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.