The Development of a Multimedia Product - Coursework Example

Multimedia of the This paper will discuss about the development of a multimedia product of an organization that will deal with the development of 10 online interactive lectures. It will also discuss the significance of multimedia, digitization, images and sounds applications that will be utilized in setting up a multimedia-inspired website. It will also detail the relevance of networking these web content to social media for interactive discourse and distribution of these digitized products (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). The researcher will cite the experiences Stanford University in the development of massive open online course (MOOC) that use multimedia in engaging learners in an interactive online training and educational program Multimedia: Get to know the basic Multimedia is a mix of print, audio, and video applications that are on web. The social media is its medium of interactive communication that (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1): a. Inspire media encourage interactive feed-backing with targeted audiences (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1); b. Openness and transparency of information (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1); c. Conversation on the distributed, shared or transmitted content or information (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1); d. Network to a global community for effective communication and promotion; and, e. Nurture interconnected ness through online or social media linkages, other sites, resources and people (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). The most generally used multimedia applications are World Wide Web, hypermedia courseware, video conferencing, video-on-demand, interactive TV, groupware, online shops, games, virtual reality, digital video editing and production systems, multimedia database (Marshall, 2001a, p. 1). Experts posit that the broadly used applications are hypermedia systems through world wide web; multicast backbone that is strategically digitizing TV and radio streaming; and the enabling technologies which composed of carrier, switching, protocol, application, coding or compression, database, processing, system integration technologies (Marshall, 2001a, p. 1). Multimedia is also about developing a visual design hence, those who’d be working on website development for the Training Company must have deep knowledge on themes and styles which could either be comic, or simply informative or interesting, or must have some great ability for morphing, texture tastes and some techie explosions to make it attractive and impressive in its construction (Marshall, 2001b, p. 1). Multimedia is best expressed in social media. Currently, there are six kinds of social media (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). a. Social networks- this encourage creation of personalized pages and connect this to friends and associates or organizations to share content, statuses, photos, shouts, and ideas. This is also called as microblogs. The largest networks considered are, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). b. Blogs- this is a web space where a person can register and subscribe to write their stories, opinions and experiences. Blogs can either be personal, political, business, ‘almost media’, and mainstream media (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). c. Wikis – this is a web where people and institution provide information, reports, and data as communal database. The most prominent wiki is Wikipedia that has been considered as the leading online encyclopedia (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). d. Podcasts – this refer to audio and video files that are made available online for subscription. Examples on this are Apple, iTunes, soundcloud and the like (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). e. Forums- refer to online interactive discussion for persons with special interests on thematic discussion. Social media can also be considered as a forum for sharing thoughts on events, ideas, news, reports, lifestyle, and the like (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). f. Content communities – this refer to huge online spaces that are organized and shared to particular content communities. Some of the examples of this are Flickr for photos, Youtube for videos, book marked links such as DiggIt or del.icio.us (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). g. Microblogging- refers to short and concise bite sized blogging and is viewable and distributable through mobile phones with capacity for online (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Multimedia is dependent on multimedia formats. These days, webs have embedded multimedia elements and formats are supported extension. The broadest and general ways of file extension are in the formats of .html, or htm, .xml, and .css (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). These formats already indicate the nature of files. Photos are indicated as either .gif, .png, and .jpg. Also, the multimedia files are shown with the format extensions of .swf, .wav, .mp3, .mp4 and recently, the .mp5 formats. Videos on the other hand are supported by Youtube, Flash players, and HTML5 (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). AVI (.avi) refers to the Audio Video Interleave that was nurtured by the Microsoft. It is supported by computers or laptops that are supported with Windows, the prominent web browser and is generally utilized by infotech savvy (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). WMV (.wmv) is Windows Media Video that is also made by Microsoft (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). This is a popular format online but is dysfunctional for non-Windows computers. Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) format is perceived as a cross platform and is generally applicable in all web browsers (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). The QuickTime (.mov) format is Apple-inspired format for internet but this is not applicable to Windows-based computer without another application that should be installed to support the application (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Moreover, realvideo is made by Real Media to support the streaming of online video with low bandwidth and internet TV. Macromedia developed Flash while MP4 is a video-based application for internet (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Youtube, an online site for uploaded videos, prefer videos to be uploaded in Mp4 format although it permeate multiple formats and convert it later in to .flv or .mp4 for sharing and viewing (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). MP3 or digitized music, on the other hand, is the format used for compressed recorded music. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) format is akin to a synthesizer and PC sound cards (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). It is embed with digital musical instructions that can be played with the support of computer’s sound card. The MP3 are sound component of MPEG files and is the most prominent format for music files (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Another application for audio streaming is RealAudio that is useful for online music and internet-based radio (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). IBM and Microsoft also developed the WAV and this is can be exploited in Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems. Other format for sounds is Windows Media Audio and is considered compatible for all players and can provide continuous data flow (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). All of these platforms support the creation and publication of web contents and has inherent customized processes for editing and designs. Experts opined that these platforms also provide control and features that are useful for features and excellent search engine operation output for domains created (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Aside from these infotech applications and formats for web content development, the company must also purchase technologies that are essential in the production of print and video lectures. These are video camera, computer complete with accessories and excellent operating system, data storage and software necessary for video editing. As to the social network that will be considered as part of the prototype of distribution, sharing and interaction, the company may use the distributive power of combined Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and those of similar nature that are provided under ShareIt application. The first three are reliable form of social media because this is cost efficient and is populated by billion of subscribers that can be considered as a niche for promotion, advocacy, sharing, and exchange of ideas. Stanford and MOOCs: training program The use of multimedia for training and educational program is evident in the current phenomenal experience of massive open online course (Stanford University, 2013, p.1). The Stanford University for instance has Venture Lab free online courses on Creativity, Finance, Business Management and the Stanford’s Class2Go that offer courses on Computer Networking which discussed the operating system on emerging technological solutions (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). Other open online system education is also optimized by Coursera, EdX, Saylor, Udacity and Khan Academy. Coursera however is broader in scope because it is a collaboration of excellent and prominent professors and universities around the world who are concern to educate those who are left behind educational advancement (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). Stanford University explicated that is an open platform for collaboration and for content development (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). The documents are portable and downloadable and some external supports are derived from Youtube for video lectures. The platform is also interoperable and the company utilized a combination of multimedia support from Piazza, YouTube, MySQL, Python Django, Amazon AWS, Opscode, Github, and Popcorn.js (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). The professors lectures on video has embed interactive in-video quiz. It has also developed an open forum for enrollees for formative and summative exercises with frame extracting capacity for videos to hasten easy navigation (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). The Piazza supported the interactive forum for learners and the management (Stanford University, 2013, p. 1). The learners are encouraged to avail Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter for teambuilding and teamwork. Projects and assignments are also presented and submitted using Youtube, Scribd, Google Document, Picassa, and other social platforms online. The code for Standford’s Class to Go is also accessible online through Github.com (2013, p. 1). The organization used YouTube and Popcorn.js for video; MySQL is our database; massive Python Django ecosystem for Registration; Amazon AWS suite for hosting (EC2, S3, RDS, Route53, IAM); and chef from Opscode for configuration management (Github, 2013, p. 1) It is therefore vital that he team are able to understand these applications to that the they are able to produce contextualized its production on the commercial and non-commercial format, style, including its target audience needs, interests, values, genres, and the perspectives inspiring the production (W3Schools, 2012, p. 1). Stanford’s experiences can inspire other organization about developing a massive online course. Multimedia hardware required for the full project In completing the project, the following information technology must be purchased . The cost may vary and thus, the amount is merely estimated. Technology Estimated Costs Capture devices Video Camera, Video Recorder, Audio Microphone, Keyboards, mice, graphics tablets, 3D input devices, tactile sensors, VR devices. Digitizing/Sampling Hardware $ 20,000.00 Storage Devises Hard disks, CD-ROMs, Jaz/Zip drives, DVD, etc 10,000.00 Communication Networks Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, Intranets, Internets (internet connection fee for a year) and maintenance 10,000.00 Computer Systems Multimedia Desktop machines, Workstations, MPEG/VIDEO/DSP Hardware 10,000.00 Display Devices CD-quality speakers, HDTV,SVGA, Hi-Res monitors, Colour printers etc 5,000.00 Salary and operation Budget for the team of multimedia experts1 Minimum of four persons in a year 50,000.00 Marshall, 2001c, p.1. Marshall (2001c) explicated that multimedia system require very high processing power in order to manage huge data processing and real time delivery of media (p. 1). He pointed that it must be capable for multimedia file system to deliver video and audio streaming formats and might require special hardware and software such as RAID technology and multimedia data or file support, representation and decompression in real time (Marshall, 2001c, p. 1). Multimedia infotech should also be efficient and high in internet operation to ensure that the input and of subsystem files be effective and efficient to permit real-time recording and data playback. Other technology has already the capacity to record directly to disk recording systems and has special operating system to make the file easily accessible and could quickly support data transfer to disks and flawless with fast-interrupt capacity (Marshall, 2001d, p. 1). The data storage memory must be at the minimum of 50 - 100 Gb or more; others would even opt for terabytes data storage (Marshall, 2001d, p. 1). It’s also required that the caches have at least level 3 of efficient management. Of course, all of these will depend on the network support too, such as client-server distributive systems (Marshall, 2001d, p. 1). Software tools must be infotech friendly and user-ready for media, design, graphics and applications (Marshall, 2001d, p. 1). As to the websites where these infotech supplies can be purchased, this researcher assailed that The Training Company can purchase these online via: 1. CNET.com 2. Globalsources.com 3. Amazon.com 4. Camerakit.ie 5. Multimedia Equipment Rentals are also available in this site http://service-providers.hktdc.com/manufacturers/Film-Multimedia-Production-Equipment-Rental-Service-Providers/en/1455-1/ 6. http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/multimedia-equipment.html 7. http://www.indiamart.com/aditechnologies/multimedia-equipment.html 8. http://www.marshall-usa.com/ 9. http://www.hktdc.com/sourcing/product_searchresult.htm?bookmark=true&query=Multimedia&search_view=product&locale=en?WT.srch=1&DCSext.dept=2&WT.mc_id=1386806&gclid=CO3r49qClLUCFUFU4godPE4AbQ 10. http://www.hktdc.com/sourcing/product_searchresult.htm?bookmark=true&query=Multimedia&search_view=product&locale=en?WT.srch=1&DCSext.dept=2&WT.mc_id=1386806&gclid=CO3rher49qClLUCFUFU4godPE4AbQ 11. Sulit.com 12. www.excelvisualsolutions.com 13. And other websites where multimedia technologies are available and searchable through Google web. Some of the prominent multimedia technology manufacturers are Samsung, Apple, Toshiba, Sony, Nikon, Lumix, Canon, Polydeals, Smart, Alcatel, Excel Visual Solutions, Molabs Media, HP, and the like. Key Personnel skills In the development of this site, the company must hire human resources with expertise on infotech, multimedia production and the person with broad learning contexts in the production of stories, video educational programs. This means that the workers must be educated or a graduate on communication specialized on film, television, photography, online media, multimedia, print and broadcasting arena (Marshall, 2001e, p. 1). This is to ascertain that those involved in the production of the project are knowledgeable, competent, skilled, and has niche in the ramifying complexity of web content development. As such, they must not only be adept on research and information management, but they must also be competent in managing the production processes—exploring ideas, exercising control on aesthetic quality, and great at evaluating or editing the production processes to generate the final video to be presented (Grant, 1991, p 14-35).Therefore, the workers must have an integrated qualification in managing the range of production processes and in demonstrating the styles, structures, codes, rules, conventions, tastes, and arts to confidently and competitively produce the technology and processes. As such, the company will advertise on newspaper the kind of workers that will be employed to implement the full scale project. The advertisement will contain this information: Project management The project will be composed of a team composed of a manager, a photographer/videographer, web-content provider and social media analysts, and an online marketing strategist. The tasks will be designated as follows: The manager will be in-charge of the overall project development, heads the team who had underwent rigorous selection process, and will explicate the process of recruiting and selecting employees to optimize needed performance and achievement of goals. The management will also provide appropriate systematic framework for recruitment strategy to acquire quality workers that could perform tasks and roles (Gannon, 1995). The multimedia expert must be a graduate of mass communication with expertise on information technology and web content development (Gannon, 1995). He must be an expert on video and audio editing with excellent aesthetic quality and taste on web engineering. Since the website is an exposition of a training company and its products, the multimedia expert must also be excellent in data or content analysis and development (Gannon, 1995). He must plan well the script of the video project and reflect on the desired outcome. He must also be excellent in creative writing and has sufficient expertise on photograph, graphics, animation, and videography (Gannon, 1995). He must have reasonable experience in information technology and multimedia management (Gannon, 1995). The social media analysts must be knowledgeable on utilizing the social network in the promotion and distribution of its products. He must be a SEO expert tasked at developing the appropriate social network where the products of the Training Company will be shared or networked (Petouhoff, 2012, p.1-16). The person will be responsible in administrating the interactive aspect of the website and see where other social networks could the company leverage its presence in the global village (Petouhoff, 2012, p.1-16). The marketing strategist will develop the company’s marketing plan to sell its products online and to ensure sustainability. As a training company, the marketing strategist may sell video, audio, books, soft documents, and other products of the organization online (Petouhoff, 2012, p.1-16; Grant, 1991, p 14-35). These employees will work for 8 hours regularly and may undergo overtime work as deemed necessary. The team may undertake consultative measures with other SEO and web engineer experts provided this is consented by the management. The salary scheme will be defined by the management of the Training Company and must be reasonably indexed with the cost of living where the Training Company is established and operating. They are subject the company’s policy and guidelines required among its human resource (Grant, 1991, p 14-35). The team will endeavor to deliver the company’s message through mixed of writing, illustrating, wiggling, hearing, interacting and video-making (Marshall, 2001, p. 1). Hence, multimedia specialists is required to be adept in the rules of creative writing; of utilizing pictures and graphics or drawings for illustrations (with great mix of colors that could be either pastel, earth colors, metallic, primary or eon); and has a great skill too in humanizing an object through character animation (Marshall, 2001f, p. 1). Animators are also artists that can make a comic character emotional, mobile, creatively visual, but can adequately pop it with grace and sense of purpose. This is essential to impose emotional impact for viewers, to make a point, to indicate the passage of period or time, create transition processes, and improve the delivery of information (Marshall, 2001f, p. 1). Critical Path Analysis of Project Schedule Below is a Gannt chart that will show the targeted timeframe of the completion of the project: Tasks FEB-MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC Job analysis X Posting of announce-ment for hiring X Interview of applicants X Hiring X Signing of contracts X Project orientation X Purchase Of multimedia Facilities & equipments X X Brainstorming about the project (team) and management X Planning for web and content development X Content production x x x X Setting up of website and associated necessary applications x x x Web content development, storyboarding, & editing, including the development of marketing apps and networking with other links x x x x X Linking it with social network to upscale interactive x x x x X Testing web online X Targeted Launching of the portal of The Training Company X Assessment (Management and Team with company admin) X Identification of Next steps (for maintenance of the web) X Planning X When the project is done, the web engineer and the team will invite persons from the company’s administration, management, and a representative of its targeted clientele to join the team in testing processes (Marshall, 2001, p 1). Since the multimedia have distinction in its applications, their opinions and queries matter to improve the content, framing of website or its videos, and the synchronization of digitizes information. Some may test its interactive capacity and its apps integration (Marshall, 2001, p 1). The team must have also secured the site from phishers and online attacks to ascertain that the products and its integrated contents will not be compromised (Grant, 1991, p 14-35). References Gannon, M., (1995). Personal development planning, in The Performance Management Handbook, ed. M Walters, Institute of Personnel and Development, London. Grant, R.M. (1991). The resource-based theory of competitive advantage: implications for strategy formulation, California Management Review, 33(3), pp. 14-35. Github Inc. (2013). Standford Online/class2go, US, Web, p. 1. https://github.com/Stanford-Online/class2go/ Accessed: 3 Feb. 2013. Marshall, D. (2001a). Desirable Features for a Multimedia System. Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node15.html. Accessed: 31 January, 2013. Marshall, D. (2001b). Challenges for Multimedia System. Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node14.html Accessed: 31 January, 2013. Marshall, D. (2001c). Characteristics of Multimedia System. Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node13.html Accessed: 31 January, 2013. Marshall, D. (2001d). Components of Multimedia System. Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node16.html Accessed: 31 January, 2013. Marshall, D. (2001e ). Trends in Multimedia. Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node18.html Accessed: 31 January 2013. Marshall, D. (2001f). Animation (wiggling). Web. http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node32.html Accessed: 31 January 2013. Petouhoff, N. (2012). ROI of Social Media: Myths, Truths and How to Measure. Radiant6, p. 1-16 , Web. http://socialcommercetoday.com/documents/Radian6_2012.pdf Accessed: 31 January 2013. Stanford University (2013). Stanford Makes Open Source Platform, Class2Go, Available to All; Launches MOOC on Platform Today, OpenCulture, LLC, UK, p 1. http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/stanford_makes_open_source_platform_class2go_available_to_all.html Accessed: 3 Feb. 2013. W3Schools (2012). What is multimedia? Refsness Data. Web , p. 1. http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_media.asp Accessed: 31 January 2013. . Read More