her book signing took place on august 4th, 2010 in art lounge.

overall it was a fun event, lotsa people, and a nice location.

this is a one-minute video summary of the event:

this is a more detailed video from the event  with interviews, quick view of art space, and bits from here and there (total duration:  11 minutes)

members of the online community that were sighted in the video:

@fbizri, @krikorianm, @nemrcomedy, @sdarine, @dashkoun, @naeema, @toniyammine, @larazankoul, @stephanienehme, @christinkik, @jadfahs, @lnlne, @sdkaaa, @monajem, @jessdheere, @sam_lb, @rihamberjaoui, @raafathamze , and of course @mayazankoul

(many online folks were there, so if there is someone i should add, let me know)

looking forward to attending future mayazankoul.com signings….

Maniachi is an online social phenomenon that is an example of how online communities come together, self-organize, create a brand, and establish rules of conduct internally and externally. The group started out in Lebanon and has grown to include Lebanese diaspora who share the same maniachi ideals. More info about them can be found on www.maniachi.com

GeekFestBeirut is a conference held in Beirut that brings together the community that is interested in all forms of communication across social media, technology, mobile, and the arts. www.geekfestbeirut.com

Lausocial.com referred to on the show is the digital media class i teach at the Lebanese American Universtiy. The class focuses on embracing the latest in digital media and apply it to communication bases of journalism, radio, tv, film, and theater. The latest class project is entitle “What does new media mean to you?” where the class explores the community around them searching for insight on new media and its impressions across different age groups. More information on the project be found here: http://www.netvibes.com/lausocial
Twitter hashtag: #lausocial
Class website: www.lausocial.com (visit to add your email to subscribe and stay up-to-date)

Telephone.com mentioned in the video is a platform for converged communication. The first released module is SMS communication with an open platform and API. Voice communication is coming up next. (disclaimer: i currently work for telephone.com)

The recording of the TV show has been featured below in full.  The maniachi folks also linked to these videos in their own blog post here.

despite the overall “technology is evil” approach the session started with, the presenter was overall open to technology and was interested in the recent changes.

topics that were covered:  gaming industry and possible addiction, farmville, wolfram alpha / google / bing, facebook, telephone.com, skype,…

Part 1: 16 min 10 sec:  

Part 2:  38 min 36 sec:

disclaimer:  i mention telephone.com, the company i currently work for, in the course of the discussion of communicating with friends and family worldwide.

Radio VDL (Sawt Libanan):

• 93.3 MHz
• www.vdl.com.lb
• presenter:  Saadah Halimeh

during a break in the radio show, there was the news. i took this as an opportunity to show the studio i was in and the recording process. you get to see the environment, the equipment, and the live radio process itself.

the CNN webpage is iPad-ready along with Reuters, Time, Flickr,…
Full list of iPad-ready sites are on Apple’s website:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/

found it interesting that twitter triggered me to actually turn on the TV and watch CNNI (he mentioned on twitter he was going to be on air in a short bit)

(btw, Lance Ulanoff’s avatar does not reflect his TV persona image. wasn’t able to recognize him on TV although i am very used to his twitter avatar)

Already ordered the Apple iPad, now we wait.

sean paul and sean kingston give their own singing tribute to twitter.

been having a hard time finding the lyrics for it though (do send them my way if u find them somewhere).
sample lyrics i could figure out: hit me on twitter and i will get wid ya, hit me on my twitter page, mad cuz he got five followers it aint my fault that you don’t want to holla brotha, page block (?), twitter me, twitter twhat, live status,…

hat-tip to Jasmin Ahmad for bringing this song to my attention
Jasmin Ahmad Blog
Jasmin Ahmad Twitter

sean paul twitter
sean kingston twitter

in general there were negative vibes to the supposed evils of facebook and how it is an example of decadence and loss of privacy.  it was intended as an awareness campaign for the uninitiated folks who are not well-vested in facebook.

i attempted to voice a couple of opinions amidst the overall negative vibes:

- decadence? facebook is a form of a digital expression of aspects that are already part and parcel of the society we live in.  any decadence displayed on facebook is not to be blamed on facebook and have us take pitch-forks to rule facebook out.  we need to take a closer look at society and its values and how these values (decadent or not) are expressed via this online communication tool.  (there are 3 billion photos per month uploaded to facebook, they can’t be all bad?)

- privacy? rule-of-thumb:  if you don’t want anyone to see your picture don’t post it on facebook.  privacy settings can only protect to a certain extent.  before posting a picture, ask yourself:  do you have any problems if ‘everyone’ (including the bots of Google) share this around on the Internet ?  if no, then post as you please.  Moreover, if you are concerned about others sharing pictures of you, don’t pose for a picture with friends who have historically been known to handle pictures with poor taste (or even pose for pictures when you have no idea who the camera is for)

- teaching? there was an overall appreciation for new media when they saw it taught in a university environment and accredited as part of the curriculum (maybe bursted a bubble of new media being completely evil?)

- games? (farmville, poker,…):  why don’t we look at the facebook gaming platform as an opportunity for local entrepreneurs to publish games on this platform ?  why do we settle for being consumers and not producers of content ?

observations:

• you can’t but get the feeling that radio broadcast is very old school !
• despite the easy access to radio signals, a lot of folks at work don’t have a radio.  some tried to listen to it online at www.radioorient.com.lb
• they had a computer screen in the studio that takes comments from listeners by sms to a local shortcode (1575?).  thought that was pretty kool until i noticed that the presenter never looked at it once and when i actually snuck a peek the application had actually crashed and no one cared much (screenshot)
• haven’t been in a soundproof room in a while and found it odd that i was in such a silent environment.  makes you think how busy our environment (even if it is quiet i gotta have VH1 or FashionTV playing music in the background
• the pre-recorded phone-ins were expressed in a way that can’t but make you smile and remind you about the different aspects of our society (9min 30sec, 11min 20sec)
• tried to live tweet from within the radio studio (ignoring their claim of radio interference of a mobile phone).  alas the soundproof walls were very thick leading to dropping signal on mobile phone.

Recording of the Live Interview [ARABIC]

Radio Station: Radio Orient:  www.radioorient.com.lb ; +9611365454

Program: Stops (or ‘Ma7attat’)

Presenter: Hadi Joubali (hadijoubali@yahoo.com)

Program Facebook Group: look for Mahatat

Below is the video and some pictures of the social media discussion that took place on January 30th, 2010 live on FutureTV and was aired on the local channel in Lebanon as well as on the FutureTV international channel via satellite.  The panel was composed of @samerkaram @mayazankoul and myself (@aymanitani) in a really comfortable and friendly environment.

We were also live tweeting during the live tv broadcast to connect with the folks on twitter as well as get feedback on how they want the discussion to move forward.  For me that was the most fun as all the senses were fully engaged:  pressure of live coverage, formulating answers on-the-fly that are concise and targeted to the audience of the morning show, listening to panel members, interacting with presenter, and listening to the twitter feed to incorporate feedback and continue to tweet even though we are on live tv.

Thanks go out to Samer Karam (@samerkaram) and Maya Zankoul (@mayazankoul) for being great people to share a panel with, to Amer Tabsh (@arzleb) for setting the whole thing up and making sure everything goes smoothly in a live TV broadcast, and to all the Twitter folks who woke up early on a Saturday morning to participate in #ftvsocial.

welcoming us as we walk onto studio setup

the seating area where the live session took place

poster of the class that was mentioned during the interview that i will be giving Spring 2010

multiple cams facing you and preview TV to see what is being broadcast

the host amer tabsh (@arzleb)

traditional crt tvs scattered in all sorts of rooms around the studio

samer karam explaining the iPad to the futuretv staff

Other items discussed during the session:

Maya’s Amalgam: www.mayazankoul.com

CookieMan: www.cooki3man.com

Funraising: www.funraising.info

it started out by looking for halloween accessories, before you know it i forgot the reason i was there and was just immersed in the colors, the smells, the antiques, the clothes, the buyers, the sellers,….

interesting stuff are listed below in text, pictures, and videos.  enjoy !

• old black and white pics of people and places. probably part of people’s family pictures that have been abandoned with time.
• weird containers for juice
• animals sold as pets
• wedding dresses
• old Apple iBook for sale for $70
• old harddrives
• remote controls for everything
• electronic accessories
• old lebanese currency denominations
• colorful stack of books
• …

Flickr Photoset

keep your eyes on Maya Zankoul as she is an artist on the path to success.

maya is a Lebanese artist who is doing almost everything right to put her work out there, create a name for herself, and make you laugh in the process.

she started by putting her work online and it grew and spilled off into a book, pottery merchandise, and public sessions about blogging, art, and book publishing.

Taking advantage of Social Media to show her work or just keep you up-to-date with what she is working on.  The mix of them together is proving to be a force to be reckoned with.

Maya appears to (effortlessly) attend to all the details

for example, her book signing events have the custom posters created specifically for that event. books are displayed in an eye catching manner.

online you can find her:

• on the blog that started it all:  www.mayazankoul.com
• on facebook fan page
• on twitter:  http://twitter.com/mayazankoul

offline you can find her book in virgin and librarie antoine

below are a couple of videos of maya in action:

- speaking to fellow artists about her work and approach at the recent Pecha Kucha event

- there is a also a video of her book signing event at the ceramics store in saifi village

ceramics store event was a feel good event and has been covered online in different places:

• Lara Zankoul’s (younger sister) flickr page
• cedar tree blog post
• nahar shabab article
• lotsa lotsa tweets

go maya ! we are all keeping a very interested eye on your work, growth, and fun sketches.