To the left is my first draft. I wanted to think about having good content space, as well as some style on the design. The entire design was done on photoshop, and is being used to try out ideas and try and get something that will help me along the line. The banner as you can see is rather stale at the moment however I hope it will do for the time being!





















To the right is the second draft, I came up with the idea to make a fansite on a popular video game. Perhaps a weakness of this draft is that the main character is taking up content, however I wanted to play with the idea of something jumping out of its conventional box and to make it look a bit more appealing. In addition, the banner is still a bit bland, although I hope fans of the game would recognize where the image originates.

The dilemma of Copyright law, piracy and the Internet.

The dilemma of Copyright law, piracy and the Internet.

I came across a very good documentary called Steal This Film, which includes interviews with the MPAA, the Swedish folk who the controversial Pirate Bay.

The mainstream media industry has a new war on its hands and the World Wide Web is its enemy. For decades Hollywood and the music industry has enjoyed its undisputed position as the king of entertainment in the western world. There seems to be a force threatening its throne. With the emergence of new technology, it is undisputable that the laws protecting the media conglomerates are becoming increasingly vague and even harder to enforce. How can a company in LA file a lawsuit against a 14 year old kid in Holland for example? Unfortunately these industries are failing to adapt to this new era and are aggressively reacting the free distribution of its media products. We’ve seen musicians exploring the potential in this new market can be successful. Radiohead distributed their album In Rainbows digitally for free and welcomed donations from their fans. Nonetheless, the industry seems inept and has a model that is stuck in the past.

We’ve seen the problems with remixing content with powerful tools; any individual can acquire some of an artist’s music and alter it in any desired direction the mixer wants to. But isn’t this how culture has always worked? Taking ideas and different elements of cultures before and developing it with your own? I strongly believe that a society with free distribution of culture is a better one than one that isolates its cultures on the grounds of ‘intellectual property’ I would also agree with the point made about the same industry doing the same thing. The video link below shows us how the same 6 second music beat invented by The Winstons had been reused again and again for years and had became the base of the genre! In fact it raises the argument that some of these music labels had became successful on the back of flimsy copyright laws and yet wants to punish the new generation using new laws that would have prevented it from doing the exact same thing they had done 20 years ago!



The fact is, the music and film industry is losing itself millions dollars in advertising against piracy and criminalizing its own consumers with ridiculous witch hunts which is quite frankly like looking for a needle in a haystack. One of the interviewees in the Steal This Film documentary uses the great analogy of “It is as if though they decided to intimidate the village they would just chop off the head of the few villagers, mount those heads on pikes as a warning to everyone else”

If corporate media wants to survive the 21^st century with the privileges it had in the 20^th, it better stop resisting new technologies and instead recognize the power of consumer created content.

Blog Entry Four – online viral campaign project!

I’ve decided to write up my newest entry on our Bring Back Ronald McDonald campaign task we were set in our Digital Media workshop. To start with, I will admit there were a lot of things we could have done to improve it and get widespread attention, technically the quality of the sound wasn’t clear and we could have spent more time getting more interviews. That said, it was funny and I think with more attention and online marketing could be somewhat successful given the topic is humorous and brings back feelings of nostalgia. If you browse many current Facebook groups this is a common trend, for example there has been “Join this group if you remember Keenan and Kel” It was this trend that brought our group on to the idea.

Internet viral in web 2.0 has become something of phenomena. Often the smallest ideas or simple homemade videos, made by an individual either unintentionally or intentionally can get global attention and can even get recognition in mainstream news. Examples of this is Rick Rolling, or the well known Chuck Norris jokes that started with a small in joke between a tight knit community that had snowballed all over the World Wide Web. As the power of the Internet grows, we’ll be seeing more of how it influences us on the outside world. Chuck Norris is probably more famous now than he ever was when he made his films, it is evident Internet marketing will become an integral part of corporate strategy if it wants to compete.

One of the strengths of our video I believe is that I believe it is straight to the point and the message gets across quite clearly. I also felt it was funny and ironic which may help stick in people’s minds because more often than not we associate protests and campaigns against McDonalds with the damage it causes to the environment, its unhealthy food products and that economies of scale swamp local produced restaurants. I think on the whole, if the quality of the video was better and we spent more time trying to distribute the video through YouTube and Facebook, something could materialize and perhaps even some pressure could be heaped on to McDonalds to ditch the ”I’m lovin’ it.” Slogan it now has.

If you haven’t watched my group’s campaign you can watch it here!



Group members were:

Daniel Norris – myself
Jess Osborne
Matt Nash
Tanya Webber

Rage against the Machine for Christmas Number One – Viva la Facebook?

So I’ve just dipped into my Christmas turkey and I’ve been informed that the rap-metal band has triumphed against Simon Cowell and his well oiled X factor machine. I think this is a relevant topic because it’s perhaps the first time that the establishment has been made to see vulnerable; could this be the catalyst for a new era? This of course wouldn’t have been possible without the vessel that is social networking website Facebook. Two very ordinary people from Essex started a small group protesting the grip Simon Cowell has on today’s charts, persuading to the UK that the X factor monopoly could be broken. The result is symbolic, this is perhaps the first time that the people have overturned the seemingly inevitable, throwing a spanner in the cogs of the manufactured product that this year goes under the vise of Joe Mcelderry.

Guitarist Tom Morello said it had "tapped into the silent majority of the people in the UK who are tired of being spoon-fed one schmaltzy ballad after another". I don’t believe this campaign had the intensions of it being a personal attack on Joe or Simon; it’s more of a protest on the large corporations and hierarchy’s that survive to serve themselves at the expense of culture. My fundamental belief is that music is an art form and shouldn’t be modified for economic gain. It’s about the charts being interesting again and Facebook has been the instrument in making this happen. I’m inclined to reject the criticisms of Rage against the Machines success, that it was out to sabotage Joe Mcelderry and this was a hate campaign against his boyhood dream. Simon Cowell himself stated "I think it's quite a cynical campaign geared at me that is actually going to spoil the party for these three." I don’t agree with the idea that the X-Factor winner has a divine right to the number one spot and I view this as a sign of change to come, digital media can connect the masses in ways never seen before and this has been a product of how powerful it can be.

Obviously it is important to keep perspective, X-Factor will live on and Mr Mcelderry has the backing to still become a hit. He will indefinitely will still make a mint and he’ll release at least a handful of hits, in fact this saga could potentially help him steer away from the X-factor circus and aid him create his own artistic footprint on the charts. Viva la internet, viva la Facebook and power to the people!

As the cliché goes, this isn’t personal Mr Cowell, its just business.

Web 2.0

The Web 2.0 presentation week has come to an end and there are a lot of important talking points. Firstly, I’d like to define what the Web 2.0 is and its origin.

By definition from http://searchenginewatch.com/define :

“A term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies.”

One of the presentations a group did in my seminar class:

Rich User Experiences in Web 2.0

View more presentations from lolscott.

Its history starting point isn’t defined as it was a slow transition from old internet traditions that developed into dynamic systems. Web applications and the collaboration of data is thought to of started at around 2001 however it’s taken time for the revolution to happen.













The terms use has been criticized as an unclear buzzword. The World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee described:

"Nobody really knows what it means...If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along."

From a design standpoint, websites have became more aesthetically pleasing for its audience and more user friendly, webbased programming languages becoming standardized such as CSS and XTML have enriched web development which is beneficial to both designer and its audience. In addition to multimedia becoming an integral part of web surfing, user input has changed, blogs, forums; social networking has been allowed through web 2.0. Users can participate through various mediums on a level never seen before; examples of this are Facebook, Youtube, and MySpace, but not forgetting small audience content such as your average personal blog. The Long Tail theory is a key feature of Web 2.0, with large companies such as Amazon adopting this business strategy of selling large numbers of unique items but in very small quantities but maintaining the quantities of the very popular items.

The collaboration of data is perhaps the most definitive factor in the Web 2.0 era. Systematically, consumer data is resources by corporations for marketing strategies. On purchasing websites, it’s often found links and suggestions such as ‘People who bought this item, also bought…” Google is perhaps the most obvious company to point to concerning the masses amounts of data being harvested to further their own ends. Google has capitalized on its position on the internet, expanding its flagship search engine and now owns googlemail, google video, youtube, google maps, blogspot and various other services for the masses. However they’ve understood the power of user created content. Their advertising strategy revolves around users allowing 3rd party marketers to place adverts on their personal websites, acting as a middleman. Googles ability to adapt to the Web 2.0 landscape has reinforced its dominance and grip over the internet.

Some of the debates have risen since the Web 2.0’s arrival. Who owns the content that’s posted on the internet? How are we identified as individuals on the internet? Do those that participate in different mediums have a right to their privacy? Is it fair for social network websites to use our information for marketers? Is it a step towards a Big Brother Society? Eyes are raised around the complex debate of net-neutrality, is it right to have a two-tier system of content and fragmenting digital anarchy?

New Entry!

I recently read the article called

Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites:
The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage
Social Life.

I'd like to start by agreeing with most of the points he brought up, and I wasn't surprised by the research in demographics of Social Network usage such as it being mostly used by teenagers. "In a study conducted in late 2006, they found that 55% of online teens
Aged 12-17 have created profiles on social network sites with 64% of teens 15-17.6"

Now with the Social Networking sites becoming more and more popular because of such factors such as easier Internet Access, It wouldn't surprise me in the very least if this figure had raised 10 fold.

I believe another interesting point to take note of is user behavior patterns of media consumption. What are people looking at when they access the internet? What websites are they browsing? What makes them choose youtube or facebook or google? I think rather than merely the technologies available from these sites dictating consumer’s behaviors it's the sense of community and establishment. If you asked the average facebook user why they used it, don't be surprised if their answer was something like "Because everyone else does" or "all my friends are on there." I'd argue that facebook is quite simply just the vessel which allows many to many media consumption and that it’s the users making the content that makes it a success, not the other way round. Another point of view however is that it's cleaner and more innovative than other Social Networking, mechanisms such as creating fan groups, mobile phone support, organizing events and features such as the chat function is what makes it successful. To some extent this is perhaps true. But much like MySpace and LiveJournal before it, it could turn into a decline very quickly. Modern day media consumers are very fickle.

When researching other blogs and articles discussing similar issues, I came across: http://www.onlinefandom.com/archives/social-network-sites-migration-or-multiple-residency/

It argues that rather than migration from one social network to another, it’s a matter of multiple residencies.

“I recently surveyed approximately 600 users of Last.fm. One question I asked was whether they used “any other social network sites such as MySpace or Facebook.” Two thirds of them said yes.”

Now I won’t argue the integrity of this research, but what classifies as ‘used’? For example, I have both a MySpace account and a Facebook account, I logged on Facebook this morning, I logged into MySpace 3 months ago. Participation greatly varies and that’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

I’d like to conclude with whatever variance of participation each user uses, what website they use, what features and tools are made advantage of; the global media has only just scratched the surface of the internet and expect many transitions from the top (corporate business) and the bottom (every day user behaviour)

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

Hey!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=channel

I came across this link by chance whilst surfing youtube, it's made by a lecturer at the university of Kansas called Michael Wesch. I think what this video does is sum up how the media landscape is changing, how the people become the producers, how communities are created far across the world. It talks about how we connect and that modern society becomes closer in a way we've never seen before.

It's definately worth a watch as it brings up a lot of the discussions in New Media.