basic concepts of new media 12 march 2008 Kathy E. Gill

Agenda  Lecture: course recap  Review final deliverables  Open lab

Mediated Communication  We’ve been studying communication mediated by zeros-and-ones – digital communication  It comprises both synchronous and asynchronous communication What are these?

Three big impacts  Concept of scarcity Bits can be shared; atoms cannot Threatens established economic models  Concept of space Space-shifting Changed definition of community  Concept of time Time-shifting Tivo, Podcasting

But Is It All New?  The Telegraph: the “mother” of all networks Morse Code foreshadowed binary computing Today’s text messaging a throwback Technology optimists envisioned world peace as an outcome

Collapsed space, time  Off-track betting (then, now)  Secure “wire” transfers (then, now)  Love online (then, now)  News of the world (then, now) Reuter, 1840s Associated Press, 1848  Enabled centralization (today, globalization)

Opposing Approaches  Europe: telegraph was seen as public utility  USA: telegraph was seen as arm of business

Amateur v Professional  Morse was perhaps the most famous amateur gentleman scientist  The Internet, a logical offshoot of the telegraph, is empowering today’s “amateur”

CMC/Web Characteristics (1/2)  Hardware independent  Software independent IM Not Here Yet, But Close (Google)  Open standards  Information sharing

CMC/Web Characteristics (2/2)  A blend of characteristics from “old” media Print Radio Film TV  Some say the “new web” is “text” – why?

What leads to adoption?  A need Winston: supervening social necessity  “Newness” Rogers – we have to perceive something as innovative  Social System Innovators -> Late Adopters  Communication Advertising, word-of-mouth, etc

The Open Web (1/3)  Open Source Movement (GNU)  Early voices: Cluetrain  Technology catching up with vision RSS Blogging software Wiki software Twitter Google Docs

The Open Web (2/3)  Leads to sharing: Newspaper blogs, citizen journalism, new political pundits Social (and commercial!) sharing  YouTube, Flickr Social (wisdom of the crowds) recommendations  Amazon, Digg

The Open Web (3/3)  Leads to collaboration Software – Apache, Linux Knowledge – Wikipedia Research – our newspaper project Other R&D  InnoCentive, Yet2.com InnoCentiveYet2.com  P&G Goal for 2010: source 50% of new product & service ideas from outside the company Has opened patents to the world

One Friction  Social sites are fiefdoms  Multiple logins  Multiple profiles  Not sharable – yet  Possible (partial) solutions OpenID Microsoft Passport TypePad ID, Drupal ID, etc

And Another …  Copyright and intellectual property battles Remember the case of Mickey Mouse: Disney would not be able to appropriate the image from the public domain today

And one to leave you with … Privacy: Who owns your data? Very different in the US and Europe  Cookies … your path thru a website or thru the web  Preferences … when you customize a site  Purchases Costco, Sam’s, Safeway, QFC … And who is liable … When your personal data is stolen or misplaced because an employee lost a laptop?

Remember …  We aren’t all connected Rural v urban Developed v less developed Poor v rich  Competition for this new public space could make it private Watch the legislature, Congress

From YouTube  Web2.0 Web2.0  Web 2.0 Song: Are You Blogging This? Web 2.0 Song: Are You Blogging This?  The Machine Is Us/ing Us The Machine Is Us/ing Us

Final Deliverables  Final group project post due today  Final essay (persuasive!) due Friday  Final course reflection, with your pick of the essay you want me to grade Substitutes for final exam. Due, via Collect-It, 9 pm Wednesday, 19 March Collect-It