Today, in the lab we had a discussion about having to create a standard video format for ipods (i.e the frame size, data rate etc) just like for example creating a delivery format for a program for television. The lab decided to bypass being restricted by video podcasting standards, in favour of leaving the published video on the Internet. The discussion was prompted by the aim to set up a reblog of video content that has a web feed from each student blog. Each video object from each individual student, which is made around a pre-set theme is brought together into one blog via the use of an aggregator. Each video object on their own blogs remains in the context of the environment it was created in. In the reblog also like in their personal blogs all the video objects remain within the networked environment of the Internet.

Nicholas Carr in a recent blog post titled ‘Steve’s devices’ provides a critique of Apple’s motives in terms of how their devices like ipods are designed in relation to the Internet. Carr states:

Jobs, in fact, couldn’t possibly be more out of touch with today’s Web 2.0 ethos, which is all about grand platforms, open systems, egalitarianism, and the erasing of the boundary between producer and consumer. Like the iPod, the iPhone is a little fortress ruled over by King Steve. It’s as self-contained as a hammer. It’s a happening staged for an elite of one. The rest of us are free to gain admission by purchasing a ticket for $500, but we’re required to remain in our seats at all times while the show is in progress. User-generated content? Hah! We’re not even allowed to change the damn battery. In Jobs’s world, users are users, creators are creators, and never the twain shall meet.