Sunday Sermon: Remembering the 00s

My local councillor was once asked, "what will future generations remember of the 2000s?". I had to agree with his answer comprising Reality TV and Social Networks, or as he put it, "Myspace and Big Brother".

Perhaps this is a more culturally-focused, than new media-specific post - but as Axel pointed out recently in acknowledging the prospect of a "Cultural Science" course of study at UQ - these topics are inextricalbly linked and share much common ground.


In our culture of celebrity idol worship, the psychology concept of "performative identity" is changing our perspectives on entertainment. We are more interested in what Brangelina got up to on the weekend, than what they get up to in their latest movie. Children idolize and immitate celebrities, acting out on what they see as succesful behaviour.

In fact, amidst the tidal wave of user-created content entertainment and 'reality' TV, there is an undercurrent of voyeurism and vicarious entertainment practices. Religion is also caught up in the mix. New Age, Interfaith, and arguably religions such as Scientology are heavily driven by congregants' vicarious faith

Dear-God is a hip, new age website allowing people to post their prayers to God - whomever that may be for them. The design and art are top-notch, however, the advice offered by most users is not.

When I first heard about this website I thought it was a nice idea, along the lines of Rosalind's new book of prayers, Mosaic and expected a warm site of inter-faith sharing, full of insight and positivism. Instead, this site is dingy, provocative and voyeuristic. In my opinion, this site is not facilitating an inter-faith experience, it is purely for entertainment purposes - and the evidence of this is the obvious role being played by the editor/moderator of the site - only posting those 'prayers' which will capture an audience - usually for their shock value.

On to television now, and surely, the extremely prevalent excuse circa 2001, "Oh, I only watch Big Brother because I think it is a fascinating social experiment, and my interests are purely from a sociology/cultural integration perspective" is now dead and burried. Anyone still watching after eight series for academic research purposes is a very slow learner. In writing this blog, I was not intending on tirading against social networking and 'reality' TV, but I do believe that beyond marvelling at the wonder of user-led content creation, and 'real' social interaction on TV, we do have to wonder just what it is we are entertaining ourselves with? Are we all just a global community of Big Brother?

This post is in a lot of ways a bit ambitious and regards areas of research I'm not knowledgeable in, so please, add your two cents in the comments section.

Three Billion Phones

Across the world, mobile phones are changing the way humans interact and do business. The rising popularity of mobiles – currently there are over three billion worldwide (The Human Network, 2007)- is largely due to impressive uptake rates in third world countries, (DataWocky, 2008) where they are the prime personal communication device. The ever-increasing ability of mobiles to facilitate social interaction and commercial produce puts them at the forefront of a new media paradigm shift in which their worldwide prevalence, inherent mobility and hyperlocal potential mean that they will likely be the medium that will most fully realise the potential of convergence technology (Jenkins, 2006, 5). I decided to take a look at how some mobile phone functionalities are being used in different countries around the world.

'Mob Rules', by The Human Network (2007) extensively documents how mobile phones connect fisherman with ports in Southern India, enabling them to find out where their catch is in highest demand. Similarly, in Kenya, farmers use their mobile phones to ascertain the demand for their produce in the neighbouring villages.

In Australia, the advantage of mobile phones is the immediacy of communication. Most people have phones on their person all day, which has enabled some miraculous and life-saving rescues, but has also had damaging repercussions. Events like the Cronulla riots prove just how quickly information can spread, and how hard preventing virtually instant crowd gatherings can be.
Another concern is the policing of content on mobile phones taken illegally through video cameras (indecent photography, illegal concert/film recordings etc.) and then shared on a mass scale through mobile Internet or blue tooth file sharing.

In India there are over 246 million cell phones, but only 20 million Internet connections (DataWocky, 2008). It has been suggested that mobile phones could soon overtake PCs as the world’s dominant Internet platform (Wright, 2006) – and this scenario is quite conceivable to imagine for India in the near future. Henry Jenkins (2006, 4) documents that India is leading the world for mobile-Internet content in the form of streaming feature films. Currently though, studies have indicated that it is primarily the youth market (15-24 year olds) that use mobile phones to access the Internet and take advantage of modern phones’ capabilities, while older users tend to use phones more ‘traditionally’ (Hakuhodo, 2002).

Content distribution (including advertising) on mobile phones already takes place with subscription services – news, sports results, porn and games are all readily available - just watch late night TV! In India, as opposed to some Australian services, recipients of these services do not have to pay for each SMS they receive, meaning the senders must find their revenue through advertising (DataWocky, 2008). Text message advertisements can be highly personalised, as well as targeted to the recipient’s subscribed interests. The current limitations in content provision on mobile phones should not be a factor of discouragement, consider just how far PC content has come in the past 10 years. SMSs are used as a mass-communication device, for example, QUT now use SMS to warn students of safety threats.

Mobile Phones are an adaptive cultural technology, and are impacting on social and economic activity worldwide. Companies are trying to work out how they can monetise this medium in a relatively new and unfamiliar market. Mobile phones are not as private and personal as many of us thought they were – just ask Warnie.



References:

DataWocky. 2008. On Teasing Patterns from Data, with Applications to Search, Social Media, and Advertising. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:AQxx9zGEgeEJ:anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/04/can-sms-be-a-pu.html+datawocky+sms+publishing&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8 (accessed April 24, 2008).

Hakuh0do. 2002. Hakuhodo Getting Closer and Closer to Asian sei-katsu-sha . http://www.hakuhodo.jp/press/20020305.html (accessed April 24, 2008).

Jenkins, H. 2006. “Worship at the Altar of Convergence” in: Convergence Culture: When new and old media collide. New York University: New York. 4,5

The Human Network. 2007. Mob Rules. http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=27 (accessed April 24, 2008).

Wright, A. 2006. Mobile Phones Could Soon Rival the PC As World’s Dominant Internet Platform. Ipsos News Centre. http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3049 (accessed April 25, 2008).

Gnarls Barkley - free, but still backwards

Still waiting on word from the band on exactly what their intention is with this, but Gnarls Barkley have released their new album for free download- backwards. Weird. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference. Kids music these days.

Compulsary music in new media post

Record companies are completely outdated. All bands need now are a producer, and a marketing team to promote the album and manage the tour - Integrated Marketing people are experts at staging events. Muic is a DIY media. For decades we've listened as bands have whinged and whinged about how record companies don't allow for total artistic freedom. Well guess what? You don't need them!

In week 7's lecture, Barry Saunders made some important points about DIYmedia.

• More popular in economy with lowered costs of entry
• Pathway to professional work
• Strategy for established professionals to lower costs, reach audiences in a different way

As technology progresses further and further, the barriers to entry for the music industry are lowering at dramatic standards. Many of the top-charting bands at the moment have found huge success through the self-promotion magnate that is Myspace. The cost of setting up a makeshift home-studio is absolutely minimal! In fact, you don't even need talent! Samples are so readily available on the Internet, open source editing software is free and easily accessed, and the avenues for distribution are literally endless.

I can't play drums, so I use samples from CCMixter. Or if I'm after something a little different, I'll put down a guitar track on my Audio-USB interface (cheap as chips) and email it to my mate, who plays electric drums. When he has spare time, he'll plug in at his house, bash away, and send it back.

I can't rap, so I sample the Beastie Boys, who give their acapella tracks out for free.If I'm after some tripped-out ambient stuff, I sample IceWorld. I'm not much of a singer, so when I can, I use Meladine - pitch-correcting software that can even make Britney Spears sound listenable!

This video is a great example:

As Daniel pointed out on the Explosion blog, bands no longer need to drive all through the night, sleep in their van and live off cereal for the entire tour just to get their name out.

The Internet is playing a bit of Robin Hood, really - it taxes the rich bands (illegal downloads, less cd sales) and gives to the poor (exposure to unknown bands). This flattening of the traditional hierarchical model of professionals and amateurs is representative of a broader change in content production, facilitated by the Internet. So why are bands going to such great lengths to protect their content? They've had it too good for too long.

This week Adam Muir discussed the communal goal of information sharing and the moral compulsion that causes hackers to contribute to the global community. Seemingly at odds with capitalistic society, patents are a restrictive and inefficient way of advancing new media technology - primarily because of the communal collaboration that the term produsage embodies, and the ability within a global community to respond to feedback and improve services more efficiently than a private, market-orientated company can.
Music, like other online content, should be shared.

Industries are focusing on making their online music released less and less compatible and manipulate-able in efforts to discourage piracy – similar to the way in which Microsoft monopolised computer software by making the operating systems compatible only with their own products.

War, Porn and Consumerism

Was thinking today about what I hate most in the world, and war, porn and consumerism all ranked pretty highly for me. Always worth keeping in mind these are the instigators, developers, proponents and entrepeneurs of the web. There'll be more on this. But for now, I'll keep this as a micro-blog. Little more than a Twitter.

"I'm working on it" - Perpetual beta culture

Hopefully by the time you read this post, you won't even notice what has happened. My file-hosting site of choice, MediaMax, decided to cancel its free account options and delete all the files of non-paying users. No good. So I'm moving on, and using zshare, which does not even require you to register...always nice.

I decided I would write a blog, conveying my frustration with MediaMax, and other subscription-only services, and to apologise for the fact that many of the files embedded on this site had disappeared. But I've moved on. I'll be hosting my files elsewhere, and you won't even notice the difference once I change the links. A blog about changes you can't even see is pretty redundant unless you're viewing a cached version of this website. This 'invisible change' got me thinking about the new media concept of perpetual beta.

It only seems appropriate that within our high-speed culture of interconnectedness, convergence and ever-expanding horizons and opportunities - that nothing ever gets done. I see the concept of perpetual beta in two different forms:

1. A creative concept that inspires redaction and communal participation, harnesses collective knowledge and production, and evolves the idea of a palimpsest into a continuous model. And,

2. An opportunity for web-developers to put in a half-arsed effort and not be held responsible.

Important to the concept of perpetual beta, is the term 'artifact'". Axel Bruns, in week 8's lecture, made the distinction between traditional 'products' and 'artefact's' by defining artefact's as "temporary and continually revised" (Bruns, 2008).

Let's look at a couple of websites to illustrate this:

Wikipedia - Wikipedia is never complete. It is, perhaps, the quintessential unfinished artefact. It is not possible, at any given point, to determine all articles as up to date, balanced and fact-based, so it is constantly developing, growing, refining and improving. Wikipedia is documenting history, and thus, can never be 'finished'.

MySpace , Facebook and other social networks can be seen similarly - the content of each page is perennially updated (on some accounts, anyway).

MyLiveSearch - This is the webs' first 'live' search engine (not to be confused with Windows Live, which is not really 'live' at all). The web is searched in real time (real time, as it turns out, is remarkably slow). This is, I suppose, a classic example of a website in the beta stage, as the use of this website currently is more valuable for the host, than the user, while it is undertaking more R&D. I suppose this is a more traditional view of perpetual beta than Wikipedia, Myspace or Facebook, as it is the technology, primarily, which is in development, not so much the content (That is, of course, not to say that the technology and systems behind Wikipedia, Myspace and Facebook are not constantly changing, or that the content of MyLiveSearch is by any means static!).

OzPolitics Political Inclinations Test - This is a great site where your answers to 50 questions are compared to the positions of the major Australian electoral parties. I voted accordingly. But, in what I can only see as an attempt to excuse themselves from errors, inconsistencies and out of date information, the test as been in 'beta' form for far too long, without any obvious changes being made. Throughout the entire 2007 election campaign, and ever since, the site has been in beta mode (I'll leave you to draw your own inferences on the political back peddling that is likely a contributor to the unfinished nature of the test).

And then of course there are sites such as YouTube and CCmixter, which facilitate as well as cater for social networking around the perpetual process of redaction.

Open Source software is another domain which is inherently 'incomplete'. And as Axel Bruns points out, much of open source developers' focus in the current new media environment is on creating, "tools and processes for user-led content creation" (2006, 2) - in fact, the very act of produsage, could be described as a form of open source content creation. Bruns defines produsage in similar terms, "The collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement" (2006, 3).

And of course, in a blog regarding the re-use of content on the Internet, I could not fail to mention the role of Creative Commons licensing, without which, much Open Source programming and artistic redaction would not be possible.

Anyway, should you want to read more about perpetual beta, check out Rex Cristostomo's post, and an excellent article by Collin Douma on the Canadian Marketing Association's website about why perpetual beta means Web2.1, web3.0 etc, are redundant terms (Douma, 2007). Definitely worth a look.

References:

Bruns, A. 2006. Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation. http://snurb.info/files/Produsage%20(Creativity%20and%20Cognition%202007).pdf (accessed April 20, 2008)

Douma, C. 2007. Why there will never be a Web3.0. Canadian Marketing Association. http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/archives/2007/03/why_there_will_never_be_a_web_1.html (accessed April 24, 2008).

Sunday Sermon: FaithTrip - Facebook without the heathens

A group of Australian Catholics have come together to develop this social networking site that appears to be very well designed and structured.

FaithTrip enables the
entire Faith-based community to unite through dynamic Web 2.0 tools in one
location for members to meet and share info in a faith-specific arena (http://www.faithtrip.net/)

They set out a list of targets and ideals for the social networking tool, largely focusing on the educational potential of the website - through the use of (licensed) file sharing and Wikis. It is undoubtedly a well-intended move by the developers and has clearly been well thought out. They even have third party applications -the "prayer wall" for example.

But, as Terry Flew documented in his book "New Media: An Introduction" (2005, 39-41), cultural technologies are shaped by the users, not the developers. My guess, is that in actuality, this site will appeal to several, small demographics:

• Over-enthusiastic Catholic parishioners, desperately trying to reach out to GenY, GenC, GenWhatever and make Jesus cool on the interweb.
  
• Pre-rebellion (home-schooled?) teens whose parents have installed Internet filters that block out other social networking sites.
  
• Single Christians who feel somewhat unsatisfied with the services of Christiandating, Christiancupid, Christianconnection, ChristianLifestyle, ChristianCafe, ChristianFaces, RealChristianSingles, ChristianSingles, ChristianDatingForFree, SinglesOfFaith, ChristianDatingService, MeetChristianSingles, ChristianityToday's Singles Section, RSVP's Christian Section, Match's Christian Section, BigChurch's Singles Section, SingleChristiansOnly, Fusion101, IntegritySinglesChristianNetwork, ThinkOC, CMatch, Bornagain-Singles, ChristiansUK, ChristiansOnline, AdventistMatch, CatholicMatch, EquallyMatched, DatingDisciples, KingSingles, Christianet, HarmonyPartners, Christian-dating-service-plus, ChristianRomances or my favourite, AdamMeetEve.

If the site can muster up a decent sized user-base, though, this site could be a goldmine for advertising. The advertising is prominent, and more importantly, incredibly well targeted to a very responsive audience. Users, I suspect, would have what Datawocky terms, a high affinity, and a willingness to purchase advertised products - an unusual, and highly sought-after occurrence.

In its earlier days, a friend once said to me, "You should join Facebook, it's like the MySpace for Christians" - and herein lies the biggest obstacle for FaithNet - Christians are already out there, on Social Networking sites, using third party applications to share their faith, to share their resources, to find partners and to evangelise.

Sokari Ekine summed it up well in the article, "Africa's Social Media Conundrum". Replace "African" with "Christian" and it makes a lot of sense.

The problem with Web 2.0 is that there are so many of the same. How many video
sites or “social utility” sites can you possibly sign up to? If I am on Facebook
do I also want to be on an “African” Facebook especially since most of my
African friends are also on Facebook? And here lies the problem for Africa’s
developers. Firstly creating something original and specific for African users.
Secondly coming up with a copy that is customized to meet African needs and
thirdly easing users away from the international sites.

FaithNet does little to differentiate itself from existing Social Networks. There is really no benefit to setting up a "pilgrim profile" (no joke, that's honestly what they're called!), over a MySpace/Facebook/Bebo etc. profile. In fact, MySpace and Facebook exhibit an impressive array of third party applications that provide the functionality to facilitate a much more engaging, communicative and networked faith-based experience.

Resources such as GodTube and FaithNet are redundant and unnecessary. And not only that, but a lot of the time they are counterproductive. Christians need to stop disengaging themselves from the world. Isolating yourself from those ‘nasty heathens’ is not the way to stay unpolluted from the world and avoid sin - it is only the way to, well...isolate yourself and become fruitless.

My conscience begs me that as a disclaimer I must add: I have no signed up for FaithNet, or seen an “insiders” perspective and thus, thine observances hath been limitedeth to thine own’s sceptical conceptions-eth.

Flew, T. 2005. New Media: An Introduction (2nd Ed). Oxford UP: South Melbourne, Vic

Response to post on The Explosion Blog

Dear EXPLOSION!,

I don't mean to start a flame war, but I think you could use a history lesson or two. There was no law in the 18th century against painting or writing for recreational purposes.
Perhaps you are not differentiating between production, participatory media and produsage.

Whenever somebody produces something, they, along with others, are free to benefit from it, use it, consume it. This is typical production.

Participatory media is media to which users can contribute. For example, if you wanted to contribute to the content of MX News or you wanted to phone into a talkback radio station.

Perhaps produsage could be encompassed within participatory media - but my understanding is that produsage is more focused on creating usable content.

I think the primary difference is that while within participatory media there is still an unassailable divide between the professional and the amateur, this divide is non-existent, or at the very least, unconventional in produsage.

The suggestion of MySpace comments as produsage is an interesting one. I think you would find that most new media scholars, as well as Rupert Murdoch, would agree that comments on a MySpace page are a step beyond traditional participatory media. MySpace, by its "open-to-the-public" nature, offers much more than social networking between friends, it provides content.
While Facebook's domain may be limited to (though excelling in) interconnection and social usage, MySpace focuses more on allowing users to create content.

It was for this reason that News Corp tried to 'capture' and own all of the content entered onto MySpace. The conditions were quickly altered amidst outrage that News Corp would own personal information - including information that had been deleted form a profile.

Imagine the possibility of NewsCorp having an instant background search on the hundreds of millions of users. In ten years time, well past your MySpace fascination, Daniel, your employer, News Ltd, could look up your background - which could be very beneficial for them should you be making the headlines, or even applying for another job there!

The 'live music CD' example you gave reminds of the song 4:33, which is performed by the musicians remaining completely silent for the duration of the song. The ‘music’ is the contribution of the audiences – a cough, a sneeze, the occasional snore.
The Producer would be the person who plans and records this event.
The act of making noise in this production could – in some sense, be seen as participatory media.

Sunday Sermon: Thou shalt not make a profit from 'Worship'

Making a profit from worship is wrong. Contemporary Christian artists, writing, recording and performing songs for God's purpose, with their intentions 100% to serve His Kingdom, should not be selling the right for Churches to use their music in services for whatever purpose that may be (playing sheet music with lyrics displayed on an OHP being the most common use).

I'm not going to go as far as to say that Christian 'Worship' music should be free to download, because, as the Christian Music Industry would suggest, the money raised from CD sales can go back into the Church and hopefully then, back into supporting the community.

But charging Churches through Christian Contemporary Lisencing International (CCLI) for using the music for the purpose for which it was made is a ridiculous showing of greed and non-communal action.

The current Australian Copyright Council outline on copyright in Churches is a very basic and dated model, that offers very realistic and somewhat generous copyright measures for non-profit use of a commodity in a capitalist market - but the Worship music "industry" should run on the Christian principles of sharing and encouraging, and the model for this already exists with Creative Commons Lisencing.

I get the feeling Jesus would be cracking whips and turning tables over the profiteering out of 'Worship'.

My MiniCity

hahaha, I like this site. To succeed, you give the hosts traffic...no mucking around about it.

Everytime you visit the town of "j a m e s" (yes, the Internet is facing an epidemic of name shortages), new residents move into the city. As you can see, it's early days for "j a m e s" yet.

Axel's viral marketing wordsmithery

Not a bad little how-to guide Axel has developed for getting the word out about your academic research...

In the first week of KCB201, I searched del.icio.us for 'produsage' and 'produsers' and found very few results...
A few weeks later, and my cohort of brown-nosers has successfully left Axel's tags all over the place, not to mention given his websites some nice traffic and an array of imaginative new tags and descriptions within del.icio.us as well.

And in a few short weeks you will see 400 new entries on 80 new blogs all referencing Bruns and glorifying the magnificent cultural insight that is produsage.

I wonder what you'd call this process...I guess you could call it a manipulation of academic authority for personal gain conducted in a new media environment using viral marketing techniques...but 'manipulation' sounds a bit harsh...so i prefer my own term:

Snurbusage.

Ironic, I guess, that this post is just about the first post for KCB201 to actually use the label produsage.

laugh out loud.

Mash Ups

I went through a bit of a Mash-Up craze last year. I was thinking I might get into it again with the new Radiohead deal. More bands should be getting on this, I did an assignment for KCB102 once proposing a business model for 'Palimpsestic People' - basically an Itunes for samples. Similar to CCmixster I spose...but with good stuff on it.

I'll give you the story.
The first time I had a lecture from Axel Bruns was in the aforementioned KCB102 and he mentioned that he had a blog. I visited this blog - as such was my studiousness at the time - and was delighted to find a strange ambience cd he created called Iceworld.
From that moment I new I was destined to use it in a mash up.

Aaaanyway, I was listening to him talk about mash ups on a podcast one day and realised it was about time i took my procrastination seriously and had a go at a mash up.
So I stole (ok ok, I redacted under creative commons agreement) parts of 'Autumn Departures' and put a dope as beat behind it (it's actually a dude beatboxing, which always makes me laugh) and took all of Axel's great catchphrases from the podcast onto it, occasionally doing some trippy stuff with his voice.
To be honest, I can't really remember what else I did to it...

There are two versions, the first was the original I posted on websites and then 5 minutes after doing so i realised there were a lot of things about it that annoyed me, so i spent another 30 minutes on it and made it a lot better (in my opinion anyway).

Here they are:

Snurbmix (Version 1) by James Parker (feat Axel Bruns). (Download)

Snurbmix (Version 2) by James Parker (feat Axel Bruns). (Download)


Then I made 'Check out the disillusion' - a mash up of 'Check it out' by the Beastie Boys and 'Disillusion' by Brisbane's own pure, unadulturated hardcore rock band, Shouting At Mary. It also uses samples from CCMixter and by memory I used some samples from some Fort Minor song. There are some bad words in this one, so block your ears kiddies.

Check Out The Disillusion - Shouting At Mary vs. Beastie Boys (Download)

*I've had to remove the streaming players as they stopped functioning correctly and it's taking me too long to try and fix it...

A Shining example of produsage

Aah participatory media...

How do technologies become cultural technologies?This week's reading is Terry Flew ch. 2 (Cultural Technologies) via CMD or library

Terry Flew suggests that rather than cultural technologies being those technologies that simply affect culture, they are in fact their own form of culture themselves. These technologies do not just enable users to engage in a new activity, they facilitate a new lifestyle.
For example, online shopping gives users more than the ability to shop online, it enables a lifestyle of laziness, provides alternatives for work-obsessed families with no time to stand in line and be served, creates a community of like-minded consumers and facilitates the total isolation of those who already feel so alienated they can't leave their house to go to the shops.

It hard to some where, it had to start some time...

What better place than here? What better time than now?