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Lifecaster creates buzz
By Scott Beveridge, Observer-Reporter
WASHINGTON, Pa. – The media buzz began swirling around Justine Ezarik after she received her first iPhone bill, one that itemized her text messages and calls across both sides of 300 pages.
Stories about the young woman and her fascination with mobile technology were picked up by USA Today, CNN, Fox News and CNBC, as well as hundreds of other media outlets, after she posted on her Internet blog a self-made video about the $274 bill so thick it came in a box.
“A friend of mine was in Spain and opened up a newspaper, a Spanish version: the iPhone bill with my picture on it,” said Ezarik, 23, a Scenery Hill native who is the current “It girl” on the Web.
The digital world took notice of Ezarik, who uses the screen name ijustine, in a big way in August. The short film about the bill was subsequently viewed more than 3 million times in 10 days and earned her $5,000 in ad revenues from her online host.
“Now I’m signed up for E-billing,” she said.
But the Internet never dies and ijustine is along for the ride while building a huge fan base.
She was the lead story on Yahoo’s home page two weeks ago because of the popularity she has gained from lifecasting her daily chores on two Web sites.
Whether capturing her travels from a mini-camera attached to her ball cap or pointed at her face from a table, Ezarik has become the star of justin.tv.
The new media company is the brainchild of Justin Kan, who is among the first to use mobile technology to stream live videos to a Web site. Broadcasters have free access and personal control over the look of their pages and the ability to chat with viewers.
There were more than 400 people tuned in when Ezarik showed up Monday to meet a reporter and cameramen from the Observer-Reporter at the Crazy Mocha coffee shop in Washington.
Most of her viewers say nice things, and some periodically dare her to perform the Chicken Dance polka in public places. She usually complies and breaks into the dance that requires hand signals to suggest duck quacks. She was drawing as many as 4,000 viewers at any particular moment after the Yahoo story hit.
“This is crazy. Why am I doing this?” she said.
Others have not been so nice, and complained that she has odd eyebrows, wears too much makeup or is too self-centered to think that anyone with a brain would want to watch her sleep.
“Many of her critics urged her to ‘get a life,’ ‘read a book’ and cease her ceaseless self-promotion,” a writer noted Aug. 29 on the popular news blog Pittsburgh Dish.
“People like to hate for whatever reason,” Ezarik said.
While some viewers think she is surfing the Internet while running her fingers through her hair at a coffee shop, Ezarik said she actually is editing videos or designing Web sites for her business.
The graduate of Pittsburgh Technical Institute now lives in Pittsburgh and also is spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Councilman Bill Peduto. Through her blogging, she has landed a job with Xtrain, a company that offers online expert training. Just this week, Warner Brothers was trying to track her down to invite her to appear on “The Tyra Banks Show.”
She’s unsure just how much longer she will be sharing her life with the digital world as a lifecaster.
“A lot of my friends don’t like it when they’re around. It’s too invasive,” she said.
But her father, Steve, of Scenery Hill, said he is beginning to like lifecasting in a era when many children Justine’s age forget to call their parents.
“At least we can follow her around,” he said.
Watch our video of ijustine
at youtube.
Orb weaver spider. You've got to give these guys credit. They are masters at creating beautiful webs.
Today I walked the girls into the nearby wood and used the brief spells of sunshine to illuminate todays images. So a couple of spiders webs a wet clock and leaf shadows.
The less colorful part of a rose when you see the spiders build their web in the plant. This one made quite a photo, but the spider was missing.
My Garden
I watched this spider build its web in a matter of minutes between two shoots on a Calliopsis plant. I'm not too great with my manual focus yet, but I loved the web and had to save the photo.
I never go out in rain but rain always make me feel relaxing . In one of the rainy season at mahabaleshwar i was sitting at my window enjoying the rain i found this very intresting web .
A little garden spider hoping something tasty will get caught in it's web.
The European garden spider with its poignant life cycle and familiar orb web is the most well known spider in the UK. Found in almost every country in the northern hemisphere, garden spiders feed on flying insects such as butterflies, wasps and flies but tend to ignore smaller prey such as greenflies. When a female has mated, her body becomes swollen with eggs. She builds a silken egg sac in which to lay the eggs and dedicates the rest of her life to protecting them. Unable to leave the eggs to hunt and feed, she dies in late autumn before her spiderlings hatch out in May of the following year.
The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.
Pablo Picasso
I noticed quite of few of these spiderwebs this morning when shooting some pictures. This was the biggest and most elaborate of them.
So there I was on the computer stuck in the basement staying safe during a tornado warning and Bam!! I find out that this photo was explored, I'm so excited to finally get an Explore. Now I'm trying to find it in the random section of the explore page so that I can copy and save it.
Nikon D7000_Nikon 85mm f/1.4D_ISO100_f/2.8_1/200s
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