BLOGJECTS: SAVING THE WORST FOR LAST

What the hell is a Blogject? I read Julian Bleecker's 'Why Things Matter' and im still not sure. According to Bleecker (2006), a Blogject is an "object that blogs" and has three main peculiarities:

• Blogjects track and trace where they are and where they’ve been;
• Blogjects have self-contained (embedded) histories of their encounters and experiences
• Blogjects always have some form of agency — they can foment action and participate; they have an assertive voice within the social web.

Bleecker (2006) uses the example of "the pigeon that blogs" where a number of pigeons are rigged with technology thats tracks their location and records the levels of toxins and pollutants in the air through which they fly. I pretty much use this example for the whole basis of understanding the blogject. If we consider the fore-mentioned "peculiarities" of the blogject, they all seem to apply to the pigeon example. The technology traces where the pigeons are and where they have been as well as store information. The agency the blogject has (from my understanding) is its ability to spark and fuel conversation once the data has been transferred to the web.Bleecker (2006) puts it like this: "Their agency attains through the consequence of their assertions, and through the significant perspective they deliver to meaningful conversations". Even with my very basic understanding of the blogject (strapping technology to animals), i can see how this tool can help us learn more about many different aspects of our existence. If anyone had an easier time understanding this let me know. Thanks for reading. Peace out.

References

Bleecker, J. (2006) 'Why Things Matter: A Manifesto for networked objects', accessed on 30/10/2011, http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/files/WhyThingsMatter.pdf

Image sourced from: www.navigadget.com

APPLE VS GOOGLE

I found Daniel Roth's article "Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web" really interesting. I'd never given much thought to the birth of the smart phone. As far as i was concerned, one day they just appeared and now everybody has one. The early developments and competition between Microsoft and Google really did lead to the smart phones of today. It seems from the reading, that Google had the better ideas in terms of software and getting people to develop applications for a cash prize. Yet Microsoft dominates the market as the most popular smartphone. Apple have somehow convinced the world that their products are the only "cool' option. I have an iPhone and i cant see myself switching anytime soon. The only time i hear about androids are on Saturday Night Live where they joke that "The new android phone is expected to play well in the 'mum's who always buy the wrong thing' market". That being said, there is statistical evidence showing that Android is competing with the iPhone. I believe the seemingly endless flow of glowing reviews about the new iPhone 4S will tip the scales a bit more.


Aside from Apples marketing genius, i believe that Google is the true winner. Its android software is used by nearly everyone smartphone that isn't an iphone and iPhones direct traffic to Google, YouTube and other Google owns sites anyway. However, it seems Google will have to pull something special out of their asses to dominate the smartphone world


References


Roth, D. (2008) 'Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web'. Wired, June 23. accessed on 29/10/2011 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android

Image sourced from: blogfornoob.com

FACEBOOK & TWITTER: REVOLUTIONARY TOOLS?

The main discussion point that i took from the reading and probably more the tutorial, was the argument: "Do people or technology start revolutions?". There were alot of points for and against. "Revolutions cannot start without the people", "Technology is the only way these revolutions are successfully coordinated", etc. One of the groups did a great presentation on the history of communications technology and how they have been used in aiding and fanning the flames of revolution. Evgeny Morozov (2011) touches on this point by acknowledging the role of the telegraph in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution – just like the role of the tape-recorder in the 1979 Iranian revolution and the fax machine in the 1989 revolutions. He goes on to say that the fetishism of technology is at its strongest immediately after a revolution but tends to subside shortly afterward (2011). Will Twitter's and Facebook's influence on current events be forgotten in future years? Is the outcome of these acts of activism the only thing that matters? To come back to my original discussion, i believe people start revolutions and use available technology to spread their message and connect with like minded people. The revolutions of the past would have been nowhere near as successful if not for technology but they wouldn't have occurred at all if it weren't for the people. Thanks for reading. Peace out.

References

Morozov, E. (2011) ' Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go' The Guardian, 7 March, accessed on: 29/10/2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians

Image sourced from: thefosburyflop.com

THOUGHTS ON WIKILEAKS

Wikileaks is a very morally and ethically “grey” area. On one hand, people may deserve to know the secrets of the world they live in. On the other hand, it assumes that privacy should only be enjoyed by the little people – i.e. People that have no secrets of interest. It has been said that Julian Assange is acting on the belief that “everyone should have access to everything” (Khatchadourian, R 2010 pp07) but I think that this is going a bit too far. Does the general public have the right to see what happened during the Apache helicopter shooting? (Khatchadourian, R 2010 pp07) – Probably. Should Sarah Palin have the content of her e-mail account made available for everyone to see? (Tabi 2010) – I don’t think so. It could come down to personal vs. organisational privacy. Big corporations usually have the juiciest secrets but aren’t they entitled to privacy as well? Does it come down to who the person is and their position in life? Should Political figures and celebrities accept that their privacy is no more? One could argue that leaking information about the Watergate scandal as well as the “Pentagon Papers” (Tabi 2010) helps put together the missing pieces of history. One could also argue that these secrets were kept just that for the purpose of maintaining social harmony. I believe (for the most part) that a lot of the information that was kept from the public was done so to protect the people at the top. Whatever your thoughts, you have to agree that Wikileaks definitely puts a strain on privacy and equality.




References

Khatchadourian, R. 2010 'No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency' The New Yorker, June 7, accessed on: 29/09/2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian

Tabi 2010 ‘The Top 10 Leaks of WikiLeaks’, The Wandrons, December 5, accessed on 29/09/2011, http://thewondrous.com/the-top-10-leaks-of-wikileaks/

Image sourced from: www.endiscomingblog.com 

ESTATE 4.5

Reading Axel Bruns’ ‘News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism’ validated my decision not to take anymore journalism subjects. Bruns’ reading (2009) discussed the changing roles of the journalist from ‘gatekeeper’ to ‘gatewatcher’ and how more and more media organisations are embracing the change while others are stubborn and choose to fight. It seems (from the reading) that the job of most journalists is no longer to hunt down stories and report the facts; it is now their job to hunt down sources relating to reports, compile them, and make them available to their target audience. If I was a journalist, I would be furious if that was my job role. I would want to be out there reporting the news; not collecting information from the lucky journalists who did.

I think citizen journalism is a good thing. It is great that we have broken away from the one-way communication channel of ‘old media’ and can access multiple sources and perspectives on any topic or area of interest. Steven Johnson’s article (2009) ‘How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live’ discusses how users can seek opinions and sources about topics using twitter. Users of Twitter act as ‘Gatewatchers’ by referring their followers to different topic related sources by tweeting links. I believe the pro-am journalist relationship can work well when embraced by both parties. Bruns (2009) quotes blogger-journalist J.D. Lasica: Instead of looking at blogging and traditional journalism as rivals for readers’ eyeballs, we should recognize that we’re entering an era in which they complement each other, intersect with each other, play off one another. The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming a bit more accessible and interactive, although newsrooms still have a long, long way to go (2003b). I feel the same way as Lasica.

Citizen journalism could, however, be a major contributing factor to the opinion that journalism is the most useless university degree there is. Here are some links to sources arguing for and against just that.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-journalism-degrees-are-probably-just-as-useless-as-you-expected/

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/journalism-useless-college-degrees_b34212

http://www.businessinsider.com/degrees-are-useless-and-other-tips-for-aspiring-journalists-2011-6

http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/journalism-degree-is-not-useless_b4940 

References


Bruns, A. (2009) 'News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism' [URL: http://produsage.org/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf]

Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live. Time [URL: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html]

Image sourced from: mysocialmediaconversation.wordpress.com

SHOULD BLOGGERS GET PAID?

Should bloggers get paid? To be honest, I had never really thought about it until reading Clay Shirky’s piece “Weblogs and the Mass Amatuerisation of Publishing”. Shirky (2002) mentions that the vast majority of blogs are posted by amateurs and cover basic thoughts and opinions, but there is a minority portion of bloggers that write about real issues and have huge followings. But do they deserve to be paid? If these serious bloggers started charging a ‘pay-per-read’ fee, they would no doubt lose a lot of their readers. Shirky (2002) suggests advertising or asking for donations as a way to earn an income. I think these are both viable options and the only real chance bloggers have of earning any semblance of a pay-cheque. As Shirky (2002) points out, “the people who have profited most from weblogs are the people who've written books about weblogging”. It seems to me that if these serious bloggers want to be taken seriously as writers and get paid for their efforts, they should go through the traditional channels of publishing. And now is the time to do it. In Chris Anderson’s “the Long Tail” (2004), he points out that sites like Amazon.com and its recommendations and user review features makes it easier for lesser known authors and artists to be discovered and embraced by the public. As for weblogs, I agree with Shirky when he finished his piece with “participation in the conversation is its own reward”.

References

Shirky, C. (2002). Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing. [URL: http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html] 

Anderson, C. (2004). The Long Tail. Wired, 12.10 [URL: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html]

Image sourced from: volstate.net

IS THE WEB KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?

In 2004, Henry Jenkins predicted that “a micro-payment system would allow media producers (recording artists, independent game designers, web comics artists, authors) to sell their content directly to the consumers, cutting out many layers of middle folk, adjusting prices for the lowered costs of production and distribution in the digital environment” (pp34). Jenkins (2004) went on to say that “although long predicted, a viable micropayment system has yet to emerge, although there are new signs of life in this area”. This prediction has come to fruition and had great impacts on the music industry. Instead of buying complete albums, online music retailers such as iTunes and Amazon allow people to select and download individual tracks for next to nothing. This trend, coupled with digital piracy, has caused global recorded music sales to fall by almost $1.5bn (£930m) last year (Sweney, M 2011). It has also led to a huge decrease in physical CD sales. While both physical and digital music purchases are on the decline due to varying factors (Melanson, M 2010), it is predicted that by 2012, digital sales will surpass CD sales. I personally thought this would have already happened. Although this new way of purchasing music is effecting sales, it does give new artists a greater chance of being discovered due to online recommendations based on previous purchases. It is also nearly impossible to download these new artists illegally (believe me, I’ve tried). It seems that these new trends in the music entry mostly effect major recording labels and artists. Personally, I think they’re not going to starve. South Park covers this in a very clever episode. Please enjoy the clip below.

 

Christian Rock Hard
Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore...

References

Jenkins, H. (2004) The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7/1, 33-43. 

Sweney, M. 2011, “Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy”, The Guardian, 28 March, accessed: 26/09/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/28/global-recorded-music-sales-fall 

Melanson, M. 2010, “Report: Digital Music Sales Will Surpass CDs in 2012”, Read Write Web, 14 January, accessed: 26/09/2011, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_digital_music_sales_will_surpass_cds_in_201.php 

Video sourced from: http://www.videosurf.com/video/south-park-not-a-big-deal-10791435

NOT THE LION KING!?!

Until reading Lawrence Lessig’s piece “Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity”, I was unaware that Walt Disney took stories from the ‘public domain’ and used them to create all the classics I grew up with; Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, etc. But having never heard of the Brothers Grim fairy tales before, why would I? This discovery made me wonder if any other characters or stories from my childhood were rip-offs of something else. I stumbled across an article by Juan Arteaga entitled “6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”. Throughout this article, Arteaga (2009) counts down through 6 characters that I personally grew up watching and revealed the original basis for the characters along with shocking similarities between the two. The characters included the X-men, Superman and the Lion King! Although shocked and surprised by the similarities and the pictures that accompanied them, I began to think – who cares? The characters I grew up with were huge improvements on the original characters they were based on. I believe the same applies to the Walt Disney classics. The end result (I feel) outweighs the act of copying; although I do feel the creators of the original characters deserve some recognition.

References

Lessig, L. (2004). Creators. In Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin [URL: http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html]

Arteaga, Juan 2009 ““6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”, Cracked.com, pp1-2, April 29, accessed 14.09.2011, 6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_17299_6-famous-characters-you-didnt-know-were-shameless-rip-offs.html#ixzz1XtzOYYE1 

Images sourced from: www.cracked.com

 

END OF WORK?

Deuze’s reading “Liquid Life” really made me think about where this exponential increase of digital media and communication technology consumption is taking us. I can see his point about the convergence of work and leisure in that most people use the same technology for both, but I personally can’t see it going further than that. My current leisure time is nothing like Deuze describes. I do like his idea about the “boundaryless career” (2006 pg7) though. I like that people are diverting away from the “one career for life” mindset and spreading themselves over different areas of expertise. I for one can’t do the same thing for a long period of time without losing my mind.  Deuze referred to Jeremy Rifkin when describing the rapidly changing “runaway world” and the possibility of the of work all together (2006 pg 4). The idea of the “end of work” stood out in my mind so I had to look into it. I found his book “The End of Work”, didn’t want to buy it, so just got the jist. In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminates tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. Only a small number of elite corporate managers and knowledge workers will reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy. If this is to be true, I’m glad to be studying what I’m studying.

References

Deuze, M. 'Liquid Life, Convergence Culture, and Media Work'. [URL: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/3343/Liquid%20Life%20Deuze%202006.pdf]

Image Sourced from: http://healthy-lifestyle.most-effective-solution.com

NEW VS. OLD

Week 3’s readings were two different approaches to discussing the importance of the rise of digital technology. John Perry Barlow’s piece “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” reads like a letter to the “Governments of the Industrial World”, explaining that they are not welcome among us; the digital generation. I can appreciate the bluntness of this opening statement. Cyberspace should be free of governmental rules and regulations. I interpret this reading as being directed at all captains of industry afraid of the changes these advances in technology will bring. I like how Barlow put it: “You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants” (1996). This declaration basically informs our technically illiterate leaders that we have created our own world free of their control. “In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish” (Barlow, J 1996). What I find really amazing is that Barlow wrote this in 1996. His words still have an impact 15 years on; granted the people this piece is aimed at have since realized how right he is and made the effort to join the digital age.

While Barlow’s reading was a sort of a screw you to less-than-tech-savvy people of the world, Kevin Kelly’s introduction to “New Rules for the New Economy” provides important information and guidelines for them to adapt to the new digital world. Kelly compares the new “soft world” to the old ways of the “hard world”. “If you want to envision where the future of your industry will be, imagine it as a business built entirely around the soft, even if at this point you see it based in the hard” (Kelly, K 1999). I found it interesting to read about the times when General Motors was the biggest company in world and everyone believed that in the future, every company would be like GM. Since then, GM have crumbled and companies like Microsoft, (and more recently) Google and Facebook have prevailed. Kelly refers to the internet as the business hero of this moment (1996) and answers a pretty important question - “Why is it so much more important than its recent predecessors?” He gives what I believe to be a bold and very true answer – “Communication—which in the end is what the digital technology and media are all about—is not just a sector of the economy. Communication is the economy” (1999). 

References

Kelly, K. (1999) 'This new economy'. In New Rules for the new Economy. [URL: http://www.kk.org/newrules/newrules-intro.html]

Barlow, J.P. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [URL: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html]

Image sourced from: tantihnchern.blogspot.com