about what is important to us.

I’m working on a platform for collaborative citizen journalism… a way for communities to work together to produce news easily and efficiently and provide it for free. Technically speaking, I’m applying for a grant to modify Drupal into an open source website system that we’ll offer for free to local newspapers so they can open up their reporting to citizen journalists. Readers of newspapers can get involved and write their own articles. The best may be edited for print.

So this system hasn’t been built yet. And instead of going out and trying to make money on this idea, and get VC funding and everything, I want to make it open source… with the hope that we can truly free the media from its corporate stranglehold.

I think this project could develop into something really cool… potentially incorporating the functionality of sites like Qik and Mogulus so these citizen reporters could even broadcast live video from events etc…

Imagine citizens covering every important local event. The latest cellphones will let you broadcast live video to the web. Other websites will let you aggregate those live video streams and produce a live online TV channel. Citizen Journalism doesn’t have to look like an online newspaper. Citizen Journalism can be fully multimedia and be more interactive and more accessible and better informed than anything we’re getting these days from the corporate news networks.

I’m not suggesting we totally dismantle the news industry. I don’t think that would be smart at all. I do, however, think that a little healthy competition would ultimately be good for everyone.

Are you ready for Citizen Journalism? Will you be a Citizen Journalist?

Here’s a video I did awhile back, now in "HD" so you can actually see it, versus what Flickr did to my video the first time I uploaded it.

Twitter Reply Notifications (Screencast) from Rex Pechler on Vimeo.

I’m also testing here if a "private" video can still be embedded publicly (for a friend).

I've been having visions of the future... the Global Village alive and well.

Background: I'm taking some classes that are teaching me how f***ed up the world really is. I mean like, how most of the rest of the world is starving or dying from disease. While I can't really make much difference by donating some food or money or time, I firmly believe that technology can save the world. And that you and I have the power to influence the way this story plays out. In some way, I feel that by just writing my predictions below, it will help them to become reality. And I want to know what you think about this.

Here's what I see right now: Mobile phones are getting cheaper. Mobile internet is becoming more popular. Social networks are mainstream. Social media is becoming mainstream. People are starting to distrust the corporate news media. People are starting to distrust the government. The internet is providing better and better entertainment for people. People are making better content for the internet. People are communicating in new and meaningful ways through the internet. Social networks are becoming local.

Here's what I see in the near future: Mobile phones will become available for free. Your mom will start blogging. You'll have video chats with people around the world about meaningful things. Your neighbors will be in your same social networks. And you'll really know what's going on in the world, and so will everyone else.

Some, or all, of these things might sound ridiculous to you. Let me explain... First, Google (and others) are placing a lot of bets on mobile advertising. Who's going to accept ads on their phones if they're not getting free service? I don't know Google's business plan yet, but they are launching their new phone platform (Android) this summer, with a whole bunch of phones from many manufacturers involved... there's a lot of potential for revolutionary change here. Expect mobile technology innovation to increase exponentially. Anyway, I'm hoping Google will decide to give out free phones and subsidize service through mobile ads.

Mobile internet. Apple's iPhone has shown us what mobile internet can look like... it's really put the internet into my pocket for sure. However, the iPhone is still very expensive, and lots of people are waiting before getting one for various reasons. Nonetheless, mobile internet is something more people are thinking about than ever before. And service providers know this, and data plan prices are coming down with competition. But think about the rest of the world, places where nobody can afford a computer but everyone has a mobile phone. Imagine them hopping on Twitter... on Flickr... on Digg... or YouTube.

Local Social Networks. Popular social networks thus far have been pretty removed from the physical world. You meet people online based on interests, but not because you were in the same vicinity. Imagine ad-hoc local chat rooms. Imagine neighborhood social networks. Imagine collaboration, like citizen journalism, coming from within these social networks. Imagine your phone setting up your cellphone to vibrate when someone you know is in your vicinity. It's happening, and it's going to change society in ways I can't begin to imagine.

Oh, and when I said your mom will start blogging... It's true. She just won't know it, or think of it that way. You'll be getting a stream of photos from her. She'll be writing updates to multiple friends at a time, no longer through email, but something else. And of course, it won't just be your mom. It's everyone else, too.


(Update:) I guess I didn't fully address the title of the post yet, "Mobile Internet Will Save The World". So many people are stuck, physically and socially, around the world, in poverty. They are well aware that life is better elsewhere, but can't do anything to "better themselves". Now give them the internet. They can now talk with anyone in the world, and make friends and business connections. You've heard of micro-loans? Imagine how much more likely you'd be to give a young entrepreneur some start-up capital if you could video-chat with them first, and they'd blog and twitter their progress. And then also, you've got the potential web developers and software engineers, that will naturally start wanting to write applications for these new devices. Social networks will spring up. People will get excited. Groups will organize and bring about massive change. But most importantly, the internet will enable people to educate themselves to a point where they can perform skilled, knowledge-work. And then, what's to stop them from making money? And that's how the mobile internet will save the world.

I’ve started a new blog… http://techgetscrazy.blogspot.com

I’ve decided to make Rex.FM more of a personal blog, while I’ll post my crazy, tech-related posts over at TechGetsCrazy. I feel like it will be a better outlet for my ideas without pushing my personal brand too much. I mean, I really want Rex.FM to be about me, not my crazy ideas. So anyway, expect some coolness over there, if you’re interested, and subscribe via Google Reader or whatever if you like… feel free to expect some awesomeness. http://techgetscrazy.blogspot.com

I haven’t posted here in a while… I’m busy with school, and a bunch of projects. When I do feel like sharing some thoughts with the world, I’ve been doing that over at my Twitter account: http://twitter.com/rex

If you’re not using Twitter yet, you can get started by taking out your cell phone and texting "Follow Rex" to ‘40404′.

I’ve been looking for a way to blog from my iPhone, especially because I wasn’t having much luck with the WP-mail plugin that allows you to post by email.

Anyway, I’m writing right now on my iPhone using a plugin called WPhone, which you can find here: http://wphoneplugin.org

You can now expect a lot more posts from me here!

I’ve been looking for a way to blog from my iPhone, especially because I wasn’t having much luck with the WP-mail plugin that allows you to post by email.

Anyway, I’m writing right now on my iPhone using a plugin called WPhone, which you can find here: http://wphoneplugin.org

You can now expect a lot more posts from me here!

I just read Mark Zuckerberg’s post where he’s basically apologizing for mistakes made in the launch of Beacon. I just want to share my personal experience with Beacon.

Yesterday, I was looking for a coffee shop to go study for my Business Strategy course. I did a quick search for “coffee” in “Santa Cruz, CA” at Yelp.com and was presented with a list of nearby cafés ranked by users. I went to the (relatively) new Bad Ass Coffee downtown, and had an amazing Double Cappuccino (with Half & Half). Looking back at Yelp, I saw mediocre ratings of the Bad Ass coffee, so I registered at Yelp and wrote my own review.

Later, I went to Facebook for something completely unrelated. Here’s what I saw:

Amazing! Impressive! I really like it! What happened? When did Facebook and Yelp talk? I don’t get it! But I like it!

Now, I’m sure Beacon has created all sorts of problems for people, but so far, for me, it’s been nothing short of awesome.

We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.

from: Zuckerberg: Thoughts on Beacon | The Facebook Blog

I spent a lot of time searching for a mobile broadband card that I could get without a contract (I found Millenicom, a Sprint reseller charging $50/mo). Anyway, the reason I wanted a card without the normal 2 year contract is because of the upcoming XOHM service from Sprint. This will be a nationwide WiMax network… and it’s set to launch in early 2008. Just read the below article at Techmeme, and it looks like XOHM is coming sooner than we thought. Seems like a perfect network for the Google Phones.

Sprint Nextel will soft launch its XOHM WiMax network in the next few days according to Bin Shen, VP of Product Management and Partnership Development. Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore will all go live at soft launch, and though Shen did not discuss what devices would be available, a number of data cards have been tested on the network. XOHM will officially launch in the second quarter of 2008 as will several laptops with WiMax embedded in them. Later in the year a number of special purpose devices will launch, as will dual-mode CDMA / WiMax handsets.

from: Sprint XOHM Will Soft Launch “In A Few Days” (Phone Scoop)

Yeah, okay, OLD news… but I was just on the phone with Apple iPhone Support, and I couldn’t use a landline. Apparently, dialing US Toll-Free numbers with Skype via SkypeOut is free(!). I don’t know if you need SkypeOut credit to make the call, but probably not. And it was pretty good quality too (the woman I talked to apparently got my email address right). Oh and I used my favorite bluetooth headset, the Plantronics 510 Voyager, which makes using Skype really comfortable.

Anyway, so until I get a working iPhone, my SkypeIn number is (831) 331 4416