Somebody recently informed me about an increasing trend happening in the music industry. In 2007 Radiohead's album In Rainbows was available to fans online only, fans were asked to pay as much as they liked, weather that be a small fee or nothing at all for the album. In Rainbows is now unavailable to be downloaded online Radiohead was both criticized and praised for this shift away from the mainstream way of album sales.
Some thought that Radiohead had condemned themselves for such a radical move, 38% of downloaders chose to pay for the album, and it sold at an average price of $6 according to comScore records. There was also special gift sets available to buy, a discbox which "included a vinyl album, bonus CD, and assortment of other trinkets" comScore which sold for $80 US. Radiohead made an estimated 3 million out of the media experiment, if they had stuck with EMI (their former record company) it is estimated that they would have had to sell 10 times the amount of albums downloaded.
Karen Hellekson an independent scholar, outlines in her article From Irrelevance to On-Demand: Changing models of Dissemination that "...[some] hailed Radiohead for parlaying their fame and huge fan base into a successful experiment that other bands might model, with the web used to officially market and distribute a product directly to fans" And other bands did follow the commercially successful experiment, for example Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay.
Radiohead managed to make more money than they would have in staying with the record company and they also managed to increase the number of new fans. Radiohead effectively cut out the middlemen, their agent, record labels, recording companies, promoters, record shops, some transporting and storage, they sold (or gave away) directly to their target audience. This process is known as disintermediation and is becoming increasingly more and more popular in the music industry.
Radiohead is one of the few bands that have resisted the Apples iTunes store, they chose to give the power to the people rather than the power to the industry. They started the ball rolling for playing the game by a different set of rules and the Mr Big CEOs of the music industry are not happy (Warner, EMI, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group).
Offering the album free of cost to the fans washed away all rules surrounding piracy and copy writing, people were free to do what they wished, mash up re mix or reuse the music. This tactic, giving the audience the power is becoming increasingly popular in the media industry, not only in the music industry but in news production and computer programming (open source software) traditional models are being placed under continual pressure. The audience is no longer passive we have a voice, all we were looking for was our soap box... The World Wide Web.
Consumers, choose what they like from online music stores, gone are the days of the cassette and vinyl (soon to be CDs too) and out emerges rise of digital media. Digital music, book and movie stores have their advantages over physical retail stores, disintermediation - so the cost of products are reduced, recommendations- 'other customers who bought this book also bought this book' these options open new doors to consumers to tap into new subject areas or niche books that they originally may not have thought they had much interest in.
We are connected.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
News, Journalists and Bloggers
Producing the News is the term genuinely applied to professional Journalists. But what is News? Depending on the person asked, there will be a different definition for every person. Some may answer News Bulletin Broadcasts for example Kerry O'Brien 7.30 report on the ABC, another may answer Who Weekly womans magazine, or somebody else may come running up shouting, 'I have some great news, theres a sale downtown lets go!'
News can be incorporated into 'fun' and entertaining programs. Entertaining news programs (Rove, The Chasers War on Everything, The Panel or Good News Week) have been aimed to inform the younger audience that do not engage in Bullitin news as easily as the older generation.
The blurring boundaires between news and entertainment has made news more popular and watchable for the younger generation. Stephen Harrington of Queensland University of Technology discusses in his paper Future Proofing Journalism: Youthful Tastes and the Challenge for the Academy that TV news can seem foreign to viewers similar to being beamed in from another planet. People will not be inclined to watch something that they find boring or difficult to understand. The language used the majority of the time seems to lack emotions and speaks a different language to ordinary every day conversation. Some may argue that news is serious and must be spoken in this tone, but instead of simply relaying analytical information, perhaps some viewers may enjoy a detailed discussion on current events, a tactic that Channel 10s The Panel makes use of. People are now seeking news in all shapes and forms. News is presented in multiple mediums and has given rise to competitive journalism of all shapes and forms.
Widespread interest in the news from a range of different audiences with different interests means that people will get their news from different sources. People want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge. There has been a shift in mediums used to convey news, a decline in traditional news mediums and an increase in online news sources.
Audiences can publish material online without having to study an actual Journalism degree, news is now being published by the non-journalist. Inviting the nation to participate in news production engages the audience in the news. For example the devostating Boxing day tsunamis that occured in 2004, was an absolutley horrific event, few if any Journalists were there to capture footage, rather some people who lived to tell the tale recorded the event with hand held video recorders or mobile phones. Most of the footage shown on the news was from citizens with no degree in journalism, who were simply citizens on holiday/working/living.
Users are now reporting on their own experiences instead of professionals deceiding on what is newsworthy and what is not. This rise in citizen journalism, blogging, videorecording, podcasts and YouTube posts is a response to the population wanting to share experiences and swap stories. What is rubbish to one person may be breaking news to another.
Many studies have been conducted in the US on news consumption, Mundich outlines in his book Tuned out: Why Americans Under 40 dont Follow the News (2005) that there has been a rapid decrease in the amount of newspapers read everyday by 23-27 year olds. In 1997 40% of young people read the newspaper everyday
In 2002 only 19% reported reading the newspaper everyday.
Grame Turner points out in his book Ending the Affair: The Decline of Television Current Affairs in Australia that between 1980 and 1993 the percentage of viewers aged 18-34 watching commercial network news in the US had dropped by more than 45%.
These results show that yes there has been a decrease in interest in what is commonly refered to as traditional news mediums, but what about other sources of news?
Around this time (1990s) the world wide web was becoming increasingly more popular, and perhaps it is not that people are less interested in news as they once were in the past, but perhaps people are getting their news from other sources, publishing their own stories, becoming citizen journalists, becoming actively involved.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Open source software: Mozilla Firefox vs Internet Explorer, who become the victor?
After attending the week 9 KCB201 lecture at QUT this morning and listening to Axel Bruns podcast on slideshare I find myself pondering who to choose in internet providers, open source software (Mozilla Firefox) or proprietary software (Internet Explorer).
Proprietry software includes programs or internet products where the source code is closed, that is only paid staff can modify, add or build the program some examples include Microsoft Windows, RealPlayer, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and Mac OS.
Open source software source code is left open that is anyone can see it or edit it under a limited-rights licence (Bruns) software is developed by teams of the community, there is a focus on user lead content, and some examples include Mozilla Firefox, Linux and Open Office. Open source software is all about releasing the best possible revised program immediately.
Open source software content can commonly be described as Produser lead where users actively work together to weed out the flaws, bugs and defects, that is finding quality from the masses. Generally it, "relies on the efficiency of its organisation" Jean-Michel Dalle how well the group of people working on the software can organise themselves to create a product.
Jean-Michel Dalle and Nicholas Jullien argue that, "the organizational structure of open-source software, allowed by openness of source codes and by the subsequent development of dedicated communities, is a key feature which, together with compatibility, can allow open-source software to overcome existing proprietary standards."
Overcoming proprietary standards is becoming an increasingly used term when discussing open source software. But this is not always the case, open source vs proprietary software is a complex argument and both have their pros and cons, definitely suited to different types of people as users or produsers.
Open source software has not been accepted by everyone and depends on the effectiveness of the organisation, if the group of people developing the software cannot work and organise themselves well together they may produce an inferior product. The survival of open source software relies heavily upon the community, the availability and its size, financial support- contributors are mostly freely contributing citizens, and there is a lack of financial support for solving problems. When comparing a company like Microsoft Windows (Proprietary) to open source (Linux), Microsoft can only employ a certain number of programmers and they can only do as much work as is humanly possible, with open source there may be thousands or millions of people working on a program.
Open source programming is always under construction, there is never a final product as there is with proprietary software, flaws or ‘bad areas’ are continually being edited to become better. Open Source programs are developed faster, there is no commercial package they are free to download. Open source software programmers make their money by selling their skills in consulting rather than software sales (teaching companies how to use the program, setting it up etc). Proprietary software may hold off releasing a new version so that they can get rid of/sell stock that has already been produced; this is not an issue with open source.
There has been considerable debate about open source vs proprietary software.
"Indeed, if open-source software was always to lose against proprietary software, then not only would it have attracted much less attention, but also it would clearly be of considerably diminished interest" Jean-Michel Dalle and Nicholas Jullien. Open source is an area of increasingly popularity.
As to which program is better, it certainly depends on how involved you are in the information technology world, or weather the company you are with decides to train staff on a new operating system and is willing to fork out the initial costs. I actually only discovered Mozilla Firefox a few months ago, it was suggested to me that I should try Firefox after internet explorer could not be used to access some of my lecture notes for university, and since I switched over I have found Firefox the better of the two for my own individual needs. I mean who hasn't come across that annoying message 'Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close' (this happened just 2 minutes ago) in that case loosing all of the work I had just done. Mozilla Firefox will recover lost work; I will be using Firefox from this point on.
Proprietry software includes programs or internet products where the source code is closed, that is only paid staff can modify, add or build the program some examples include Microsoft Windows, RealPlayer, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and Mac OS.
Open source software source code is left open that is anyone can see it or edit it under a limited-rights licence (Bruns) software is developed by teams of the community, there is a focus on user lead content, and some examples include Mozilla Firefox, Linux and Open Office. Open source software is all about releasing the best possible revised program immediately.
Open source software content can commonly be described as Produser lead where users actively work together to weed out the flaws, bugs and defects, that is finding quality from the masses. Generally it, "relies on the efficiency of its organisation" Jean-Michel Dalle how well the group of people working on the software can organise themselves to create a product.
Jean-Michel Dalle and Nicholas Jullien argue that, "the organizational structure of open-source software, allowed by openness of source codes and by the subsequent development of dedicated communities, is a key feature which, together with compatibility, can allow open-source software to overcome existing proprietary standards."
Overcoming proprietary standards is becoming an increasingly used term when discussing open source software. But this is not always the case, open source vs proprietary software is a complex argument and both have their pros and cons, definitely suited to different types of people as users or produsers.
Open source software has not been accepted by everyone and depends on the effectiveness of the organisation, if the group of people developing the software cannot work and organise themselves well together they may produce an inferior product. The survival of open source software relies heavily upon the community, the availability and its size, financial support- contributors are mostly freely contributing citizens, and there is a lack of financial support for solving problems. When comparing a company like Microsoft Windows (Proprietary) to open source (Linux), Microsoft can only employ a certain number of programmers and they can only do as much work as is humanly possible, with open source there may be thousands or millions of people working on a program.
Open source programming is always under construction, there is never a final product as there is with proprietary software, flaws or ‘bad areas’ are continually being edited to become better. Open Source programs are developed faster, there is no commercial package they are free to download. Open source software programmers make their money by selling their skills in consulting rather than software sales (teaching companies how to use the program, setting it up etc). Proprietary software may hold off releasing a new version so that they can get rid of/sell stock that has already been produced; this is not an issue with open source.
There has been considerable debate about open source vs proprietary software.
"Indeed, if open-source software was always to lose against proprietary software, then not only would it have attracted much less attention, but also it would clearly be of considerably diminished interest" Jean-Michel Dalle and Nicholas Jullien. Open source is an area of increasingly popularity.
As to which program is better, it certainly depends on how involved you are in the information technology world, or weather the company you are with decides to train staff on a new operating system and is willing to fork out the initial costs. I actually only discovered Mozilla Firefox a few months ago, it was suggested to me that I should try Firefox after internet explorer could not be used to access some of my lecture notes for university, and since I switched over I have found Firefox the better of the two for my own individual needs. I mean who hasn't come across that annoying message 'Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close' (this happened just 2 minutes ago) in that case loosing all of the work I had just done. Mozilla Firefox will recover lost work; I will be using Firefox from this point on.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Is user lead content an effective way to relay information?
DIY online communities are experiencing a rise in popularity, more and more users are breaking out of their passive role as a consumer and towards becoming a 'produser'. The term produser has been discussed in great detail by Axel Bruns an author on many books related to users shifting away from their passive roles as consumers and onto a more active role as a produser.
In a produsage environment there is no one fixed content creator the traditional concepts of production have dispersed. A produsage web site of information is continually being edited making it a never finished product. This notion of something never being finished has a negative ring to it, but when compairing an encyclopedia bought from the book shop as opposed to an online encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, users have up to date information right at their finger tips, once a book is printed there is no opportunity to add additional information unless the book is to be republished as a second addition, in this case information becomes out dated and in some cases irrelevant. Online produsers continually update information weather it be a paragraph, a page of just correction of grammer mistakes. Web sites similar to Wikipedia are concerned with provision of services rather than making a product.
The idea of users working together online to collate a document or information resource, means that the document and ownership is shared. Who is it that holds the copywrite for published work on Wikipedia? Everybody that has been contributing as an active user. This means that there is no need for liscencing or for people to spend money to access information, it is readly there at the click of a mouse button.
Every participator is a potentially important cotributer, but what happens if incorrect facts, or resources are added? There is a theory that produsers in their diverse masses will edit out inaccurate information. Being able to publish easily does leave some problems for deliberate sabotage of resources, hence the reason why Wikipedia is a good resource for initially finding out about a topic but it is good academic practice to cross check with a number or other resources to ensure correct data is being used.
In a produsage environment there is no one fixed content creator the traditional concepts of production have dispersed. A produsage web site of information is continually being edited making it a never finished product. This notion of something never being finished has a negative ring to it, but when compairing an encyclopedia bought from the book shop as opposed to an online encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, users have up to date information right at their finger tips, once a book is printed there is no opportunity to add additional information unless the book is to be republished as a second addition, in this case information becomes out dated and in some cases irrelevant. Online produsers continually update information weather it be a paragraph, a page of just correction of grammer mistakes. Web sites similar to Wikipedia are concerned with provision of services rather than making a product.
The idea of users working together online to collate a document or information resource, means that the document and ownership is shared. Who is it that holds the copywrite for published work on Wikipedia? Everybody that has been contributing as an active user. This means that there is no need for liscencing or for people to spend money to access information, it is readly there at the click of a mouse button.
Every participator is a potentially important cotributer, but what happens if incorrect facts, or resources are added? There is a theory that produsers in their diverse masses will edit out inaccurate information. Being able to publish easily does leave some problems for deliberate sabotage of resources, hence the reason why Wikipedia is a good resource for initially finding out about a topic but it is good academic practice to cross check with a number or other resources to ensure correct data is being used.
Software as a social tool... Where to now?
Wide spread use and new found versatility of new technology devices has greatly assisted in the rise of participatory culture within the media sphere. Using the mobile phone or mobile internet to browse the world wide web, bookmark what we find as good sources of information and blogg or academic research or thoughts or creativity (to name a few services the a mobile device can offers) wherever or whenever the user may want has opened an entirely new door for users to become much active as an audience rather than leaning towards a passive take on content.
Once audiences process data, it is easy to say that information is either classified one or the other a good or bad resource. Ordering data can be tricky but thanks to social bookmarking sites such as delicious, blogmarks, digg or jumptags to name a few, ordering information so that users can refind good information has become simple.
Social bookmarking websites have made information easy to re-find, their popularity is a rapidly growing area. They allow you to save bookmarks online and tag or categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite’s list of your browser. By bundling data to various key words it is easier to find information than in pure sub headings such as maths, science, literature, cars, art, music etc there is an overlapping of topic areas where a song may be tagged as music, art, latin, exotic etc.
Terry Flew outlines in his Book New Media: An Introduction, that, "virtual communities has been identified as a site of play and performity through the creating of online identities" (2004) This comment suggests that online communities are not just about sharing information and knowledge but about social construction, the formation of friendships and relationships. The web had really transformed into web2.0 a platform for building, that is building anything, relationships, knowledge, software.... the ist is endless.
Where can web2.0 take us?
Wherever the user will allow..............
Once audiences process data, it is easy to say that information is either classified one or the other a good or bad resource. Ordering data can be tricky but thanks to social bookmarking sites such as delicious, blogmarks, digg or jumptags to name a few, ordering information so that users can refind good information has become simple.
Social bookmarking websites have made information easy to re-find, their popularity is a rapidly growing area. They allow you to save bookmarks online and tag or categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite’s list of your browser. By bundling data to various key words it is easier to find information than in pure sub headings such as maths, science, literature, cars, art, music etc there is an overlapping of topic areas where a song may be tagged as music, art, latin, exotic etc.
Terry Flew outlines in his Book New Media: An Introduction, that, "virtual communities has been identified as a site of play and performity through the creating of online identities" (2004) This comment suggests that online communities are not just about sharing information and knowledge but about social construction, the formation of friendships and relationships. The web had really transformed into web2.0 a platform for building, that is building anything, relationships, knowledge, software.... the ist is endless.
Where can web2.0 take us?
Wherever the user will allow..............
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Great Phenomenom of the Long Tail
Recently I have been quite interested by the long tail phenomenon as discussed by Chris Anderson in his article The Long Tail.
Increasing the supply of online products, will shift the consumer away from the 'hits' and move them towards niche products weather that be books, music/bands, movies or clothing. Chris Anderson argues that the Long Tail is a shift away from the physical world to a online environment. Producers may save money on packaging, store space and shipping costs, allowing products to be ordered only when they are sold making the product go straight from the warehouse to the consumer this cuts out all those in between stages.
Web sites such as Amazon keep record of what comsumers have bought and what topics they are interested in. The site aids the consumer by adding comments such as 'people who bought x book also bought y book' based on other consumers spending patterns. Thus opening a new door to consumers and inviting them to enjoy a book they might have not look at in the first place.
For online retailers shelf space does not matter, the number of items for sale is not limited in any way other than warehouse size, however there are issues large numbers of items that rarely sell. Cutting out the middle men reduces cost of items for consumers. But consumers must venture away from the traditional store bought item which would be sold in the head of the long tail, and towards niche items in the tail.
What appeals to the masses does not appeal to everyone. People will venture online to find new topics and interests that the physical world of retail simply cannot supply, due to many constraints.
In the physical world a muso or film producer must already be known by consumers, as making a loss is easier to do in the physical world than the online world. Anderson argues that in online sales, "a hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried" This allows becoming artists to enter the artistic world of consumerism at relatively low cost.
As for weather items predominantly featured in the long tail make a profit, much research has been conducted into this area, but the fact that artists are trying to shift into the area of high sales which is not the tail end is very interesting. From a media students point of view, all items weather produced by composers, writers or seamstresses in the long tail are trying to get into that head section where glory is found and money is made.
This is an interesting statement to ponder...
Increasing the supply of online products, will shift the consumer away from the 'hits' and move them towards niche products weather that be books, music/bands, movies or clothing. Chris Anderson argues that the Long Tail is a shift away from the physical world to a online environment. Producers may save money on packaging, store space and shipping costs, allowing products to be ordered only when they are sold making the product go straight from the warehouse to the consumer this cuts out all those in between stages.
Web sites such as Amazon keep record of what comsumers have bought and what topics they are interested in. The site aids the consumer by adding comments such as 'people who bought x book also bought y book' based on other consumers spending patterns. Thus opening a new door to consumers and inviting them to enjoy a book they might have not look at in the first place.
For online retailers shelf space does not matter, the number of items for sale is not limited in any way other than warehouse size, however there are issues large numbers of items that rarely sell. Cutting out the middle men reduces cost of items for consumers. But consumers must venture away from the traditional store bought item which would be sold in the head of the long tail, and towards niche items in the tail.
What appeals to the masses does not appeal to everyone. People will venture online to find new topics and interests that the physical world of retail simply cannot supply, due to many constraints.
In the physical world a muso or film producer must already be known by consumers, as making a loss is easier to do in the physical world than the online world. Anderson argues that in online sales, "a hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried" This allows becoming artists to enter the artistic world of consumerism at relatively low cost.
As for weather items predominantly featured in the long tail make a profit, much research has been conducted into this area, but the fact that artists are trying to shift into the area of high sales which is not the tail end is very interesting. From a media students point of view, all items weather produced by composers, writers or seamstresses in the long tail are trying to get into that head section where glory is found and money is made.
This is an interesting statement to ponder...
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
How is Web2.0 different from Web1.0?
Web 2.0 dealing with the online environment as a platform. This is a quite common sentence that is found when looking for information on the definition of web2.0.
But what does that actually mean?
I find that when looking for a real definition of Web2.0 it may be that the field of Web2.0 has not been fully researched academically, another fuzzy or cloudy area.
As for Web2.0 as a platform i find that when comparing the old Web1.0 to Web2.0, Web1.0 is flat (information is given and published by the 'top guns' the journalists, tv presenters etc, allowing for very little if any user contribution). Web 2.0 is able to be used as a building block of opinion. Users can create, collaborate, abuse, use remix and remash most content (copywrite issues can be a problem) on website content (photos, text, clips etc) with photoshop or any kind of editing program. Content origonally produced for one reason may be remixed and used for a completley different reason than origonally intended.
Web 2.0 puts the power at the hands of the user. It allows to be active rather than passive audiences. Users are organising and categorising, sharing and learning.
There is a shift in economic value of the web, a shift from the individual dictator to a wide community web of participants in information collaboration. Anyone can be a contributor, it places everybody at the same level users may be amateur or professional.
Content is user lead.
Bottom up rather than top down.
Where gradual inprovement in content quality is up to the masses, over time.
Its up to the user
But what does that actually mean?
I find that when looking for a real definition of Web2.0 it may be that the field of Web2.0 has not been fully researched academically, another fuzzy or cloudy area.
As for Web2.0 as a platform i find that when comparing the old Web1.0 to Web2.0, Web1.0 is flat (information is given and published by the 'top guns' the journalists, tv presenters etc, allowing for very little if any user contribution). Web 2.0 is able to be used as a building block of opinion. Users can create, collaborate, abuse, use remix and remash most content (copywrite issues can be a problem) on website content (photos, text, clips etc) with photoshop or any kind of editing program. Content origonally produced for one reason may be remixed and used for a completley different reason than origonally intended.
Web 2.0 puts the power at the hands of the user. It allows to be active rather than passive audiences. Users are organising and categorising, sharing and learning.
There is a shift in economic value of the web, a shift from the individual dictator to a wide community web of participants in information collaboration. Anyone can be a contributor, it places everybody at the same level users may be amateur or professional.
Content is user lead.
Bottom up rather than top down.
Where gradual inprovement in content quality is up to the masses, over time.
Its up to the user
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