The Shannon Weaver model still applies to modern communication in a way, but it needs potential artificial and real parties to be added to the diagram. It really is only a tiny piece of the total modern communication diagram. The missing parties have the potential to change, redistribute, or destroy, duplicate, and mingle information before it reaches an expected, but unknown number of receiving parties.
There is a new communicating agent in the mix of sender, receiver, and the technology between. There are now artificially intelligent communicators that can continue to transmit and even produce information which can be relayed many more times and long after a message is sent. The information can transform and take a life of its own through multiple receivers and senders. We've crossed into an age where information is recorded, saved, and transmitted so easily that one can even do so unintentionally or barely intentionally. Human existance is slowly developing a parallel information mirror that exists as an ephemeral phantom in both the digital world and our mass consciousness.
To some degree the transfer of information has become as difficult to control as the viral life forms it is often compared to--closer to as contagious and indestructible as ideas themselves. As we build a mass memory of millions of servers, it becomes impossible to destroy all the copies, and our mass digital mind resembles both the cell-divided complexity and the interconnectivity of a single biological mind.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Virtual Socialite 11.2
Online socialization has become so important in our communication that to different extents, a person's online life is a reforged extension of their personality. These semi-alter-egos, or 'avatars', are a formalized version of the way we want to be seen by others. Online avatars provide a whole new set of advantages and disadvantages when it comes to interpersonal communication--for some it's an attractive and addictive social tool--for others it can be a time-consuming distraction.
Online life in the game world is a glimpse at the future. Games like World of Warcraft and Second Life may seem like an excessive distraction for a subculture to some, but the same people who consider WWC a waste of time log in to Facebook every day to communicate with their friends using their own online 'avatar'. Facebook users share the experience of using Facebook, while WWC users share the experience of playing WWC. Our online depiction of ourselves is often a few shades off from the truth in these settings, if only from a lack of face to face reaction and physical, unintentional transfer of information. Online worlds make our 'friends' conveniently available but more ignorable than they could be in a face-to-face encounter, and this makes it an attractive means of socialization.
Facebook is a lot like a social 'game', with real life ramifications. When compared with World of Warcraft, a MMORPG, the only thing that's really missing is the fantasy world 'work' of the online hobby gaming aspects of WWC system. And considering the metaphorical and dramatic way in which people often distort their personal image on facebook, it might as well be a 'fantasy' environment itself.
How different is choosing one photographed depiction over another to represent 'the real you' from choosing a character to represent 'you'? Really it is the same, considering that both are an avatar--they are a somewhat strategic digital face for a person, but are not that person.
As socialization becomes electronic, it becomes apparent that it can easily become a game in itself. Facebook may be a prototype for social gambling within a system of rules. Just as economy is fused with an artificial system of rules in a casino, so facebook structures socialization into 'gains' and 'losses', with real-life changing results.
Online life in the game world is a glimpse at the future. Games like World of Warcraft and Second Life may seem like an excessive distraction for a subculture to some, but the same people who consider WWC a waste of time log in to Facebook every day to communicate with their friends using their own online 'avatar'. Facebook users share the experience of using Facebook, while WWC users share the experience of playing WWC. Our online depiction of ourselves is often a few shades off from the truth in these settings, if only from a lack of face to face reaction and physical, unintentional transfer of information. Online worlds make our 'friends' conveniently available but more ignorable than they could be in a face-to-face encounter, and this makes it an attractive means of socialization.
Facebook is a lot like a social 'game', with real life ramifications. When compared with World of Warcraft, a MMORPG, the only thing that's really missing is the fantasy world 'work' of the online hobby gaming aspects of WWC system. And considering the metaphorical and dramatic way in which people often distort their personal image on facebook, it might as well be a 'fantasy' environment itself.
How different is choosing one photographed depiction over another to represent 'the real you' from choosing a character to represent 'you'? Really it is the same, considering that both are an avatar--they are a somewhat strategic digital face for a person, but are not that person.
As socialization becomes electronic, it becomes apparent that it can easily become a game in itself. Facebook may be a prototype for social gambling within a system of rules. Just as economy is fused with an artificial system of rules in a casino, so facebook structures socialization into 'gains' and 'losses', with real-life changing results.
GrooveShark 10.26
www.GrooveShark.com is an online company/application devoted to the online uploading and streaming of music. It was originally created by three University of Florida students who had a concept for an online facility for the resale of used music files. The original concept would facilitate legal 'used' cd resale digitally. This concept changed as the idea expanded.
In the current version, a Grooveshark user uploads music from their personal collection to an ever-expanding online library of digital music, which can be instantly be shared, accessed and streamed. A user can create a browser operating library of songs similar to iTunes without downloading any content onto their personal machine. Artists can simultaneously be searched, discovered, and enjoyed in an all-encompassing, easy online application.
Grooveshark has a policy for fairly compensating artists for their work if they are contacted about use of the product, and honor all DMCA copyright infringement claims and take-down requests. Their copyright page seems to state that if they are not contacted, they are protected by fair-use laws, as the content is user-uploaded. They state in their copyright section that they would much rather pay an artist than take down their content, and encourage artists to get in touch if their work is uploaded by a user.
Grooveshark makes all of its revenue through artists' promotional adds and $3 monthly fees that 'VIP' members can pay for an enhanced searching and listening experience. VIP membership removes the ads from the site, allows access to the Grooveshark desktop and phone apps, and expands the online 'favorites' and 'playlist' libraries, along with other features.
For what at first seemed like a shockingly liberal approach to streaming massive amounts of copyrighted MP3 content, Grooveshark seems to have covered all their legal bases and made the music experience all around beneficial for artist, user, and company alike.
In the current version, a Grooveshark user uploads music from their personal collection to an ever-expanding online library of digital music, which can be instantly be shared, accessed and streamed. A user can create a browser operating library of songs similar to iTunes without downloading any content onto their personal machine. Artists can simultaneously be searched, discovered, and enjoyed in an all-encompassing, easy online application.
Grooveshark has a policy for fairly compensating artists for their work if they are contacted about use of the product, and honor all DMCA copyright infringement claims and take-down requests. Their copyright page seems to state that if they are not contacted, they are protected by fair-use laws, as the content is user-uploaded. They state in their copyright section that they would much rather pay an artist than take down their content, and encourage artists to get in touch if their work is uploaded by a user.
Grooveshark makes all of its revenue through artists' promotional adds and $3 monthly fees that 'VIP' members can pay for an enhanced searching and listening experience. VIP membership removes the ads from the site, allows access to the Grooveshark desktop and phone apps, and expands the online 'favorites' and 'playlist' libraries, along with other features.
For what at first seemed like a shockingly liberal approach to streaming massive amounts of copyrighted MP3 content, Grooveshark seems to have covered all their legal bases and made the music experience all around beneficial for artist, user, and company alike.
The Memex
Vannevar Bush had a jaw-dropping amount of foresight when he described the course of science's compression and cataloging of human knowledge.
His 'Memex' is a prophetic description of the modern-day desktop computer--a device that calls compacted pages of information from sharable micro-libraries. More astounding--Bush predicted, in 1940s terminology and practical application, a system of sharing and linking information comparable to our modern-day internet. He even described a search-engine/wikipedia-style of navigating and building on the 'web' of information in which the pages of microfilm could be explored based on trails of relevance and even 'bookmarked'.
In fact, Bush basically describes all of the elements of a modern-day website, right down to the 'back to top' button and the ability to leave comments for others to reference.
The article also predicts the wide-spread use of the barcode, the scanner/printer, voice recognition, and a microfilm version of the digital camera. He even predicted things that are recently accomplished by current research, but look to be imminent to widespread use, such as the interfacing of the brain's electrical signals to command machines. The man was truly a visionary, whether his contemporaries could see it or not. I would be interested to see responses from his colleagues to his optimistic speculation on the course science would lead us in.
This article is important--it provides thrilling insight to how science can make what seems like the material of fantasies into reality, with a little imagination and time. After reading it, i'm full of speculations about future possibilities in the electronic world of knowledge. Now that we have our endless library, we have to learn to navigate it and consume it more effectively. Could search engines develop to instantly construct reliable, specifically taylored chunks of information to the exact thing we're thinking of learning? And could we one day develop the ability to take information directly from computers into our brains, navigating and swimming through information effortlessly? The possibilities seem endless now, looking at the leap technology has taken since Bush's day.
His 'Memex' is a prophetic description of the modern-day desktop computer--a device that calls compacted pages of information from sharable micro-libraries. More astounding--Bush predicted, in 1940s terminology and practical application, a system of sharing and linking information comparable to our modern-day internet. He even described a search-engine/wikipedia-style of navigating and building on the 'web' of information in which the pages of microfilm could be explored based on trails of relevance and even 'bookmarked'.
In fact, Bush basically describes all of the elements of a modern-day website, right down to the 'back to top' button and the ability to leave comments for others to reference.
The article also predicts the wide-spread use of the barcode, the scanner/printer, voice recognition, and a microfilm version of the digital camera. He even predicted things that are recently accomplished by current research, but look to be imminent to widespread use, such as the interfacing of the brain's electrical signals to command machines. The man was truly a visionary, whether his contemporaries could see it or not. I would be interested to see responses from his colleagues to his optimistic speculation on the course science would lead us in.
This article is important--it provides thrilling insight to how science can make what seems like the material of fantasies into reality, with a little imagination and time. After reading it, i'm full of speculations about future possibilities in the electronic world of knowledge. Now that we have our endless library, we have to learn to navigate it and consume it more effectively. Could search engines develop to instantly construct reliable, specifically taylored chunks of information to the exact thing we're thinking of learning? And could we one day develop the ability to take information directly from computers into our brains, navigating and swimming through information effortlessly? The possibilities seem endless now, looking at the leap technology has taken since Bush's day.
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