iEllie.com is a personal blog by a college student majoring in mass communications, focusing on PR. Her blog is an interesting peek into the heads of college students and how they’re viewing blogs, media making, and media consumption. Encapsulated on the first page alone are some interesting points to consider. And before you go and dismiss the blog for being unprofessional, or scattered, or anything else derisive, think creatively for a moment. Look at it as a mixing board, or a paint palette. See what iEllie is putting out there, and from there, we can extrapolate.
In This First Capture
Notice how iEllie uses a sideways picture in the banner. Fun, not pro. Fun. It shows a human, someone communicating. Then look: iEllie goes right into making media, with an Utterz post embedded at the top, a podcast right below. She shows all her related networks (tons!), and some personal data right on the front page. iEllie’s out there, telling us who she is, but not giving away 100% of what a stalker would need (important point to consider).
Media and Motion and Media Some More
iEllie has pictures and podcasts and Flickr and tons and tons of production just packed into this page. She’s creating all the time, and using the various formats interchangeably. This gives you a sense of the mix culture. It’s not a blog. It’s not a podcast. She’s making something and it doesn’t NEED a name because there’s a payload.
Key to the game in 2008: Forget the labels, focus on the payload
Where It Gets Even More Cool
iEllie posts that YouTube clip up there alongside her media. She doesn’t single one out over the other. In fact, I’m going to bet that she doesn’t distinguish between what she makes and what she finds/cultivates/curates. Why should she? It’s the same as clipping the words out of a magazine and forming your own sentence, or writing on a page. It’s the same output at the end.
Why All The Fuss Over iEllie.com?
It’s not iEllie specifically. I’m sure she’s wonderful and all that. I just followed her on Twitter. But it’s what I saw as a way to illustrate simply all the various facets of media making, media usage, and media consumption in the coming year. If you want to distill it out, here’s what I’m thinking should happen:
- Big media (journalistic, entertainment, etc) should divert SOME of their ad budget (.01%?) to media sharing projects, liking giving people mashup clips of movies and songs.
- Marketers/advertisers have people WILLINGLY sharing stuff all over the place. Give your projects handles, and see if people will take them.
- PR types, don’t go after just the A-list bloggers. Find the iEllie’s of the world, and find legions of them, and get them into your campaign.
- Professionals and leaders of the world- iEllie is your next employee. Look at how she rolls. Is your business ready for her? It better be, because that’s your job pool right there. Someone who mixes, mashes, uses alllllllll the social networks, and considers this the same as doing work for you.
- Parents- are you equipping your kids to make media? (Don’t get into a privilege story here). If not, you’re disadvantaging your kid in this regard. Computers and the Internet and powerful tools aren’t frivolous. Ditto game systems. Ditto NETWORKED game systems. THIS is our golf, people. Halo 3 and Tweetups are the new golf courses and country clubs. At least for some.
- Media makers- are you purists? Are you mashing and re-using and mixing? Are you making it easier for people to share and use YOUR media?
Think I’m crazy? Do you agree? What’s your take on iEllie’s site?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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