Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I want my iPhone

Will the mobile phone screen become the dominant screen of the 21st century? Do we really need another screen to view movies, take photos, design art and access the Internet? Well the way things are going? I'd say yes.
My girlfriend and I share a similar trait: we are both horribly navigationally challenged (her more so than me). A simple drive 20 minutes from home will ensure an adventure in finding our way back. Oh shit do we get lost. Over the years this had lead to several arguments over which way we came from, or the best way to get somewhere. When we forgot to bring the Navman with us, all hell would break loose. That is until the day my girlfriend got her iPhone and our lives were changed.

No longer would we struggle to find our way, simply click on Google maps and our path would be lit. It not only helped us geographically, but in so many more ways. Listening to the radio and want to know the name of that song? Shazzam it. Want to find out movies times on the run? Google it. Want to stalk someone? Facebook stalk them first. All these are accessible from the palm of your hand if you are blessed enough to own an iPhone.

Over the years, we have seen change in the telecommunications industry, but the changes seen within the last decade are astronomical. Take for instance the first mobile phone I ever had, a trusty old Nokia 3315. At the time, I think it was around 2002, this was the most popular phone on the market. It had the game snake (everybody’s favourite phone game) and ear-piercing monophonic ringtones. No colour screen or camera here, just a bright greenish-yellow glow emitting from the dull screen... but you could change the covers and personalise your phone. What more could you want in a phone?? Apparently a lot more!

Fast forward 8 years, and look at the phones we all use now? We have inbuilt GPS, Bluetooth connectivity, still and video recording, email, internet access, music downloads and video streaming all in the palm of our hand. Gone are the days when all you needed a phone for was to call and eventually SMS. We have become so addicted and attached to our ‘smart phones’ that the basic need for a phone has become somewhat overlooked.

The 21st century will definitely see the smart phone screen become the dominate screen of choice. No longer do we need our phone to call, our books to write, our Xbox to play, our TV to watch, our mp3 player to listen too, our camera to photograph or our computer to surf the net. We only need the smart phone to have a charged battery.
As Levinsion said, ‘the iPhone starts to satisfy the longstanding human need to have any and all information, anytime we may want it, wherever we and the information we seek may happen to be.’



The dangers of old politicians on YouTube...and the entertainment it provides us

Ahh YouTube. A website favoured by uni students and all time wasters alike, second only to facebook in my top rated sites of all time, is now days becoming another avenue for politicians to spread their lies, or ‘campaign for votes’ as they call it.
So sure, YouTube can be used effectively by political parties and politicians, saying whatever they want to win some votes. But if you want my opinion, they only reason I would ever search a politician on YouTube is to see them ridiculed through satire and parody.



Those of us who enjoy seeing politicians embarrassed or making dicks of themselves have been blessed by having good old George W Bush sitting in the White House for an 8 year period, providing us in need of a giggle hundreds of opportunities to laugh at his stupidity and misfortune, and what better place to share these priceless moments than on YouTube. Just type ‘George W Bush’ into the search tab and see such predictive results as “George W Bush bloopers” and “George W Bush funny” just to name a few. One of my personal favourites is a collaboration of the top 10 funny Bush moments as seen on the David Letterman Show.



This is the risk which all politicians and political parties take when entering the unforgiving world of YouTube. The rise of the produser only adds fuel to the fire. Where there are politicians, there will always be people trying to cut them down. They open themselves up to slander from the general public, they risk having their message misinterpreted and most likely find themselves open for parody.
There are some benefits for pollies using YouTube, as long as you make the media appropriate to the demographic targeted (in other words, don’t just ramble on in front of a camera like little Johnny Howard does). Take for instance the viral video clip ‘Obama Girl’ which appeared on YouTube in June 2007, right in time for Barack Obama’s campaign for the 2008 election. As Levinson states, It is impossible to say whether this simple video had an impact on Obama’s eventual win in the election, but the 17million viewers, most who would be in the under 30 category, a demographic which Obama polled extremely well in. Is this just coincidence or did YouTube play a role in one of history’s proudest moments electing Obama into the White House? You be the judge.


Thursday, May 13, 2010

YouTube, I tube, we all tube..

According to Bruns (2008) “There is an absence of producers, distributors, or consumers, and the presence of a seemingly endless string of users acting incrementally as content producers by gradually extending and improving the information present in the information commons, the value chain begins and ends (but only temporarily, ready for further development) with content.”

Discuss.

Wow. First of all, this massive chunk of writing makes it hard to grasp the concept of what Bruns is talking about, so I will try and simplify it for you. Essentially, Bruns’ statement relates to idea that users of new media content are no longer passive users; rather they are now taking on active roles in manipulating and re-distributing existing media content to make new media outputs. Yes? Kind of like taking something good, like a ham sandwich, and adding tomato and cheese to make it better. Make sense now? Excellent.


We refer to this as ‘Produsage’, and we call the people taking part in Produsage as “Produsers’. Think of it this way, it’s pretty much a producer and a user merged into the one thing with a merged name. Heaps of merging. The effects of Produsage and Produsers are common in the world of social media such as Facebook, Myspace etc, but no more prevalent than on YouTube.


YouTube gives produsers a great platform to take existing media content, such as a scene from Home and Away, and dub voices over the top to totally produce a new media output that can be instantly accessed and appreciated by people with a warped sense of humour (much like myself) worldwide. If you not following have a look at this (mind the language, bit rude, but good for a giggle)








There are so many videos like this on YouTube so it’s most likely you have been exposed to at least one of them. Some of my personal favourites include ‘Gumby banging horses’ and ‘Hitler finds out Santa is not real’. Well worth a look.







one final giggle...







So where do we draw the line between producer and user? Is there copyright or intellectual property infringements cause by produsage? To answer honestly, yes. Produsers are essentially benefiting from tearing apart someone’s original artwork. Whether it is musical covers, track mash-ups video compilations or re-enactments of movie scenes, there has to be a line between improving and destroying.

So I’ve ranted enough, time to answer whatever it was I came here to answer. Bruns wordy statement begs us to question whether the “value chain of the product begins and ends with content”. Nope. Of course the content is always relevant, but it’s the way the content is produced, or rather prodused, that makes it so.


Monday, May 3, 2010

Lets talk about SEX baby...

That famous song by Salt n Pepa may have been on to something with their title. Sex is on everyone’s mind from time to time. According to the old rule of thumb, men think about sex every 2 minutes, whilst women think about shopping in the same time frame, but apparently this is not the case according to Marnie C. Ferree in her article ‘Women and the Web :Cybersex Activity and Implications’. The cybersex industry is believed to generate anywhere up to $83 billion annually, yeah that’s right, $83 BILLION SPENT ON PORN EVERY YEAR!!!

I suppose you’re sitting there thinking that it is just fat old weirdos spending there hard (excuse the pun) earned money on nudie pics and bouncing boobie videos, but surprisingly, the rise of women in this cybersex world is far outside the stereotypical boundaries. The internet and cyber space has given women the power and anonymity they need to explore their sexual side online, and they are taking to it likes duck to water. According to Ferree’s research, although women spend significantly less time online then men, they account for 21% of cybersex addiction. They are overrepresented amongst those who progress beyond recreational use to the realm of addiction (mind blowing I know. I wonder myself where these women are hiding...)


But sex addiction does not only affect women, men are victims too. Shocking, I know...men addicted to porn? Never! According to wired.com’s ‘Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?’ by Ryan Singel, he describes internet pornography as “the new crack cocaine epidemic”. It has been linked to addiction, misogyny, paedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction. Some heavy shit. The internet is described as a ‘drug pumped into your house 24/7 for free’. Pornography addicts have more difficulty recovering than drug addicts too, as junkies can get the gear out of their system, but pornographic images are imprinted in the brain forever.


So does this mean that porn is ruining our lives? Is it really as bad as it is made out to be? Try telling that to a 16 year old boy with raging hormones. But it’s how porn affects your life where people go wrong. They say everything is good in moderation, so maybe this is true with porn as well.


So maybe it’s us men that drive women to the brink of cybersex addiction? Maybe women are striving for an immediate sense of sexual power over men, or maybe they purely want sex and find it via the web cause all us blokes just give them the shits in real life?. They can go online, do their thing and leave us stranded...much the same as what many men do to women in the real world. Who knows, it’s not something I’m sure any women would admit to for fear of public humiliation, so the answer I guess will forever remain a mystery.




But we all know that girls don’t really like sex, well that’s what they tell us anyway. So maybe this whole debacle is just a misunderstanding. At the end of the day, women and men might not actually be that different. They both want to get their kicks and have a bit of fun, no strings attached. Kind of like an episode of ‘Sex and the City’ right??



So next time your missus locks herself up in the study on the computer, don’t believe she is spending all your money on eBay, she’s spending it all on porn... and blaming it all on you.