Wasik believes that the up side of content on the web today is the ease of creation/use and ability to reach niche markets. He uses Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory as an example and thinks this is why YouTube is so successful. But he argues that consumers want this media so quickly that having to be delayed 30 seconds to pay for it is time wasted and enough to make someone search elsewhere. I couldn’t agree more and am willing to admit that even creating a log-in is sometimes enough to make me find my content somewhere new. 

He goes on to suggest that the Kindle may be the business model of the future. I agree and disagree with this prediction. We are led to believe that people are willing to pay for things that they find valuable – i.e. traditional media created by professionals (books, essays, music, movies, ect). But newspapers are an excellent example of how traditional media was killed by “free.” Consumers refused to pay for subscriptions to newspapers who were just regurgitating what could be read online the day before. People wanted news faster and they wanted to know about the things in their lives. So bloggers took over and filled the web with instantaneous information about everything – from your neighborhood to your favorite radio station. Newspapers can no longer turn huge profits even from their web-content. 

Digital copies of music, movies, and books are being illegally downloaded and traded everyday while amateur artists give their content away willing, increasing the consumer appetite for free. But I feel that people will still shell out money, even down the road, for extended content. HD movies, Harry Potter novels, and academic research are still worthy of being paid for. Short content, however, I feel is replaceable… and that’s the difference. A 30-second YouTube video is a dime a dozen and rarely makes history and until the short content is irreplaceable, no one will pay for it. And if someone tries to charge for it, the masses will go somewhere else…

Television spoiled producers, advertisers and viewers. The content was very controlled and went from the powerful few to the eager many. Back in television’s “glory days” everything did fit into nice little boxes. Programs were 30 or 60 minutes, commercials were 60 seconds, families scheduled their daily lives around their favorite shows, and networks knew who was watching what, where and when. Round peg, round hole.

But now producers and advertisers are trying to measure web video, web ads, live video, shared videos, on-demand television, as well as recorded and real-time television. More formats, more platforms, more variables. I think that although we want to be able to have formulas and calculated ways to analyze all of this, there is too much variation to ever produce an accurate number.

What does matter (what has always mattered) is the story. If the content is compelling, people will watch. No matter the platform, duration, or advertising. A good story sucks you in and the proof is in the pudding – or at least in the continued survival of books, theatre, and 3 hour movies. Just like every media that has come before it, web video will eventually lose it’s “newness” appeal and something even harder to analyze will replace it.

One would think that after being in school for the majority of my life, changing my undergrad major three times, and moving to a new city to pursue a master’s in a very specific subject, that I would have a pretty good idea about what I want to do in life… but I have no idea.

This is not because I don’t have strong interests or want to contribute to society. Instead, I am trying to figure out which of the new media crazes really will stick. Should I really spend $10,000 in tuition on classes about Twitter if it will be a non-existent tool in a year or so?

Technology is developing faster than we can analyze it. And often times, social media tools end up being used the most for entirely different reasons than they were intended. Twitter is a perfect example of a business tool turned insta-news ticker fueled by the groundswell. I think that although we cannot always predict what will emerge in the future, we do know that our society expects and demands much more from media, professional or social.

An article from TechCrunch explained that users of sites like Twitter and Facebook are in a constant pursuit of “now” and that these sites are “conditioning us to expect information as it happens, whether it’s accurate or developing.” Because of this new attitude, traditional news media cannot keep up and are failing at their attempts (and opportunities) to integrate social media. But even though I fully participate in the destroying of old media, I think that newspapers and journalists have an obligation to stay traditional!

The TechCrunch article, by Brian Solis, goes on to explain that social media sites are huge communities with massive amounts of noise, which is only useful if the noise can be filtered. Sites like Facebook and Twitter act like a pebble being thrown into a lake – they create ripples (some bigger than others) which alert the mainstream media which stories need to be fully covered and verified. Social media is convenient to break the news, but we still trust a journalist’s moral code for the facts.

So where do I come into the picture? Like I said above, I don’t know… but what I do know is that now more than ever people have felt the need to communicate – with people they know, about things they know, and about things they think they should know. I want to make sure this continues to happen. Whether I am fighting for net neutrality, filming how-to videos for flip cameras, or writing blogs like this fellow MCDM’er on having a tech-friendly wedding, I still feel that I am doing my little part to push forward. I am just resistant to overly invest myself in one trend or technology because the lifespans of emerging media continue to shrink…

Reading these articles reminded me of going in circles with my parents when I was younger… we could never truly understand the other one’s point of view. Of course the traditional writer/author doesn’t want to be told his profession will no longer provide him with a substantial paycheck. And then the visionary with the job title so new he had to write himself sounds like the boy who cried wolf – he is making huge predictions, but when he is asked for advice, he doesn’t the know the answers.

Naturally, parts of me resonated in both articles. I do believe that our society is beyond paying for material that is widely available: news, video, music, ect. Blogger Seth Godin, in defense of Anderson wrote, ” in world where there is room for anyone to present their work, anyone will present their work.” He continued to talk about web as a limitless resource and as long as it continues to be, every genre, community, and niche will be served.

I found myself in agreement most with Mark Cuban, author of blog maverick, who was much more concerned about the distribution of content rather the price of the content. He uses the music industry as an example of how this model can work. Artists should allow listeners to download their songs for free, but only though regulated mediums, like the artists’ website, where at the very minimum an email is collected. He summarizes his article with the following: “[Businesses] should  distribute their content for free where they believe it maximizes return, but should do everything possible to keep it from being distributed freely.”

What I have learned so far from this program (and it keeps affirming itself daily) is that our world is changing and growing at a constant rate. The more flexible you are, the more likely you will be to adapt and adopt the new things thrown at you daily.

Even though this topic would be Seattle-area specific, I believe there would be many facets a story could explore. One could look at the current issues with the metro system like safety, confusion of use, and promotion of ridership. Others could look future solutions in the works like the light rail, social media integration, and the cost of riding the bus vs the cost of driving. Even more topics include how difficult tourists find the transportation system, severe weather protocols, and how other countries use public transportation.

Ultimately Seattle is a liberal, passionate metropolitan city and our public transportation system does not adequately serve the people. Our class should explore why this is and put forth potential solutions.

Naturally, it was much easier to do the presentation for a second time. I got my jitters out in the first one, plus the second group was already kind of “briefed” for me by the previous presentation.

Almost everyone who commented on my presentation post was curious in some way about how economic factors affect the adoption model. It was something I hadn’t thought about before the presentation, but after it was brought up I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Although price is a very important factor in adoption, I believe the theory was said to be applied to early adopters who are less price conscious and more interested in the content. 

So after reading the article, putting together the presentation, and then presenting it twice, I am fully convinced that Kathy’s method of teaching (and the learning pyramid) really is the best way to get students to retain information.

In this study, the authors test the technology adoption model (or TAM) on the growing culture of mobile TV. They begin by introducing us to a slew of new terms including:

technology adoption model (TAM): a theory that models how users come to accept and use a technology, involving the integration of the following four terms.

perceived use (PU): the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance.

perceived ease of use (PEOU): the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort.

content: the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations.

concentration: the ability to exercise exclusive attention to one object.

According to the study, all of these terms influence how quickly, if ever, a new technology will be adopted. 

In his 1968 piece, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin took the time to address a slew of issues he felt have “no technical solutions.” It quickly becomes apparent that Hardin is most concerned with overpopulation, but he also discusses a group of problems that he believes cannot be solved with technological advances alone (i.e. pollution, resource depletion).

The most popular depiction of the “commons” is a story about a group of villagers who all graze their cows on a common pasture. If one villager added one more cow, he would gain the full income that cow provided. The damage caused by one cow too many grazing the pasture would be a fraction compared to his personal gain. Of course, the entire community would suffer from the damage. Consequently, every member of the village becomes motivated to keep adding cows. The tragedy is that, to preserve the commons, the personal freedom of the villagers had to be curtailed. Hardin illustrates this concept clearly when applying it to tangible resources (like pastures, oceans, and natural parks) but can the tragedy of the commons affect the Internet?

Being in a program like MCDM, we constantly discuss the future of the Internet, as well as its past and present state. Some believe that at its current growth rate, the “digital commons” may be facing a similar tragedy. Others feel that without regulation, huge industries like Google and Amazon will monopolize and take control of the web.

But then, on the other hand, there are groups that see so much good coming from the digital commons. Every culture is expressing themselves and connecting through blogs and social networking sites, and an entirely new generation of artists has formed with the help of sites like YouTube and Flickr. We like the fact that no one controls what content is available to us and we love hearing the rags to riches stories of another successful entrepreneur who used their Internet connection, a computer and their own garage to create a start-up business. Are we simply in the Internet golden age? Or even still in the early age? But more importantly, is all the glory preventing us from seeing what is to come?

When the “newness” of the Internet wears off, will people still be motivated to contribute to Wikipedia entries, update their video blog, or respond to a question in forum? The danger is exactly the same as what we face in our tangible world: pollution, abuse of resources, theft, vandalism, ect.

Fortunately, I am hopeful about this subject. Certainly consumers have to be pleased with the current digital commons. Today, when we sign on to the Internet we are able to access any information we want at the fastest available speed. Essentially we are also able to use any service we want at virtually whatever time we want to access it. Even if we diagnose the “digital commons” to be strikingly similar to the actual “commons,” the digital world is one up from Hardin theory: the “digital commons” can be fixed, solved, or recreated with technical solutions. In the next 10 years, Internet regulation is going to continuously be a hotly contested topic of debate.

Standage, Tom (1998). The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers. Berkley Trade, NY.

Quite sometime before the dot-com era, there was a network of wires that connected continents, carried communications, and changed the way we did business. The Victorian Internet, by Tom Standage, is an entertaining and historical look at the origins, development, and impact of the telegraph – a technology as revolutionary for its era as the Internet has been for ours.

Standage begins with a rough image of what long distance communication was like before the telegraph. Messages were hand-delivered; victories, battles, and entire wars hinged on the delivery (or loss) of a message. Therefore, “optical telegraphs” were created as a form of short-distance communication to send messages faster than man could travel. Even thought these messages (crafted from lanterns, flags, and reflective sunlight) could be sent faster than man or horse, they had many drawbacks. Weather, privacy, and cost quickly ruled out “optical telegraphy” as a long-term technology.

But progress was coming, inevitably. By the mid-1830s, the electrical telegraph had many different people participating in its development. Samuel Morse came out as the front-runner, being not only the first to put the working pieces together successfully, but also the one to develop a code that was relatively easy to learn and transmit. Then, like any new technology, the telegraph was faced with its share of resistance, both in Europe and America. In the Old World, the system was government-owned and controlled; while in the United States, free enterprise eventually saw the utility and necessity of the telegraph.

The narration in The Victorian Internet is that of a time traveler, using the lived experience of our modern day Internet to illuminate the telegraph. Although the book does offer some suggestions about what we might expect from our rewiring world, its real interest and pleasure lie in remembering the first electric network.

Standage fills the book with parallels that help to make the connection between the electric telegraph and the Internet, building up an enormous sense of deja vu. There are duels between different platforms, standards, and codes, and fascinating similarities between telegraphic secret coding and Internet encryption practices. “Hackers” leverage their greater understanding of the new technology; they use the swift messaging to influence stock prices and get insider information that helps them win bets. There are even records of gambling, dating, and “bloggers,” usually telegraph operators, who use down-time on the system to play chess, send greetings, and trade jokes with operators further down the line. And most amusingly, there was and always will be generation gaps between older and novice users; some people actually thought messages weren’t sent electronically, but through high powered pistons that pumped air and shot folded-up pieces of paper through wires and tubes over hundreds of miles.

The Victorian Internet is missing a crucial parallel however. We rarely get a sense of the experience of sending and receiving telegrams. Standage offers images of people using the device, but what was it really like to have to encode and decode messages? Or to trust an operator with your private news? The Victorian Internet skimps on the experience of using a machine or of being immersed in its effects.

Standage also makes clear that the telegraph was regarded during it peak, as the technology that would bring world peace. I feel that that has been said of all major innovations including the telephone, radio, television, computers and the internet. Each of these inventions has done great things for world communication, but who is ultimately responsible for solving the world’s problems? Standage believes that our society should not place as much faith as we do in technology solving our current crisis. I agree with him; there is no magic pill or technology that will allow up to just snap our fingers into peace, but I think he confuses our excitement for hope. The pure fact that we keep having innovations may not mean peace, but it means we are constantly moving forward, and I think that that is something to be excited about.

Standage believes the way in which the telegraph revolutionized the 19th century world more than 150 years ago, is remarkably similar to how we view the Internet today. Both communication mechanisms have proved immune to fixed regulation while both also abolished distance, revolutionized business, and gave rise to new forms of vocabulary, crime and romance.

Standage doesn’t say much about the future, or what invention might make the Internet fade into the rank of the telegraph, but he is pretty certain that history repeats itself. The Victorian Internet points out that we are in the middle, not the end, of a constant cycle. A communications revolution that all started with the telegraph.