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.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
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.
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