Week 7 - They were cool before everyone knew about them

Chris Anderson’s reading, “The Long Tail”, discusses the smaller niche markets, which are gaining in popularity due to the ease of digital distribution. Thanks to the digital age, media can be rapidly transmitted and redistributed in the blink of an eye. This got me thinking about transmedia, and the way content can be distributed to newer markets.

I’d like to talk about a slightly different take on transmedia. Typically, transmedia is a new medium for an existing story. Like making a movie out of a book, or a video game based on a movie. But it does come in other forms. As I write this, I’m listening to the dubstep remix of Lost Woods from the Legend of Zelda game, Ocarina of Time. The message tone on my phone is the exclamation noise from the Metal Gear Solid series, and my ringtone is either the 24 ringtone or the Metal Gear Solid codec. Every time my phone goes off, someone nearby chuckles to themselves because they know what it is. To me, this is a new take on transmedia. And in regards to the dubstep remix, an expansion on the long tail reaching a new market.

But getting back to Anderson’s discussion of the long tail, digital media has been the hero of this. We can now redistribute and discuss content at the click of a button. Anderson states that “popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability”. What I think he means by this, is that getting your content into the mass media scope is no longer the only way to “get your product out there”. Thanks to digital media, word-of-mouth is now global. 

Week 6 – From Broadcast to Multicast

“The monolithic empires of mass media are dissolving into an array of cottage industries. . . . Media barons of today will be grasping to hold onto their centralized empires tomorrow. . . . The combined forces of technology and human nature will ultimately take a stronger hand in plurality than any laws Congress can invent.”  - Nicolas Negroponte, “Being Digital”, 1990

A few blogs back I talked about how the mobile phone you have is only is good as the access it gives you. The ability to get online with it, to synchronise your day with friends on the fly. This is what is at the heart of media convergence. We all want what we have to do something more.

The media industry, essentially does the same thing with the way it portrays content to the public. It’s not enough that the news is reported on TV, it has to be available for “like” on Facebook. The content of a newspaper article, is the same as it was 10 years ago, but now people are not satisfied unless they are given the option to discover more about it online. The reason for this, which Deuze discusses, is the increased media consumption by the public, and the need for participatory media consumption. The audience (or user) now want to feel like they are part of the media. The advancements in technology lead to the audience having a greater ability to give feedback. So the media industry had to keep up and go online. This ultimately resulted in media convergence.

It’s interesting to note that as I’m writing this blog, I’ve suddenly realised that I don’t know which is a more appropriate term; “audience” or “user”. In regards to television and radio (and possibly print media too), the word “audience” seems to fit, as they are broadcast media. But when the audience goes online, are they still an audience? The word “user” once only applied to computer users. But now the audience gives back, actively. So when does the audience officially become a user? I’m starting to think the word “audience” is not obsolete in the scope of media, and that now we are all users of media, rather than an audience of it.

I feel like I’m in Tron…

Week 5 - Did you say Mary Popp-- NO! I said Sherry Bobbins.

A few years back I was a member of an online forum, which was pretty much just a general discussion forum. I had my 15 minutes of fame on that board by being a half-decent photoshopper, creating custom posters and signatures. I found out that people were stealing my creations and claiming them as my own on other forums. To combat this, I did two things; first, I watermarked my work with my tag (“six-one”); second, I created a DeviantArt profile and uploaded my work there first.

The point I’m making here is that someone else saw value in something I created, and due to the ease of copy and paste, stole my ideas and creations to claim them as their own. Lessig says that we live in a world that celebrates property, and there is a new “weird” form of property, legally known as “intellectual property”. This is quite literally, the legal protection of the ideas that come out of our head. As soon as you put pen to paper, click a button or voice you’re idea, it’s yours forever…so long as you can prove it.

Lessig also discusses the decline of “free cultures”. “Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so.” The point Lessig is making here, is that today it is so easy for creators to steal someone else’s idea, and make it their own. Film makers haven’t had an original idea in years. We keep seeing old movie’s get rehashed and old series get pointless sequels.

But hey, maybe there are some original ideas still right? James Cameron’s 2009 epic “Avatar” was original wasn’t it? Poul Anderson would disagree.

An Unofficial Blog

Twitter - Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting.


That is the official, lets call it "definition", of Twitter, according to the Twitter website. That is Twitter's reason for existing. To discuss matters in your life that you find interesting, or follow the activities of those you are interested in. Interest is the key word here. Twitter themselves emphasise the word, interest. Interest is a state of wanting. True interest is something that is ingrained in you on a subliminal level. When you come across something that interests you, you investigate. You dig deeper. You want to discuss it. Interest is something that is incredibly hard, in some cases impossible, to force upon someone. So being told to Tweet about something you have no interest in, is being told to have an interest in something you don't care about. Is it not?


Blogging is a similar task. It is still rooted in interest. You blog about what interests you. What may interest the people who watch your blog. The difference is the nature of the task. A blog you work on, you prepare, you research. A blog is something that is based on the sudden urge to discuss something, to tell the world. But is something you carefully prepare and unveil.


Tweeting is based on the sudden impulse to tell the world what you've just heard, seen or done. Regardless of the frame of mind you're in, something has sparked your interest and you must tell anyone and everyone who cares. So if you're told to have an interest in something, which you don't, and one day you come across that topic, your first reaction wouldn't be to Tweet it, would it? The natural Tweeter might make the connection, based on logic rather than impulse. But to someone who doesn't Tweet, who would rather have a discussion with the friend next to them about an interest, we don't have that reaction. When we come across a topic of interest, we talk about it, not Tweet it. When we're told have and impulsive reaction based on a forced interest, it just seems like an exercise in futility.


I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling. But to me, this world of new Digital Media and Communications, I feel there should be a choice in the use of technology. That we should be able to use the technology the way we want to use it. The way it was intended to be used.

Week 4 - The heart of networking

In the past decade, technology has shifted from power to efficiency. Rather than manufacturing a new product that will output twice the power of the old, the new product will have a slight power increase, but a significant efficiency increase. I love my cars, so I'll use the Formula 1 as an example. Over the years they reduced the engines of Formula 1 cars from V12 and V10 800HP beasts, to 2.4L V8's, and in 2014 they're being reduced again to 6-cylinder 1.6L engines. Despite this, each year the cars have become faster and faster due to technology being developed to improve what the car does with it's engine. Computer processor manufacturer's took a similar approach, dropping the super-powerful chip, in favour of dual- and quad-core processors. They'll run slowly and efficiently, then only when they have to, ramp up the multiple cores to increase power.

The point I'm trying to make is that even when you get right down to the basics of technology manufacturing and development, it's now knowledge-based. Companies now hire people who think outside the box rather than simply take the approach of "more is better".

This assists greatly in the networked world. The burden of advancement and progress is not on a single entity, rather, it is on a networked entity who collaborate. This networking in the workplace allows the workload to be divided, which, as Bradwell and Reeves discuss, creates a more personal work environment. Bradwell and Reeves also discuss how the breakdown of a workplace from a hierarchy into a distributed network allows for more social networking, creating an easier flow of information. In order for companies to utilise to ever-increasing socially-networked world, they need to adapt it to their business model, ensuring the do not "interrupt the looseness from which their value emerges".


As far as the concept of work and social lines blurring to a point of no separation, I'm not sure I agree with this. It depends largely on the work environment, rather than the workplace's adaptation to social networking. Just because your workplace has a social networking presence, or because you have a work colleague on Facebook, doesn't mean the workplace becomes part of your social life. I think it's better to view it as making the workplace more social, and more networked.

Week 3 - The rise and rise of Communications Technology

I'm on facebook, twitter, blogger and delicious. I don't want to be. Back in the day I joined MySpace, then converted to facebook. I soon got sick of the whole concept of social networking and deleted it all. So why am I back on Facebook? Because this is now what the world operates around. Kelly  describes a new economy based around expanding communications, and states that "those who play by the new rules will prosper, while those who ignore them will not". How was I going to progress in a world where people show you things by posting it to your Facebook and classes at uni are based around exploring social networking sites. When you met someone new, you used to ask them for their phone number, and for a short time, their email address. Now we ask "are you on Facebook?" During my near 2-year hiatus from Facebook, I was asked this question, and was met with a dropped jaw.


I'm a former Information and Communication Technology (Network and Systems Management) student. Without going into specific details of the topics covered, one topic that stick out is Risk Management. Specifically, the successful communication of information. This was vital to managing the risk involved in networking, or as Kelly would put it, to help the success of this new economy.


I finished Year 12 in 2004. Which means I went through high school pre-Facebook, and went through primary school pre-Internet. I therefore consider myself to have 3 different perspectives on communication technologies. When I was 8 I would pick up the phone (which had a cord attached to the end of it), and call my friends house.


"Hi Mrs. Smith, it's Chris, is Joe there?"


When I was 16 I'd rech into my pocket for a much smaller phone (with a monotone screen) and type into it to contact lots of friends at once. I still remember an ad on TV from the early '00s about the Nokia 3315 and it's whiz-bang "Send To Many" SMS feature.


"Hey boys, movie this weekend?"


These days I'd much rather stick to one of those two methods (and I do if I can), but try organising a party these days without putting in on Facebook.


Technology has started to progress to a stage where the tangible device you have in your hand is only as good as the intangible tasks it can perform. It doesn't matter if your phone has a 10MP camera, with a dual core processor and a 1080p AMOLED screen, if it doesn't let you tweet on the fly. You won't sign up with a $800 a month cap-plan for $20 if it doesn't give you data to use.

Week 2 - Virtual or Viral?

This week we discussed global connections. Basically that the world is now interconnected through the advancements in telecommunications technology. It was interesting to see that the rise of networked communications came from the need to decentralise (the decentralisation of WWII communications). The idea that "cutting off the head" of an organisation will no longer work.


This has shifted to a lifestyle where human communications are more dependent on the virtual world. Or as Stalder put it "This does not imply that people are somehow becoming virtual, but virtually all human actions rely, in varying degrees, on digital information networks". Today information "flows", and the continual flow of information though, relies upon the nodes which, act upon the information. Almost like a living organism, they need each other to survive. Information is passed through networks being distributed, duplicated and modified. Nodes and flows create, what Stalder describes, as the four dimensions of Information Ecology.


Interdependency - each node is independent, and choses how it wants to interact with the flow of information. However it is still dependent on another node to pass the information along to it.


Change - connecting two nodes together does not just allow information to be passed. It creates a link between these nodes which change how these nodes conduct their own activities.


Time-boundness - information is exchanged at the speed of light, and the nodes become dependent on this, changing their own activities to accommodate. Those who can't, fall behind.


Differentiation - the ability for one node to manipulate or change the flow, in an advantageous way to another node.


Looking at all this, to me it really seems like a living organism.