Urban screens manifesto

Read the messages and understand the direction the urban narrative want you to take.

Do not protest openly if you do like the message. Take time off your mobile phone and read the poetry of screens around you.

Do not deface the screens.

Exploration 1

This is a project in the Moving Screens class for my MA in Digital Media at Sussex University. We are experimenting with the notion that more often than not we miss the obvious things around us.

I have to list 10 things that I did not notice immediately I sat down.

Here they are:

1) cobweb on the plug socket
2) Black spot on my cream wall
3) Hair on my comb
4) Curtains are now dirty
5) Dust
6) Copy of The Sun under my study table (been there I think for a month)
7) Empty packet of Kettle crisps
8) Toothbrush
9) Circle patterns of my ceiling
10)Tabasco peper sauce (always thought the sticker said Brasco for some reason)

Lovebirds or Heartbreak: Top Valentine’s Day Playlists on Facebook

by Jonathan Chang

Do you have a go-to break up song? An anthem you find yourself listening to on repeat when you switch your relationship status to “Single?” Or what about that song you love listening to when you’re "In a relationship?” Every day, people are breaking up and entering into relationships on Facebook. When they do, they play songs that personify their mood. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we looked at the songs most played by people in the U.S. on Spotify as they make their relationships and breakups "Facebook official".


Among lovebirds on Facebook, Jason Derulo takes the top spot with his hit "Don't Wanna Go Home". When users fall in love they feel like celebrating, so along with romantic songs like "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars, users also play songs like "No Sleep" by Whiz Kalifa.



"The Cave" by Mumford and Sons tops the list for breakup songs. Other tracks such as "All of the Lights" by Kanye West and "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele were also frequently listened to when ending a relationship. The hip-hop star, Drake, has two songs on the break-up playlist, including “Take Care” featuring Rihanna and "Crew Love".



Songs people listen to when entering into a relationship:

"Don't Wanna Go Home" by Jason Derulo
"Love On Top" by Beyoncé
"How to Love" by Lil Wayne
"Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars
"Good Feeling" by Flo Rida
"It Girl" by Jason Derulo
"Stereo Hearts" by Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine
"Criminal" by Britney Spears
"No Sleep" by Wiz Khalifa
"Free Fallin'" by John Mayer

Songs listened by people after ending a relationship:

"The Cave" by Mumford and Sons
"Crew Love" by Drake
"All of the Lights" by Kanye West
"Rolling in the Deep" by Adele
"Take Care" by Drake
"It Will Rain" by Bruno Mars
"We Found Love" by Rihanna & Calvin Harris
"Call It What You Want" by Foster the People
"Love You Like a Love Song" by Selena Gomez and the Scene
"Without You" by David Guetta featuring Usher

We created Spotify playlists for these mixes below - we hope you enjoy these playlists that you helped to create. Have a happy and music-filled Valentine's Day!



Facebook love mix:

http://open.spotify.com/user/slycoder/playlist/2SSUnGaPl8YtWFNYrPYHg1



Facebook breakup mix:

http://open.spotify.com/user/slycoder/playlist/4yXygxW4AtM722kquUikD0

Facebook Data

Cities worldwide host Social Media Week

A week-long event on all things social media will be held in Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C.

Social Media Week (SMW) features free events surrounding the latest trends and topics in social and mobile media.

SMW DC features an event hosted by the International Center for Journalists thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifitled "Innovations in Social Media in the Developing World."

Moderated by IJNet Director Jennifer Dorroh, the panel discussion will feature topics like crowdsourcing, blogging, mobile phones, mapping technologies and more.

Each year, SMW attracts more than 60,000 attendees across thousands of individually organized events, with half a million connecting to the conference online and through mobile.

SMW takes place February 13-17.

For more information, click here.

Is Zimbabwe and much of Africa "Twitterphobic"?

By John Mokwetsi

I stumbled upon a report entitled How Africa Tweets by Portland Communications and Tweetminster that analysed over 11.5 million geo-located Tweets originating on the continent during the last three months of 2011.

According to the report following a survey of 500 of Africa’s most active Tweeters, South Africa is the continent’s most active country by volume of geo-located Tweets, with over twice as many Tweets (5,030,226 during Q4 2011) as the next most active Kenya (2,476,800). Nigeria (1,646,212), Egypt (1,214,062) and Morocco (745,620) make up the remainder of the top five most active countries.

In Southern Africa, countries like Namibia and Angola have some minimal active tweeting community and countries like Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe are not mentioned showing an apathy in the use of the this online social networking service and microblogging service.

Encouraging though is the fact that 60% of Africa’s most active Tweeters are aged 20-29 itself the generation that needs to be engaged in national discourse as potential future leaders.

The disappointing factor is that the report reveals that twitter in Africa is widely used for social conversation, with 81% of those polled saying that they mainly used it for communicating with friends leaving me wondering if the golden generation is engaging in nation building issues.

All is not lost though as the same report makes a case that Twitter is becoming an important source of information in Africa. 68% of those polled said that they use Twitter to monitor news. 22% use it to search for employment opportunities.

African Twitter users are active across a range of social media, including Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn.

But what about opinion maker, our leaders, whose proximity to the grassroots is only from the bullet proof top of the range cars where they wave uncontrollably to bemused people in all forms of tattered clothes waving back?

Mark Flanagan, Portland’s Partner for Digital Communications, says: “One of the more surprising findings of this research is that more public figures have not joined Africa’s burgeoning Twittersphere. With some notable exceptions, we found that business and political leaders were largely absent from the debates playing out on Twitter across the continent. As Twitter lifts off in Africa, governments, businesses and development agencies can really no longer afford to stay out of a new space where dialogue will increasingly be taking place.”

PM Morgan Tsvangirai with a following of only 1436, maybe a reflection of Twitter apathy in Zimbabwe, has only tweeted 20 times in three months.

Well maybe Beatrice Karanja, Associate Director and head of Portland Nairobi,articulates it better when she says: “We saw the pivotal role of Twitter in the events in North Africa last year, but it is clear that Africa’s Twitter revolution is really just beginning.”

Internet trolling will finally get me off Facebook!

By John Mokwetsi

I am a latecomer to the Internet slang word, trolling, that describes the prevalent habit of posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

What prompted this blog was a BBC Panorama investigative piece that tracked and exposed online bullies in the UK who hide behind false names on social networks to post racist and abusive comments leading in worst cases to tragic ends like death.

A case in point is that of Thomas Mullaney, 15, from Bournville, in Birmingham,who killed himself in May 2010 after being threatened on Facebook.

His parents Robert and Tracy have called for a new law to specifically target bullying/Internet Trolling.

In an interview BBC Radio 1 and 5 live survey of 1,000 people aged 13 to 19 also showed 52% of them would accept a friend request on Facebook from someone they did not know directly, while 29% thought their reputation had been damaged by something they had said or shared online.

Being a Facebook junkie I have noted with concern the habit of trolling on Zimbabwean social network forum. Okay! Facebook to be more specific.

I cannot place my finger on the reason why we are so angry, so abusive and feel we can replace fact with vulgar words and slander when discussing issues that needs a logical argument only reason can solve.

Trolling has reached unparalleled levels and the amount of hate language on soccer fanpages and well-meaning advisory groups on relationships/education is scary and it gets worse as most Zimbabweans join social networks after the mobile broadband boom.

Politicians like Minister Welshman Ncube and our own PM Morgan Tsvangirai must be discovering with much disappointment that Facebook is not be the platform to engage citizens, not at this moment at least. Often discussions on policy turn into mudslinging before hitting an all time low with trolls asking about sex positions.

Recently browsing local music on Youtube, some of the comments on local music videos was unflattering and unprintable on this blog, prompting one user to ask a question I also have for you all: "Why do we pull each other down so much isusu maZimbo."?

I am not cut to be a troll but I see them on my page once in a while and for that I feel it is time to leave Facebook unless Mark and company promise a radical approach to dealing with these bullies.

My QR code story

My first encounter with QRcodes. I created my first QRcode story as a personal experiment.


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