This is a common phenomenon in the case of fandom where we have fan’s of bands or artist capturing songs and point of view experiences from the shows presents a deeper level of commitment to the band. This also created digital artifacts that are similar in nature to the tapes during the Grateful Dead and Jam bands eras. These artifacts are now being traded through the internet by technologies created by the people. The most recognizable of names was Napster, the online music sharing site that enabled computers to share with other peers by copying data.

From a communications theories perspective it’s interesting that the debate was termed file sharing, as someone mentioned in a documentary on the future of copy right, because file sharing insinuates that the person who is receiving the file will be borrowing it and returning it as opposed to copying it for free. There is a fine line with content creators and distribution on the internet. It seems to be a prevailing trend and some countries and companies have partnered to create enormous speeds for their citizens.

Global Internet Speed Rankings

One of the questions raised during the course of Guerrilla Media has been that access to the internet and technology is considered a privilege in the U.S. but it has become more and more the a function of utility. If this were the case many laws would apply to insure that the digital divide was closed and people could have equal access. This idea of egalitarianism is part and parcel of the internet. The internet is all open source which means you can view the source code of any page. Open source browsers like fire fox have enabled users from all over the world to create extensions of functionality that benefit the entire community of people that use FireFox.

There are other ways that people are empowered using new media and some of them included crowd sourcing and the personal experience of fandom and mashups, new interpretations etc. There is a large community that created videos to music of bands they love and some that cover their favorite bands songs and post them online. I must confess I’m one of them and HERE is a link to some Ben Gibbard covers. The point is that people of like minds can meet, transnationaly, to share expression and find a common experience. I learned “You remind me of home” from a person in the U.K.

The best part of web 2.0 is that we are empowered enough and have access to the tools to create a message and send it out to the world. In some ways making yourself a sucess on the internet is more desireable than making yourself a minor success on television. This all has to do with access to audience, which seems to be much higher through internet distribution. The real question is how to monetize this in a way that allows content creators to make a living and that maintains the equal acess to the people. I think ad supported content is inevitable and the way to do it might be to opt in to the site and select the types of ads you’re willing (or not willing) to have as banner ads etc. The argument that T.V. ads are more effective seems to me a cop out and companies like Hulu.com who are experimenting with new ad formats including opting to see a full movie trailer prior to watching an entire show commercial free. I personally think that’s a good compromise.

Beet TV, a webcast that covers the gamete of cutting edge tech, had an interview with adobe that excited me. Flash will soon be embedded on T.V. and it seems that the gap between T.V. and the net is shrinking. Also content providers are partnering with this flash platform to create content and deliver it a more efficient higher quality way. This is really exciting. Other companies like Vizu are trying to create a standard to judge the effectiveness of web advertisements. Here is Dan Beltramo talking about the future of web advertising which is of particular interest to me because I am involved in web promotions at the Tribune Interactive. The issue is as he says the desire for data metrix and it’s correlation to ads drving sales or exposure. Online video can exist in a ultra crude DIY unedited Youtube way as well as a polished webcast effort that has a strong production value. Content creators have never been rewarded extremely well and the recent writers strike was ahead of it’s time because the growth of new media creation and distrubution is unstoppable.

Some people stay that the United States is artificially keeping the faster internet technology at bay because their interest are to sell you cable, internet, and a phone service and bill them either separately or as a “incredible deal” for merely $99.99 a month. Incredible internet bandwidth and T.V.s that are connected to the internet will be a real change in the media landscape. If net neutrality prevails we will have equal access which means a level playing field for all involved. I can’t think of anything more revolutionary then people taking back their message. Not only are we not going to go for that but we area going to watch what we want to watch where we want to watch it. That may seem selfish but we feel a sense of ownership of our media. After all it can sometimes be hard to see where media ends and culture begins but the fact is that companies like Revision3 and The Young Turks and TWIT get this. They understand that you have to come to the customer. If that means releasing your content in a dozen different ways than so be it. I know Revision3 webcast tend to have an option to download in .mp3, Xvid, WMV, and Quicktime. Of course if that’s all too much info than you can just hit play on the custom Flash player to stream an episode.

Cloud computing is the future and most recently and the GDC I heard about the partnership between Electronic Arts and Trans Mobile as well as Onlive and many others who are to start to allow people to game on their servers through the internet. This would require higher bandwidth and I’m wondering what the business model for that will be but it sounds like a trend that we are all going to bear witness to. I think in the case of google docs and the collaboration offered with that and wordpress, facebook, and other Web 2.0 sites we are going to see a greater efficencey and greater demand of fluency in digital media creation. These hierarchies used to exist because the media companies owned the means of prodution, the means of distribution, and the means of marketing. One could say that all these are now rights inherent in being a citizen of the internet. This means that I can create, distribute, and promote, and gain sucess if I have a message that is appealing.

Linux Penguin

Richard Stallman was the spiritual leader of what he deemed the Free Software Movement.  He had set up the concept of Copy Left along with the Free Software Foundation in order to free people from the grips of corporate, many times employer controlled, access to technology. He had some success with the Unix like GNU operating system. GNU stands for GNU is not Unix. “It’s a self recurring acronym.”

Linus Torvalds came about to write the kernel, which would handle all the basic tasks of the computer running a “Unix like” operating system. Now there are different releases of Linux like Ubuntu, Red Hat Linux, Fedora, and many more. Companies like IBM are releasing their own version to sell on machines. Linux has come to a point where it’s functionality is that of Windows but the design is lacking. That’s because, as we discussed in class, the utilitarian mindset of some of the developers in the Linux community. To paraphrase, “they aren’t funded by Microsoft or Apple and because of that most people involved are developers and not user interface people”, Dr. Massanari stated in class. There seems to be a gap between the aesthetic of Linux distributions and the OS X experience for example. One thing that continues to amaze me is that Linux is so versatile. This is because the code is transparent and can be altered and scaled to fit on any device. Some people have thrown Linux on their ipods without even knowing it. A operating system called “Rock Box” has been available for years and it allowed you to play movies on ipod nanos and games like doom etc. This was all based on Linux. More recently Palm showcased their new phone called the Palm Pre which will run a WebOS based on the Linux Kernel. *updated at 9:11 pm 3/26

How is Linux created? It’s created by people who volunteer their time and energy into writing code and creating programs and components of operating systems. It can also be created by companies with their own licenses for Linux like Sun Microsystems of IBM’s Red Hat Linux. Why do they do it? Well I don’t have a complete sense of why someone would spend a lot of time developing for open source I realize that they believe in a cause of free access to technology. This along with a sense of pride in their art form is why I believe the Linux community has been successful. And Linux can be profitable in terms of selling support and training for the OSs based on it. The key is to give the consumer options. I think that Sun and IBM really want to widen the choice beyond Microsoft and give the consumer the best possible customized experience.

The Linux community of developers and users is really an example of collective action. On their own these developers wouldn’t have the time or ingenuity to create a whole operating system. This is a group effort and because they all believe in the cause and have the ability to collaborate via email, chat, forums, IM, etc. It’s become easier for people to team up to try and create something that could change the world.The idea that people will have free access to programs that will do anything is an amazing thought. It’s become a reality thanks to this movement. My thoughts are that google will have a full fledged operating system soon and that cloud computing will be the talk of the hour. I think it’s quite amazing but as I said in class, Linux needs people to develop more for Multimedia editing.

Linux Distributions
Ubuntu
Fedora

-Ryan Ramtin

Check out my blog at the DML here.

FIrst GUI Apple 1984

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs would eventually become the founders of Apple Computer, now just shortened to Apple. Their contribution to the world had to do with who could operate a computer. They developed what’s called a Graphical User Interface, which allowed for normal people who didn’t understand Unix commands to create things and process them with their personal computer. I know that this may seem like old hat now but this was a revolutionary innovation. To be able to have individuals using computers to increase their functionality of their lives was quite an advancement. Soon after Apple introduced their GUI interface Microsoft caught up and decided that they would introduce a GUI for their MS DOS system and eventually throughout their Windows operating system.

Windows 1.1 1985

Fast Forward to now when everyone is carrying around computers in our phones and PDA’s. All operated using the Graphical User Interface.

As I said Hacking can be a catch all term that denotes theft, crime, or just nerds creating new ways to look at old products. The ipod touch and the iphone are a great example of how the community of users compete with the creators for who can control the operating system. Apple locks their iPhone so it can’t be used with any company other than AT&T. This is something of a business arrangement and people may have some sympathy to Apple knowing that the need the support of some of the big companies to continue to make gains on Microsoft’s windows Mobile and the new up and comers. The Palm Pre which was demononsrated at the CES in Las Vegas and the blackberry phones.

Hacking the iphone can also enable more functionality. As of now there is no official copy and paste, video recording, or running mulitple applications on the phone. With the help of the iphone dev team they have released details on how to hack the phone (though it could end up becoming an expensive brick if you update it,) so that it can take video, and most importantly RUN MULITPLE APPS!

I have an ipod touch so using applications like Fring for VOIP calls is great but I can’t ever leave it running in the back ground. If it were hacked I’d have the ability to leave it running in the back ground and recieve calls through Fring using Skype’s service.

All in all hacking has become as ambiguous a term as Punk or Rock N’ Roll. It means a lot of things to a lot of people.

Check out links below for the history of GUI’s and the developments in the iphone/touch hacking community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface

http://modmyi.com/

Uses of collective intelligence in technology has been a democratizing force in the world. As mentioned in Bimber, Flanagin, Stohl’s Essay “Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment,” they talk about the impact of digital media communications in shaping social, political movements.

An examples of the communications technology having an impact occurred by the native people in Chiapas Mexico.  This is a population of Native people whose needs and concerns had been neglected or under represented since Mexico’s inception.  In the power structure of Mexico the Chilongos (More Spanish looking peoples) have more influence in the political and business world. Though the people of Chiapas are impoverished and oppressed the cheap digital technology helped them to create and shape a message which was then decimated to the conventional media around the world as well as every day people directly through the web. This is a clear example of the Internet being used to subvert the status quo in a peaceful and vastly influential way. The reach of the web is often underestimated.

Another great example of Digital Communications facilitating collective action is in Burma. The Burmese monks living under a dictatorship are subject to a lot of persecution. In many countries with religious leaders and secular rulers there is often a leash put on the religious leaders. In the case of the monks, they were denied the right to protest and by disobeying and marching peacefully they demonstrated their commitment to their cause and in affect created a lot of digital artifacts that portray their cause in a positive light. Watching the camera phone videos of monks being beaten and jailed means that there are so many cameras and witnesses that the truth can’t be suppressed.

I think that using new communications technologies as a means to coalesce a group of people who believe in the same cause is a revolutionary fact of the 21rst century. I mean were are seeing the truth, even Saddam Hussein’s execution could not be hidden from the truth. The fact is that people who commit injustice in the world now should be aware that we are a community beyond or physical and spatial relations. Beyond our commonalities or nationalities. We all exchange media and messages because it’s become effortless and ubiquitous. Injustice will be dragged into the light and showcased on Youtube and the like. This means that a more just world is heading our way.

We’ve talked about flash mobs, groups of people who plan to meet somewhere in the world, though they plan it on-line relatively anonymously. sometimes for fun and other times to highlight a cause. In my Communications and Technology course we took a look at flash-mobs who organized together to take pictures at a certain time in Lennon’s square. This is apparently illegal so in doing this they provoked the reaction of the police and thus caught the whole injustice on camera phones and other digital recordings.

All truth comes to light and this is especially true in the times of digital documentation. The one issue is that people can easily distort and manipulate content to make someone seems as if they acted completely differently.

One amusing aside was the fact that Iran has allegedly used Photoshop to multiply the number of missiles they tested so as to portray themselves as tougher and harder then they actually are. This is an example of the sentiment that perception is reality and digital technologies are shaping and creating perception. What implications does that have? Well people are going to continue there cynicism and propaganda has reached a level that is approaching artfull.

Iranian Missile Test photo

People are using photoshop and other tech to shape public perception

Collective action theory has evolved as our communications have evolved and I am excited to see how digital technologies can help to promote social justice and a transparent society.

The internet is taking away the mediators in a slew of industries. Be it news, entertainment or just content creation in general, consumers have become prosumers; the new driving force behind the Internet’s innovation. Normally shows that focus on Technology or Philosophy and the like would never see the light of mainstream media day. They might find a small radio station that could offer access to X amount of people but that would depend on the profitability and success of said program.

The internet gives people an oppurtunity to create content and distrubute it cheaply to anyone in the world who has access to the web. This also means that people all around the world can access this content and therein find a sense of community and commradery with those who appreciate the same subjects.

I personally have a lot of different interest and I appreciate the wild west nature of the web because I can just peruse and download anything I find interesting, and all for FREE. That sounds nice doesn’t it. I personally like GomagicGo a podcast for Card and Coin Magicians, This Week In Tech with Leo Laporte, and all the Revision3 podcast I’ve mentioned before.

All these podcasts I’ve mentioned have a following that spans the globe, and though it may be a relativly small number when compared to those who watch t.v. programs it’s still a phenomenon that is not fading. The Diggnation watchers tend to view themselves as a part of the cyber sub-culture that is exmplified by the founder and CEO of Digg.com, Kevin Rose.

The same can be said for many of the different Niche Castes out there. They bring with them a sense of sub culture and community that had been lacking in mainstream media and hadn’t been seen since the rise of Zeens in the 90′s. Institutions are begining to take notice and are struggling to realize how they can create content that draws a specific audience. They and We are no longer content with them throwing everything they can at the wall and seeing what sticks. We are a more thoughfull nation and world then we had been given credit for. The rise in intelligence Niche Casting is one of the first steps in realizing that we all may look for a variety of things in a program or source of media. Name recognition is no longer completly intertwined with quality and people are able to compete with instituionts that had what seemed like a monopoly on the news and entertainment business.

On a complete aside you can check some of my other blog for the Digital Media Lab at Loyola University. 

I enjoy reading the huggington post but I also still watch CSPAN, MSNBC, CNN. and all the other news producers. These are made easily accessible to me through OS X widgets in the case of CSPAN or good new fashioned Streaming A/V from the others makes my sources even more diverse. New media hasn’t seemed to dismantle the old. In some cases the old has adapted and suceeded and in others they haven’t. One thing that is for sure is that people are wanting FREE content, so however the business model looks when it’s lucrative, that must be a cornerstone.

One thing that fascinates me is that the consumers of this content refused to be middled on it. They were, we were sick of paying 14.99 a Cd and sick of so much of the terrible pracitices we were forced into. Now, with Rhapsody or Zune’s site or itunes we have options. We can pay 66 cents for older songs or maybe we want unlimited songs streamed for free via Pandora or Last.fm It’s not only about money but about practicality and convenience.

The real news is an example of a news producer who is trying to utilize private donations to achieve independent journalism that offers a fresh perspective.

Here is MSNBC’s Internet TV

Here is a link to CSPAN 2 os x Dashboard Widget (streams Cspan Video)