Putting together a network to build the set of capabilities is necessary to build a market offering that delivers high value to the customer. Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage depended up understand both firm’s value chain and how well the firm fit into the overall value system.
Niche campaigns are hard work, but it is a much more accurate way to attract audience and provide satisfaction experience as much as possible. Without a doubt, traditional advertising campaigns are still one of the best tools to promote product or service, but when we talk about the future music, new business model is so necessary.
Create new market space
Customers wish to access needed content anywhere, anytime, on any platform. They focus on personalization, interactivity and availability of something to watch you actually like and preference for free. The challenge for future music is to look cross the boundary between industries and create new market space.
Looking across the chain of customers
Customized and Interactive service should be suitable strategy. It is a positive way to attract the potential loss customers. Two main types of customers could be defined: influencers and buyers. The decision on which group to focus on can lead to the discovery of new market space. In music industry, the influencers could be the critics, reviewer from newspaper or magazine, and the committee of film festival or program award, even a normal fan. The efforts we made to persuade these influencers are critical for the whole market.
Looking across complementary product and service offerings
It is also significant to study what happen before, during and after the process in which people watching the program. For example, when a blockbuster declaim to come out, it is important to explore the attention of audience to make sure it will be popular, when the album is on, various in-door promotion such as games and gifting will gave the customer impressive experience. When the period is over, we should think about how to make use of the influence that has been built and how to reach more potential customers.
Looking across time
The development of music industry is sharp and the competition is fierce, it is decisive to identify the trend in the industry. As mentioned above, to mobilize the customers to create value is considerable, the SNS, Long Tail model we make use of are also the way we try to put together a network to build the set of capabilities and the market offering that delivers high value to the customer, which is also the way to prove our solution is suitable in business and the new market
Wednesday 26 November 2008
Tuesday 25 November 2008
Essay 3 by Rasmus
I believe we already have a hunch about what the music industry will look like in ten years. The music system that Spotify is developing right now I believe is a part out of what the future music system solution will look like. I think streaming music is the future. There are several reasons for this and I can divide them into three categories; legality / payment solution, group influence and mobility.
The payment solution that Spotify offers today is divided into three levels which I think would work well in the future. The first level is free and funded by advertising. The second level is a day pass-solution for the people who normally accept advertising or that listens very rarely and for a limited time wants the service free from advertising. The third level is for those who want the service permanently ad-free, and therefore pays for the service each month or year. This makes the solution simple and with a possibility of no cost which makes piracy a worse alternative.
When it comes to group influence and to share music with others there is even here a solution which Spotify have developed. Albums, Playlists and even tracks does have their own separate link that makes it easy to send it to a friend or post in a database with other users recommendations or playlists. You can also choose to make your playlist editable for others and thus create shared lists with your friends. I have already three different playlists shared and editable with my friends and I also have three locked auto updating playlists with music. When I like a song I can drag it from those lists to my own.
Music is also something we want to be mobile when you travel or isn’t near a computer. Since the streamed music is not stored at the computer it does not require copying of files to get the music to your mobile device, which currently is a requirement for most of the current mobile devices like iPhone or other various MP3 player. The music that Spotify streams can already be sent thru the mobile network without problems and even if unlimited bandwidth with turbo3g today costs a lot of money each month, it is a cost which will be much lower in 10 years.
To summarize I think a smart solution would be a service with streaming music, built for multiple types of platforms. Besides a computer-based solution, which does not necessarily have to be a software application but can be a web-based solution, it also can be a device that I would describe as a new kind of music player and which is actually a combination of three of today’s technologies. My solution would be an iPhone with support for mobile broadband and with an application to receive streaming music and the account's settings and playlists.
The payment solution that Spotify offers today is divided into three levels which I think would work well in the future. The first level is free and funded by advertising. The second level is a day pass-solution for the people who normally accept advertising or that listens very rarely and for a limited time wants the service free from advertising. The third level is for those who want the service permanently ad-free, and therefore pays for the service each month or year. This makes the solution simple and with a possibility of no cost which makes piracy a worse alternative.
When it comes to group influence and to share music with others there is even here a solution which Spotify have developed. Albums, Playlists and even tracks does have their own separate link that makes it easy to send it to a friend or post in a database with other users recommendations or playlists. You can also choose to make your playlist editable for others and thus create shared lists with your friends. I have already three different playlists shared and editable with my friends and I also have three locked auto updating playlists with music. When I like a song I can drag it from those lists to my own.
Music is also something we want to be mobile when you travel or isn’t near a computer. Since the streamed music is not stored at the computer it does not require copying of files to get the music to your mobile device, which currently is a requirement for most of the current mobile devices like iPhone or other various MP3 player. The music that Spotify streams can already be sent thru the mobile network without problems and even if unlimited bandwidth with turbo3g today costs a lot of money each month, it is a cost which will be much lower in 10 years.
To summarize I think a smart solution would be a service with streaming music, built for multiple types of platforms. Besides a computer-based solution, which does not necessarily have to be a software application but can be a web-based solution, it also can be a device that I would describe as a new kind of music player and which is actually a combination of three of today’s technologies. My solution would be an iPhone with support for mobile broadband and with an application to receive streaming music and the account's settings and playlists.
Essay 3: Majority seeing through
In my scenario, there will be no major record labels. Long ago, they lost control over copyrighted material. This will have some effects.
The artist or musician can choose any number of agencies, distributors, promoters, manufacturers they want. No company will have exclusive rights. As a result, unofficial products will be produced out of control of the musician. The consumers will get more control over the production (although relying on commercially available technology) by knocking off records, scores, videos, apparel, lyrics, costumes, posters and everything that comes with music culture and identity. Today, the unofficial products are in general considered as low quality and flawed forms of production. This will gradually change as people learn the tools better and the critical mass for a decent peer reviewing is reached.
These activities will probably change our perception of music as part of our culture and daily lives. When being able to see through the powers that try to control the culture and information, there will be fewer and fewer who are motivated to support the intellectual property rights that support the music industry.
As it is today I can identify three standpoints: over-adapting, adapting and realizing. The over-adapting can see the powers that control information as something natural and desireable, and try to defend it. The adapting can be aware that there are powers which are not really helping the cultural production. However, they do not see how it effects their own lives and neither how it be changed by any reasonable effort. The realizing can see how everybody is participating in making a culture of their own, and knows that makes them more self-councious. In ten years, the adapting group will not have a chance not to see that their lives are effected. This will also increase the likeliness of having them sliding over to the realizing group.
The music itself will also sound different from what we know today. The networked information economy creates a greater space for critical evaluation of cultural materials and tools (Benkler 2006 p275). So when the musicians are treated with the richer response from the audience, they will be able to reflect over their own production in new ways.
Different habits will appear depending on context. This will also be efficient ways of unglorifying and blackmailing the musician before his/her audience. In some places/genres of the world, the musician might need to make efforts to be popular and anonymous simultaneously. Others might be perfectly safe to share their life and identity by help of loyal and dedicated fans, companies and musician fellows.
Which activites that are profitable for a musician will also depend on the context. It's about whether they will produce new material or performing live or doing both. Their choice also relates to the greater space for critical evaluation, but it is also my point that even enforced intellectual property rights (IPRED), in the end can not control the development. In ten years there might also be other, graver problems for the industrial economy to deal with.
Sunday 23 November 2008
Essay 3 – Always being free
There have always been discussions about where the music industry should head for. Some voted for more effective and more widely acceptable DRM (Digital Right Management) system. Some other went for totally free market. In my opinion, the future would pretty much be toward to the free economy, and that is to say all kinds of music would be free for individuals to upload and download legally on the internet.
Let’s look at the current situation in the music market. Relatively speaking, Apple has been successful both in selling digital music and protecting the digital right for music record companies through iTunes and its related products. However, who is going to guarantee it will continue to be successful for a long time. Since peer-sharing and free downloading on the internet is pervasive, I highly doubt that the currently feasible way will not come to its end in a not faraway future. Ever since the advent of Internet, it has been such a fantastic and wonderful thing that made a lot of things possible. Why not add the possibility of free music for all the internet users? However, free music can never be absolutely free. In order to secure the benefit of the label companies, there will be some other way to work out the solution. One possible solution could be that the label companies should cooperate with ISP to indirectly charge the users for downloading the music. In this case, a fixed fee, which is included in the monthly payment for using the wideband, would be charged from the side of users. However, this part of revenue will be paid to these label companies in accordance with how many pieces of music they offered and how many of them have been downloaded.
On the side of label companies and music artists, they should understand that selling CDs is not the only way of generating revenues, and non-stop fighting for digital rights and the pervasive downloading can only create a lose-lose situation. On the other hand, they should create other opportunities for their potential customers to consume music, such as live concerts, which they have always been doing. From an article I read a few months ago, it ironically stated that it was actually those people who downloaded music most from the internet were most likely to consume music in a variety of ways, like buying the CDs of the artists they like and going to the concerts of their favorite singers.
With the development of technology in the music industry as well as of the internet, new business opportunities will emerge from time to time and the future actually becomes quite hard to predict. However, I still strongly believe that free music for individuals to download legally on the internet as well as the acceptance by the label companies and the artists will eventually become reality.
Let’s look at the current situation in the music market. Relatively speaking, Apple has been successful both in selling digital music and protecting the digital right for music record companies through iTunes and its related products. However, who is going to guarantee it will continue to be successful for a long time. Since peer-sharing and free downloading on the internet is pervasive, I highly doubt that the currently feasible way will not come to its end in a not faraway future. Ever since the advent of Internet, it has been such a fantastic and wonderful thing that made a lot of things possible. Why not add the possibility of free music for all the internet users? However, free music can never be absolutely free. In order to secure the benefit of the label companies, there will be some other way to work out the solution. One possible solution could be that the label companies should cooperate with ISP to indirectly charge the users for downloading the music. In this case, a fixed fee, which is included in the monthly payment for using the wideband, would be charged from the side of users. However, this part of revenue will be paid to these label companies in accordance with how many pieces of music they offered and how many of them have been downloaded.
On the side of label companies and music artists, they should understand that selling CDs is not the only way of generating revenues, and non-stop fighting for digital rights and the pervasive downloading can only create a lose-lose situation. On the other hand, they should create other opportunities for their potential customers to consume music, such as live concerts, which they have always been doing. From an article I read a few months ago, it ironically stated that it was actually those people who downloaded music most from the internet were most likely to consume music in a variety of ways, like buying the CDs of the artists they like and going to the concerts of their favorite singers.
With the development of technology in the music industry as well as of the internet, new business opportunities will emerge from time to time and the future actually becomes quite hard to predict. However, I still strongly believe that free music for individuals to download legally on the internet as well as the acceptance by the label companies and the artists will eventually become reality.
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Essay 2 - Do You Believe
Blogs, forums and online-newspapers are all new media technologies through which people can access the latest news. Though these are different ways to access this kind of information, they are quite different in quality. By visiting a blog you often get the personal opinion of one person, a forum gives you the summarized opinion of a larger number of people and online-newspaper often represent the news and opinion of the original paper. Depending on what kind of information you are looking for, these diverse social media technologies can help you in different ways.
As mentioned, blogs often give you the personal opinion of one person. So, if I wanted to know what Anders Svensson thinks about the new iPhone, I could visit his blog and get his opinion. If I rather wanted to know how the general opinion about this new phone is I would rather visit a forum about the phone and get a more general view. The reviews of iPhone in newspapers (both online and offline) would, in my opinion, be too impressive and exciting. This because mass media is often influenced by advertisers and big companies- This can create a conflict of interest and that is why I rather search for information in different forums than just trust the newspapers. Well, you could argument that forums may also contain “company users”, but I believe that if a lot of people in different forums agree on one opinion then that opinion has a higher probability of being true compared to something written in a well known newspaper.
As can be noticed, I would rather trust blogs and forums than newspapers. Even though the quality isn’t quite as good and the language not as clean, it is easier to get a person’s general view about a certain thing through blogs and forums.
Nowadays as blogs are getting more and more commercialized, I am becoming more and more uncertain about the writers opinion. You can quite often find technical blogs that are sponsored by some big company and can thus not write anything bad about their products. In my opinion there should be some kind of rating system for how independent a blog is. Considering today’s commercialization of the internet, I believe that this is necessary. It is not only the quality of the information that matters but also the independency and reliability that makes me believe in what I am reading.
How would you feel if you read an article about how bad KTH is while seeing a Chalmers banner at the side?
As mentioned, blogs often give you the personal opinion of one person. So, if I wanted to know what Anders Svensson thinks about the new iPhone, I could visit his blog and get his opinion. If I rather wanted to know how the general opinion about this new phone is I would rather visit a forum about the phone and get a more general view. The reviews of iPhone in newspapers (both online and offline) would, in my opinion, be too impressive and exciting. This because mass media is often influenced by advertisers and big companies- This can create a conflict of interest and that is why I rather search for information in different forums than just trust the newspapers. Well, you could argument that forums may also contain “company users”, but I believe that if a lot of people in different forums agree on one opinion then that opinion has a higher probability of being true compared to something written in a well known newspaper.
As can be noticed, I would rather trust blogs and forums than newspapers. Even though the quality isn’t quite as good and the language not as clean, it is easier to get a person’s general view about a certain thing through blogs and forums.
Nowadays as blogs are getting more and more commercialized, I am becoming more and more uncertain about the writers opinion. You can quite often find technical blogs that are sponsored by some big company and can thus not write anything bad about their products. In my opinion there should be some kind of rating system for how independent a blog is. Considering today’s commercialization of the internet, I believe that this is necessary. It is not only the quality of the information that matters but also the independency and reliability that makes me believe in what I am reading.
How would you feel if you read an article about how bad KTH is while seeing a Chalmers banner at the side?
Essay 2 by Rasmus
Social Medias like blogs, communities, forums and wikis is made in a totally different way than the traditional media channels (radio, tv, news papers) when it comes to quality and rectification. Since the new Social Medias is open for influence from the general public it does require a totally new control of quality and solutions to prevent spam and different kinds of destruction and frauds. You have to customize those solutions so they are adapted to the media and this is something I intend to write about.
When it comes to blogs does it not require a sophisticated control of quality since a bad blog doesn't get read by the general public. On the other hand does the simplicity in creations of blog posts it easy for a spammer to use the blog tools to create temporary web pages used in spam attacks and to prevent that the blog network owners use a control question which is hard for a computer to answer so the registration process cannot be made automatic. This worked fine as a protection for a long time but nowadays these protections gets cracked from time to time and when that occurs it quickly gets used by spammer who creates deceitful blogs with advertising.
Communities and forums does need an additional defense since the medium can be used for both destruction, spam and other illegal activities like child pornography and different kinds of frauds. The anonymity for the users at the community makes it easy for different kind of "bad" users to register at the page. Therefore many of the communities do use different kinds of functions to report users to the administrators who can remove the user. I think this is an inefficient system since the deleted user easily can create a new account. I don't know if it already exists today but I think an automatic system that recognizes when a user for example sends out spam to other user automatically blocks the and hides that users post.
Both forums and wikis have a problem with invalid facts. The big wiki called Wikipedia does have a requirement that everything that is written at the page is have good references to trusted source but that isn't always pursued and it is some time hard to verify the sources. This makes it hard for Wikipedia to be accepted as a real encyclopedia which I think is there goal. In many courses I've read at KTH Wikipedia isn't accepted as a source simply because it can be unreliable, especially when it comes to "hot" subjects that engages many people. Thus the information often is corrected quickly there is a risk that you look at the article at the wrong time and therefore gets wrongful facts.
When it comes to blogs does it not require a sophisticated control of quality since a bad blog doesn't get read by the general public. On the other hand does the simplicity in creations of blog posts it easy for a spammer to use the blog tools to create temporary web pages used in spam attacks and to prevent that the blog network owners use a control question which is hard for a computer to answer so the registration process cannot be made automatic. This worked fine as a protection for a long time but nowadays these protections gets cracked from time to time and when that occurs it quickly gets used by spammer who creates deceitful blogs with advertising.
Communities and forums does need an additional defense since the medium can be used for both destruction, spam and other illegal activities like child pornography and different kinds of frauds. The anonymity for the users at the community makes it easy for different kind of "bad" users to register at the page. Therefore many of the communities do use different kinds of functions to report users to the administrators who can remove the user. I think this is an inefficient system since the deleted user easily can create a new account. I don't know if it already exists today but I think an automatic system that recognizes when a user for example sends out spam to other user automatically blocks the and hides that users post.
Both forums and wikis have a problem with invalid facts. The big wiki called Wikipedia does have a requirement that everything that is written at the page is have good references to trusted source but that isn't always pursued and it is some time hard to verify the sources. This makes it hard for Wikipedia to be accepted as a real encyclopedia which I think is there goal. In many courses I've read at KTH Wikipedia isn't accepted as a source simply because it can be unreliable, especially when it comes to "hot" subjects that engages many people. Thus the information often is corrected quickly there is a risk that you look at the article at the wrong time and therefore gets wrongful facts.
Essay 2: Peer-reviewing films, what gives?
Thinking of peer-production, the service that comes to mind first would be Filmtipset. When joining in 2003 I regarded it as a Swedish response to Imdb. I wanted to find out what people think about quality in movies. I admired their pursue for democratic information compared to mass media. Added to that, I found it interesting to roam about every movie I seen in my life and rate it for myself, then comparing it with my friends or everybody else. After doing that, I ask myself: What can I do with this? After all, they are just rating numbers. What does it tell about quality? What do these grades have to do with the real product? People give any rating they want, but they are far from being as well informed, objective nor responsible as a proffessional. Well that's one issue. Add to that, chances are high that somebody is manipulating the numbers to increase his/her own influence.
Putting it this way might appear as I'm degrading the whole concept of peer reviews, but those arguments did at least not effect the democratizing effect. In this sense, the movie ratings compare a bit with an anecdote about Amazon.com. They were criticized by publishers who claimed their products received unfairly negative reviews. The founder of Amazon countered:
"...we want to make every book available – the good, the bad, and the ugly...to let truth loose" (Spector 2000).
When I joined Filmtipset, I had the notion that mass media in Sweden had a one-sided focus towards Hollywood productions. I wanted to see the unbiased reality. Just collecting as many titles and users ratings as possible was a simple idea, yet serving this purpose more or less. Going beyond the extensive size of this database, it certainly had its flaws. I mean, of course I can't check on every movie in the world only for the sake of being less biased. I would rather let a system of some kind decide the order.
Looking at Filmtipset and Imdb today, they have different strategies. Both are very different from the excellent credibility system of Slashdot. The most appearant difference is actually transparency. Neither wants to reveal their whole strategy, as they claim that vandals would exploit the system for own purposes. In the case of Imdb, the strategy is to use demographic data to create a weighted average rating for each film. But why do they have to hide the scheme they are using? Probably because they don't have a system for user moderation like the one of Slashdot. It seems like a pity, but could serve a purpose, as for making it possible for users to compare one arbitrary movie with another. They don't need the absolute top ranked material, as like the readers of Slashdot.
Hypothetically, what if they did use the system of Slashdot? If everybody submitted articles about movies they considered worth mentioning, and letting the community engage in a discussion. What kind of articles would make it to the front page? And not the least, what kinds of movies? I dare not to guess which direction they would take. More relevant, I presume that they actually would take a direction, just like Slashdot admits.
Incidentally, Filmtipset have some strategies to handle that. When a user have rated a great deal of films, the whole set of ratings are compared with the sets of every other member to find correlations. If there are sets of closely correlated ratings, the system assumes that the users have similar idea of relevance. Based on that, new recommendations, expected rating and such advice are presented. The major drawback I found so far is that the comments and articles are not at all peer-reviewed. Maybe it's just an unimplemented feature. Maybe Slashdot has the advantage of a higher number of peers. Maybe there are qualities of films that are impossible to agree on. In reality, I don't care so much of the grades presented at Filmtipset. The real relevance for me is still something out of control for the system.
Putting it this way might appear as I'm degrading the whole concept of peer reviews, but those arguments did at least not effect the democratizing effect. In this sense, the movie ratings compare a bit with an anecdote about Amazon.com. They were criticized by publishers who claimed their products received unfairly negative reviews. The founder of Amazon countered:
"...we want to make every book available – the good, the bad, and the ugly...to let truth loose" (Spector 2000).
When I joined Filmtipset, I had the notion that mass media in Sweden had a one-sided focus towards Hollywood productions. I wanted to see the unbiased reality. Just collecting as many titles and users ratings as possible was a simple idea, yet serving this purpose more or less. Going beyond the extensive size of this database, it certainly had its flaws. I mean, of course I can't check on every movie in the world only for the sake of being less biased. I would rather let a system of some kind decide the order.
Looking at Filmtipset and Imdb today, they have different strategies. Both are very different from the excellent credibility system of Slashdot. The most appearant difference is actually transparency. Neither wants to reveal their whole strategy, as they claim that vandals would exploit the system for own purposes. In the case of Imdb, the strategy is to use demographic data to create a weighted average rating for each film. But why do they have to hide the scheme they are using? Probably because they don't have a system for user moderation like the one of Slashdot. It seems like a pity, but could serve a purpose, as for making it possible for users to compare one arbitrary movie with another. They don't need the absolute top ranked material, as like the readers of Slashdot.
Hypothetically, what if they did use the system of Slashdot? If everybody submitted articles about movies they considered worth mentioning, and letting the community engage in a discussion. What kind of articles would make it to the front page? And not the least, what kinds of movies? I dare not to guess which direction they would take. More relevant, I presume that they actually would take a direction, just like Slashdot admits.
Incidentally, Filmtipset have some strategies to handle that. When a user have rated a great deal of films, the whole set of ratings are compared with the sets of every other member to find correlations. If there are sets of closely correlated ratings, the system assumes that the users have similar idea of relevance. Based on that, new recommendations, expected rating and such advice are presented. The major drawback I found so far is that the comments and articles are not at all peer-reviewed. Maybe it's just an unimplemented feature. Maybe Slashdot has the advantage of a higher number of peers. Maybe there are qualities of films that are impossible to agree on. In reality, I don't care so much of the grades presented at Filmtipset. The real relevance for me is still something out of control for the system.
Essay 2-the relationship between social media and traditional mass media
When comparing social media with traditional mass media in terms of quality, apparently the technical advantages mainly take shape the gap, in spite of the limitation of time, location and the amount of information, new social media provide the opportunity for audience to interact with the author and other people, which turn the previous audience into the contributors, and increase the mobility and their initiative.
However, the relationship between social media and traditional mass media is still interlaced and interdependence.
Firstly, the development of social media depends on the traditional/mass media profoundly. Mainly restricted by the width of speed of broadband and the shortage of the source of information, the social media could get supplement from traditional media. Take cable TV provider for example, they have already the built the network which could be easily converted into internet with much higher speed, which is the basis of new era of internet. In another hand, the traditional media companies’ network of gathering information and the whole crew of collection and edition could provide abundant resource for social media, which significant in the completion of social media where “content is king”. In addition, many of the traditional mass media have powerful asset of brand, which have built favorable authority and credibility among audience. By building alliance with them, the social media will gain more power on resisting the spam, wrong or fraudulent information which are caused by anonymity.
Secondly, by stimulated and driven by new social media, traditional mass media could keep on improving themselves. To react with the new social media, traditional mass media have to improve themselves by making use of the social media; for example, reforming the news reporting system, developing online news website or on demand service, news delivery through multimedia and so on. As the matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of newspaper, TV network providers and radio have built online service, which brought them the advantage of large amount of information and high speed rate of information transmission.
To conclude, new social media and traditional mass media could improve and make up each other’s disadvantage and accelerate the development. The cooperation and interaction between will be the new trend of the media industry.
However, the relationship between social media and traditional mass media is still interlaced and interdependence.
Firstly, the development of social media depends on the traditional/mass media profoundly. Mainly restricted by the width of speed of broadband and the shortage of the source of information, the social media could get supplement from traditional media. Take cable TV provider for example, they have already the built the network which could be easily converted into internet with much higher speed, which is the basis of new era of internet. In another hand, the traditional media companies’ network of gathering information and the whole crew of collection and edition could provide abundant resource for social media, which significant in the completion of social media where “content is king”. In addition, many of the traditional mass media have powerful asset of brand, which have built favorable authority and credibility among audience. By building alliance with them, the social media will gain more power on resisting the spam, wrong or fraudulent information which are caused by anonymity.
Secondly, by stimulated and driven by new social media, traditional mass media could keep on improving themselves. To react with the new social media, traditional mass media have to improve themselves by making use of the social media; for example, reforming the news reporting system, developing online news website or on demand service, news delivery through multimedia and so on. As the matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of newspaper, TV network providers and radio have built online service, which brought them the advantage of large amount of information and high speed rate of information transmission.
To conclude, new social media and traditional mass media could improve and make up each other’s disadvantage and accelerate the development. The cooperation and interaction between will be the new trend of the media industry.
Monday 17 November 2008
Essay 2: The quality of Social Media
Personally, social media is not an issue of quality to me as a user because whether an effective quality control mechanism should be set up towards any means of social media should be the concern and responsibility of the companies behind the scenes, but not of the users. If you ask any user of social media whether a quality control mechanism should be built up under the anarchy of internet, you are most likely to get an answer with “Yes”. However, how should it be built and who are responsible for it would probably appear to be vague in most people’s mind.
In my opinion, building up such a mechanism should fall into the responsibility of the companies, which are employing social media in their business. I have two reasons supporting this. No. One: both the users and the company agree that ensuring the quality of web content is necessary. No. Two: building up such a mechanism is vital to the success of the business run by the company in concern. On the side of users, it is expected that they could behave in a self-regulating manners. However, nothing on this side is obligatory and compulsory. On the side of the companies, winning the users equals winning the business, and this is just simple market regularity that every player must follow. In a rather fierce competitive market, users possess more bargaining power and have more options that they could possibly choose. Under this circumstance, low quality stuff is bound to be eliminated and be knocked out of the game. This gives any player in the game some indication that if they want to secure their position in the market, they have to do something to bring up stuff up to the accepted standard. Looking at the real examples in reality, both Slashdot and Wikipedia have adopted effective way of ensuring the quality of content published on their website, and this is also partly why they can stand at a higher position than their rival.
Another question would be “Do we need to involve the users’ participation in the quality control mechanism”. My answer would be it is not necessary, but it would be better if we can. As mentioned previously, it is the responsibility of the companies to build up a quality control mechanism. However, this doesn’t mean that users cannot participate in the censoring process. When comparing to the traditional media, new media is much more interactive. To a large extent, it changes the role of users in the whole value chain. Instead of just viewing the content, users are given the chance to create content. Similarly, instead of being censored, they can also participate into the censoring process. By doing so, not only can the company in concern benefit financially, but also the users will obtain a sense of value creation and be motivated at the same time.
To sum up, due to the fact that users of social media indeed have more and more options to choose in the more and more competitive market, companies should try whatever it takes to ensure the quality of the content on their website in order to stand at a higher position than their rivals. That is to say an effective quality control mechanism needs to be built up, and under the mechanism, user participation should be also encouraged since it is mutually beneficial.
In my opinion, building up such a mechanism should fall into the responsibility of the companies, which are employing social media in their business. I have two reasons supporting this. No. One: both the users and the company agree that ensuring the quality of web content is necessary. No. Two: building up such a mechanism is vital to the success of the business run by the company in concern. On the side of users, it is expected that they could behave in a self-regulating manners. However, nothing on this side is obligatory and compulsory. On the side of the companies, winning the users equals winning the business, and this is just simple market regularity that every player must follow. In a rather fierce competitive market, users possess more bargaining power and have more options that they could possibly choose. Under this circumstance, low quality stuff is bound to be eliminated and be knocked out of the game. This gives any player in the game some indication that if they want to secure their position in the market, they have to do something to bring up stuff up to the accepted standard. Looking at the real examples in reality, both Slashdot and Wikipedia have adopted effective way of ensuring the quality of content published on their website, and this is also partly why they can stand at a higher position than their rival.
Another question would be “Do we need to involve the users’ participation in the quality control mechanism”. My answer would be it is not necessary, but it would be better if we can. As mentioned previously, it is the responsibility of the companies to build up a quality control mechanism. However, this doesn’t mean that users cannot participate in the censoring process. When comparing to the traditional media, new media is much more interactive. To a large extent, it changes the role of users in the whole value chain. Instead of just viewing the content, users are given the chance to create content. Similarly, instead of being censored, they can also participate into the censoring process. By doing so, not only can the company in concern benefit financially, but also the users will obtain a sense of value creation and be motivated at the same time.
To sum up, due to the fact that users of social media indeed have more and more options to choose in the more and more competitive market, companies should try whatever it takes to ensure the quality of the content on their website in order to stand at a higher position than their rivals. That is to say an effective quality control mechanism needs to be built up, and under the mechanism, user participation should be also encouraged since it is mutually beneficial.
Tuesday 4 November 2008
Essay 1 - SMT and I
Usually I use SMT to stay in touch with friends, stay updated in the technical sphere, take advantage of other people’s mistake, and more than often to discuss topics that I’m interested in.
One of the technologies, or rather a community, I usually use is Facebook. Facebook can be seen as a common platform for communication throughout the globe, while keeping the advantages of regional communities. By that I mean that Facebook is divided into different regions and by belonging to different regions, you automatically get access to more information about other members. For example, I can access more information about a person belonging to the “Swedish Network”, while being member myself, than a person belonging to the “Norwegian Network”.
I can arrange my friends into different groups and also decide what kind of information about me each group should be allowed to access. In my belief, this is a very important possibility nowadays. I have friends which may access all information about me and then I have acquaintances that I would like to hide some information from.
The group of people I know and socially engage with are very particular with who everyone is friend with and especially not friends with. By going through my friend list and not finding a particular person that I’m supposed to know, my friends often assume that I have some kind of dispute with that person. This is starting to happen more than often know. Thus it is important to have your friend list as complete as possible, just to avoid conflicts.
The biggest difference between these kinds of SMTs and the usual emailing contact is the simple interface. I can easily share photos, links, YouTube-movies and other “stuff” with many people at a time. I also give them a possibility to interact with what I’ve sent by simply writing a comment. By this way my friends that aren’t each other’s friend can find each other. This adds a whole new dimension to the simple emailing ritual.
I also think that SMT’s like Facebook encourage people to communicate through short but often messaging. The possibility to comment on almost everything that another person exposes on Facebook is an interesting prospect. I could, for example write that I’m going to attend the SMT-course next semester on my status bar. That will be seen by all of my friends and friends that were considering taking this course would now have another reason to either join or avoid this courseJ. They then, first of all get the information that I’m taking this course, but can also communicate back to me easily by commenting on my status.
Another huge amount of my free time goes to searching and learning about new things, especially about flash developing. By scanning different forums I get advice from user that have had or are having the same problem or question as me.
I also use different social media solutions to discuss and share music I have produced myself. Though that is one of my biggest hobbies, it is fun to get feedback on my work. I see music forums as an interesting place for musicians to meet, criticize and discuss each other’s work.
Different blogs can also be very useful while looking for information. Blogs can be more interesting than forums if I’m looking for a solution for a specific problem and would also like tips on how I can avoid other mistakes involving the same problem area. They are quite many blogs that are updated regularly and consist of accurate and pedagogical information. These are then often sponsored by bigger companies related to the subject of the blog.
One technology that drastically has changed my way of studying is Google Docs. I don’t really know if that can be considered as a Social Media Technology, but I would like to believe so. Google Docs helps me easily share my documents, spreadsheet and presentation with others. They can then tribute to my document by editing it and I always know who has changed what because of the revision history built in Google Docs. This is especially useful while working in projects.
I believe that SMT is a very important part of my everyday life. I could live without it, but I would rather not. An urge to always know what other people are doing and if they have contacted me is one of the reasons I would like to have SMTs present in my everyday life. Thus, SMTs works as a tool for me to stay in touch with my friends (social aspect), find new information and revise already learned knowledge (educational aspect) and even share and develop new ideas (entrepreneur aspect).
One of the technologies, or rather a community, I usually use is Facebook. Facebook can be seen as a common platform for communication throughout the globe, while keeping the advantages of regional communities. By that I mean that Facebook is divided into different regions and by belonging to different regions, you automatically get access to more information about other members. For example, I can access more information about a person belonging to the “Swedish Network”, while being member myself, than a person belonging to the “Norwegian Network”.
I can arrange my friends into different groups and also decide what kind of information about me each group should be allowed to access. In my belief, this is a very important possibility nowadays. I have friends which may access all information about me and then I have acquaintances that I would like to hide some information from.
The group of people I know and socially engage with are very particular with who everyone is friend with and especially not friends with. By going through my friend list and not finding a particular person that I’m supposed to know, my friends often assume that I have some kind of dispute with that person. This is starting to happen more than often know. Thus it is important to have your friend list as complete as possible, just to avoid conflicts.
The biggest difference between these kinds of SMTs and the usual emailing contact is the simple interface. I can easily share photos, links, YouTube-movies and other “stuff” with many people at a time. I also give them a possibility to interact with what I’ve sent by simply writing a comment. By this way my friends that aren’t each other’s friend can find each other. This adds a whole new dimension to the simple emailing ritual.
I also think that SMT’s like Facebook encourage people to communicate through short but often messaging. The possibility to comment on almost everything that another person exposes on Facebook is an interesting prospect. I could, for example write that I’m going to attend the SMT-course next semester on my status bar. That will be seen by all of my friends and friends that were considering taking this course would now have another reason to either join or avoid this courseJ. They then, first of all get the information that I’m taking this course, but can also communicate back to me easily by commenting on my status.
Another huge amount of my free time goes to searching and learning about new things, especially about flash developing. By scanning different forums I get advice from user that have had or are having the same problem or question as me.
I also use different social media solutions to discuss and share music I have produced myself. Though that is one of my biggest hobbies, it is fun to get feedback on my work. I see music forums as an interesting place for musicians to meet, criticize and discuss each other’s work.
Different blogs can also be very useful while looking for information. Blogs can be more interesting than forums if I’m looking for a solution for a specific problem and would also like tips on how I can avoid other mistakes involving the same problem area. They are quite many blogs that are updated regularly and consist of accurate and pedagogical information. These are then often sponsored by bigger companies related to the subject of the blog.
One technology that drastically has changed my way of studying is Google Docs. I don’t really know if that can be considered as a Social Media Technology, but I would like to believe so. Google Docs helps me easily share my documents, spreadsheet and presentation with others. They can then tribute to my document by editing it and I always know who has changed what because of the revision history built in Google Docs. This is especially useful while working in projects.
I believe that SMT is a very important part of my everyday life. I could live without it, but I would rather not. An urge to always know what other people are doing and if they have contacted me is one of the reasons I would like to have SMTs present in my everyday life. Thus, SMTs works as a tool for me to stay in touch with my friends (social aspect), find new information and revise already learned knowledge (educational aspect) and even share and develop new ideas (entrepreneur aspect).
Essay 1 - will parallel information eventually lead to the termination of individuality (Tanda)
In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Antinomies emerge when empirical reason cannot play the role of establishing rational truths because it goes beyond possible experience and is applied to the sphere of that which transcends it. Four antinomies were proposed in “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”:
1. The limitation of the universe in respect of space and time,
2. The theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms
3. The problem of freedom in relation to universal causality
4. The existence of a necessary being
As a media student, when I study the social media theories I found a paradox which also cannot be solved rationally: will parallel information eventually lead to the termination of individuality.
The termination of individuality can be plain depicted as in the movie "WALL•E", everyone receive the exactly same information at the exactly same time from the projection screen, even they are free individuals they would make exactly same choices and decision. However, in the course literature " The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom", the author argued that communication will still keep the individuality.
In my opinion, Postmodernism is a frame in which these antinomies could be discussed. Compared with the Dualism which defined mind and body as separated parts, postmodernism argues that the human beings should not be hold as information transferring system but the subject where coupling behavior between different systems happens.
Firstly, it insists uncertainty, de-centering of the subjects. With the point of view that all the truth is consisted by the language modeling reality in people’s minds, postmodernist believe that human beings are not the center of languages, it is the language that is in charge. However, uncertainty and differences exist in languages, even the significance is a result of differences, as a result, and there is no absolute truth, it is also logical to resign the chase of absolute truth.
Secondly, it question rationality, as all the technologies is developed with languages, uncertainty and limitation are the two main evidence with which postmodernist do not believe in rationality.
Finally, as the development of modern society, all the knowledge products also have become merchandise, knowledge are not gained by the training of minds anymore; they are acquired only by copying. As the transformation to an external one, the functions of knowledge also change: as the basis of domination of the society, authority lies behind all the forms of culture and social ties. When built the relationship with knowledge, authority will control by making use of knowledge, thus knowledge will not be objective or neutral, but only the outwards appearance of authority.
1. The limitation of the universe in respect of space and time,
2. The theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms
3. The problem of freedom in relation to universal causality
4. The existence of a necessary being
As a media student, when I study the social media theories I found a paradox which also cannot be solved rationally: will parallel information eventually lead to the termination of individuality.
The termination of individuality can be plain depicted as in the movie "WALL•E", everyone receive the exactly same information at the exactly same time from the projection screen, even they are free individuals they would make exactly same choices and decision. However, in the course literature " The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom", the author argued that communication will still keep the individuality.
In my opinion, Postmodernism is a frame in which these antinomies could be discussed. Compared with the Dualism which defined mind and body as separated parts, postmodernism argues that the human beings should not be hold as information transferring system but the subject where coupling behavior between different systems happens.
Firstly, it insists uncertainty, de-centering of the subjects. With the point of view that all the truth is consisted by the language modeling reality in people’s minds, postmodernist believe that human beings are not the center of languages, it is the language that is in charge. However, uncertainty and differences exist in languages, even the significance is a result of differences, as a result, and there is no absolute truth, it is also logical to resign the chase of absolute truth.
Secondly, it question rationality, as all the technologies is developed with languages, uncertainty and limitation are the two main evidence with which postmodernist do not believe in rationality.
Finally, as the development of modern society, all the knowledge products also have become merchandise, knowledge are not gained by the training of minds anymore; they are acquired only by copying. As the transformation to an external one, the functions of knowledge also change: as the basis of domination of the society, authority lies behind all the forms of culture and social ties. When built the relationship with knowledge, authority will control by making use of knowledge, thus knowledge will not be objective or neutral, but only the outwards appearance of authority.
Essay 1: Life could be much easier with S. M. T.
By Tao Wang
Frankly speaking, I certainly do not belong to that group who never use social media technologies (S. M. T.) at all. As a matter of fact, I use them a lot. My social media experience started with the form of forum almost 10 years ago. Nowadays, there are many types of forums out there on the WWW. However, there are mainly two types of them attracting me most. The first type can be categorized as entertaining-based one, and the other can be called the problem-solving-based. I am not going to say I am a frequent visitor to the first type. However, I did go to these forums when I felt like needing a little break from the busy life as well as having some spare time. As for the second type, it can help you solve your practical problems effectively. For example, when I decided to come to Sweden for master study, my friend told me a very useful forum with the URL http://www.kina.cc/, which provided up-to-date information about studying in Sweden as well as other countries in the Scandinavian area. At that time, I did become a frequent visitor of that forum, and was aggressively searching information about Sweden and its schools.
My second contact with social media is blog. My blog is like a portal of myself to my friends and family, with whom I got less chance meeting, especially when I am abroad. On my blog, I usually posted a lot of pictures I took at that time. That means my friends and family can actually know where I am and what I am doing. At the same time, I also visit my friends’ blog to see what they are doing and how they are living their wonderful lives.
My third contact with social media technology can be associated with one computer game I played. This game is called Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it can be played solely as well as on the internet or local LAN. There are a less number of people playing this game when comparing to games like WarCraft, mainly because it is a niche game. However, I liked it very much, and I also noticed that every real player of this game seemed really into it and quite loyal. We have forums regarding this game, which serve as a community where we can learn more about this game as well as a place where we can show how well we could play it, to a large extent, by posting the screen shots. Moreover, some people are organizing activities for the game fans, who are geographically close, in the real life. These activities include a party in a restaurant, which everyone knows, a field trip to a nearby airport to photographing the landing and taking off of the airplanes, a visit to some local airports where short-term real flight training is provided, etc.
My other contacts with social media consist of YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and miniclip. Each one of them solves me a lot of problems accordingly, and I found them quite useful and easy to use as well. Generally speaking, social media technologies help me live my life much easier and I cannot imagine my life without them. Since social media technologies are widely used now, more and more problems associated with them are appearing as well, such as irresponsible posts on the forum, unacceptable video clips on the YouTube, etc. However, more regulatory system are being built, and I strongly believe that all these currently existing problems will be solved sooner or later by the effective regulating on the web. Thus, I look at social media technologies and their consequences with great hope, and I definitely believe that their future is going to be brighter and brighter.
Frankly speaking, I certainly do not belong to that group who never use social media technologies (S. M. T.) at all. As a matter of fact, I use them a lot. My social media experience started with the form of forum almost 10 years ago. Nowadays, there are many types of forums out there on the WWW. However, there are mainly two types of them attracting me most. The first type can be categorized as entertaining-based one, and the other can be called the problem-solving-based. I am not going to say I am a frequent visitor to the first type. However, I did go to these forums when I felt like needing a little break from the busy life as well as having some spare time. As for the second type, it can help you solve your practical problems effectively. For example, when I decided to come to Sweden for master study, my friend told me a very useful forum with the URL http://www.kina.cc/, which provided up-to-date information about studying in Sweden as well as other countries in the Scandinavian area. At that time, I did become a frequent visitor of that forum, and was aggressively searching information about Sweden and its schools.
My second contact with social media is blog. My blog is like a portal of myself to my friends and family, with whom I got less chance meeting, especially when I am abroad. On my blog, I usually posted a lot of pictures I took at that time. That means my friends and family can actually know where I am and what I am doing. At the same time, I also visit my friends’ blog to see what they are doing and how they are living their wonderful lives.
My third contact with social media technology can be associated with one computer game I played. This game is called Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it can be played solely as well as on the internet or local LAN. There are a less number of people playing this game when comparing to games like WarCraft, mainly because it is a niche game. However, I liked it very much, and I also noticed that every real player of this game seemed really into it and quite loyal. We have forums regarding this game, which serve as a community where we can learn more about this game as well as a place where we can show how well we could play it, to a large extent, by posting the screen shots. Moreover, some people are organizing activities for the game fans, who are geographically close, in the real life. These activities include a party in a restaurant, which everyone knows, a field trip to a nearby airport to photographing the landing and taking off of the airplanes, a visit to some local airports where short-term real flight training is provided, etc.
My other contacts with social media consist of YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and miniclip. Each one of them solves me a lot of problems accordingly, and I found them quite useful and easy to use as well. Generally speaking, social media technologies help me live my life much easier and I cannot imagine my life without them. Since social media technologies are widely used now, more and more problems associated with them are appearing as well, such as irresponsible posts on the forum, unacceptable video clips on the YouTube, etc. However, more regulatory system are being built, and I strongly believe that all these currently existing problems will be solved sooner or later by the effective regulating on the web. Thus, I look at social media technologies and their consequences with great hope, and I definitely believe that their future is going to be brighter and brighter.
Essay 1: Never being regular (by Fredrik)
First time I was introduced to online communities I was about eleven years old. My family owned a PC which was mostly used by me and my six year older brother. Rather than using, we were of course playing with it. My brother to tried connecting to a BBS to get more games, apps and mod-music. I didn't understand much at first, he had received the personal invitation from a school friend and the interface was command based. But then, when he tried out the new graphical BBS hosted by some staff of a major Swedish tabloid, I also found a way to experience e-mail, chatting, file-sharing and discussion. I enjoyed it for a few years, in the end overlapping with an introducing internet-connection. It was a private and regulated community, and though accessible through the internet, it had built-in limitations. One could argue that the BBS was not an online community as we refer to them today. Actually, a classmate at that time argued with me that internet was overall superior to this BBS. By now I realize he was really bright to see that there was no future for the BBS. For me it was the community that counted though, and when it eventually closed down I was at a loss.
Since then, I was always looking back and wondering: “What good is today's internet socially?”. Regardless it was online gaming, homepage making or music sharing, I found myself socializing as secondary to the activity. Usually it didn't seems so strange, because I had such a diversity of activities going on. So I rarely had a chance to become regular. IRC and MUD were a bit difficult to get into and instant messaging was an activity limited to keeping in touch with classmates and occasionally some random foreigner.
There were times when I though “maybe this is what my internet community will be like”. By the year of 2000 I was a teenager and regular at the major Swedish community site. This kind of site made it a lot easier to stick to some small topics and expand one's own network, sometimes through existing friends.
However, those small topics were usually discussed somewhere else, and soon this site become out of fashion. The lesson learned out of this was that communities that I associated with a certain site are transcient (though the site remains). Fortunately, it motivated me to look and see what other kinds of communities were out there. On the negative, I became reluctant to investing time and interest just for the sake of becoming member of one internet community. The only thing that kept me interested was the emerging subculture.
When new subcultures were turning physical, I experienced it was socially more authentic, thus taking less part in the online community. Blogs were formed, making it possible for me to keep up with lots of people and the events around them. I was eagerly expanding my network offline, but not everyone I met had a similar attitude to the network. There were a few conflicts with those who remained and prefered being mainly active in the online community. And, there was confusion in using handle names. In some situations I was even regarded as complete stranger, while others admitted some mutual enthusiasm.
Among those who were more into the offline network on the other hand, interesting stories were shared. For example about how we picked up this or that interest which had originally sprung from one the same subculture on the internet. No one had ever imagined how large and diverse the online networks had become. If everyone were doing like me, the growth would have been slower I think. In this context, non-deterministic development seems obvious (and supported by Benkler 2006).
I can see another perspective of what happened as through social rules of the blogs and comments. After all, it is pretty easy to distiguish fellow bloggers from the lurkers. But it's not just a matter of being somebody's best friend or another stranger. I believe it makes a difference for what kind of ties you'd expect. In this regard, it's easier for me to understand my social benefits of the internet community.
Upon the whole, the truly social aspects of internet are not as important for me as the new possibilities of developing special interests are. Maybe they once were, as for everyone who have their first encounter with social media, and enjoy a form of escapism. Those media that offer an entirely new role and context and possibly worth sticking to rather than “real life”. But seeing a subculture grow from nothing to becoming more popular that popular culture, I think there are higher issues at stake here.
Sunday 2 November 2008
Rasmus: How I Use Social Media Technologies
Social Media to Keep in Touch With Friends and Family
To keep in touch with friends and family I use two different instant messaging programs, built into the same client, and one web community. The instant messaging program MSN Messenger is the program I use the most since it is the most used protocol by my friends. I do have very many friends in my contact list within MSN Messenger but there is only a few of them that I talk to every day. It is with help of MSN Messenger I do the communication when both I and my friend are online.
I also use Google Talk like some of my friends. My main reason for using Google Talk is that it works thru Google Mail which is not blocked by my work but MSN Messenger is. Since my parents and my brother also use Google Mail I can keep in contact with them thru Google Talk when I want to chat with them.
The web community I am using is Facebook. Almost all of my friends do have an account on Facebook and therefore it is an easy way to keep in touch with them without physical interaction. I use Facebook almost everyday but rarely for regular communication. My main use with Facebook is to look at pictures other friends have taken from events I participated in. I also use it to retrieve and send invites to other upcoming events. Without Facebook would I probably miss a lot of invites to nice events and great parties and miss a lot of my friends’ pictures of events.
Social Media to Learn More about Things That Interest Me
I do follow multiple blog pages and news sites about things that interest me but I usually don’t go to the page itself but I do use the aggregator Google Reader which can be described as a web based RSS feed reader. Google Reader makes it easy to collect information about news, rumours and facts about things that may interest me. Google Reader can also suggest new RSS feeds based of which feeds I subscribe to and if I want to share some interesting news item I can post it directly to a blog or email it to likeminded friends.
Social Media to Discuss Topics That Interest Me
In most cases I don’t become involved in discussions in a social media about subjects that interest me but in the few cases where I actually do it I use some web forum.
Social Media in My Studies
There is very few social media technologies in my studies. In some of my courses the course has a page in the social tool Ping Pong but it is very rarely this tool is used in a way that can be called social; often it only is communication in one way, from the teacher to the students.
What Social Media Technologies Mean to Me
Social media technologies are a great part of my daily life and almost every day I use social media technologies. For me it is both a way of spending time I don’t have and a way to entertain myself when I’m in boring situations, for example during a slow day at work.
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