Conversations by the Rio Grande Valley New Media community.

Shaine Mata's Blog (59)

New Media Hiatus

You may have noticed that I have slowed down on posting stuff. I had my cameras stolen and don't have a space where I can work in peace. I still have my camera phone, but it's not the same. For the moment, I am limited to recording stuff on Blog Talk Radio and Utterli. I'll resume working on new media once I get more equipment. In the meantime, don't hold back. Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on March 27, 2009 at 7:09pm — 1 Comment

Utterli Groups for the RGV and SPI

I created a couple of Utterli groups for the Rio Grande Valley today. Utterli is a social media network geared towards mobile phones. You can send pictures, messages, video, or call in a post. That post can then be sent out to different people by SMS notification or email. I started the group with the idea that people could somewhat self-promote or organize things through the group. You can stop by the Rio Grande Valley Utterli group and beco… Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on February 17, 2009 at 2:53pm — No Comments

Using New Media at Work

I don't know how closely folks keep up with what I'm doing, except for those of you on Twitter. This Summer, I started working at a local radio service company, in McAllen. I started off as a tech and recently made the move to "Account Executive". I've never had a sales job in the past; so, this is a stretch for me. It seems, however, that it ties in to what I do anyway, right? From the outside, it seems to me that working in sales is like a campaign… Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on October 27, 2008 at 10:58pm — 1 Comment

Interview: Josh Coffee of Texas Wine and Song Festival

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Added by Shaine Mata on October 13, 2008 at 3:00am — No Comments

Epic FU on Twitter

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Added by Shaine Mata on October 11, 2008 at 1:16pm — No Comments

Where have I been?

It takes a lot of time to maintain an online presence. Lately, I have not been as aggressive in maintaining an online presence as I would like. I've really neglected some of the online communities that I've started. In some it shows. One, in particular, seems to be doing OK. The only places that have seen any action from me are Twitter and my own blog. Well, I've been busy out in the "job market". Yes, I to… Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on October 7, 2008 at 7:47pm — No Comments

Hurricane Ike Video Posts

With the arrival of another hurricane, it may be the perfect excuse for some of our video bloggers to go out and shoot some footage. You can go out and be a reporter or simply share your experience during the storm. This site lets you send video from your phone to an email address that will post the content. There is also Kyte.tv and other services out there you can try. Why don't you give it a shot? Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on September 9, 2008 at 9:38pm — 1 Comment

Congratulations to Melissa Zamora

Melissa did a great job keeping everybody informed during Hurricane Dolly. She was on the web, on the radio, and on TV. I want to congratulate her on a job well done during the disaster recovery. I will be helping out the residents of the island by going out there this weekend to spend some money. I hope it helps with the recovery. Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on August 2, 2008 at 6:33pm — 1 Comment

Morning Show: Post Hurricane Dolly Drive

I recorded my observations on the way to work the morning after Hurricane Dolly. Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on July 24, 2008 at 8:01pm — No Comments

Visit to La Lomita Park

Find more photos like this on RGV Life
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Added by Shaine Mata on July 5, 2008 at 4:35pm — No Comments

Baby Slide Show

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Added by Shaine Mata on May 8, 2008 at 10:13am — No Comments

Happy Easter

For those of you who celebrate, most I imagine, have a great Easter Sunday. I hope you spend it with friends and family. Enjoy watching the kids on their Easter egg hunts. They grow up, you know; before you know it they are too old to hunt for eggs. Have fun! Oh, one more thing. Whip out your cameras and record those family moments. Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on March 23, 2008 at 8:30am — No Comments

Listen to me on KURV for election night coverage

I'll be at KURV studios tonight with Sergio Sanchez to cover election night news as the results come in from local and statewide races. We'll also talk about the presidential primaries. Be sure to join us. Continue

Added by Shaine Mata on March 4, 2008 at 12:24pm — No Comments

Having the confidence to try

Some time back, I did some business as a computer guy. I did some work for the City of Mission. I had clients who would call me regularly. Things were going well, but not to the point where I could make a living off the business. I still needed a day job. With that and taking classes, it was increasingly difficult to find new business and keep up with my clients. Then, my main supplier went bankrupt, and folded altogether.

Since then, I've been gun shy about doing business. Lately, how

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Added by Shaine Mata on February 9, 2008 at 8:43pm — 3 Comments

The Exaflood

Here is a video that was shown at the Power of Productivity luncheon at UTPA yesterday. I was getting ready to rip it off a DVD when I decided to look for it on YouTube instead. You can find all kinds of cool stuff on YouTube these days.

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Added by Shaine Mata on December 5, 2007 at 2:44pm — No Comments

Building an Alumni community

One thing that I have been trying to build for a while, and fell on my face a couple times, was an alumni website for people from Mission High School. My first attempts involved paying for hosting and a CMS like phpNuke or PostNuke. There were some problems inherent with those CMSs, like being crackable. So, I parked the project for a while in the Yahoo Groups. I am afraid that I lost a lot of members due to the separation of all the members into distinct classes.

Then, along comes Nin

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Added by Shaine Mata on December 4, 2007 at 9:40pm — No Comments

Monetizing Your Blog

Is anybody having any success at monetizing their blog? What are you doing or have you done to make your blog a source of income?

Can you share any ideas?

I tried, out of curiosity, putting ads into a text box on RGV Life through google ads. It didn't work. I guess there was some sort of conflict between my ad and the Ning ad. The result was ugly. I guess I'll need to pay the $20/month to put ads on RGV-Life.com without problems.

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Added by Shaine Mata on November 28, 2007 at 2:49pm — 4 Comments

I am starting to see a difference between being a geek and being a new media type

Although it is an asset to be geeky, I am starting to think that you don't necessarily have to be a geek to be a new media type of person. When it comes down to it, new media is mostly about creation. It is creativity. One has to sit down and write a blog post, put together a podcast, edit some video, reply to forum posts, or whatever. So, geeky skills are helpful, but not required. It takes a certain love of writing, editing, or to some extent performing to be into the use of new media.
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Added by Shaine Mata on November 21, 2007 at 7:20am — 1 Comment

Having fun with mogulus

In the previous post, I wrote about how I created a lifecast using mogulus. The service lets you upload your videos and will passively loop them for you continuously. You can also actively add overlays, full screens, and a ticker at the bottom. If you do a live show, you can add an over the shoulder graphic like they do on newscasts. Mogulus is great for producing your own live content, although my current setup doesn't support that.

Over the weekend, I set up a channel for RGV-Life an

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Added by Shaine Mata on November 19, 2007 at 2:41pm — No Comments