DMEC

With planning underway for Berkeley’s 3rd Digital Media Conference (>play), the Berkeley Digital Media and Entertainment Club needs an updated look for this year’s event, which will be hosted on Saturday, October 27, 2007.

From now until Friday, May 4, anyone and everyone can submit their design for a new logo. Each person who submits a logo within our design guidelines will receive a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate (limit 1 per person). What’s more, the winner will receive an additional $50 gift certificate, and will have their design on all materials and signage for the conference!

It’s your chance to become a significant part of one of UC Berkeley’s largest student-run events!

We are looking for logos that communicate the nature of the conference: a day-long event that brings together creative professionals, industry leaders, and students to discuss the emergence and implications of the digital lifestyle. For more information, visit us at www.playconference.org

Rules and Guidelines:
- Anyone is eligible to enter, whether students or professionals
- The logo must feature the character “>” and the word “play”
- The color red cannot be used
- Submissions must be in .gif or .jpg format with 300DPI resolution. The chosen winner must be able to provide an illustrator file (.ai) of the design
- Submissions must be no larger than 800×800 pixels and no smaller than 100×100 pixels
- By entering the contest and submitting your design, your logo will become the property of DMEC, and you relinquish all claims to the intellectual property
- Submissions will only be accepted via email to matt_mathias at haas.berkeley.edu. Please include your full name, mailing address, and daytime telephone number
- The contest ends at noon on Friday, May 4th 2007. Submissions received after this date will not be considered

After all submissions have been received, check back on this website to view the designs and cast your vote!

For reference, below is the current >play logo:

Good luck, we’re looking forward to seeing the new designs!

DMEC

We could have seen this coming. This year (for the first time in US political history) Democrat and Republican presidential candidates will square off in cyber-debates, brought to you by your friends at Yahoo!. So now anyone (with an internet connection, at least) can participate and ask questions- instead of those privelaged few who can attend in-person debates.

However, I wonder about the so-called “transparency” of the online question submissions. There is undoubtedly going to be censorship of these questions. A link to an article is here.

What do you all think about this? Can the internet truly democratize the political debating process? Or is this just more high-tech smoke and mirrors?

I really enjoyed Peter Moore‘s talk today on the gaming industry from Microsoft’s perspective.  Thanks Joe, Paul, and Andy for making that happen!  Here’s a song with its own perspective on the gaming console market.

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, writes this letter to all of internet-dom. This a direct response to the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision to triple internet music licensing fees.

To read his letter and sign (or not) his petition, click here.

So I ask all of you: Is there a way for internet radio to work? Does the fact that broadcast radio pays $0 for fees mean that there’s still hope? Could the untold numbers of internet radio stations band together in a tour-de-force and push more negotiation?

As a very big fan of internet radio (my fave being SomaFM of course), I wouldn’t mind all THAT much if the stations I listened to adopted a more broadcast-type model (ad supported)- seeing as the only other option is radio silence.

What do you think?

MBA students from London Business School will be in the Bay Area next week on a Tech Trek. We’re planning a happy hour with them in the city on the evening of Thursday, April 26 (BOW pre-party). In the interest of gathering a rough headcount for planning space needs, please indicate at this crude online poll whether you can make it out.