*WEDDING.BLOG.LINK*

Good day everyone, and welcome to Sonic Infusion - a place where predictions are made and proclamations come true.

This past week a very interesting thing happened - to both the world of the internet AND the world of the iPod. And this could turn out to be very big.

A man named George Masters produced a quick video about the iPod mini. Actually it's an advertisement. But George himself has no vested interest in the iPod, or Apple, or anything else so far as anyone can tell. George is what we in the Macintosh community refer to as an "Evangelist", and this advertisement is purely about two things :

• exercising his iMovie/iDVD/FinalCut/general media creation skills
• spreading the iPod love

Now, at first glance this may just look like another Mac zealot getting carried away with his materialistic love for his computing gadgets (something the hippies really hate - though if they understood they wouldn't... I guess that's the point isn't it) or just being generally wonky and, really, kind of annoying.

But I think the important thing here is that George has made an advertisement. Maybe just to show off his skills at multimedia production (which are fantastic by the way - this looks really professional - I especially love the flying minis at the end that fly by the Apple logo and colour it as they go by; genius!) but the important thing here is that HE created it himself. I think his motivations are actually less important than the fact that it happened.

Don't get me wrong, other people have done advertisements of their own volition - but to my knowledge they have mainly been parodies and the like, meant to be funny or damaging. This guy is, as I said before, evangelizing. Spreading the love.

There's a very large amount of writing out there right now about this new form or "news" called "blogging" whereby average citizens of the world can write about whatever's going on and offer their insight into how they think things are going to play out. This was seen as especially important during the most recent rounds of federal elections held here in Canada and in the United States - because politics are something we all like to spout off about once in a while.

First of all, I think this may point to something happening - like what happens if other people start doing similar ads? What if Volkswagen owners start making ads about their cars or their experience or, like this George guy did, just expresses how he thinks ads about the product might be done? Are we moving into an economy where consumers are so upset that mediocre (and sometimes dangerous) products get the press they do because media companies get pushed around by big companies that have use their economic might to muster political strength that they are willing to produce the ads and do the marketing for the products they love BY THEMSELVES? For no compensation? In a time when we don't have enough time to cook supper or walk our poor dogs, will people have the motivation to invest the hours upon hours it takes to produce a piece of work like this?

I think, for one thing, this points to the pitfalls of the sorry imitation of a free-market economy that we have set up here (in 'western' countries). The powers that be continually cite classic sources on the merits of capitalism and the power of the 'invisible hand of the market' that will correct and adjust and keep the world in check and safe etc etc etc... it's a nice thought, and what's really funny is that it might actually work if the governments would let it - but at the same time as they are championing capitalism and the free market they purposefully hold the lower classes down and third world nations that they may be exploited, allow the gigantic corporations that fund their campaigns and private lives to take the drivers seat under the guise of their own epistemology (sickening), and control the media outlets of the world (and allow them to be controlled by their gigantic corporate counterparts) (have you ever seen a major US media firm print anything even remotely negative about Disney? Think about that for a minute). The latter is what we're concerned with here today. If this web-log-marketing (blogeting?) takes off at all, can we consider it a sign that the masses are so disenfranchised with the information they receive from traditional advertising (what I mean by this is advertising driven by an entity with a vested interest - ie: monetary interest - in the results and success of the advertising) that they are willing to produce it themselves? (This is exactly what blogging is really about, by the way, even if you don't personally use your blog this way)

Food for thought anyway.

Second, I think this is dramatic and undeniable proof of the iPod's beloved status (quite a change from the familiar prepend for Apple -beleaguered) and it's true dominance of both the market share and the mind share of the world's buying populous.