With New Media, comes great responsibility...

Looking over the questions on the Intro to New Media final study guide, I've come to realize that it isn't really new media or convergence to blame for some of today's supposed media problems - it's how people choose to use them - often irresponsibly or with poor judgement.


Take peer-to-peer file sharing of music, for instance. On one hand, this can be a great thing - giving new artists exposure to listeners across the worldwide web and freeing artists from the previous constraints of major record labels. But take file sharing too far, and it isn't such a good thing anymore.


I now know that revenue from actual music sales isn't a significant part of many artists' total revenue, but I still feel they should make some money directly from their music. If no one were to buy music at all anymore, that couldn't be a good thing for these artists; besides, not everyone is popular/successful enough to have sold-out shows to make up for that lack of revenue. If people could use file sharing to find out about new artists and then actually pay for the music if they really like it, this situation could be avoided.


Similarly, there are many ways to filter the news you receive online: social networking site news feeds, Google News, Yahoo News, etc. In moderation, this can be a good thing because it gives us easy, quick access to the news that matters most to us as individuals. However, if we choose to rely only on these personalized news feeds, we may be missing out on other important information, simply because it doesn't fit within our 'ideal interest range.'


We can't just blame the existence of personalized news feeds for this - just because they're available doesn't mean we have to rely solely on them to get our news. We can enjoy the benefits of convergence and personalization - like convenience and speed - but we can also be responsibile enough to look into the mainstream news and see what we might be missing out on.

Way to go, Apple.

It's pretty safe to say that we're all (uncomfortably) familiar with the monopoly Google has over the Internet, from its massive search engine to YouTube and Blogger. I personally dislike how much I rely on Google to constantly look things up, but I hadn't really realized that I've also been the prey of another new media monopoly - Apple.


My relationship with Apple-branded media is relatively simple, so I never really noticed this phenomenon before. I typically buy hard copies of CDs, load them onto iTunes, and then sync them to my iPod. Occasionally I download a free song from iTunes or Amazon, but that's about it. I do have a MacBook Pro laptop, but iTunes and iPhoto are the only apps I've ever really used on it.


However, just today I decided to treat myself for my birthday and download Angry Birds for my Mac (I only have the Beta version, and I need more!!). But the only way for me to (legally) download it is through the Mac App Store. 


The Mac App Store is only available to Mac users whose OS is 10.6.6 or higher (OS X Lion). Mine is 10.5.8. Guess how much it costs to upgrade? $29.99.


Considering I don't really use apps on my MacBook, I think this is ridiculous. I'm not paying $30 for the App Store just so I can then pay another $5 each to download the Angry Birds games. Even when I try to download the game from another site, like the official Angry Birds site, it just redirects me to an Apple page telling me how to pay and upgrade to Lion to get the App Store.

"Simple," perhaps. Free or fair? Think again.

I think that after paying the purchase price of a MacBook, you shouldn't have to keep paying more and more just to upgrade the system ("first sale doctrine"). If you're going to go out and buy another whole laptop, then fine - it makes sense that you should pay for that. But paying $30 to upgrade a system I already "own"? I don't think so. 


Maybe Apple thinks that for anyone who can afford to buy a Mac in the first place, $30 is merely chimp change. Well Apple, I happened to get my laptop on a student discount and to me, $30 is nothing to sneeze it. I am a college student, after all.


Oh well. It looks like I'll either have to upgrade to Lion or forget about playing Angry Birds for a while. Way to go, Apple.

A threat to traditional handheld gaming? (Should Nintendo and Sony be afraid?)

In the first half of the term, we talked about the downfall of "deep reading" at the hands of the Internet and "web scanning." After doing research for my final project on mobile/portable gaming in the 21st century, I've started to wonder whether a similar phenomenon might be happening with games.


Traditionally, the most popular games for both consoles and handhelds were those designed for a dedicated gaming platform designed by companies like Nintendo and Sony. Even though Nintendo's and Sony's handheld devices have smaller screens and more technical limitations than their console counterparts, because they are still dedicated to providing top-notch gaming experiences, they generally don't lose any game play depth.


But smartphones and similar devices are changing that. Now you can play simple yet entertaining games on your iPhone or Android for a mere fraction of the price of a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP game. Smartphones provide games for their users even though they are designed for far more purposes than gaming (texting, sending emails, surfing the web, shopping online, oh yeah - making calls, etc.). The low prices and addictive nature of many of these smartphone games (Angry Birds, Cut the Rope) are giving traditional handheld gaming devices a run for their money.

That's right, Nintendo. FEAR US.

Smartphone games are generally quick to initiate and can be played in very short intervals, making it easier to incorporate daily play than a typical DS or PSP game. Their pick-up-and-play nature also makes them accessible to a much wider audience than just the people that traditionally consider themselves 'gamers.' Your average person is much more likely to play a game that takes a few seconds to learn than one that requires extensive practice and trial-and-error to play.


This reminded me of "web scanning" - another extremely simple, quick activity that nearly anyone can do. Scanning a web page is often more practical than fully reading the page, given all the time-consuming demands of everyday life. Similarly, the average person is more likely to find five minutes in the day to squeeze in a few rounds of Angry Birds than to sit down with a role-playing game on their Nintendo DS.


What do you think? Are smartphone games the threat to traditional handheld gaming that "web scanning" was to "deep reading"? Should we look down upon this new development in gaming, or should we embrace it alongside more traditional portable games?

Google's new privacy policy goes into effect today

The changes to its privacy policy that Google has been 'promoting' as of late have gone into effect today, March 1, 2012.

In an article from USA TODAY COLLEGE, the changes to the new policy are briefly summarized in an easy-to-read format. Considering how frequently I use Google, I know I should get around to reading the full version at some point, but for now, this article does a great job of communicating the basic gist of the changes.

Basically, the biggest change is that Google will share the information of Google account users with all of Google's services. Based on our in-class discussions, this was something that I'd assumed was already in effect (considering the 'monopoly of Google,' I figured that information that Google the search engine knew about me was also shared with Google services like Blogger and YouTube). But apparently that's just starting today. 

Google Director of Privacy Alma Whitten said in a blog post that this new protocol "will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience." Hmmm...seems to me like Google is pretty darn simple and intuitive already without additional data sharing.

Some things of more obvious benefit are supposed greater clarity in how users can control what information is being shared and what ads are being shown (through Google Dashboard and the Ads Preferences Manager). 

Additionally, the new policy better explains the lag between a user deleting information and it being removed from backup systems: to "maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction." Whether this is actually true or just elaborately scripted jargon is another matter entirely (and yes, I'm being cynical).

For those paranoid Google users who want to know exactly what the 'Google gods' know about us now that they might not have before, check out this interactive view of the policy changes Google has undergone from 2000 to the present day. The policy changes are highlighted in yellow, so it's super easy to read! Even a busy college student has a few minutes to look it over.

Lego Studios - the precursor to stop-motion Lego animations?

After the class discussion we had on fan filmmaking a few days ago, I remembered something from my own childhood that had to do with just that: Lego Studios sets. At the time the sets were released (early 2000's) my family and I weren't very computer-savvy, and so I never fully got into the whole 'film-making' concept that the sets were designed to promote - my brothers and I just played with them like regular Legos.


However, now that I think back on those sets, I wonder if they might have been the precursor to the vast number of stop-motion Lego animations online today, especially on sites like YouTube. Only in the last couple years did I discover these stop-motion videos online (and even then only because of my younger brother's interest in the subject), so I don't know how long they've been popular or even been around. 


But I'd be willing to guess that the Lego Studios sets, if they didn't completely inspire this phenomenon of Lego stop-motion animation, then at they least brought it to the mainstream media's attention and helped popularize it.


A fun fact about many of the sets: You could take off the Lego character's head and slip on a small, clear plastic piece around the neck pole that sat on the figure's back (like a backpack accessory). You could then insert a clear plastic Lego rod into the attachment and, holding the rod, move around the figure without having your hands in the way of the Lego camera. Pretty neat, considering these sets came out over a decade ago!

My childhood = TMS

Our recent class discussion about transmedia storytelling made me realize that a majority of my childhood was just that: becoming obsessed with a given franchise and trying to enjoy it by every means I possibly could. 


I was a huge fan of Disney animation in my youth, so each time a new movie came out, I not only had to see the movie, but I also had to collect the McDonald's toys, read the books, watch the TV series (if one came out), and once my family got a video game system, play the video game as well. Since I've always been creatively minded, I would also draw pictures of and write stories about the characters from my favorite films, long before I knew of such things as "fanart" and "fanfiction."


I remember being disappointed when a film that I really liked didn't receive the same franchise treatment as other Disney films had. I wanted to enjoy the characters' world further, but all the media industry had really provided for me was the film itself, and perhaps a video game if I was lucky. I think by that point, I had actually come to expect the full franchise treatment for all the movies I liked - expected to be able to expand my enjoyment beyond the film itself, a medium which was initially designed to stand alone.


So I found it interesting when we discussed transmedia storytelling in a way that made it sound like a relatively recent phenomenon, or at least one that really got going in recent years. But for me, it was a defining characteristic of my childhood. It's sort of funny to talk about the media industry targeting consumers by spreading a franchise across multiple media, and realize that they were - very successfully - targeting me.


Just for fun: The Little Mermaid at McDonald's

Zombies vs. Politics - what are YOU blogging about?

First of all, if you haven't read it yet, check this article out - it's about the prevalence of zombie attacks and cocaine on currency found in blogs during August 2009: "In Social Media, Zombies And Cocaine Are The Hot Topics"

Thank you to Lo and Professor Macek for bringing this article to light. I think it has both some serious and interesting implications.

To start, a zombie uprising is fictional. It's the stuff of popular culture, of horror films and video games - not a legitimate scientific concern. It may be interesting to consider, but it's certainly not a topic worthy of receiving mainstream attention. I feel the claim that the zombine study mirrors real-world epidemics is just an excuse to defend the topic's undue popularity. If someone wanted to conduct a truly useful study on epidemics, he or she would use real data from actually existent epidemics and the scientifically documented characterstics of real contagious microorganisms. 

The topic of currency and cocaine is definitely more relevant to reality, but even then it seems to have received a bit more attention than necessary. However, I would much prefer this to be a hot topic than for zombie studies to be. Talking about fictional things is all well and good, but it's somewhat disturbing when it rises to such a high position of popularity while seriously important issues (health care policies, gun usage, political status of the Middle East) receive significantly less coverage from bloggers.

Seriously, which do you think is gonna happen first:
finding this guy in a dark alley, or the next presidential elections?

This leads to the question: What are bloggers really expected to cover? Are they supposed to tackle the same kinds of topics that the mainstream news outlets do, or are they allowed extra freedom to go off on wild tangents about zombie attacks? Does it depend on the kinds of topics being covered by the mainstream news and whether they warrant public discussion or not?

The thing that worries me is that these bloggers are spending considerable amounts of time writing about zombies when they could be shaping political opinion to improve the status of our country. They might be missing out on important political debates about the selection of our next president while they try to decide how they'll survive a fictional apocalypse. I think that kind of thing should, for the most part, be saved for the movies and video games. If bloggers want to dabble in the unreal now and then, that's perfectly fine, but if they let it consume their attention to the point where they ignore real-life issues, then we have a problem.