Check Out the Video I Made!!

For my final post I just wanted to say that it has been interesting viewing new media items from all the different perspectives you all provide. I managed to take some of the reoccurring themes in the class and made a mashup video as a way to end the class. Hope you all enjoyed blogging and commenting as much as I did ;)

Old Media = New Media

I was watching Conan a few nights ago when I saw the above segment. Conan parody's most vlogs by "creating" his own and acting like a tween/teen (who make up the majority of the vlogging audience). The fact that he was able to parody vlogs and get laughs shows how mainstream they are becoming. Yet what I find interesting is that it seems old media, like television, is needed to verify/confirm new media like vlogs. We have toughed on this issue before in class but to see it play out like this is interesting. Old media, though somewhat in decline, seems to have a certain air of trust/seniority that grants it the right to "allow" other media to exist. I wonder if this means that some old media will never fully disappear or if one day it will be vlogs that introduce new media the way television is doing now.

Always Invest in Virtual Property

Yahoo ran this story earlier this week about a man who sold his virtual property inside the game Entropia Universe. This was top news at Yahoo because he sold it for $335,000! That's not virtual money but actual US currency! Stories like these show how the line between real and digital is being blurred. Yet is this story really that outrageous? When people buy things like digital music on itunes aren't you doing the samething?

This video explains the value virtual properties have in the games themselves:


When I first read this I thought it was kind of crazy but if people spend a majority of their time on these online communities it makes sense to invest in them. I am a gamer, though I rarely play MMORPGS (the kind of games where you can own virtual properties), but have seen the strong bonds that form over such communities. I guess a person's reality is what they chose it to be, and a virtual home maybe better to some than a real home.

Vlogging: An Evolution

This week we talked about vlogging. Vlogging seems to be the natural progression of regular blogging since it provides a visual component to the ideas and opinions that are normally seen in blogs. Vlogs have the same general focus of blogs and even use such conventions as linking to other websites and incorporating outside video clips. But being able to see the vlogger adds a different component to the mix. On the one hand it makes the vlog more unique since you're able to match a face with the vlog. On the other I feel it kind of seperates the audience from the vlog itself because with blogs it was the individual audience member's voice that narrated the blog. In this sense vlogging adds a degree of separation between the audience and the vlog but vloggs also increase audience interactivity by having the audience respond not only with text comments but with video comments as well. Many vloggers have a closing thought or question for their audience and typically ask the audience to respond via a video clip comment. It seems like vlogs are the natural evolution of blogs but if history is any indicator text cannot be easily replaced, just like we still have newspapers, magazines (even if they're online), etc, co-existing in a world with television and online video, we will have vlogs and blogs. I will end this post with a clip of a current commercial that uses vlogging as a way to advertise their product; I find it interesting how the mainstream views vloggers.

After Allyssa’s presentation I decided to look around and see what else is new in the adventurous world of internet advertising and stumbled on this article. Apparently Facebook filed for a patent that searches your friend’s interests and gives you adds based on the that. The idea behind this is that if enough of your friends share a common interest then you probably do too. I can’t help but think of this just churning out more spam advertising. Currently I ignore the advertisements that are popping up that are supposed to be catered towards my tastes. Now I will get advertisements about what other people like, which serves to 1). Alienate me and show me how distant I am from my Facebook friends, and 2). Reinforce my hate for advertisements.

Though as much as I loathe most advertisements they are a necessary evil especially as sites like Facebook expand. The problem is that during the 90’s there was such enthusiasm for the internet and all the cool innovation it would bring but there was little talk about who would pay for it. Now that the internet is finally upon us we have to deal with the reality of paying for it; the reality of advertisements. As I sit here writing this post and avoiding the pop up ads from my browser, my mind wanders to a simpler time, when the internet was free and could fit in a box…

Nerd Rant Against Desktop Apps

Browsing through the net I came across this article that mentioned Apple will now have apps for their Mac OS systems. This means that now people can download apps for their laptops and desktops. For most this might be a good thing but for me this is a dark path with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Growing up I have always had a love affair with computes, building my first computer when I was 10. When I was 12 my family finally got an internet connection (I can’t believe it has already been 12 years) and I loved surfing the web and finding new sites. The best part about the internet in the 90’s was all the free programs you could find. Free games, editing software, music software, music, etc. Even store bought videogames had free stuff you could get online. This was also the era when cell phones came with free games and applications. Then after the whole Napster fiasco and the regulation of music online, companies started charging for a lot of the stuff that used to be free online.

Now that Apple is going to release apps for desktops it really jeopardizes this give and take community that is online. Other companies have tried to do this, most notably seen when game companies try and charge for downloadable content, and it has worked with limited success. But now with a major company like Apple using this type of sales platform it could spell doom for all the stuff that was once free online. It makes me wonder, if desktops and laptops start using apps, will we have to pay for things like notepad, paint, recycling bin, system utilities? I remember when windows used to come with word and excel but slowly started charging for these programs…I also remember what a hassle it was to get all those free programs to work correctly.

Etiquette: Complicating Social Networking

What's been on my mind this week with regard to social networking is the social etiquette of sites like Facebook. I don't just mean posting certain pictures or status updates that maybe inappropriate but actually dealing with people online. I think most of us have friends on Facebook that we wish we didn't have and the simple thing to do would be to de-friend them but due to different online social etiquette this might not be a simple task. Sometimes talking to people can be a bit problematic since status updates or comments on someone's profile cannot capture the tone of our voices. Articles like this one or this one have constantly been popping up about the different etiquette that arises and one can't help but question who makes up the rules. Is it because of the inherent features of Facebook? Are these rules a reflection of what happens when social norms become digitized? To complicate matters even more etiquette changes depending on the social networking site. This video explains how what is acceptable in one form of social networking is not necessarily acceptable in others. Even sites themselves change as their base of users changes. Facebook was a different place when it was just college students on there and etiquette has changed due to employers and parents being on the site. But then again as I think about real life friendships and relationships, things are just as complicated, not being able to express how you really feel or not being able to get rid of certain people from your life. Sites like Facebook are suppose to be places where people can go, hang out with their friends, and share a bit about themselves but like with most things in life we the people like to complicate it.

Should Facebook have a Will Option

Having read about privacy settings and how death is handled on Facebook I can't help bit think that one day there will be a “will” feature on Facebook. Hearing the story about the girlfriend who was removed from her recently deceased boyfriend's Facebook or the wife who's husband died four days after being married and the family that blames her for his death makes me think, what would the deceased want?

Having a will option is a very morbid thought but may be a necessary one if Facebook truly becomes part of our society. Some people may want to keep their image and online persona private after they die and may want their accounts removed. Other may want to be remembered by friends and have the memorial option. Still other may not want anything to change and keep their profile the way it is with the identity that it has.

Then again having a will option may end up like many of the other features on Facebook and be completely ignored. It will be interesting to see how Facebook or social networking sites in general evolve and react to people's lives, and deaths.

Who is looking at you?

As we talked about privacy settings in Facebook and other social media, and looked at the data found in the Boyd and Hargittai article it became clear that the biggest concern for most Facebook users in the “youth” demographic was what their immediate peers and figures of authority thought of them rather than faceless corporations or the government. I am not sure what to make of this finding. I can understand why someone would not be too concerned over a company getting information from your profile since they are probably just trying to advertise to meet your needs, though hearing stories of companies taking upon themselves to announce to your friends your spending habits is a bit disheartening. But why would the government want to get your information? This question becomes more important with the recent bill that the government is trying to pass that would make wiretapping on the Internet easier. This means that emails, social network sites, and everything else on the Internet could be closely monitored. Even though this worries me I feel divided on the issue because on the one hand it is my personal information but then again it is my information that is already on the Internet. If the Internet is suppose to be the ideal free flow of information then the government just like anyone else has the right to that information. Regulating the Internet either to support government interference or to prevent it may end up being it's demise. I understand that the government may just be trying to help defend the nation but because it has used fear to get previous bills into law I feel a certain distrust of the government's actions. Of course if I have done nothing wrong then I have nothing to worry about and the government should be allowed to view my information, right? It will be interesting to see how the issue of government and corporate data collecting plays out especially with the advent of geotagging sites like Foursquare.

Collective Individualism

Reading about how sites like Myspace, LiveJournal, and now Facebook allow people the freedom to posts any aspect of their lives and share it with anyone who comes across their page made me think about the type of society that is forming. The United States is noted for being an individualistic society with an emphasis on personal space and private life. Yet as social media on the internet blurs the lines between personal and private lives it becomes harder to put a label on this new type of hybrid society. I believe it is a hybrid society because even though social networking has brought about a more collective mindset there are still many things that remain personal and somewhat private. This can be seen when people post pictures and stories that depict intimate aspects of their lives but fiddle with security settings so that only certain people can access the information. There is also an interesting dynamic with social networking sites where everyone is sharing information with everyone else yet there is a tendency to try and be an individual, seen most notably in Myspace with their different page layouts. As social networking becomes further integrated into people's lives it will be interesting to see how this tension between collective and individual plays out.

The Masses need a King

As we read more and more about the beginnings of various New Media I find it interesting how much of that media was originally suppose to be egalitarian. The Internet was originally open to anyone who could access it and there was little to no regulation of what could or could not be posted. Wiki's were a way for everyone to contribute what they know in order to create systems of vast information. Yet as these things gained mass appeal, the inherent democracy of the media transformed more into a hierarchy. I understand that sometimes things like cost require certain changes to be made, someone has to pay for the telephone/cable lines and servers that run the Internet, but why does cost imply regulation? Why can't information be hosted freely. Most of these things were created freely without the motivation of money. Even in the case of Wiki's where it does not seem like money was an issue, a hierarchy arose. Why does some information have to be more important? It could be that since the small groups that were first on this New Media thought alike and thus had no need for a hierarchy until the masses came in and started changing and not agreeing with everything. It's always interesting to see how the masses can change a medium.