"Solutions" Analysis

Andrew Keen's "Solutions" article explains that digital technology is an inescapable part of twenty-first century life. A new form of the web, Web 2.0, has created a form of online participatory media which is reshaping our intellectual, political, and commercial landscape. The solutions which Keen supplies in his article are his attempts at guiding this "home-grown" revolution so that it, "enriches rather than undermines our economy, culture, and values." Keen is trying to protect professional media while still enjoying the benefits of today's internet capabilities.
Keen's first proposed solution is called Citizendium. Developed by Larry Sanger after splitting from the wikipedia project he helped co-develop, Citizdenidum is a site which allows experts in specific subjects to have the power to review, approve, and settle disputes about atricles within their intellectual specialty. By acknowledging the fact that some people know more about certain things than others, we can allow a group of "gatekeepers" to maintain order on the site by censoring troublemakers. Another site the Keen says is on its way to a solution for Web 2.0 is iAmplify, a publishing platform that allows professionals to sell audio or video downloads that offer instruction and expertise directly to the site's subscribers. What is cool about this site is that it helps those who have lost a living due to the internet. Anyone can find almost anything online for free, and that means a lot of people are losing money, like musicians for example. With iAmplify, however, professionals are provided with a more direct channel to reach their market.
What i have come to notice is that most solutions for "protecting the legacy of our mainstream media" are solutions which combine many aspects of the current web to create a different type of web. Web 3.0 can potentially be the solution Keen is looking for. I think i Web 3.0 will be a smarter internet that combines many sources to provide a more clear, credible, and professional resource for users.

The next 5000 days of the internet response

Kevin Kelly's lecture about the internet and the advancements it has made in the past 5000 days informed me about some things that I found to be astonishing, even scary. In the beggining of his speech he says that 50000 days ago, we were expecting the internet was going to be TV, but better. AS it turns out, the internet has become nothing like that. In fact, the internet has gone places and done things that weren't imaginable 5000 days ago. This is why Kelly suggests that web users have to get better in believing the impossible. "We are unprepared for it", are the exact words that Kelly uses to describe the rapid pace at which the internet is evolving and becoming smarter. I find this extremely troubling to say the least. Basically, Kelly believes the internet is capable of doing anything and there is no way for us to know what direction it head towards next. As he speaks of his "one machine" concept, I can't help but think of the movie iRobot. The movie takes place in the distant future and their entire society is run through this main computer, which eventually becomes so smart, that it takes actions into its own hands and rebels against the human race. Can this happen to us? Will the internet ever be able to think on its own as we do? For our sake, I hope not. Yes, Kelly believes that as the internet evolves, it will constantly make our lives easier and simpler. But as he, we need to start believing in the impossible. Who is to say that the internet has a major malfunction ten years from now and everybody's files and information is lost or found in places they shouldn't be? Who is to say the internet won't take over our lives like the computer did in iRobot? Anything is possible, right Kevin Kelly?

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 won't look much different than what we know today as Web 2.0. The major defining difference will be where the web appears rather than what its used for. Today's society has developed the need for constant web access and we are seeing more and more devices that are web-capable. As we fall further into web 3.0 we will begin to see the web popping up in more places. For example, future versions of the web will be available to us through devices like a tiny head-mounted display, as pictured in Johnathan Strickland's 'How Web 3.0 will work' article. However, where we will find the web won't be the only advancement in the web. Web 3.0 will be smarter. As more and more people become accustomed to tags, the web will begin to learn how to join tags in order to give the user a more defined, specific, outcome specific to the user. For example, if you are trying to plan a trip and you want to order tickets online. Web 3.0 will not only look at what tickets are available, it will take into consideration the weather of that week, hotel reviews and availability, flight times, rental car prices, and much more. The web will work mush faster for the user. It will cut research time down and help make life generally easier for the web surfing fanatic. .....well now-a-days, who doesn't live through the web.

1. For my visual component I was thinking about making a symbol or "logo". Maybe even work on creating an actually advertisement that might appear in a magazine or online for the Novint falcon. Combining the attributes of illustrator and photoshop i plan on creating a visual aid that not only displays the product, but always portrays the positives of using a real-time feedback controller as opposed to a normal game controller or mouse.

2. The pathfinder tool is definitely a tool i will use for this portion of the project. Pathfinder makes it very easy to combine shapes and bring them forward and back. Photoshop, as opposed to illustrator, is more useful for altering photos. I will prob use photoshop at the end of my project to edit and finalize my logo.

3. I envision my finished product as something that would appear in a magazine. I picture my logo with a few simple words on an entire page that would capture the attention of any video-game fanatic.

Future Techniques of Persuasion

Novint Falcon
Based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Novint Technologies functions as a technology development and licensing company. Novint is a relatively new and unheard of company that specializes in the haptics (sense of touch) field making 3D-touch computing devices primarily for consumer use. For the past 5 years, Novint developers have been working on the Falcon, a product which Novint hopes will take the company to the next level of recognition in the gaming and developing world. The Falcon is a one of a kind gaming controller that enables users to “experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history”. 3D-touch lets you control the game in three dimensions and feel nearly exact three dimensional force feedbacks. “When you hold the Falcon’s detachable grip and move your cursor to interact with a virtual object, environment, or character, motors in the device turn on and are updated approximately 1,000 times a second, letting you feel texture, shape, weight, dimension, and dynamics.” The realistic way in which the Falcon enables users to control and interact with the game allows for real skill and muscle memory to develop. This dimension of gaming is what separates Novint and its Falcon product from other gaming systems and competitors. The sense of touch that the Novint Falcon exploits is the direction in which I believe marketers would find most success when advertising the Falcon.
Because Novint is the first company of its kind to focus on incorporating the sense of touch into its products, creating a unique brand in order to appeal to consumers will require much less effort in trying to separate the Falcon for its competitors. Some may argue that Apple has the whole “incorporating touch into technology” field on lock with its Multi-Touch iPods, iPhone, and now the iPad. However, developers at Novint bring a different level of touch to their products. 3D touch and force-feed back actually connects us to the game; the sense of touch reinventing in the gaming world.
Touch and feel physically and emotionally influence the experience we get from connecting to the world around us. Without our sense of touch, babies wouldn’t develop correctly, we would never be able to engage in intimate or meaningful relationships, and the world would be a complete mystery apparent only by what we see. When we pick something up, we immediately recognize the weight of the object and how it feels, moves, operates, and how we can influence the object ourselves. Touch gives us an incredible understanding of our surroundings. Even upon being introduced to something or someplace completely new; if we can touch it, we can form a basic understanding of what we are dealing with. Now imagine incorporating such a significant aspect of our lives into a video game. Imagine running through a virtual world and being able to “feel weight, shape, texture, dimension, dynamics, and force-feedback, performing comparably to commercial devices that cost thousands of dollars.” That’s right, not only is the Falcon the first video game controller of its kind, but it’s also inexpensive. A player using the falcon can feel the kick from a gun as he shoots an enemy; feel tension as he pulls back on cross-bow, and even feel the characteristics of virtual objects and environments. This form of gaming makes game play feel more natural and realistic by actually connecting you to the virtual game world through your sense of touch.
In order for marketers to create a culture around this brand that appeals to our emotions and desires, they would really have to exploit the sensation of touch that the Falcon delivers to its players. Marketers and advertisers would narrowcast information about the Falcon to the correct audience; computer geeks and videogame addicted teens. For this specific demographic, the 3D touch feature of the Falcon system will serve as the basis for emotionally branding this product. Creating advertisements which portray the true potential and power of gaming which such a controller can produce will create a culture around Novint. Based on results of Neuromarketing techniques, marketers will be able to determine how consumers will react to the 3D touch advertisements. Looking through responses to the Falcon advertisements on blogs and online discussion boards, marketers will develop a better understanding for what consumers expect and would enjoy most about their product. These tactics of persuasion not only are used to communicate with the consumer and develop feedback, but also to , in a sense, ‘test’ how the product will impact consumers and how they will react.

Rasterize

Original

Midterm Project Proposal

For my midterm I decided to do project #1. The video about augmented reality from the suggested science.discovery link captured my eye and the possibilities it creates for advertising are extremely interesting. For example, like in the movie "Minority Report", advertisements would directly address people walking by. This is the potential that these prototype augmented reality devices can provide and maybe even open new tactics of persuasion in order to communicate with consumers.3

Social Media/ Web 2.0 Response

1). The Amateurish or "homegrown" style that advertisements are trying to emulate today is a prime example of a media "fad". I believe that the drop is professional production levels is a response to the population's realization that technology has developed "user-generated" content. People have become fascinated with the ability to publish and not be professional. The media's job is to appeal to society, and right now, nothing appeals more to the American public than this "homegrown" fad. I believe that professional production levels aren't dropping and won't begin to, but rather, professionals are experimenting with this different approach. Just as the media focused on appealing to user generated sites like Myspace, this new amateurish approach will pass with time. I also believe that user-generated content won't get better necessarily, but perhaps will explore the "homegrown" sytle more deeply.

2). The article I used for the tag comparison was an article about how the use of marijuana by senior citizens goes up as the baby boomer generation continues to age. I felt that some tags that would help define what the article is about include marijuana, baby boomers, retirement, drug laws/politics. However, to my surprise, only one of the tags that i suggested were posted on an online site. Delicious.com used tags like boomers, marijuana, seniors, and USA (in that order) to describe what the article was about. This exercise helped me to realize how the web helps bring peoples different perspectives together. Only one of my suggestions was listed online and i though each of my tags sufficiently described the article. I also learned that if you search for broad tags and then narrow down your search, you are more likely to find the article you are searching for.

Article Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100222/ap_on_re_us/us_seniors_marijuana

3). Transparency is more important to today's culture than it has ever been in our society. In our ever technologically-advancing world, social networking is continuing to become more and more prominent in everyday life. The social-media world was constructed based on people's need to communicate and share ideas through an easy to use and efficient medium. For example, we saw business people using "Real World" avatars in order to conduct business meetings in the Digital Nation video. Without transparency, social networking sites like facebook, myspace, twitter, and youtube would not exist. I feel that transparency is more important online than it is in the offline world TODAY, because our generation grew up with the web and the web will be a prominent component in everyones life in the near future. If transparency didn't exist on the web, it would be much harder for humans to communicate, network, and advance.

Digital Nation Response

The Digital Nation video helps us to realize how advanced our society has become. This new generation of technology has blinded us from seeing how influential it is in every aspect of our culture today. Technology is going on undetected because of the impressive ability it has to converge with simple, everyday tasks. For example, cell phones, cars, GPS, iPhones, and other hand held devices are designed so that its user doesn't have to adapt to the appliance's format. Rather, technology is learning based on us therefor making use feel more natural. I was shocked to see how many businesses use online networking programs in order to communicate and work on projects. It seems as though the telephone has run its course and society is already on its way towards the next step in networking. Its sure to be only a matter of time before everyone has an "avatar" and is making million dollar business deals from the comfort of their own bedroom.

Web 2.0 terms and definitions

User-generated content: reference to types of publicly available media content that are produced by its users. The term was coined in 2005 after arising in web publishing and new media content production circles.

Long-tail: refers to the selling strategy that calls for selling large number of unique items in relatively small quantities over great distances. For example, Netflix and Gamefly use this retailing concept.

Network as Platform: term used to describe operating systems, like WebOS, which provide network services for internet scale distributed computing.

Folksonomy: is a system of classification used for managing tags to annotate and categorize content as part of social software applications such as social bookmarking and photograph annotation.

Syndication: the ability to access information on website from multiple other sites. Web syndication helps networking by making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary of the website's recently added content

Mass collaboration: is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-supported collaboration tools such as wiki technologies, which provide a potentially infinite hypertextual substrate within which the collaboration may be situated.

Computer-supported collaboration: focuses on technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies, e.g., voice mail and text chat.

Social-Software: encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data. This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with social sites like MySpace and Facebook, media sites like Flickr and YouTube as well as commercial sites like Amazon.com and eBay.

Web hosting services: is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

content v. message in mediums collage

The focus of my collage is the Apple iPad. The iPad is a tablet computer developed by Apple Inc. Similar in function to an iPod Touch with four times the display area, it will allow multi-touch interaction with print, video, photos, and audio; connect to the internet via Wi-Fi and, on certain models, 3G, and will run apps designed specifically for the iPad as well as most iPhone OS apps. My collage depicts an iPad encompassing all the aspects of everyday like that the iPad efficiently and conveniently delivers in the form of one new medium.

Content vs. Message in mediums

1. RealD Cinema
-Content: digital stereoscopic projection technology, video
-Message: delivery of left and right eye perspectives with complete accuracy, next step in cinema technology.
















2. Satellite Radio
-Content: digital radio signals that broadcast by a communications satellite. audio. Many genre options.
-Message: Much wider range than terrestrial radio. powerful alternative to ground-based radio services, listeners can listen to the same program while traveling across the country.

















3. iPad
-Content: tablet computer, print, audio, video, internet
-message: take it anywhere, convenience, busy tasks complied into a single easy to use medium.