Class 7: Digitization and Comics: Enter the Internet

Administration Proposals next week - comic creation the week after A few more meme examples

Reinventing Comics (4): Digitization and the Internet Digital Production Digital Delivery Digital Comics

Digitization Production of comics digitally - including McCloud’s two last books, but others as well Recalling Manovich on this – how does digitization influence the art form?

Digital Delivery Like other media, removes steps in production process - ideally creating more direct consumer/producer links and lowering costs of system Social networking technologies – allow for comics to spread widely

Micropayments Addendum to Reinventing Comics as technology improved to make it plausible General principle re: chains of distribution - consumer fairness (relationto creative rights) but audience fairness as well - rights to sample, test and pay fair prices

Micropayments (2) Consumer obtains product from source (whatever source may be) Consumer values product Consumer wishes to compensate producer directly - but how? Still an open problem - why?

Digital Comics Can include immersive and interactive environments Not as bound to page requirements (e.g., I Can’t Stop Thinking scrolling example) Can even be more traditionally framed comics simply distributed via web Diversity of genres, explosion of options (

Related Direction: Flash-based Animation What does Flash contribute to visual and experiential effect of animation? Why is it still comical in nature? Is it really a comic though?

What is the Internet? It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes! (RIP Ted Stevens)

A more sane definition Decentralized network of computing services Connected by…well…a series of tubes (but analogy doesn’t work well…why?) Has grown to accommodate a series of potential uses (not just that, Trekkie…)

Early conceptualization Vannevar Bush (1945) - conceptualization of a vast information store (“memex”) to harness world’s knowledge Nelson (60s) – notion of hypertext and Xanadu project – leaving us available to do what we do best - association, linking, pattern creation ARPANet – decentralized network to facilitate communication in military-industrial complex – decentralized why?

Establishing Critical Mass Alternative networks (e.g., Bitnet, X.25, BBSs) Public, commercial access - a relatively new thing (O*Net 15 years ago legalized commercial activity) Mosaic as interface (1994) – a revolutionary event in both access and economic basis – and why ethos of free/open-source software exists? Mass popularity of AOL - hardly the first, but the first to market to neophyte users effectively

Reaction Sudden transition to commercial medium - new opportunities, but also a lot of garbage Previously active spaces (e.g., UseNet) effectively destroyed with spam and the great unwashed AOL mass Move to private forums to realize community potential while restricting spammers

Web 1.0 Web pages as simple publication - “brochureware” Static content, little to no community participation or input

1.0 -> 2.0 Introduction of community and data management systems Leveraging power of social networks Data-driven content - dynamic page creation Data manipulation and creation by users Democratic, open-source generally

Web 2.0 (aka social media) What does this even mean? - how many of these services can we really use? Some standardization even around look and feel (color schemes, “bubble” buttons, etc.) A new bubble for a new age?

(2007)

xkcd.com/ 802 (2010)

SLATES (McAfee) Search Linking Authorship Tagging Extensions Signals McAfee, A.P (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. Sloan Management Review, 47(3),

Another take (Carr) Carr, A. (2007). Designing for Sustainable Conversations. InteractionCamp

Wikis Collaborative writing and editing of material Wikipedia as gold standard, but also effective for more localized communities of practice (e.g., TorCamp conferences) Other examples?

Blogs Webpage driven by content management system for ease of use/updating Cheap platform for personal and group expression Blogs within blogs develop and contribute new talent - e.g., DailyKos user journals Communities of interest build through link exchanges, trackbacks Examples?

Microblogging Short, informal info bursts - similar to texting Twitter - what are you doing right now (140 characters or less) – invention of tiny URLs to allow for info sharing Facebook status updates

Web-based Forums A resuscitation of BBS and Usenet Communities of interest built around particular topics, areas of interest Example: Craigslist: “don’t be evil” approach, similar to Google - community of trust, simple functional interface, paid ads in major markets (mostly for quality control, and at user’s request)

Social Networking Building communities of friends by school, community, interests, etc. Builds FOAF networks Shared profiles with some privacy restrictions (e.g., keeping phone, IM to friend networks) Examples?

Examples: Orkut and Facebook Orkut (Google experiment) - FOAF spam and a strange Brazilian takeover - now kind of useless if you don’t speak Portuguese. Facebook - Ivy league roots, now broader audience Facebook news feed - all actions of friends relayed - privacy concerns? Facebook API - acceleration of services (and junk) Google OpenSocial - Orkut and others to share common API Has Facebook peaked?

RSS Feeds Information feeds to create push vs. pull relationshiop to media Feed aggregators (browser, online or application) collect new information feeds in one location Increasingly mashed up with other services (e.g., Yahoo! Pipes)

Folksonomies Collaborative tagging and categorization of materials Tags and categories develop organically through community input Opposite direction from taxonomy – top-down, enforced control (e.g., Library of Congress) Use in TorCamp conferences

Collaborative Favourites/Bookmarks Shared items/pages of interest Services such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Fark, (too) many others become ways of tracking commonly bookmarked items Del.icio.us tagging and its benefits

Collaborative Calendaring E.g., Facebook’s event calendar – events both you and your friends are interested in Shared calendaring services (mostly based on iCal standards…)

Photo sharing Sharing of photo albums, often with annotations, notes Control of publication - publication to friends only or wide publication Flickr, Picassa, (too?) many others Local example: BubbleShare

Video Sharing User-driven shared video services like YouTube, Vimeo, others? (Increasingly) amateur content - some with surprisingly sizeable audiences Exposure driven by user rankings Easily leveraged by blogs/wikis as embedded media, easily shared

File Sharing Peer-to-peer networks to trade files (all legal ones, I’m sure…) Distributed bandwidth allows for transfer without vulnerable central nodes (e.g., torrents) Community effect - learning about files shared by others

Podcasting Downloadable audio or video broadcasts, related (but not necessarily tied) to popularlity of iPod Itunes integration - a central repository for podcast feeds, but there are others

(Some) Games Which games? Multiplayer games - building of community around game actions, especially games that require group interaction to succeed Examples?

IM? Is instant messaging really 2.0? To some extent, it adheres to SLATES, but the community is generally very insular – isn’t really 2.0 for the same reason

Next week More on social networking/capital from Norman – and more on future of 2.0+ tonight Proposals due – on wiki, feel free to provide suggestions/comments to others (a component of participation)