pretty/connected: MCDM

Bill Wasik on Big Think Discussing Modern Media

prettyconnected — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:51:37 +0000

Bill Wasik discussing the topic of “modern media” in a video post on Big Think brings up a number of points I would like to further discuss:

on the notion of the “pros” surrounding viral media – I certainly agree with Wasik, and the generally accepted opinion that the playing field has been sufficiently leveled. I think what perhaps is much more interesting is the conversation that is yet to come, in other words where do we go from here? What type of content are we going to see, or do we already, that takes full advantage of this new media landscape in which many of us have the technological capabilities to truly become our own broadcasters? His comment on the explosion of specificity is certainly important, no longer are we hard pressed to find content that not only interests us, but speaks directly to our interests, no matter how esoteric.
The internet is always dangling in front of us… – What Wasik is questioning is that of filtering. How does one stay focused, let alone attentive on the internet? Some of us manage the metadata and constant stream of seemingly unlimited information better than others, but in a media environment so unbelievably robust how does one sift through the information to find the content that truly matters? How do we begin to interrogate the channels of distraction?
Paying for content – the thought that paying for content hits the nail right on the head. In a space with so many options for information, those that offer it up for free will constantly come out on top. This is precisely why short form content, as Wasik asserts, will have an extremely difficult time coming up with a monetization scheme. As always unique content will find an audience, often one willing to pay.

Knock Knock. Who’s There? Hulu.

prettyconnected — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:35:50 +0000

In the past decade we’ve seen a considerable shift in the way consumers interact with a variety of media and suddenly television is seriously entering the conversation. While I may certainly be a pop culture enthusiast, I do not own a television. Part of this absence stems from lack of disposable income, but given the choice between say a flatscreen tv or a new Apple monitor I would no doubt take the latter. Given this isn’t a traditional point of view on behalf of a consumer, it appears to be a growing trend amongst friends of mine and no doubt those who can be filtered into the under 30 demographic. In the past month or so Hulu has been given a lot of press in regards to discussions surrounding the impact they are having on the traditional format and economical impact of television. It appears that the television industry, much like the music and recently journalism industries, is facing a rapidly raising shift in the way their audience is consuming the content it produces.

Like many faced with the daunting task of evaluating ROI in regards to online activity, the television industry is grappling with a giant in Hulu that currently delivers free full episodes and movies to consumers with limited advertising. Those engrained in the industry are feverishly attempting to find proper strategies ensuring profit, while those consumers like myself are a little more interested in how to find and view interesting content when it is convenient. On the official Boxee blog, Avner Ronen talks about his relationship with television, and expands upon why it is time for the media moguls to start seriously considering new avenues and strategies:

In many ways taking TV shows made for traditional TV and putting them online is like the early days of TV itself, when the shows were essentially radio programs in front of a camera. Like TV was in the 1950’s the Internet is a new medium. It represents great opportunities for new formats to emerge. Probably in 5-10 years the most interesting shows will be made for the Internet, and they will be very different from what we see today on TV.

In order to stay ahead of the curve in hopes of retaining those in their loyal consumer base, the industry must not ignore the elephant in the room – there are always ways to get the content without a television – and instead confront it. Whether or not this is a subscription based model that allows users to connect via their computers, or producing more online content, the industry is about to enter some interesting waters that will no doubt rock the traditional broadcast television landscape. Clearly, the debate over possible subscription models for Hulu is just the beginning of a long collaboration and no doubt compromise between networks, online distributors and viewers.

Images on Screens

prettyconnected — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:08:32 +0000

In her essay Pictorial Narrativity, Steiner posits “What is seemingly missing in pictorial narrative is some way of ordering the visual medium” (151). In the age of digital reproduction the internet is the ordering tool. Each time we crawl the web we are creating our own personal narratives, and multitudes of people are creating their own based almost solely on images. Sites such as FFFOUND! allow users to create personal collections of images, visual bookmarks. Of course these collections are a far cry from more traditional forms of narrative, but the use of tags, sets and collections on Flickr seem much closer. Drew asked, “If the currency of storytelling is text, where do pictures come in?” Steiner spoke at length about the necessity on behalf of the viewer to impart some knowledge in order to extract the desired narrative. One look at the recently erected Last Days of Gourmet, and I’d argue that the internet facilitates a space in which the currency of the story is the aggregation and ordering of images, not the text.

so what, social media?

prettyconnected — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:52:08 +0000

I think most people my age remember the time they first started logging into AIM and staying up late chatting with friends. I remember convincing my parents to buy a Mac so I could continue the often frivolous conversations online way past my bedtime. I remember finding new songs and essays, stories, reproductions of art from the comfort of my parents home. These interactions, while overwhelming meaningful, didn’t seem so overwhelmingly new or even unfathomable. My point here is that I don’t really understand the hubbub surrounding the myriad of folks who want to label social media, web 2.0, or whatever buzzword that is appropriate, the new frontier. Yes, it is relatively new. And yes, to a large group of people the internet is more intriguing given the strides in the last 5 years than previously thought, but it seems like an appropriate extension of previous technology. This might seem mildly off topic given the prompt, so let me get to that: where does this all lead you?

My purpose in *cough, cough* framing this post is to give a little background as to where I am coming from when I attempt to look forward and predict my future path within digital media, or predominantly social media. The answer is two-fold: a) I don’t know, and more importantly b) I don’t see it being wholly separate from any possible situation I might find myself in. In other words, digital technologies and social media in particular are integral parts of my day-to-day in the present, and have been in the past. While I might have no solidified idea of what I’ll be engaging in from day-to-day in the upcoming years, I am beyond certain that my experience in digital technologies and particularly with regards to the social media aspects, will only continue to expand. While perhaps I don’t envision my life being centered behind the latest status updates and uploads, I certainly predict that no matter how far removed from computers or traditional digital work my life and livelihood will certainly incorporate meaningful facets of this relatively new platform we are clamoring to pin down. Which makes it pretty exciting, don’t you think?

“Behind the Cover” from The New Yorker

prettyconnected — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:32:15 +0000

The popularization of video on the web has created a demand that traditionally print based outlets cannot choose to ignore. I have decided to look at The New Yorker’s video content for a number of reasons, but most specifically because The New Yorker has a long tradition of creating amazing and often iconic covers for their print magazine. From their homepage, one is able to click on the “video” tab and from there is presented with a myriad of choices concerning content outside of the traditional print realm, but always directly related to issues or topics covered by the magazine. Specifically I find myself most drawn to video posts that offer an inside glimpse of the inner workings of the magazine itself, in this case a look at “Behind the Cover: The Money Issue.” In just over 3 minutes, the video allows us to meet the Art Editor Françoise Mouly in her office and at work as she succinctly explains the logic behind blending the historical with the present for the special triple cover edition of The New Yorker. Blending both life footage with static images of the finished covers (by Dan Clowes, Zohar Lazar, and Mark Ulriksen) the magazine allows readers to further dive into the content by producing a piece that goes beyond the traditional format with excellent results.

FREE TO BE YOU(TUBE) & ME

prettyconnected — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:46:18 +0000

The four fellows at the center of this weeks blog post (Chris Anderson, Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, and Mark Cuban) generally illicit non response from individuals or strong and varied opinions. Personally, I tend to steer clear of the last one, but that’s just personal preference…

The issue at hand here is the idea of free. Capitalized or not, the argument roughly falls under the notion that content, in the digital age, is magnificently reproducible and therefore has the ability to be freely distributed. In Gladwell’s book review of Anderson’s “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” for The New Yorker, he argues that certain content is surviving just fine, and in fact turning a profit. These examples extend to premium cable, the success of the iPhone app store and the WSJ. In other words, three distinct markets that by far stand out as exceptions, not rules, in the current online climate. Godin jumps in defending Anderson’s book, and illuminates the important fact that encompasses the issue of free:

People will pay for content if it is so unique they can’t get it anywhere else, so fast they benefit from getting it before anyone else, or so related to their tribe that paying for it brings them closer to other people.

This is the real crux of the issue, especially in regards to how storytelling is effected by free content. Because the barriers to access in terms of creation have plummeted almost anyone now has the capacity and technological tools necessary to creating and distributing their story. I would much rather watch a five minute webisode of Thunder Ant, then schedule my time around a traditional sitcom broadcast via one of the major stations. Webisodes generate some staggering views. These are stories that otherwise would have never been presented to an audience without the concept of free and some of them go on to cable television or even prime-time networks. If Thunder Ant were to place a donation button on their site and announce that without financial contributions they could no longer produce content, would I donate? Absolutely.

Class Project Proposal

prettyconnected — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:50:48 +0000

Returning to fall means adjusting to the sun setting a little too soon, remembering how to read a syllabus (oops – faltered on that one) and renegotiating spaces as they inevitably change with the season. When I try and think of a topic that has broad implications and room for a myriad of varied interpretations and manipulations I am attracted to the notion of space. Sure you can have Spock beam you up to the final frontier (or maybe just take a ride up the Space Needle), but I was envisioning perhaps a more basic foundation: the shapes and volumes that connect to create the space around you. How does space effect and change your daily activities or moods? How important is space? What are some of your favorite Seattle spaces? I think working with a concept that can be both extremely literal while carrying a great capacity for conceptual renders can produce a number of intriguing projects and ideas from a class that is itself diverse in experience and interest.

it’s coming!

prettyconnected — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:03:29 +0000

Google’s Free Phone Manager Could Threaten a Variety of Services

WHERE are you? Location Based-Services Explored

prettyconnected — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:54:06 +0000

Mark Lowenstein recently wrote about LBS and the proliferation of GPS enabled or capable mobile devices. One of the things that I learned from the article is that we are reaching mass market penetration in terms of vehicular GPS devices. This coupled with the mobile phone environment (trending toward ubiquitous GPS capabilities) puts users in an ever localized and networked environment. Did someone say electro/metropolis?

At this time, being someone who feels like they are generally well informed in terms of applications currently available, I would have to agree with Lowenstein in his prediction that there is and perhaps will not be a large market for subscription-based LBS. I think there are many reasons for this, but perhaps the most obvious one has to do with the proliferation of non-mobile internet access (especially in the U.S. market). Compounded with increased mobile access, the market for subscription services indeed appears slim. If you have the ability to quickly and effectively search online (mobile or otherwise) where is the current incentive on behalf of consumers to pay for a specific service or application?

Say hello to WHERE, made recently available for the G1. Previously available for a variety of devices and networks (iPhone, Blackberry, Sprint, Boost…) WHERE is a LBS that acts more or less as an aggregator. With the ability for developers to create widgets, WHERE enables users to see a variety of location based-services directly from their mobile device. For instance, when I set my location as Seattle, Washington, I am presented a menu with a myriad of categories including: weather, headlines, yelp, movies, traffic, etc. This one application has allowed me to erase two or three others I had installed on my G1 (bye bye weather channel). Lowenstein notes, …”the ‘app store world’ is quickly dividing into free and paid-for (“premium”) apps,” and “there is a lot of potential to develop premium applications and services that, while not based exclusively on location, certainly leverage that capability…” In terms of an application such as WHERE, it appears as though some users might indeed have to pay for certain widgets. As far as I can tell, currently the application is thus far free for the G1, although this may change as more services are added in the form of premium content.

In Lowenstein’s final paragraph he discusses the importance of consumer education, something I believe is often overlooked. The number of permissions I and any user grants to such creators and developers is, in some instances, overwhelming. By installing the application on my phone, I allow WHERE to access: network communication, my location, phone calls (read phone state), system tools, and services that cost me money. Lowenstein alludes to the notion that these LBS can provide a great number of services to the consumer, but also allows these developers or companies to compile amazing amounts of highly tailored specified data pertaining to a user. I read Lowenstein to insinuate, as many of us believe, that we are entering an uncharted and exciting, albeit complicated, point of convergence. The possibilities for new methods of interaction among consumers/users and, creators, developers, carriers, advertisers, and market researchers in the wake of LBS is deep. As LBS continue to spread throughout networked communities, the ways in which this data will be compiled, analyzed, and most importantly used will be paramount.

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 (W3C)

prettyconnected — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:23:22 +0000

Guidelines presented by W3C remind us of how different the mobile web experience can be. For those unfamiliar or without experience in mobile browsing, conceptualizing the contrasts between fixed browsing and mobile proves to be difficult. Even for those accustomed, being constantly cognizant of varying platforms and providers that determine content and presentation is indeed a tiring affair. Section 2.4: Users Goals, reminds us of the these variations in need and functionality, seemingly simple concepts, yet all to easily forgotten. The advantages to developing the mobile web are manifold, and perhaps most importantly mobile devices with internet capabilities are much more accessible to all people than a computer mediated connection.

Will mobile devices continue to interpret and present content in varied forms, or at some point will the mobile web look more or less the same regardless of service, manufacturer, etc? How much control will the user have over this? I am thinking of this more in terms of a computer mediated web experience, in which certain websites are viewed better with a certain browser over another as opposed to to mobile browsing which varies in seemingly never ending ways. Are we trending toward a browsing experience that emulates pc browsing? The proliferation of smartphones would seem to indicate this. The best practices presented indicate specific motivations and differences between these two forms of browsing, but as phones become more capable one might expect such desires to shift.