Jaimie Canterbury, writer for Dime Magazine, published a compelling article supporting compensation for players. Canterbury bashed a statement by the NCAA President, Mark Emmert, who was quoted as saying, “It is grossly unacceptable and inappropriate to pay players…converting them from students to employees.” Canterbury contested, “But isn’t employees what they already are, seeing as how they work to make millions of dollars for an organization?

I agree with Canterbury. Not only do the universities gain revenue from broadcasting student athletes on national tv networks, but also from selling sports gear such as jerseys and NCAA video games. Not to mention the indirect boost in revenue that results from increased enrollment when a college has one or more successful sports teams. Exploitation is a strong word but one that obviously applies to the relationship between student athlete and university.

Until this year, the public never really knew how much universities profit from their athletes. Students and alumni were happy to sit in the stands and marvel at how their favorite player could devote so much time and effort to the game without receiving a paycheck.

One of my friends told me, “It’s what makes college sports so great!” I couldn’t help but wonder, great for who? Great for the fans, the coaches and the universities yes, but not so great for the men and women on the field, court or rink.

This problem has gone unsolved and under-represented because of a lack of collective voice. Students 10 or 20 years ago, such as the wildly famous Fab-5 at Michigan, played beneath the same conditions and were unable to voice their protest without fear of being removed from the team.

Fortunately, this is not true in today’s world. We’ve seen how seemingly impossible goals can be achieved with the combination of social media and the assertiveness of this generation of 18 to 24 year-olds. Dictators can be overthrown, lives can be saved and public opinion can be changed. Fans idolize college sports stars. If athletes collectively voice their opinions, and their understandable desire to get a portion of the revenue they bring in, while maintaining the “college spirit” of the games, both sides will win.

There are a lot of opinions out there. And although mine is right, it’d still be entertaining to hear yours. So let me know what you think. Who will win this debate? And how will they make it happen?

- David Ashcraft

I was traveling with my parents on our way to Singapore and our stop was through Japan. We decided to stay for a few days because we had never been to Japan. We thought it would be fun!

I was with my parents when the earthquakes hit. We were in Tokyo, near the main downtown area. We were in a cab, right under high buildings that literally swayed as it happened.

We were lucky to be where we were at that time, though. We were originally going to catch the subway and had even bought our tickets to enter. We had picked the wrong subway, however, and had to find the other location. Ultimately we decided to take a cab to our next destination and very soon afterward the earthquakes hit. If it hadn’t been for our tourist mistake, we would have been stuck in the subway.

It felt like someone was behind the car shaking the trunk up and down. People fled the buildings around us in immediate fear. People were using whatever they had to protect themselves. One man came out carrying his mattress on his head; another just held his shopping bag over him. After the initial earthquake had finished, we asked the cab driver how many earthquakes have happened in his lifetime. He replied only five but none of this magnitude.

We then continued our journey in the cab and a few minutes later another earthquake occurred. Even then we continued our sightseeing, not thinking that the earthquake was a big deal, It wasn’t until later that we realized how much damage the earthquake caused.

When we tried to go backto our hotel, we found the subways and trains were closed. People were everywhere downtown. The metro line is the main source of transportation for most, so without it, everyone was confused about what to do. They just continued to walk in all directions. We tried to do the same after we discovered that catching a cab in the city would be impossible and pointless. Traffic was at a dead halt. We ended up staying in a refuge at Tokyo University for the night because there was no way to return to our hotel.
We could not see the tsunami, I actually didn’t know it hit until later that night. The authorities were helpful, refuges were set up for those who couldn’t get back to their homes. Handling the rest of the situation took a long time. The subways didn’t re-open until about 2:00 a.m. and the trains didn’t open again until later that morning.

We were not injured in any way, thank goodness. It was certainly an experience to remember.

- Angie Ostendorf

Guess where this is going.

We discovered, much to our pre-teen giggling delight, that “academic” sites were never blocked. This left us the wide-open expanses of Wikipedia. And oh, the things we learned.

Now, yes, we did have a sex-ed class. It was an hour a day for a week, and it was taught with the best of intentions. However, although everyone was curious, no one dared to ask questions. Boys and girls refused to look at each other for the duration.

The library, though, was different. Under the pretense of dares and challenges, we had our questions answered. We could ask whatever we wanted, without an adult “judging” our ignorance or awkwardness. We got, it turns out, pretty accurate information, too.

And with that, sex became less taboo. And less taboo meant it just wasn’t that interesting to giggle about anymore.

A new federal study claims that fewer teens are having sex. And to me, that’s not that shocking. My generation was the first with near-unlimited access to instant information. And not just information, but unbiased, clinical, relevant information. Our teachers could espouse abstinence all they wanted, but Wikipedia gave us facts and let us make our own decisions.

Sex sells. Naturally. But for my generation, it’s not as taboo or racy anymore. If you’re looking to shock us, you’ll have to do one better. Because we’ve seen it all before.

-Theresa Oberle

According to an article on businessinsider.com, people love Facebook, the Weather Channel, Google Maps and Pandora. I would say this pretty accurately describes popular apps for practical uses. (If you would call facebooking and listening to music practical … which most of my age group, and myself, definitely would).

YAYAs feel a constant need to be connected to other people, so social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare also make the list.

According to an article posted by The Independent, applications in the “games” category made up 55 percent of apps downloaded from the Apple App Store. YAYAs are drawn to anything they can do to keep themselves occupied and avoid boredom, and the combination of games and smartphones means it’s almost impossible to separate a YAYA from their phone. Some of the games they like are Angry Birds, Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja. (Check them out if you haven’t already – you’ll be hooked.)

What are your favorite smart phone apps?

-Brittany Jadwin

As a soon-to-be graduate, I have had time to feel out career paths in traditional advertising, marketing, and I even dabbled in broadcast media for a while. With a heavy emphasis on the fundamentals and management styles of a work environment, my craving for measurement and ROI never seemed to be satisfied. It was not until this year that I realized my passion for digital media, particularly Internet analytics. I have had the opportunity to optimize local Columbia, MO businesses, such as Chameleon Paint Crafters, through search engine optimization, but SXSWi opened my eyes to new media unlike any other. Nothing seems to compare to the thrill of being on the cutting edge of technology, and actually seeing how it makes a difference.

So what is SXSWi all about?

Outside of the “late night networking” and sponsored evening festivities, the panels and seminars dominated attendees’ schedules from 9:30a to 7:00p. Some sessions are better than others, but the one that blew my mind was subPrint’s Principle Architect, Joe McCann’s, “HTML5: One Codebase, Endless Possibilities”. McCann outlined how the HTML5 is the next version of the HTML coding family, and because of it, I defined this year’s South By Southwest Interactive experience in one simple hashtag: #freebeer.

I’m not going to lie, I know the bare bones (if that) about HTML coding; however, I do know that native HTML code requires multiple designers to write code for multiple platforms. For example, if you are developing a mobile app that needs to work on an Android, iPhone, and the Web, it kind of looks like this:

• Android code is written in Java
• iPhone code is written in Objective C
• Web code is written in Ruby on Rails

Talk about a lot of work to create, build, and maintain three different codebases! So what makes HTML5 better? It’s single codebased Web Stack. Web Stack’s platform only needs content in the form of HTML, application styling with CSS3, and business logic such as geolocation, local storage, and web workers with JavaScript.

Benefits of HTML5 Web Stack:

• There is less crap, because it only includes HTML, CSS, JS, and FTW
• Less designers are needed to manage less platforms, meaning Web Stack is less expensive
• Uses a single codebase that works across platforms

So how the heck does free beer (#freebeer) fit into all of this?

Well, McCann thought that rather than bore us with copious information about HTML5 code, like I just did, he would show us. So at SXSWi, there are tons of free parties, providing tons of free beer, but there is a serious problem: How do you find the free beer?

The following app allows you to find the closest location providing free beer nearest you! Check it out: http://freebeernear.me

Pretty legit, right? The mind blowing part about the app though, minus the free beer down the street, is that McCann built this in front of us using a single code base… and it works on desktops and mobile devices!

Sources:

Find the app’s HTML5 code here: github.com/joemccann/freebeernearme

Find McCann’s presentation at: bit.ly/hack_5

Find twitter responses here: http://twitter.com/#hack5